Bodyfat, lean body mass, protein requirements OR Math 101

First off, let me apologize for this post. I meant to finish weeks ago and technology got in the way. I won't get into the details but I will say...damn charts! I will also say to those of you with ADD and zero interest in math, don't bother reading further. OK, you've been warned.

So by now we know that protein is our friend. Eating the right amount definitely aids us in losing weight and it will also fill us up more than carbs will. I have had some questions about protein intake and the general answer is somewhere between .8 to 2 grams of protein per kg of bodyweight per day. But if you desire to get your nerd on...I am posting below the tables from a book labeled "PROTEIN POWER". I feel like this is a good way to calculate the protein you take in:

First off, both men and women measure your hips (at the WIDEST point) and abdomen (at the NAVEL) 3 times and get an average. Divide the the waist measurement by the hip measurement.

Men- A number greater than 1 means you have a hip and leg pattern of distributing fat. A number of 1 or greater is an abdominal pattern

Women-A number .8 or less is hip and leg. A number greater than .8 is abdominal

Why is this important? Because if you have an abdominal pattern of distributing fat, it is much more serious for your health. A person with abdominal fat storage is more likely to develop elevated blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides and blood sugar.

After the Hip-to-Waist ratio, continue on to get a bodyfat and lean body mass number

For WOMEN:
Take your average hip and abdomen numbers and also your height in inches without shoes.
Add together your Hip constant to your Abdomen constant (in the chart below) and subtract your Height constant.

Hip Waist Bodyfat Constants

For example, let's say we have a 47 year old woman who is 5'2'' or 62 inches with a Hip measurement of 40 and an abdomen of 30, your bodyfat would be 47.44 (Hip Constant)+21.33(Abdomen Constant)-37.39(Height Constant)=Bodyfat of 30.98

Let's find her bodyfat in pounds. In this example, let's say this person weighs 145.
145 X .3098= 44.921 or roughly 45 pounds of fat. That would leave 100 pounds of LEAN BODY MASS.

FOR MEN:
Measure your wrist at the point where it bends, in between the wrist bone and the hand 3 times. Get an average. Subtract your average wrist measurement from your average waist measurement. Weigh yourself and using the chart below, find your bodyfat percentage.

Wrist Minus Waist


The calculation for lean body mass is the same for men. Let's say our male is 25, weighs 200 and had a waist measurement of 35 and a wrist measurement of 7. His waist minus wrist is 28 and following the chart, makes for a bodyfat of 15 percent. Multiplying 200 by .15 gives us 30 pounds of fat and 170 pounds of lean body mass.

Please keep in mind these are APPROXIMATIONS. If you want to go hard core, you can get hydrostatic weighing performed on you and know exactly what your bodyfat is (and stop obsessing about it!). Here's a link:
http://www.southernct.edu/exercise_science/humanperformancelaboratory/

Now that we have the approximate bodyfat and lean body mass for both of our fake subjects, we can determine several things. The first is ideal weight.

Age                     MALES                                   FEMALES
10-30                  12-18%                                    20-26%
31-40                  13-19%                                    21-27%
41-50                  14-20%                                    22-28%
51-60                  16-20%                                    22-30%
61 and older        17-21%                                    22-31%

To find you ideal weight range, take the 2 percentage numbers from your age and sex and subtract from 100.

For our 47 year old woman, 100-22=78 and 100-28=72.
For our 25 year old man, 100-12=88 and 100-18=82.

Next, divide your lean body mass by those numbers and multiply by 100
Our woman will be (100/78) X 100=128 and (100/72) X 100=138
Our man will be (170/88) X 100=193 and (170/82) X 100=207

Using this example, our woman should lose anywhere from 7 to 17 pounds and our man is ideal and could even afford to gain a bit of weight.

Now using our lean body mass numbers, we can find the protein requirements for these two individuals. Simply take the lean body mass and multiply the appropriate factor below.

Sedentary=No physical activity whatsoever use 0.5
Moderately active=if you average 20 to 30 minutes of exercise 2-3 times a week use 0.6
Active=if you exercise more than 30 minutes 3-5 times a week use 0.7
Very Active=if you exercise an hour or more 5 or more times a week use 0.8
Athlete= use 0.9

*If you are 40% or more above your ideal weight, you need to move up a category because of the stress of carrying all that extra weight around.

In our example, we will say our woman is moderately active and our man is active .
Our woman needs 60 grams of protein a day. Or roughly 20 grams a meal.
Our man needs 119 grams of protein a day. Or roughly 30 grams a meal.

Please remember, these are MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS. People aspiring to lean out and improve performance need to increase protein intake. Just as an example, our 200 pound man could eat up to 2 grams for every kg of bodyweight. In his case, 200 pounds=90 KG, so 90 multiplied by 2 is 180 grams of protein a day.

The point of this post is to make sure you are getting ENOUGH protein. Just to give you an idea, a  3-4 ounce piece of chicken breast has 30-35 grams of protein. So if you are our 47-year old woman, 8 ounces of chicken and you are at your minimum. Not too hard, right?

Well....it is if you are a vegetarian or (gulp) vegan. More on that later! Also, more on QUALITY of proteins....but for now, I just leave you to your calculations!

Some Turkey day thoughts

So my client Charlene wanted me to a do a post on (and this is major paraphrasing here), "how to get through the holiday season". She gave me this idea before Halloween and I held onto it because I am of the thinking that Halloween simply does not count. You are not 5. It is no longer cute if you dress up like a pirate. And you shouldn't be consuming 2000 grams of sugar in a ten day period...so seriously, when it comes to Halloween, just grow up.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are entirely different. How cruel of our culture to put these two holidays back to back. The good news is that, contrary to common believe, the average weight gain over the holidays seems to be a half to two pounds. Only 5 % of the population gorges themselves to the point of a 5 pound or more weight gain. The Internet is FULL of lists about this subject that claim to help you avoid the weight gain during this season!

Take this for example: http://dianascimone.typepad.com/funiq_fitness/2010/11/8-ways-to-get-through-the-holidays-without-gaining-weight.html

I apologize to this poor woman as I simply typed in "ways to get through the holidays without gaining weight" into google. She should be happy google is putting her near the top of the results. However, her suggestions are to shake and dance to burn calories or to reward yourself with exercise for each person you buy a gift for? Most of my clients would probably smack this woman at the idea of exercise being a reward. Only sick individuals like myself do this stuff for fun. But the Internet is full of these lists right now and they are mostly GARBAGE. If you get up and shake and dance at your Thanksgiving day get together, pray I'm not there because I would shoot you. Honestly people...

But I get it. I understand how hard it is. And here is how I would handle it. Take Thanksgiving and Christmas and use those as CHEAT DAYS. Yes, everyone knows Rob loves the cheat days. Have fun. Eat. Drink. Be Merry. But don't turn the cheat day into a cheat month. My first suggestion is to be the gracious guest. Have someone else host. Eat what you want and then say thank you and good bye. If you did the hosting, get the CRAP out of your house the day after. Give it to a shelter. Give it to the local wildlife. Give it to your friends. Just don't keep the pie around and give yourself a BS excuse to keep eating it. Trust me, I have the same temptation if it's there. You need to remove it from your sight. Don't turn two holidays into THE HOLIDAYS.

But Rob??? What about Christmas work parties and get togethers with friends? I typically give myself one cheat meal a week. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas that is five cheat meals. If you are the type of person that is just incredibly social or (like me) has a dysfunctional family and 3 Christmases instead of 1, then it's time to choose. Decide who makes the best food and cheat that day. Admit it. Mom makes better pies than your friend Sue. So when you go to Sue's party, pass on the pie. And pass on any other awful carbs she wants to shove down your gullet. You can deal with Sue being upset. Mom is a different story.

And when it comes to those cheat meals, be reasonable for crying out loud. I love stuffing and mashed potatoes as much as the next guy, but three helpings....really? Let Uncle Bill and Cousin Gary shove their faces with your second and third helpings. Have your turkey. Have the stuffing. Have the pie....then end it!

In terms of working out, do not use the holidays as an excuse to stop. Trust me, you want to be the person going into the gym on black Friday instead of shopping...have you ever seen a crazed woman hopped up on pecan pie looking for the newest toy for her bratty kid? You don't need that kind of stress. Stress keeps weight around the midsection. So be the guy or gal running through a circuit 3 times a week during the holidays! Why not?

If you travel during this season, find a gym and pay the 5 bucks a day...it's worth it. And if you are worried about program design, don't!  Stick to simple circuit training/Crossfit methodology. Pick 2-4 exercises that we use at Renegade and toss them into a circuit of 3-5 rounds or AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) in X number of minutes. These workouts can be brutal.

Examples:
10 Kettlebell Swings (no Kettlebell? Use a dumbbell...)
5 Burpees
10 Minutes AMRAP

Run 400 M
10 Dumbbell Thrusters
10 Push Ups
3-5 rounds

If you use the simpler exercises and always stick to dumbbells instead of barbells (barbells are more complex typically), the combinations can be endless and in 25-30 minutes you can be out of the gym. I am, of course, tacking on warm up time! And as always, FORM over SPEED and use weights you are comfortable with.

So when it comes to the Holidays, treat it like any other week of the year. Have your weekly cheat meal, but the rest of the time eat well and exercise. When you think about it, it really isn't that hard, is it?  

The Paleo Diet

OK, so more nutrition! What the heck....As a trainer, I have to say that we are supposed to give you some recommendations, but never give you a diet. One of the reasons is there seem to be so many options out there. I was very intrigued by this new book by Robb Wolf named the PALEO SOLUTION.

Robb Wolf is the former Crossfit Nutrition guru and a student of Loren Cordain, author of THE  PALEO DIET. After reading through it, here were my thoughts. Robb is, without a doubt, one smart guy and an excellent speaker. If you want to believe me, check him out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HkqBxpPBeI

Robb's book, however, could have used an edit or two. The book is at times funny and I appreciate his attempt to make rather dry material palatable for those of you who aren't nerds like me and spend most of your free time reading science journals and textbooks, but his humor sometimes weighs down on his credibility. He is constantly using terms like "Buttercup" to refer to his audience and has a few too many "beat up the hippy vegan" jokes. Throw some of that unnecessary junk out and you have a book with lots of information that may bore most of you. For those of you that aren't into reading about leptins and lectins, let me summarize for you:

1. Humans ate a certain way for a very LONG time
2. Agriculture came and helped us develop culture, but also food that kills us.
3. Greed was introduced and the already bad food got worse.
4. The best way to fight off your issues with obesity, inflammation, etc is to eat a paleo diet, which consists of meat, veggies, fruit, some nuts and seeds and some tubers. NO grains, NO dairy, NO legumes, NO alcohol.

Ouch. No cheese and crackers....Robb then spends a good deal of time explaining how and why these things damage our bodies. I have read some other information about this and I totally agree with Robb on one point for sure. And I apologize for the conspiracy theory, but our government is subsidizing corn in order to throw it into everything we eat (high fructose corn syrup anyone?) and then watch us as we get fat and beg for help from a booming pharmaceutical business. Go check the supermarket and look for high fructose corn syrup. See how MUCH stuff it is in. When it comes to buying local, organic, grass-fed meat and wild-caught fish, I am ON BOARD.

My reservations about the book are this. It is clear that Robb was a vegetarian, had a severe gluten allergy and that turned him to paleo. Sometimes I wonder if his severe food allergies aren't making him corral everyone into one pen. Just because you explode into a messy ball of guts and goo every time you have a piece of cheese doesn't mean I will.

The book, also, has some moments where you question him. For example, he makes a very convincing argument against wheat in his book, but then when it comes to an item like oatmeal, he says :

 "Yep, I love oatmeal too, but it contains similar proteins to gluten. Cereal grains tend to have proteins that are high in the amino acid proline. The prolamines (proline rich proteins) are tough to digest, and thus remain intact despite the best efforts of the digestive process to break them down. The result is gut irritation, increased systemic inflammation, and the potential for autoimmune disease."

With a little research, I found that oats have 800 mg of proline per 100 g. Pork loin has 910 mg per 100 g. Ummmm....so why can I eat meat, but not oatmeal again? (PS...I'm going to ask Robb about this on his blog...maybe he'll answer!)

In his book, he keeps saying, just TRY it for 30 days. What do you have to lose? I am a test the temperature of the water kind of guy and I won't TRY anything for 30 days unless I see more proof. He does give examples of clients that changed, but I wonder if they lost weight because of paleo or because their caloric intake went down with eating more fruits and veggies and their caloric expenditure went up with more exercise!

He also provides us with a "great resource" and a "fantastic solution" for finding paleo snacks and meals called paleobrands.com When you visit this site, you quickly find out that he is part owner of the company. For someone who in this same book rants about how money and stuff won't make you a happier person and also how he is not trying to SELL you, this seems like selling. I don't mind if he sells his paleobrands cookies and beef jerky, but tell us, "For those of you looking for snacks, try paleobrands, a company I started".....or something like that. I don't have any issue whatsoever about people trying to make money if their intentions are good, which his seem to be.

A much more in depth and scientific book that backs LOW carb (not NO carb) diets is "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes.  In Robb's defense, he does plug Gary's book in his.

Look, before this book came out, I would say I was mostly "paleo" anyway...I eat lean meat, fruits and veggies. I am anti-refined carbs and flour. I detest the American packaged/fast food system. But until I get some actual geeky scientific studies in front of me that say otherwise, you are going to have to rip oatmeal and cheese out of my cold dead hands.

Bars, bars and bars.

First off my apologies for another nutrition posting, but everyone lately seems to be asking about it! I will be posting an exercise post very soon. I have had tons of people lately telling me that they are eating granola bars/power bars/ clif bars, etc. So I decided to post a few of them.
Let's start with the Clif Bar, which one client believed was a health food.

The Clif Bar comes in awesome flavors like Black Cherry Almond and Peanut Toffee Buzz. I've had them, they are really good. I wonder why? This is straight from their website:

 It’s the first bar we made, and it’s still everything we’re about. Whole, all-natural, organic ingredients. Performance nutrition. And great taste. Whether you’re on a 150-mile bike ride or exploring a new trail, this energy bar is built to sustain your adventure.

 Once again we are taken back to the conversation about carbs as fuel. Clif Bar is not lying. When you go on a 150 mile bike ride your body is going to need carbs and tons of them. But when was the last time you went on a 150-mile bike ride? Uh huh. Thought so. Instead you're sitting at your desk munching on this thing during a conference call and in the meantime taking down 250 calories and 44 grams of Carbs, 20 of which are sugar. Just to give you an idea, 4G of carbs= 1 teaspoon (approx.). So go to your kitchen, pour out 5 teaspoons of sugar onto a plate and you'll see what your eating. Energy bars are NOT for sedentary individuals. They are NOT a diet food. They are fuel for people on 150-mile bike rides! The first ingredient in a Clif Bar? Organic Brown Rice Syrup. SUGAR. Added sugar is probably the biggest enemy for most people when trying to lose weight.

How about these puppies?

General Mills, who I truly believe is run by the devil himself, is responsible for these NATURE VALLEY bars that have been around for a long time. Notice anything? Less calories and sugar than the Clif Bar, but still 190 and 12 g(3 tsp) of sugar...yikes. I've also had these and it is almost a guarantee after 2 bars you will want more. These bars teach us a valuable lesson as well. If I give you a bowlful of spinach and then pour a cup of honey on top of it, I have successfully made spinach a food to get you fat.  So beware of foods that brag about whole grains or other healthy keywords when they are conveniently packaged with various forms of sugar. Look at the ingredients! Always!

How about these?

Think Thin bars have no sugar and tons of protein. Great, right? My advice on these is typically enter at your own risk. Sugar alcohols (which make the bar sweet without adding sugar) have not been widely studied except for a few studies that suggest if you make a steady diet of them you may get diarrhea. Sounds like fun, huh? Check the ingredients:

Protein Blend (whey protein isolate, soy protein isolate, calcium caseinate), glycerin, coating (maltitol, palm kernel oil, cocoa, soya lecithin, salt, natural flavors), maltitol syrup, soy crisps (soy protein isolate, cocoa powder, calcium carbonate), cocoa powder, ground peanuts, water, canola oil, natural flavors, soya lecithin, tricalcium phosphate. Vitamins and Minerals: ascorbic acid, d-alpha tocopherol, niacinamide, zinc oxide, vitamin A palmitate, electrolytic iron, calcium pantothenate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin, thiamin mononitrate, folic acid, biotin, potassium iodide, vitamin B12.

Glycerin? Like from my soap? Yummy. I've tried these things...they taste just like other protein bars. In other words, like junk.

So the question I get is, Rob, I want something to eat as a snack or small meal that I can carry. What happened to the good old days of carrying an apple around? Add a small handful of almonds and bingo. The nice thing about almonds is they dry your mouth out like a desert and you have to drink more water to get them down! Bonus! Seriously people....stop eating packaged garbage or stop complaining about your lack of a six pack. Pick.

Speaking of veggies

Many people don't eat vegetables because they don't know what to do with them and end up taking the "easy" way out and going with canned or frozen veggies. Anyone who has ever had canned asparagus knows that there is something seriously wrong there. Shanna Bertram, our good friend George's wife, has been kind enough to share some tricks of the trade with us. My apologies to Shanna for leaving out the great idea involving potatoes...potatoes are not recommended here at Renegade.

Why not? Potatoes are rich in potassium, calcium and iron you say! Well unless you're a farmer or a marathon runner, you simply are not going to burn those carbs off. We're not anti-carb here, but you have to USE carbs correctly or you will gain weight. Remember that carbohydrate=fuel. If the car is in the garage, then what good does it to keep pumping gas in the tank? Carbohydrate consumption is proportional to how much WORK you do throughout the day. Most people are simply not active enough to include potatoes in their diet. The nutrients you get from a potato do not cancel out the potential negative effects. Want the same nutrients and no worries about the carbs? Spinach. FYI...you will see that word plenty on this blog. If you don't like spinach, learn. Maybe Shanna's recipe will help.
 
Now that I've ventured off the subject, back to Shanna's ideas!

Making green beans more exciting:
 (great for either steamed or flash boiled)
add:
1/4 small onion or white parts of 2 fat scallions
1/2 tsp dried Dill Weed
Cook until tender
Peas:
Tarragon in cooking water if serving with steak
or
Lemon zest and a touch of dried mint while cooking to serve with poultry or lamb

Spinach
Fresh whole leaf baby spinach turned in a hot pan with a chopped scallion, a few drops of olive oil  and a TBS or 2 of water just until it turns color. Serve immediately with a small cube (about 1/2 tsp) of herbed goat cheese underneath. The heat from the spinach melts the cheese, as you fork it up the creamy cheese & herbs add just a little extra flavor.

Thanks so much to Shanna. If anyone else has great veggie recipes, email me.

Diesel Weasel

Many of you have heard me talk about Diesel Weasel. The man with terrible form that never gets hurt. Well, without further interruption, an example of how NOT to deadlift.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHoOMQB8twg

My first post-Supermarket Tip #1

Hello everyone. I hope to provide you with some helpful information on this blog that may include facts about nutrition, training exercises and technique and some other odds and ends. I will do my best to make the posts as interesting as I can. So here we go...

I want to thank my client Rob for giving me this idea. Rob came into train the other day and brought some frozen vegetables and asked me if they were healthy. I informed him they were not. I maybe fibbed a bit because his veggies were similar to the Green Giant ones below and what I should have said is "They PROBABLY aren't healthy"....and all I mean by that is the substances in them are not part of extensive nutritional research and have not been proven to be bad or good. In my opinion, I generally like to avoid ingredients in food that have to be created by a guy in a nuclear hazard suit.

That gave me an idea. So here are some pictures of random vegetables I found in the supermarket and a classic case that big food companies produce mostly garbage.



Big Y generic veggies





Ingredients for Big Y veggies





Green Giant (General Mills) veggies




Ingredients for Green Giant


















So what do we notice? Well, while the Big Y veggies look boring, they are exactly as advertised. I get broccoli, corn, cauliflower, and red peppers. Nothing more, nothing less. How about the Green Giant?
If you look at the front of the package, it lets you know it's an ANTIOXIDANT BLEND! YES! Antioxidants are good for me, right? Well, as is with most nutrition...that can be debated and is maybe the subject of another post.

But what we know is good for you are the vegetables and only the vegetables. If you look at the back of the Green Giant veggies, you see that the extra buck you pay for them is not only going for packaging costs but also the cost of paying a chemical engineer to add enzyme modified butter, modified corn starch, "natural flavor" (which is a new way of saying MSG without saying MSG), and annatto extract color. Now, these items are not widely studied and so there is little proof to say they are "bad" for you, but in general, I always recommend unaltered food to eat. Why add the extra junk if your body cannot use it and does not need it?

ALWAYS CHECK THE INGREDIENTS.