Tuesday, December 28, 2010

How much dietary protein can you store in muscle? About 15 g/d if you are a gifted bodybuilder

Let us say you are one of the gifted few who are able to put on 1 lb of pure muscle per month, or 12 lbs per year, by combining strength training with a reasonable protein intake. Let us go even further and assume that the 1 lb of muscle that we are talking about is due to muscle protein gain, not glycogen or water. This is very uncommon; one has to really be genetically gifted to achieve that.

And you do that by eating a measly 80 g of protein per day. That is little more than 0.5 g of protein per lb of body weight if you weigh 155 lbs; or 0.4 per lb if you weigh 200 lbs. At the end of the year you are much more muscular. People even think that you’ve been taking steroids; but that just came naturally. The figure below shows what happened with the 80 g of protein you consumed every day. About 15 g became muscle (that is 1 lb divided by 30) … and 65 g “disappeared”!


Is that an amazing feat? Yes, it is an amazing feat of waste, if you think that the primary role of protein is to build muscle. More than 80 percent of the protein consumed was used for something else, notably to keep your metabolic engine running.

A significant proportion of dietary protein also goes into the synthesis of albumin, to which free fatty acids bind in the blood. (Albumin is necessary for the proper use of fat as fuel.) Dietary protein is also used in the synthesis of various body tissues and hormones.

Dietary protein does not normally become body fat, but can be used in place of fat as fuel and thus allow more dietary fat to be stored. It leads to an insulin response, which causes less body fat to be released. In this sense, dietary protein has a fat-sparing effect, preventing it from being used to supply the energy needs of the body.

Nevertheless, the fat-sparing effect of protein is lower than that of another "macronutrient" – alcohol. That is, alcohol takes precedence over carbohydrates for use as fuel. However, protein takes precedence over carbohydrates. Neither alcohol nor protein typically becomes body fat. Carbohydrates can become body fat, but only when glycogen stores are full.

What does this mean?

As it turns out, a reasonably high protein intake seems to be quite healthy, and there is nothing wrong with the body using protein to feed its metabolism.

Having said that, one does not need enormous amounts of protein to keep or even build muscle if one is getting enough calories from other sources.

In my next post I’ll talk a little bit more about that.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

38 g of sardines or 2 fish oil softgels? Let us look at the numbers

The bar chart below shows the fat content of 1 sardine (38 g) canned in tomato sauce, and 2 fish oil softgels of the Nature Made brand. (The sardine is about 1/3 of the content of a typical can, and the data is from Nutritiondata.com. The two softgels are listed as the “serving size” on the Nature Made bottle.) Both the sardine and softgels have some vegetable oil added; presumably to increase their vitamin E content and form a more stable oil mix. This chart is a good reminder that looking at actual numbers can be quite instructive sometimes. Even though the chart focuses on fat content, it is worth noting that the 38 g sardine also contains 8 g of high quality protein.


If your goal with the fish oil is to “neutralize” the omega-6 fat content of your diet, which is most people’s main goal, you should consider this. A rough measure of the omega-6 neutralization “power” of a food portion is, by definition, its omega-3 minus omega-6 content. For the 1 canned sardine, this difference is 596 mg; for the 2 fish oil softgels, 440 mg. The reason is that the two softgels have more omega-6 than the sardine.

In case you are wondering, the canning process does not seem to have much of an effect on the nutrient composition of the sardine. There is some research suggesting that adding vegetable oil (e.g., soy) helps preserve the omega-3 content during the canning process. There is also research suggesting that not much is lost even without any vegetable oil being added.

Fish oil softgels, when taken in moderation (e.g., two of the type discussed in this post, per day), are probably okay as “neutralizers” of omega-6 fats in the diet, and sources of a minimum amount of omega-3 fats for those who do not like seafood. For those who can consume 1 canned sardine per day, which is only 1/3 of a typical can of sardines, the sardine is not only a more effective source of omega-3, but also a good source of protein and many other nutrients.

As far as balancing dietary omega-6 fats is concerned, you are much better off reducing your consumption of foods rich in omega-6 fats in the first place. Apparently nothing beats avoiding industrial seed oils in that respect. It is also advisable to eat certain types of nuts with high omega-6 content, like walnuts, in moderation.

Both omega-6 and omega-3 fats are essential; they must be part of one’s diet. The actual minimum required amounts are fairly small, probably much lower than the officially recommended amounts. Chances are they would be met by anyone on a balanced diet of whole foods. Too much of either type of fat in synthetic or industrialized form can cause problems. A couple of instructive posts on this topic are this post by Chris Masterjohn, and this one by Chris Kresser.

Even if you don’t like canned sardines, it is not much harder to gulp down 38 g of sardines than it is to gulp down 2 fish oil softgels. You can get the fish oil for $12 per bottle with 300 softgels; or 8 cents per serving. You can get a can of sardines for 50 cents; which gives 16.6 cents per serving. The sardine is twice as expensive, but carries a lot more nutritional value.

You can also buy wild caught sardines, like I do. I also eat canned sardines. Wild caught sardines cost about $2 per lb, and are among the least expensive fish variety. They are not difficult to prepare; see this post for a recipe.

I don’t know how many sardines go into the industrial process of making 2 fish oil softgels, but I suspect that it is more than one. So it is also probably more ecologically sound to eat the sardine.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Nuts by numbers: Should you eat them, and how much?

Nuts are generally seen as good sources of protein and magnesium. The latter plays a number of roles in the human body, and is considered critical for bone health. Nuts are also believed to be good sources of vitamin E. While there is a lot of debate about vitamin E’s role in health, it is considered by many to be a powerful antioxidant. Other than in nuts, vitamin E is not easily found in foods other than seeds and seed oils.

Some of the foods that we call nuts are actually seeds; others are legumes. For simplification, in this post I am calling nuts those foods that are generally protected by shells (some harder than others). This protective layer is what makes most people call them nuts.

Let us see how different nuts stack up against each other in terms of key nutrients. The quantities listed below are per 1 oz (28 g), and are based on data from Nutritiondata.com. All are raw. Roasting tends to reduce the vitamin content of nuts, often by half, and has little effect on the mineral content. Protein and fat content are also reduced, but not as much as the vitamin content.

These two figures show the protein, fat, and carbohydrate content of nuts (on the left); and the omega-6 and omega-3 fat content (on the right).


When we talk about nuts, walnuts are frequently presented in a very positive light. The reason normally given is that walnuts have a high omega-3 content; the plant form of omega-3, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). That is true. But look at the large amount of omega-6 in walnuts. The difference between the omega-6 and omega-3 content in walnuts is about 8 g! And this is in only 1 oz of walnuts. That is 8 g of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fats to be “neutralized”. It would take many fish oil softgels to achieve that.

Walnuts should be eaten in moderation. Most studies looking at the health effects of nuts, including walnuts, show positive results in short-term interventions. But they usually involve moderate consumption, often of 1 oz per day. Eat several ounces of walnuts every day, and you are entering industrial see oil territory in terms of omega-6 fats consumption. Maybe other nutrients in walnuts have protective effects, but still, this looks like dangerous territory; “diseases of civilization” territory.

A side note. Focusing too much on the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of individual foods can be quite misleading. The reason is that a food with a very small amount of omega-6 (e.g., 50 mg) but close to zero omega-3 will have a very high ratio. (Any number divided by zero yields infinity.) Yet, that food will contribute little omega-6 to a person’s diet. It is the ratio at the end of the day that matters, when all foods that have been eaten are considered.

The figures below show the magnesium content of nuts (on the left); and the vitamin E content (on the right).


Let us say that you are looking for the best combination of protein, magnesium, and vitamin E. And you also want to limit your intake of omega-6 fats, which is a very wise thing to do. Then what is the best choice? It looks like it is almonds. And even they should be eaten in small amounts, as 1 oz has more than 3 g of omega-6 fats.

Macadamia nuts don’t have much omega-6; their fats are mostly monounsaturated, which are very good. Their protein to fat ratio is very low, and they don’t have much magnesium or vitamin E. Coconuts (i.e., their meat) have mostly medium-chain saturated fats, which are also very good. Coconuts have little protein, magnesium, and vitamin E. If you want to increase your intake of healthy fats, both macadamia nuts and coconuts are good choices, with macadamia nuts providing about 3 times more fat.

There are many other dietary sources of magnesium around. In fact, magnesium is found in many foods. Examples are, in approximate descending order of content: salmon, spinach, sardine, cod, halibut, banana, white potato, sweet potato, beef, chicken, pork, liver, and cabbage. This is by no means a comprehensive list.

As for vitamin E, it likes to hide in seeds. While it may be a powerful antioxidant, I wonder whether Mother Nature really had it “in mind” as she tinkered with our DNA for the last few million years.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Maknig to mayn tipos? Myabe ur teh boz

Undoubtedly one of the big differences between life today and in our Paleolithic past is the level of stress that modern humans face on a daily basis. Much stress happens at work, which is very different from what our Paleolithic ancestors would call work. Modern office work, in particular, would probably be seen as a form of slavery by our Paleolithic ancestors.

Some recent research suggests that organizational power distance is a big factor in work-related stress. Power distance is essentially the degree to which bosses and subordinates accept wide differences in organizational power between them (Hofstede, 2001).

(Source: talentedapps.wordpress.com)

I have been studying the topic of information overload for a while. It is a fascinating topic. People who experience it have the impression that they have more information to process than they can handle. They also experience significant stress as a result of it, and both the quality of their work and their productivity goes down.

Recently some colleagues and I conducted a study that included employees from companies in New Zealand, Spain, and the USA (Kock, Del Aguila-Obra & Padilla-Meléndez, 2009). These are countries whose organizations typically display significant differences in power distance. We found something unexpected. Information overload was much more strongly associated with power distance than with the actual amount of information employees had to process on a daily basis.

While looking for explanations to this paradoxical finding, I recalled an interview I gave way back in 2001 to the Philadelphia Inquirer, commenting on research by Dr. David A. Owens. His research uncovered an interesting phenomenon. The higher up in the organizational pecking order one was, the less the person was concerned about typos on emails to subordinates.

There is also some cool research by Carlson & Davis (1998) suggesting that bosses tend to pick the communication media that are the most convenient for them, and don’t care much about convenience for the subordinates. One example would be calling a subordinate on the phone to assign a task, and then demanding a detailed follow-up report by email.

As a side note, writing a reasonably sized email takes a lot longer than conveying the same ideas over the phone or face-to-face (Kock, 2005). To be more precise, it takes about 10 times longer when the word count is over 250 and the ideas being conveyed are somewhat complex. For very short messages, a written medium like email is fairly convenient, and the amount of time to convey ideas may be even shorter than by using the phone or doing it face-to-face.

So a picture started to emerge. Bosses choose the communication media that are convenient for them when dealing with subordinates. If the media are written, they don’t care about typos at all. The subordinates use the media that are imposed on them, and if the media are written they certainly don’t want something with typos coming from them to reach their bosses. It would make them look bad.

The final result is this. Subordinates experience significant information overload, particularly in high power distance organizations. They also experience significant stress. Work quality and productivity goes down, and they get even more stressed. They get fat, or sickly thin. Their health deteriorates. Eventually they get fired, which doesn’t help a bit.

What should you do, if you are not the boss? Here are some suggestions:

- Try to tactfully avoid letting communication media being imposed on you all the time by your boss (and others). Explicitly state, in a polite way, the media that would be most convenient for you in various circusmtances, both as a receiver and sender. Generally, media that support oral speech are better for discussing complex ideas. Written media are better for short exchanges. Want an evolutionary reason for that? As you wish: Kock (2004).

- Discuss the ideas in this post with your boss; assuming that the person cares. Perhaps there is something that can be done to reduce power distance, for example. Making the work environment more democratic seems to help in some cases.

- And ... dot’n wrory soo mach aobut tipos ... which could be extrapolated to: don’t sweat the small stuff. Most bosses really care about results, and will gladly take an email with some typos telling them that a new customer signed a contract. They will not be as happy with an email telling them the opposite, no matter how well written it is.

Otherwise, your organizational demise may come sooner than you think.

References

Carlson, P.J., & Davis, G.B. (1998). An investigation of media selection among directors and managers: From "self" to "other" orientation. MIS Quarterly, 22(3), 335-362.

Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Kock, N. (2004). The psychobiological model: Towards a new theory of computer-mediated communication based on Darwinian evolution. Organization Science, 15(3), 327-348.

Kock, N. (2005). Business process improvement through e-collaboration: Knowledge sharing through the use of virtual groups. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.

Kock, N., Del Aguila-Obra, A.R., & Padilla-Meléndez, A. (2009). The information overload paradox: A structural equation modeling analysis of data from New Zealand, Spain and the U.S.A. Journal of Global Information Management, 17(3), 1-17.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Strength training: A note about Scooby and comments by Anon

Let me start this post with a note about Scooby, who is a massive bodybuilder who has a great website with tips on how to exercise at home without getting injured. Scooby is probably as massive a bodybuilder as anyone can get naturally, and very lean. He says he is a natural bodybuilder, and I am inclined to believe him. His dietary advice is “old school” and would drive many of the readers of this blog crazy – e.g., plenty of grains, and six meals a day. But it obviously works for him. (As far as muscle gain is concerned, a lot of different approaches work. For some people, almost any reasonable approach will work; especially if they are young men with high testosterone levels.)

The text below is all from an anonymous commenter’s notes on this post discussing the theory of supercompensation. Many thanks to this person for the detailed and thoughtful comment, which is a good follow-up on the note above about Scooby. In fact I thought that the comment might have been from Scooby; but I don’t think so. My additions are within “[ ]”. While the comment is there under the previous post for everyone to see, I thought that it deserved a separate post.

***

I love this subject [i.e., strength training]. No shortages of opinions backed by research with the one disconcerting detail that they don't agree.

First one opening general statement. If there was one right way we'd all know it by now and we'd all be doing it. People's bodies are different and what motivates them is different. (Motivation matters as a variable.)

My view on one set vs. three is based on understanding what you're measuring and what you're after in a training result.

Most studies look at one rep max strength gains as the metric but three sets [of repetitions] improves strength/endurance. People need strength/endurance more typically than they need maximal strength in their daily living. The question here becomes what is your goal?

The next thing I look at in training is neural adaptation. Not from the point of view of simple muscle strength gain but from the point of view of coordinated muscle function, again, something that is transferable to real life. When you exercise the brain is always learning what it is you are asking it to do. What you need to ask yourself is how well does this exercise correlate with a real life requirements.

[This topic needs a separate post, but one can reasonably argue that your brain works a lot harder during a one-hour strength training session than during a one-hour session in which you are solving a difficult mathematical problem.]

To this end single legged squats are vastly superior to double legged squats. They invoke balance and provoke the activation of not only the primary movers but the stabilization muscles as well. The brain is acquiring a functional skill in activating all these muscles in proper harmony and improving balance.

I also like walking lunges at the climbing wall in the gym (when not in use, of course) as the instability of the soft foam at the base of the wall gives an excellent boost to the basic skill by ramping up the important balance/stabilization component (vestibular/stabilization muscles). The stabilization muscles protect joints (inner unit vs. outer unit).

The balance and single leg components also increase core activation naturally. (See single legged squat and quadratus lumborum for instance.) [For more on the quadratus lumborum muscle, see here.]

Both [of] these exercises can be done with dumbbells for increased strength[;] and though leg exercises strictly speaking, they ramp up the core/full body aspect with weights in hand.

I do multiple sets, am 59 years old and am stronger now than I have ever been (I have hit personal bests in just the last month) and have been exercising for decades. I vary my rep ranges between six and fifteen (but not limited to just those two extremes). My total exercise volume is between two and three hours a week.

Because I have been at this a long time I have learned to read my broad cycles. I push during the peak periods and back off during the valleys. I also adjust to good days and bad days within the broader cycle.

It is complex but natural movements with high neural skill components and complete muscle activation patterns that have moved me into peak condition while keeping me from injury.

I do not exercise to failure but stay in good form for all reps. I avoid full range of motion because it is a distortion of natural movement. Full range of motion with high loads in particular tends to damage joints.

Natural, functional strength is more complex than the simple study designs typically seen in the literature.

Hopefully these things that I have learned through many years of experimentation will be of interest to you, Ned, and your readers, and will foster some experimentation of your own.

Anonymous

Monday, December 6, 2010

Pressure-cooked meat: Top sirloin

Pressure cooking relies on physics to take advantage of the high temperatures of liquids and vapors in a sealed container. The sealed container is the pressure-cooking pan. Since the sealed container does not allow liquids or vapors to escape, the pressure inside the container increases as heat is applied to the pan. This also significantly increases the temperature of the liquids and vapors inside the container, which speeds up cooking.

Pressure cooking is essentially a version of high-heat steaming. The food inside the cooker tends to be very evenly cooked. Pressure cooking is also considered to be one of the most effective cooking methods for killing food-born pathogens. Since high pressure reduces cooking time, pressure cooking is usually employed in industrial food processing.

When cooking meat, the amount of pressure used tends to affect amino-acid digestibility; more pressure decreases digestibility. High pressures in the cooker cause high temperatures. The content of some vitamins in meat and plant foods is also affected; they go down as pressure goes up. Home pressure cookers are usually set at 15 pounds per square inch (psi). Significant losses in amino-acid digestibility occur only at pressures of 30 psi or higher.

My wife and I have been pressure-cooking for quite some time. Below is a simple recipe, for top sirloin.

- Prepare some dry seasoning powder by mixing sea salt, garlic power, chili powder, and a small amount of cayenne pepper.
- Season the top sirloin pieces at least 2 hours prior to placing them in the pressure cooking pan.
- Place the top sirloin pieces in the pressure cooking pan, and add water, almost to the point of covering them.
- Cook on very low fire, after the right amount of pressure is achieved, for 1 hour. The point at which the right amount of pressure is obtained is signaled by the valve at the top of the pan making a whistle-like noise.

As with slow cooking in an open pan, the water around the cuts should slowly turn into a fatty and delicious sauce, which you can pour on the meat when serving, to add flavor. The photos below show the seasoned top sirloin pieces, the (old) pressure-cooking pan we use, and some cooked pieces ready to be eaten together with some boiled yam.




A 100 g portion will have about 30 g of protein. (That is a bit less than 4 oz, cooked.) The amount of fat will depend on how trimmed the cuts are. Like most beef cuts, the fat will be primarily saturated and monounsatured, with approximately equal amounts of each. It will provide good amounts of the following vitamins and minerals: iron, magnesium, niacin, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, selenium, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12.