Measured Intensity Training

Today, I released the NEW 2008 MIT eBook and re-released the original DVD/Course.

You can order it here:

Order MIT DVD or NEW 2008 Ebook

I train a lot of young athletes and I don’t blame them for not understanding true sportsmanship. There are a lot of bone head parents and coaches out there with their heads up their butts with the win at all costs philosophy. Often these coaches and parents have kids that don’t have a clue about how sportsmanship used to be.

Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand having a ribbon/trophy/medal for the team that places 15th but there is a lesson that is seldom taught in sports today.

The link I’m posting MUST BE VIEWED by everyone!

Even if you’re not an athlete there is a huge message in this video

Grab a tissue, oh for you real men, you better watch it alone…

All the best

Shawn

“Dr M-I-T” here with a testimonial of a client and his diet.

Eating ham and turkey or any other luncheon meat may not save a life. However if in fact is going to eat a sandwich for lunch as a client of mine has in the past. Making a slight alteration could in fact add years to his life.

A client who I’ve been training for several months has had great steady results. His schedule is tough on his body as is on anyone not getting proper rest. As a police officer he works some crazy shifts which generally makes it difficult to get the 7-8 hrs of SLEEP our bodies desperately need, (more on this another day).

Anyway my client has made incredible strength gains and struggled slightly with adding muscle after 4-5 months. We hadn’t addressed eating habits as much as I should have. For him, 6′ 3″ about 235lbs, 36 yr old he had fallen into the same trap as most of us his age. Eat whatever is convenient. No he isn’t the stereotypical donut munching slob depicted in movies. However he still ate the KILLER CARBS in excess.

For my client I suggested cutting back and trying to never exceed 300 calories PER DAY in KILLER CARBS. Before you swallow your tongue, hear me out.

I already had him locked in the necessity of FEEDING the body protein in order to continue strength and mass gains. He hasn’t quite doubled from early days only getting 80-90g of protein per day but he’s darn close. And has the strength, size and workout charts to back up the why you MUST EAT MORE PROTEIN!.

The one thing he was doing that wanted to stay locked away in the fat storages of the belly was this…

He ate 2 sandwiches a day. Four slices of bread. (Now folks if you think the infamous Subway Jared lost his weight by only eating Subway every day, you seriously need a reality check) He was getting 320-400 KILLER CARBS without even thinking about it. He wasn’t eating them at the same time even. So what did we do?!

I told him to immediately STOP eating the KILLER CARBS, in other words ELIMINATE the bread.

Proof is in the pudding so hey say. He lost 3 lbs in less than 2 weeks making ONLY this adjustment.

What about YOU?!

Can you make a simple change and begin to limit yourself and ween yourself below 200-250 calories of KILLER CARBS per day.

Remember SUGAR KILLS

for every 5 g of carbs equals 20 CALORIES equals 1 TEASPOON of sugar.

Add up what YOU”RE shoving into your mouth and pouring into your gullet. I’ll bet many of you if you’re honest, are gleefully putting down somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-6 700 or even 1000 CALORIES per day or more of these KILLER CARBS!

Start immediately to reduce them and say good bye and fair well to fat!

Oh you goof balls who may want to reply with “uh, I need carbs to workout cuz, uh, I’m a bodybuilder” “IF” you truly are a bodybuilder eat carbs til the cows come home.

For the rest of you 99% of you, you’re NOT a bodybuilder. You’re like me who wants to be in better shape and or the best shape possible and someone who isn’t going to go to the gym 15-20hrs per week.

Hello again, “Dr. M-I-T” here with some more important information regarding sugars glucose/carbs and metabolism.

Of course I’m not a real doctor nor do I play one on t.v. The information I provide is just that, information. It’s up to YOU to make up your OWN MIND. However my information doesn’t come from the boob tube or magazine articles. I waste my time doing what very few people in the fitness industry do…read, research, and validate through medical and scientific journals text books, and peer reviewed articles. So with that here go…

Not a day goes by that a client doesn’t regurgitate what they’ve been lead to believe all their adult life. Don’t we need carbs/sugars for exercise, muscles, and energy for the body. Well in theory that is true. The problem however is this. We have been lead to believe that we must “consume” sugars/carbs in order for our body to use it. BS! The truth is our body can only process a small amount of consumed carbohydrates as energy. The pancreas contains alpha cells and beta cells for break down of food.

Now get this. The pancreas is comprised of 99% ALPHA cells geared to breakdown of PROTEINS and FATS people!. Only a mere 1% of the beta cell go to regulate breakdown of sugars/carbs for anything useful.

Think of your pancreas as a processing machine at the end of an assembly line. For every 100 units (units here are protein,fats, and carbs) the pancreas can ONLY process 1 unit of a carbohydrate out of the 100 and of course the remaining 99 units (physiologically the same fat/protein) can be dealt with.

Another visual comes to mind… the old “I Love Lucy” episode where she was working at a candy factory that made chocolates. She was to sort and place chocolates in a container. At first it was no problem. The she got behind, more chocolates kept coming, then she tried to “eat” them before they fell to the floor. After 6-7 chocolates in the mouth, she nearly exploded. You get the idea, even if it was aired way before your time.

Okay, so you have lunch (units) it goes through the gut and pancreas is releasing enzymes to breakdown food. Now the meal you ate is 40% carb, 40% protein, and 20% fat. (arbitrary numbers).

Here’s what the body does.

60-70% of the ingested protein will be “burned up” just for the sake of the body digesting it. In other words, 60-70% of the “energy” derived from eating protein goes towards it’s own digestion. (textbook of medical physiology).

30-40 of energy derived form eating fat goes toward the digesting that fat.

This next fact ought to knock you back in your seat…

ONLY a tiny 1-4% of the carb will go towards “energy” of digesting itself. Remember the assembly line and the pancreas?!!

The pancreas simply cannot process the amount of ingested carbohydrates.

Protein and fat CANNOT be stored as fat on the body without eating CARBS along with them!

Lastly glucose, which is what the body needs literally. Can and should be derived from eating proteins like chicken, beef, eggs, etc.

Eat protein, cut out sugar and your body will process and breakdown amino acids contained within the meat in order to build a lean natural YOU!

SUGAR is KILLING us ALL!.

All the best,
Shawn, “Dr. M-I-T”

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Friends,

My good friend Song Chengxiang sent this to
his inner circle list of which I am a member
just a few hours ago.

As a self improvement junkie who has been online
for many years, Song reveals to his list the
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internet, and gives his list a Very special
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I asked Song if I could send it to you.

He said “please do, they need hear it.”

Read it carefully, this message may change
your life.

Best Regards

1 REP GURU
Shawn

=======================================

Here’s that letter from Song:

Subject: The BEST program I recommmend (72Hrs special)

[Shawn],

I have been receiving more and more emails from
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When I take Creatine I only take the highest quality I can find. I’ve never been a big fan of the makers who suggest loading phases and cycling on/off. Also I generally stay away from those needing to be mixed with juice or other sweet drinks. I’ve always stressed to my clients that people get what they “don’t” pay for. You want to go to your local GNC, Wal-Mart, or CVS to save a few bucks go ahead but you’re throwing your money down the drain along with the multi-vitamin or supplement you purchased. Protein and Creatine makers tell you to take 3-4- maybe 6 scoops of “X” before and maybe even post workout. That’s because you will eliminate most of the crap (no pun intended) and absorb only a small amount.

Don’t take my word for it. Read what the expert Will Brink, has to say about it.

What’s in your Creatine?

By Will Brink

What I am about to tell you is not going to make me a very popular person with many supplement manufacturers. In fact, some of them are going to be down right pissed off at me. On the other hand, some of them are going to be happy someone spilled the beans and told the truth. Finally, some of them will be totally unaware of this information and will be shocked when they read it. Basically, I fully expect this article to cause a sh*% storm that will reverberate throughout the supplement industry.

The only people who I know are going to be happy about this article is the consumer, but I am getting ahead of myself. As we all know, creatine is one of the best bodybuilding supplements ever discovered. It increases strength, lean body mass, and, to a lesser extent, endurance. If that were not enough, it’s relatively cheap to boot! What more could we ask for from a supplement? When creatine was first introduced it was sort of pricey, but no one really cared because it worked so well. As time went on and more companies began selling creatine, the inevitable price war began and prices came down.

At that point creatine was only being produced by a few companies, so creatine was basically creatine and the price was the only real consideration. As is typical of the market place, once creatine became big business, several new manufacturers popped up and it became no longer a price war as much as a quality war. The expression “creatine is creatine” no longer holds true. More on that shortly.

At this time there are probably four-five companies large enough to mass produce creatine for the sports nutrition market. These companies in turn sell their product in huge bulk amounts to various distributors around the world. As far as the mass producers are concerned, there is a large German company, two companies out of China, and two in the United States. Though there are various other companies, for this article we will basically concern ourselves with these five major producers which probably comprise 80-90% of the creatine production market.

Why I had to write this article

The supplement industry in the United States is by and large a self-regulated industry. Unlike other countries, we (the USA) don’t have government constantly telling us what we can and cannot do with our supplements. Though they have been trying to discredit supplements for decades, the FDA and pharmaceutical/ medical industrial complex have largely failed to do so. As a self-regulated industry, we must do just that. Let me state here and now, I am all for self-regulation and totally against government regulation when it comes to supplements. When we find gross problems, we have to expose them no matter what the cost. Any supplement that is found to be potentially dangerous, terribly misleading, or otherwise a total scam, must be exposed as such.

If we don’t do it, then we allow the “powers that be” (who have an interest in discrediting the supplement industry) to get one step closer to the Orwellian scenario of other countries. I thought long and hard as to whether or not I should write this article, but in the end, as a person of good conscience and ethics, I knew I had to. In the end, it will cost the entire supplement industry far more than any one loss could ever cost a single company if problems with a certain product are not exposed.

As far as I am concerned, this is us airing out or own dirty inter-industry laundry and policing our own, instead of waiting for the “don’t confuse us with the facts” popular media or other groups to come after the supplement industry. I know it must sound like I am almost apologizing for writing this article, and in a way I am. It could potentially cost certain people a great deal of money. On the other hand, it could also make some other person a great deal of money, depending on where they fall (this will make more sense to the reader as you read along). In the end, the truth can never been denied, it can only be delayed. With each day of delay, the cost to everyone goes up. Nuff said.

Are you getting more than you paid for?

Most of us are always happy when we get more than we paid for, but in some instances, it’s not such a good idea. If we are buying say vitamin C and the label says “500mg per capsule” and laboratory analysis reveals it contains 600mg, then that is a great thing. However, if we test a product and not only does it contain what the label claims, but several other compounds we did not know were in there and had no place being in there, then that’s a completely different story. For example, when the amino acid L-Tryptophan was taken off the market for the death of several people, it was not because of the L-Tryptophan itself, but because of a chemical contaminant found in a batch of the L-tryptophan that was not supposed to be there. This was a perfect example of getting more than you paid for in the worst possible scenario. What I am going to write about in this article certainly is not as bad as the L-tryptophan fiasco, but it could be a potential health concern.

So after that long, cryptic, and bizarre introduction, what am I getting at? Recently, a company tested the five largest creatine manufacturers products and tested the products of various distributors from the USA, Germany, Great Britain, and other countries. At this time, the company who did the testing wishes to remain anonymous, lest they be accused of throwing stones at the supplement industry. However, this is a very large and reputable company and they stand behind their test results.

Also, I know this company to be one of the worlds most reputable companies, so I had no problems with their testing results or methods. The test results came to me through the back door so to speak. So what was tested for and what did it reveal? The creatine products were tested for: Dicyandiamide, Creatinine, Dihydrotriazine, and sodium content. What did the tests reveal? It revealed that there is a wide range of differences between creatine products from different manufacturers. The purity level of all the creatine products were also tested and they generally fell between 88 and 92%. Now before you go off yelling “but my creatine says 99% pure creatine monohydrate on the bottle,” you have to remember there is a small amount of water in creatine monohydrate.

Before we bother with the results, we need to take a look at the chemicals that were tested for-and subsequently found- in these samples. What really bothered me was the fact that there is little safety research on some of these chemicals, most notably the dihydrotriazine. I did Med-line searches, looked through various chemical data related books (i.e. the Merck Index and other publications), made many phone calls to chemists, spent hours on the internet, and was amazed to find so little real safety data on some of these materials.

Considering the fact that some creatine products contain fairly high amounts of these chemicals, the lack of solid safety data did not make me feel very comfortable. The major point of this is really the amount of creatine ingested in relation to the amount of contaminant present. It’s not that a compound has a small amount of some contaminant per se, but the levels of the contaminant is found in relation to how much of the product is consumed is the real question. In the December issue of Health and Nutrition Breakthroughs (p12, 1997) Dr. Podell addressed the same concern regarding creatine as I have when he stated “…there is the potentially important issue of product purity. Given the high doses of creatine most people take, even a minute toxic impurity could have a dangerous effect. Unfortunately we cannot be sure of a manufacturers’ quality controls.”

As we all know, people don’t just take 500mg (1/2 a gram) of creatine, they take 10,000mg (10g), 20,000mg (20g), or even 30,000mg (30g) of creatine per day, so even a small amount of a contaminant (such as the dihydrotriazine) can add up quickly. For example, one creatine product contained as much as 18,000 parts per million (PPM) of Dicyandiamide. If a person is taking in ten grams per day of creatine, that’s 180 mg of this chemical a day. If you are taking in 30g a day of creatine-as is often the case during the loading phase-you would be getting a whopping 540mg a day of dicyandiamide!

The Chemicals

Dicyandiamide (DC): DC is actually a derivative of one of the starting chemicals (cyanamide) used in creatine production. DC is formed during the production of creatine products, and large amounts found in a product are considered the result of an incomplete or inefficient process. A quality creatine product will contain very small amounts, less than 20-50ppm. At this time, DC does not appear to be a particularly toxic chemical. Oral studies with animals (rats and dogs) lasting up to 90 days have not shown serious toxicity or carcinogenic effects, and acute poisoning also takes very high amounts. DC appears to have many uses in the chemical industry. Some of the more interesting is the use of DC in the production of fertilizers, explosives, fire proofing compounds, cleaning compounds, soldering compounds, stabilizer in detergents, modifier for starch products, and a catalyst for epoxy resins.

At the concentrations found in some of the creatine products (see below), it’s a good thing this stuff does not appear to be particularly toxic. However, as far as I am concerned, I don’t want to be eating the stuff. One interesting point as it relates to DC and toxicity is, if one looks at the safety sheet on the stuff it states that DC breaks down into hydrogen cyanide gas when exposed to a strong acid. Hydrogen cyanide gas is very toxic and has been used as a chemical warfare agent! As Bruce Kneller points out (see side bar), stomach acid, which has a PH of 2, is a very strong acid. Is even a tiny amount of hydrogen cyanide gas produced from the intake of large amounts of DC? The chemist I spoke to did not seem to think so and the safety data with animals would tend to support this, but who knows. Bruce might be overreacting a bit on this, but it’s better to lean on the cautious side with such things. Bottom line, it’s best not to be eating large amounts of DC in this writer’s opinion.

Dihydrotriazine (DT): DT appears to be the real mystery chemical as far as potentially toxic contaminants found in some creatine products. One company had it listed as “…Dihydrotriazine is often found in various creatine products. This substance is a byproduct of non-optimized creatine productions and consequently widely spread over creatine products. Dihydrotriazine is a compound with unknown pharmaceutical and toxicological properties.” It was virtually impossible to find any useful safety data on this chemical.

However, DT is part of a large family of chemicals known as the “triazines.” It is an organic base with many derivatives. Some of these derivatives are toxic while others are known to be non-toxic, so it is very difficult to come to any real solid opinion regarding the potential toxicity of this chemical. One chemist I spoke to from a major pharmaceutical supply company said to me on the phone “it’s safe to say that there will be major differences in toxicity between derivatives since ‘triazine’ simply means possessing three C=N-H groups. Some derivatives are highly toxic.”

Bill Roberts, a medicinal Chemist and writer for Dan Duchaine’s Dirty Dieting news letter commented after I sent him over this information: “There really is no way to say just how high a chronic intake of this chemical [these chemicals] is safe in humans from the information given. If the amounts were very small, say a few milligrams per week, it’s a reasonable guess that there would probably be no problem.

But if a creatine brand has say 1% of this impurity [these impurities] then people are going to be consuming thousands of milligrams of this compound [these compounds] over time. I think we have to be concerned about taking so much of something that really isn’t well studied in humans for safety. It would certainly be unwise to assume thattoxicity is not an issue. If the consumer has a choice between a creatine brand that contains this impurity [these impurities] in significant amounts, and one that is more pure, I’d certainly recommend spending the extra money and obtaining the purer product.”

So as you can see, we are left with a major question mark regarding DT. For me, the less I know about a chemical the less of it I want to find in any product I am ingesting. Though this chemical might turn out to be perfectly harmless, I think it should not be found in any amount and thus should be non-detectable (n.d.) in the ppm range until we know more about this chemical. As you can see from the tests, some companies have n.d. amounts while others have far more than that. I find this unacceptable, and so should you.

Creatinine: Creatinine is one of the easy compounds to discuss on this list. Creatinine is actually a natural byproduct of creatine metabolism in the human body and of creatine production. A small amount can be found in every creatine product. However, in some products large amounts can be found, as high as 7700 ppm in one case (see chart). It is probably safe to say that the ingestion of creatinine is a safe endeavor. There is some research that links the ingestion of creatinine from meats with increased colon cancer incidence, but in all honesty I would not put much stock in that or get all worked up about it . The point is, when I buy creatine I want to eat creatine, not creatinine. Though a natural byproduct of creatine metabolism, it does not have any ergogenic effects and therefore I don’t want large amounts of it in my creatine, period. A high quality creatine product should contain less than 100ppm of creatinine in my opinion.

Sodium: Like the aforementioned creatinine, sodium is an easy one to talk about. Also, like creatinine, it is a generally safe thing to ingest at normal intakes. At the levels found in these creatine products, the amount of sodium added to the diet is very small and should pose no problems, even to the most sodium phobic person. However, like I said before, when I pay for creatine I want creatine, not sodium. The lowest sodium content was 20ppm and the highest was 500ppm. I leave it to the reader to decide what is a tolerable sodium content to them.

Conclusion

Believe it or not, the company who did the testing told me that although those were the main chemicals they tested for, some creatine products read like a who’s who of different chemical compounds, though they admitted that they are usually found in trace amounts. As for the consumer, if it were me, I would demand the HPLC test results from whom ever I was buying my creatine from regarding the chemicals listed in this article. If you don’t care, that’s OK also. As for me, I will make sure my creatine comes only from companies and distributors who sell creatine made by the large German company, or other companies, who clearly have their collective act together when it comes to producing an ultra pure creatine product. Bottom line? The expression “creatine is creatine” no longer holds true. However, a high quality creatine product it still the best thing going in bodybuilding/sports supplements.

I can’ tell you how much criticism I receive every time I tell people to stay away from the 5 Foods that Kill.

Excuses that are derived from believing “OPINION” rather than “SCIENCE”…

“Oh you need carbs for energy”, “Ohh, I can’t eat fat”, “Oh I only buy low-fat, or non-fat”. Blah blah blah, pure BS.

Knowing the truth however has kept me from curling up in the fetal position and hiding in the corner so to speak. I will continue to shout from the roof tops!

Oprah had Dr Oz appear on her show and they backup what I’ve been telling my clients for the past couple of years.

Please check out the link below to find out what Dr. Oz says on the Oprah show about the 5 five foods you MUST stay away from.

http://www.oprah.com/health/yourbody/slide/20061102/yourbody_20061102_350_202.jhtml

Okay, so it’s March already and you’ve jogged, ran, or stepped dozens if not hundreds of miles by now doing cardio and still you’ve been unable to get rid of your belly fat. Just like many of my “new” clients you are doing everything you can to lose the fat except the “right” thing.

Veteran personal trainer Kendall Hicks has tons more experience than I do yet I am successful in achieving body fat reduction with my clients because I incorporate training that just makes sense.

Read what the expert has to say….

Your Personal Trainer: Guest columnist debunks the cardio-weight loss myth

Kendall Hicks
Monday, March 10, 2008

Today we have a guest columnist. His name is Kendall Hicks and he is a veteran personal trainer who has helped thousands of people lose weight and live healthier and happier lives with his knowledge, passion, motivation and caring attitude.

It happens every Monday in every gym across America. People pour through the doors, jumping onto treadmills, elliptical machines or stationary bikes, and spend an hour paying for their nutritional shortcomings of the weekend.

It’s what I call “The Cardio Confessional.” People have this insane notion that an hour spent spinning their wheels on a cardio machine can somehow absolve them of the excess calories consumed the previous day. With sullen expressions they plod along, like a hamster in its wheel, getting nowhere.

Long, slow aerobic training is the biggest practical joke in the fitness world. One would think that after all these years, people would wise up and see that this exercise philosophy doesn’t work. Marathon-type cardio sessions for the average overweight person are a prescription for disaster. We may as well tell them to go play in traffic! That’s basically what they’re doing, crushing their joints with excess weight and repetitive pounding, and delivering no real results.

But cardio fits our “more is better” philosophy. A woman once said to me, “I started out doing five hours of cardio per week. No results. So I upped it to seven hours per week. Still nothing. Do you suggest I do more?”

No, I would not suggest that she do more. I would suggest that she be reminded of the definition of insanity: the idea that you can do the same thing over and over and eventually get different results.

If you are still inclined to believe that cardio is the be-all-end-all of fat loss solutions, consider the results of two studies conducted within the past year. The first, from Australia, showed that cardio did nothing for female fat loss, while interval training burned belly fat. The second, an American study, showed that even doing 300 hours a year of traditional long, slow cardio resulted in less than six pounds of fat lost — for both men and women. That equals less than one-third of an ounce per hour!

There’s a better way. Next time you’re in the gym, take a peek in the weight room and look at the trainers working with their clients. Compare the bodies you see in there to the bodies sweating away on the elliptical machine. You’ll find the sculpted, lean bodies moving dumbbells and doing push-ups, and the plump “never changing” physiques spinning their tires on the cardio equipment.

If fat loss is your goal, you’ll burn fat, get lean and boost your metabolism by doing resistance training — preferably with a trainer. Follow the resistance training with a short-interval cardio session that will amplify your fat burn and condition your heart.

If you do all that, you’ll find yourself out of the cardio confessional and off to the fat-burning races.

I can’t tell you how many times per week I hear people coming to me saying “lactic acid is bad for the muscles, it makes them burn, it makes you fatigue, etc.”

I educate these clients in sharing with them what I’ve known for years.

Below is an article published in New York times, written by Gina Kolata nearly 3 years ago:

Please READ and DIGEST:

May 6, 2006

Lactic Acid Is Not Muscles’ Foe, Its Fuel
By GINA KOLATA

Everyone who has even thought about exercising has heard the warnings about lactic acid. It builds up in your muscles. It is what makes your muscles burn. Its buildup is what makes your muscles tire and give out.

Coaches and personal trainers tell athletes and exercisers that they have to learn to work out at just below theft “lactic threshold,” that point of diminishing returns when lactic acid starts to accumulate. Some athletes even have blood tests to find theft personal lactic thresholds.

But that, it turns out, is all wrong. Lactic acid is actually a fuel, not a caustic waste product. Muscles make it deliberately, producing it from glucose, and they burn it to obtain energy. The reason trained athletes can perform so hard and so long is because their intense training causes their muscles to adapt so they more readily and efficiently absorb lactic acid.

The notion that lactic acid was bad took hold more than a century ago, said George A. Brooks, a professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. It stuck because it seemed to make so much sense.

“It’s one of the classic mistakes in the history of science,” Dr. Brooks said.

Its origins lie in a study by a Nobel laureate, Otto Meyerhof, who in the early years of the 20th century cut a frog in half and put its bottom half in a jar. The frog’s muscles had no circulation — no source of oxygen or energy.

Dr. Myerhoff gave the frog’s leg electric shocks to make the muscles contract, but after a few twitches, the muscles stopped moving. Then, when Dr. Myerhoff examined the muscles, he discovered that they were bathed in lactic acid.

A theory was born. Lack of oxygen to muscles leads to lactic acid, leads to fatigue.

Athletes were told that they should spend most of their effort exercising aerobically, using glucose as a fuel. If they tried to spend too much time exercising harder, in the anaerobic zone, they were told, they would pay a price, that lactic acid would accumulate in the muscles, forcing them to stop.

Few scientists questioned this view, Dr. Brooks said. But, he said, he became interested in it in the 1960’s, when he was running track at Queens College and his coach told him that his performance was limited by a buildup of lactic acid.

When he graduated and began working on a Ph.D. in exercise physiology, he decided to study the lactic acid hypothesis for his dissertation.

“I gave rats radioactive lactic acid, and I found that they burned it faster than anything else I could give them,” Dr. Brooks said.

It looked as if lactic acid was there for a reason. It was a source of energy.

Dr. Brooks said he published the finding in the late 70’s. Other researchers challenged him at meetings and in print.

“I had huge fights, I had terrible trouble getting my grants funded, I had my papers rejected,” Dr. Brooks recalled, But he soldiered on, conducting more elaborate studies with rats and, years later, moving on to humans. Every time, with every study, his results were consistent with his radical idea.

Eventually, other researchers confirmed the work. And gradually, the thinking among exercise physiologists began to change.

‘The evidence has continued to mount,” said L. Bruce Gladden, a professor of health and human performance at Auburn University. “It became clear that it is not so simple as to say, Lactic acid is a bad thing and it causes fatigue.”

As for the idea that lactic acid causes muscle soreness, Dr. Gladden said, that never made sense.

“Lactic acid will be gone from your muscles within an hour of exercise,” he said. “You get sore one to three days later. The time frame is not consistent, and the mechanisms have not been found.”

The understanding now is that muscle cells convert glucose or glycogen to lactic acid. The lactic acid is taken up and used as a fuel by mitochondria, the energy factories in muscle cells.

Mitochondria even have a special transporter protein to move the substance into them, Dr. Brooks found. Intense training makes a difference, he said, because it can make double the mitochondrial mass.

It is clear that the old lactic acid theory cannot explain what is happening to muscles, Dr. Brooks and others said.
Yet, Dr. Brooks said, even though coaches often believed in the myth of the lactic acid threshold, they ended up training athletes in the best way possible to increase their mitochondria. “Coaches have understood things the scientists didn’t,” he said.

Through trial and error, coaches learned that athletic performance improved when athletes worked on endurance, running longer and longer distances, for example.

That, it turns out, increased the mass of their muscle mitochondria, letting them burn more lactic acid and allowing the muscles to work harder and longer.

Just before a race, coaches often tell athletes to train very hard in brief spurts.

That extra stress increases the mitochondria mass even more, Dr. Brooks said, and is the reason for improved performance.

And the scientists?

They took much longer to figure it out.

‘They said, ‘You’re anaerobic, you need more oxygen,’ “Dr. Brooks said. ‘The scientists were stuck in 1920.”

Many of my clients are parents of young children. I’m always going on about parents taking accountability not only for their health, but the health of their kids. Obviously the area where parents should be responsible is with diet/meal planning. I eagerly await the day when we have “No More Fat Kids”. Genetics play such a small role so get off the “my kid just has big bones” or “it’s just baby fat she will row out of it”. In my opinion it’s nothing short of child abuse making your kids believe the lies some parents pass on to their kids about being heavy. Wake up parents, the sugar you’re giving your kids is killing them.

Jamie Bailes, MD
21 February 2008
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Not at all Somewhat Moderately Highly Very Highly

Obesity in the United States is increasing in epidemic proportions. This is true in children as well as adults. It’s estimated that the healthcare costs associated with obesity and its related complications will exceed $130 billion this year.

If something is not done to stem this burgeoning tide of obesity, then the healthcare system that we know will soon crumble.

Why are we seeing this dramatic increase in childhood obesity? It is certainly true that children are not as active as they were 30 or 40 years ago. Television, video games and computers can entertain kids 24 hours a day. Parents are often relying on technology to babysit their children and are not spending as much time outdoors with them exercising or just playing.

Is this the only reason for the surge in obesity? As a pediatrician who specializes in childhood obesity, I see many children who are very active but they are also massively overweight. What about these children? I believe many of these children are victims of what I like to call the “fat-free fallacy.”

Scapegoating Fat Backfires

In 1977 the U.S. Department of Public Health issued a statement encouraging Americans to eat less fat. In 1988 the U.S. Surgeon General recommended that we restrict our consumption of dietary fat. The assumption was that as we eat less fat the thinner we would become. The multi-billion-dollar food industry was quick to jump on the bandwagon. The race was on to produce fat-free everything. If food didn’t have fat then it was OK to eat as much as you wanted.

Americans consumed more fat-free foods in the 90′s than the previous three decades combined. This fat-free philosophy is exactly why we are becoming so obese as a society. Obviously if fat were the problem, then obesity would have decreased during this time. Instead, obesity did not decrease but skyrocketed to unprecedented levels.

But fat is not bad for you. Being fat is. The two are not related! Fat actually helps to satisfy our appetites and keeps us from eating too much or too often. Fat is also an important flavoring for food.

I, too, was a victim of this fat-free fallacy. I had been taught (brainwashed) that in order to lose weight we must eat less fat. I was a huge proponent of cutting back fat intake and watching total calories. I recommended at least 30 to 45 minutes of vigorous exercise daily.

I knew that it was very hard to lose weight. I didn’t push overweight children to lose weight, thinking that if they could just maintain their current weight as they grew that would be significant progress. I felt like I was doing a good job. I believed whole-heartedly that I was explaining to these children the correct way to lose weight.

An Eye-Opening Study

In the late 1990′s, a first-year pediatric resident physician at Marshall University did a required research project in which he looked at about 100 children whom I had counseled about weight loss. The results were astonishing to me. Not only did these children not lose weight or even slow down their weight gain, most gained weight at the same rate and some even faster.

The results did not lie. All of this time and energy that I had been spending to help children lose weight had been a waste of time. It just didn’t work. A low-fat diet only worked for about one out of every 25 patients. Was this the best we could do?

I was determined to succeed. I began to look at other ways to lose weight. A third-year medical student at the time asked me about using a high-protein, carbohydrate-restricted diet for weight loss. At the time I knew very little about approach. This was not something that was taught in medical school. I couldn’t believe that this would be successful or that it could be good for you, so I was very skeptical. How could eating high-fat foods not be bad for you? This is what I learned in textbooks from professors in medical school.

However, I still could not ignore the facts. We had cut back our fat intake and yet we were becoming fatter as a nation.

Low Carbs Make a Case

I researched and relearned the physiology and biochemistry behind low-carb diets. As I began to take a closer look, my findings were not what I expected. It all came back to insulin. Insulin is what causes fat storage. Insulin is what drives weight gain. Insulin is what is secreted when we eat carbohydrates. Insulin is one of the most powerful and efficient substances that our body uses to control the use, distribution and storage of energy. Insulin is essential for life. Without insulin, we would quickly waste away and perish. Just ask the teenager with type I diabetes who has been hospitalized for diabetic ketoacidosis because of not taking his or her insulin.

Let’s look at what happens after a meal that is high in carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are broken down into thousands of molecules of glucose that are quickly absorbed through our small intestines into our bloodstream. Our body has the ability to monitor this rapid rise in blood sugar and quickly secretes insulin to counterbalance this. This is true if we do not have diabetes. Our nervous system keeps our blood glucose levels very steady no matter what we eat. These values almost never get above 120 or less then 70mg/dl. This is true whether we eat a meal that consists of pure sugar, a meal loaded with complex carbohydrates, a meal consisting of only protein or fat, or when we have fasted for two or three days. Almost all of our cells use glucose for energy.

Our bodies are extremely efficient energy machines. Only a small part of what we eat is actually used or needed by the muscles or other cells for energy. If these energy-using cells do not need any extra energy what happens to the majority of the glucose that we ingest? Insulin converts a portion of that glucose to another starch, called glycogen. Glycogen is stored in the liver and can maintain our blood sugar levels in the normal range for several hours after a meal. This is why we do not have to eat continuously. Glycogen can quickly be converted to glucose whenever glucose is not readily available in the bloodstream.

Why Low-Fat Diets Don’t Work

What about the rest of the glucose? Where does it go after a meal? Herein lies the answer to why most low-fat diets do not work. The extra glucose is converted to fat. Fat is our main storage area for energy. Let me say this again: insulin promotes the production and storage of fat. That’s right, even without eating fat our body produces fat from sugar.

Insulin is an extremely efficient hormone. It is the master hormone of our metabolic system. Its most important function may be the control and maintenance of our blood sugar, but insulin performs a myriad of other activities. In the appropriate amount, insulin keeps the metabolic system running smoothly and everything in balance.

However, in great excess it becomes a dangerous hormone wreaking havoc through the body. Mountains of scientific evidence implicate insulin as the primary cause or significant risk factor for high blood pressure, heart disease, arteriosclerosis and high cholesterol. It may also have a causative role in type 2 diabetes.

With type 2 diabetes our body needs extra insulin to help to maintain our blood sugar. The insulin that is available just does not work as well and we become resistant to its effects.

With type 1 diabetes we have a little different story. Our body can no longer make the insulin that we need therefore we have to take manufactured insulin to maintain our blood sugar. More carbs equals more insulin.

Teenage girls with diabetes know that insulin causes them to gain weight. Many recent studies have shown that in order to keep from gaining weight a very high percentage of teenagers with diabetes omit their insulin. We cannot continue to allow this to happen. This leads to uncontrolled diabetes and horrible long-term complications.

More Protein = Greater Insulin Control

So, how can we control our insulin requirements? The key to good blood sugar control, the key to weight loss and the key to lowering our insulin secretion is very simple. Eat fewer carbohydrates and eat more protein.

Protein keeps us from being hungry. A meal high in protein stays with us a lot longer than a meal high in carbohydrate content, which is quickly absorbed and does not satisfy our appetite as long. When we eat protein our body does not need as much insulin. Our blood sugar values are much steadier and we do not have the wide fluctuations that we see with high carbohydrate foods. This dietary approach works whether you have diabetes or not. It is perfect for anyone who is overweight or has type 2 diabetes. Type 1 people with diabetes can benefit by improved blood sugar values and lower insulin requirements.

I have seen hundreds of children actually lose weight with our plan. Eight and nine year old kids have lost 40 to 50 pounds. Obviously, the health benefits are tremendous, but the greatest improvement is what we see with self-esteem. Children’s energy and blood pressure improve, and their lipid profiles universally improve. Before-and-after pictures of these successful children can be viewed on our website www.nomorefatkids.com.

In general, the fewer carbohydrates we eat the better. However, we should get a minimum of 30 grams of carbohydrates per day. The standard approach of 60 to 75 grams of carbohydrates per meal and 30 grams per snack is way too much. If you do not want to restrict carbs to 30 grams per day, then somewhere between 60 to 100 grams per day will still allow for weight loss if it is combined with exercise.

Remember: Eat all the protein you desire. Do not worry about where the protein comes from or how it is prepared. People who eat more protein end up eating fewer total calories. Protein keeps us from being hungry and satisfies our appetite more than any other macronutrient. This is the key for successful weight loss. It is hard to lose weight if you are hungry all the time.

Dr. Bailes is a pediatrician at Marshall University in Huntington, W. Va. He has developed a successful weight loss program in his book, No More Fat Kids: A Pediatrician’s Guide for Safe and Effective Weight Loss. It is available at www.nomorefatkids.com