Post by Tim Wescott on Jan 9, 2004 12:07:00 GMT -5
The Most Anabolic Diet - What About Just Eating Real Food?
By Dr. Richard Winnett of ageless-athletes.com
Bodybuilding, fitness, and other training magazines derive a great deal of their profits from supplement ads.
In many cases, the corporation owning the magazine also owns a supplement company or the overall corporation has spun off other corporations producing, marketing, and distributing supplements. So, the magazine may glean profits from it's own products and from the ads of other corporations.
Reportedly, while the field has become extremely competitive, the mark-ups on supplements are high and for the corporations that survive, the profits can become enormous.
One result of the interface of publishing and supplement businesses is the widely promoted position that success in training is tied to supplement use. That is, if a person is not taking a wide array of supplements than their training effectiveness and results will be severely compromised.
Of course, none of this is true but with the considerable loosening of oversight and regulation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), corporations are free to make almost any claim about a supplement.
About the only way a supplement will be pulled off the market is if there is evidence of harm. That is, unsubstantiated claims can be made about a myriad of benefits, but as long as there is no evidence of harm, the supplement can remain on the market. Thus, it seems, only creatine has solid empirical data to support its efficacy but many other supplements are sold with sparse if any supportive data but with extravagant claims.
Perhaps, the oddest part about the promotion and use of supplements is that many of the more popular ones are substitutes not supplements per se for real food. Many bodybuilders seem to eat some food and then add expensive (albeit, portable) meal replacement supplements to their diet. Most are high in protein, low in fat and carbohydrates but devoid of other important nutrients contained in real food such as fiber.
Consuming all these expensive products in the U.S. is more than odd; it's downright crazy. Food in the U.S. is plentiful and relatively cheap. So, bodybuilders and other athletes, influenced by effectively devious marketing strategies, spend a lot of money on supplements replacing the far tastier, healthier, plentiful, and cheaper food.
Can bodybuilders and other athletes just eat real food and train at a high level? Of course, we can.
To illustrate this point, I've provided a food diary and nutritional analysis of a typical day for me. I've found that I have a great deal of energy throughout the day when I eat often. It's simply a matter of spreading the calories I consume throughout six small meals.
I also have a fairly high metabolic rate so I do consume a lot of food.
However, if I want to lose some weight and body fat, I simply eat slightly less during the day, and if my weight has slipped and is too low, I eat slightly more. It's really that simple for me.
Since I'm just not as active as I once was, I've reduced the number of calories that I eat compared to a few years ago. In addition, the day that was recorded was during a period where I had successfully lost about a pound a month for five months and reduced my body fat.
So, generally, to maintain weight, I would eat slightly more than what I consumed on this day.
I also seem to operate like an inefficient car. I burn fuel very quickly. So, on days when I'm very active, I consume much more because I'm often ravenously hungry. The day recorded was a typical not very active day.
I'm also not entirely free from the allure of supplements. I do use a large scoop of protein powder with my cereal, take a teaspoon of creatine most days, and also take a generic multivitamin, B complex, 1000 mg of vitamin C, and 1000 IU of Vitamin E.1 When I travel, I also take many meal replacement bars, dried fruit, and sometimes, dry roasted nuts. I know I'll be hungry and I don't want to spend time searching for reasonable food.
All the food noted in the meals listed here is readily available almost anywhere. It's also quite impossible that I would be "undernourished" and thus need meal replacements and other supplements in a typical day.
Meal 1 (7:30 AM): One half cantaloupe, banana, two egg beaters, two slices of whole wheat toast, coffee with 1% milk.
Meal 2 (10:30 AM): One and a half servings of grape nut cereal, 1/4 oz. sesame seeds, 8 oz. 1% milk, 1 serving of dried prunes, 1/2 cup blueberries, one large scoop of protein powder, 2 glasses of water.
Meal 3 (1:00 PM): One cup nonfat yogurt, half tablespoon of peanut butter, two slices of whole wheat bread, one orange, one glass of water.
Meal 4 (4:00 PM): two oz. of tuna in water, half tablespoon of peanut butter, two slices of whole wheat bread, one plum, one glass of water.
Meal 5 (7:00 PM): Five oz. lean tenderloin steak, one serving of couscous, one very large salad, vinegar, one tablespoon olive oil, glass of water.
Meal 6 (10:00 PM): One cup nonfat yogurt, Cliff Bar, orange.
Here are some interesting totals2. I consumed about 3150 calories, 178 grams of protein (23% of calories), 480 grams of carbohydrates (59%), and only about 60 grams of total fat (18%) with about 14 grams of those fat grams from saturated fat. I also ate 10 servings of fruits and vegetables and had a total of about 57 grams of fiber. So my diet contains about twice the number of servings of fruits and vegetables and twice the amount of fiber that's recommended for everyone - but with few people reaching these health-promoting goals particularly for fiber.
Increasing or decreasing calories to gain or lose weight is no more complicated than having more or less bread, literally two more or two less slices per day (a total of 200 hundred calories). If I want to create even more of a caloric deficit, I'll walk about 20 - 30 minutes on the days that I also train. On off days I walk for about an hour regardless of focusing on gaining or losing weight.
The first two meals in the day are almost always about the same and the other four vary each day. Some of these meals are also carted around at work. Notice also that I eat a normal dinner and that too varies quite a bit each day3 .
I haven't listed these meals to suggest that this is the one best approach to nutrition.
A "best" approach doesn't exist. Food is not magical or medicinal, and people's tastes and preferences in types of foods, frequency of eating, and caloric requirements vary widely. I also almost never eat desserts simply because they just don't interest me that much. Obviously, if I ate a substantial dessert each day, I'd have to eat less of some other foods.
I'm also not claiming that this is an inexpensive way to eat. The total cost for the food for this day was about $11.00. However, it's pretty easy to blow $11.00 ( or more) on a lunch in many cities. I don't eat out very much but when I do I prefer to go to a really nice place and have some great food.
By contrast, eating a lot of meals out makes it more difficult to eat nutritiously and can start to cost a tidy sum. For example, if all of this food or something akin to it is eaten out as small sit-down meals, the cost in most cities would conservatively be $35 - $50 per day. If you need to eat a lot and eat often, don't eat out. Save those times for special occasions.
The point is that it's ridiculous to believe that almost anyone couldn't improve physically by just eating food that is readily available. In the U.S. we are fortunate to be surrounded by the most anabolic diet imaginable - real food.
It's obvious that consuming so much protein makes my use of a protein supplement, even the minimal amount that I use, unnecessary. After loading with creatine, it's probably advisable to continue with a much smaller dose than I was taking. Accordingly, I've cut my dose to a third of a teaspoon per day.
Janet R. Wojcik, Ph.D. was kind enough to perform the nutritional analysis.
Other dinners feature fish or chicken with sweet potatoes or regular potatoes and salads or vegetables.
By Dr. Richard Winnett of ageless-athletes.com
Bodybuilding, fitness, and other training magazines derive a great deal of their profits from supplement ads.
In many cases, the corporation owning the magazine also owns a supplement company or the overall corporation has spun off other corporations producing, marketing, and distributing supplements. So, the magazine may glean profits from it's own products and from the ads of other corporations.
Reportedly, while the field has become extremely competitive, the mark-ups on supplements are high and for the corporations that survive, the profits can become enormous.
One result of the interface of publishing and supplement businesses is the widely promoted position that success in training is tied to supplement use. That is, if a person is not taking a wide array of supplements than their training effectiveness and results will be severely compromised.
Of course, none of this is true but with the considerable loosening of oversight and regulation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), corporations are free to make almost any claim about a supplement.
About the only way a supplement will be pulled off the market is if there is evidence of harm. That is, unsubstantiated claims can be made about a myriad of benefits, but as long as there is no evidence of harm, the supplement can remain on the market. Thus, it seems, only creatine has solid empirical data to support its efficacy but many other supplements are sold with sparse if any supportive data but with extravagant claims.
Perhaps, the oddest part about the promotion and use of supplements is that many of the more popular ones are substitutes not supplements per se for real food. Many bodybuilders seem to eat some food and then add expensive (albeit, portable) meal replacement supplements to their diet. Most are high in protein, low in fat and carbohydrates but devoid of other important nutrients contained in real food such as fiber.
Consuming all these expensive products in the U.S. is more than odd; it's downright crazy. Food in the U.S. is plentiful and relatively cheap. So, bodybuilders and other athletes, influenced by effectively devious marketing strategies, spend a lot of money on supplements replacing the far tastier, healthier, plentiful, and cheaper food.
Can bodybuilders and other athletes just eat real food and train at a high level? Of course, we can.
To illustrate this point, I've provided a food diary and nutritional analysis of a typical day for me. I've found that I have a great deal of energy throughout the day when I eat often. It's simply a matter of spreading the calories I consume throughout six small meals.
I also have a fairly high metabolic rate so I do consume a lot of food.
However, if I want to lose some weight and body fat, I simply eat slightly less during the day, and if my weight has slipped and is too low, I eat slightly more. It's really that simple for me.
Since I'm just not as active as I once was, I've reduced the number of calories that I eat compared to a few years ago. In addition, the day that was recorded was during a period where I had successfully lost about a pound a month for five months and reduced my body fat.
So, generally, to maintain weight, I would eat slightly more than what I consumed on this day.
I also seem to operate like an inefficient car. I burn fuel very quickly. So, on days when I'm very active, I consume much more because I'm often ravenously hungry. The day recorded was a typical not very active day.
I'm also not entirely free from the allure of supplements. I do use a large scoop of protein powder with my cereal, take a teaspoon of creatine most days, and also take a generic multivitamin, B complex, 1000 mg of vitamin C, and 1000 IU of Vitamin E.1 When I travel, I also take many meal replacement bars, dried fruit, and sometimes, dry roasted nuts. I know I'll be hungry and I don't want to spend time searching for reasonable food.
All the food noted in the meals listed here is readily available almost anywhere. It's also quite impossible that I would be "undernourished" and thus need meal replacements and other supplements in a typical day.
Meal 1 (7:30 AM): One half cantaloupe, banana, two egg beaters, two slices of whole wheat toast, coffee with 1% milk.
Meal 2 (10:30 AM): One and a half servings of grape nut cereal, 1/4 oz. sesame seeds, 8 oz. 1% milk, 1 serving of dried prunes, 1/2 cup blueberries, one large scoop of protein powder, 2 glasses of water.
Meal 3 (1:00 PM): One cup nonfat yogurt, half tablespoon of peanut butter, two slices of whole wheat bread, one orange, one glass of water.
Meal 4 (4:00 PM): two oz. of tuna in water, half tablespoon of peanut butter, two slices of whole wheat bread, one plum, one glass of water.
Meal 5 (7:00 PM): Five oz. lean tenderloin steak, one serving of couscous, one very large salad, vinegar, one tablespoon olive oil, glass of water.
Meal 6 (10:00 PM): One cup nonfat yogurt, Cliff Bar, orange.
Here are some interesting totals2. I consumed about 3150 calories, 178 grams of protein (23% of calories), 480 grams of carbohydrates (59%), and only about 60 grams of total fat (18%) with about 14 grams of those fat grams from saturated fat. I also ate 10 servings of fruits and vegetables and had a total of about 57 grams of fiber. So my diet contains about twice the number of servings of fruits and vegetables and twice the amount of fiber that's recommended for everyone - but with few people reaching these health-promoting goals particularly for fiber.
Increasing or decreasing calories to gain or lose weight is no more complicated than having more or less bread, literally two more or two less slices per day (a total of 200 hundred calories). If I want to create even more of a caloric deficit, I'll walk about 20 - 30 minutes on the days that I also train. On off days I walk for about an hour regardless of focusing on gaining or losing weight.
The first two meals in the day are almost always about the same and the other four vary each day. Some of these meals are also carted around at work. Notice also that I eat a normal dinner and that too varies quite a bit each day3 .
I haven't listed these meals to suggest that this is the one best approach to nutrition.
A "best" approach doesn't exist. Food is not magical or medicinal, and people's tastes and preferences in types of foods, frequency of eating, and caloric requirements vary widely. I also almost never eat desserts simply because they just don't interest me that much. Obviously, if I ate a substantial dessert each day, I'd have to eat less of some other foods.
I'm also not claiming that this is an inexpensive way to eat. The total cost for the food for this day was about $11.00. However, it's pretty easy to blow $11.00 ( or more) on a lunch in many cities. I don't eat out very much but when I do I prefer to go to a really nice place and have some great food.
By contrast, eating a lot of meals out makes it more difficult to eat nutritiously and can start to cost a tidy sum. For example, if all of this food or something akin to it is eaten out as small sit-down meals, the cost in most cities would conservatively be $35 - $50 per day. If you need to eat a lot and eat often, don't eat out. Save those times for special occasions.
The point is that it's ridiculous to believe that almost anyone couldn't improve physically by just eating food that is readily available. In the U.S. we are fortunate to be surrounded by the most anabolic diet imaginable - real food.
It's obvious that consuming so much protein makes my use of a protein supplement, even the minimal amount that I use, unnecessary. After loading with creatine, it's probably advisable to continue with a much smaller dose than I was taking. Accordingly, I've cut my dose to a third of a teaspoon per day.
Janet R. Wojcik, Ph.D. was kind enough to perform the nutritional analysis.
Other dinners feature fish or chicken with sweet potatoes or regular potatoes and salads or vegetables.
