pat@nutrition-central.net

Call or visit us @
14825 hwy 105 W
Montgomery, TX 77356
(936) 588 1414
(Across from Papas on the lake)

Insulin Resistance / Metabolic Syndrome

Insulin Resistance Syndrome, also known as Metabolic Syndrome, greatly increases the risk for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death today. Insulin resistance is characterized by high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar levels, abnormal blood lipid levels, along with abdominal obesity according to a JAMA report on December 1, 2002. Research shows that men with metabolic syndrome were 3 to 4 times more likely to die of coronary heart disease than healthy men. Insulin resistance happens over time as people lose their sensitivity to insulin, which is largely due to the addition of sugar and refined carbohydrates in the typical American diet.

Are your cells sensitive to insulin? When they are not sensitive, the insulin levels go up. When your cells are sensitive to insulin and you eat carbohydrates, your liver will take up as much sugar as it can hold, and excess sugar will be turned into triglycerides and cholesterol. When all of the sugar and fats are deposited into your cells your blood sugar will drop and your insulin levels will go back down until you eat carbohydrates again. When you eat too many carbohydrates in a meal you may get symptoms of insulin fluctuations. The excess sugar causes insulin to increase rapidly. This excess insulin moves the sugar into the cells quickly leaving less in your bloodstream, and when your blood sugar drops you will become hypoglycemic. When your insulin levels fluctuate too often you may get one or more of the following symptoms: fatigue, insomnia, foggy thinking, irritability, perspiring skin, heart palpitations, light headedness, panic attacks, sugar cravings, and loose bowel movements.

If you continue to eat many imbalanced meals containing too much sugar, refined carbohydrates, and processed foods, your insulin levels begin to remain higher than normal between meals. This happens because of the excess sugar and fats, stored in your cells, make your cells believe they have stored-up energy available that is not being used. When there is too much stored energy your blood sugar will not fluctuate and your insulin levels will remain higher causing partial insulin resistance. Now the food you eat will be stored as fat instead of being used as energy. Common symptoms of your insulin levels beginning to remain high are: depression, fatigue, decreased memory, irritability, water retention, burning feet, weight gain, loose bowel movements alternating with constipation, and fluctuation blood pressure readings.

When you have sustained high levels of insulin then you are insulin resistant. At this point your cells are overly filled with fats and sugar and they barely respond to insulin. Symptoms of insulin resistance are persistent high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol readings including high triglycerides and low HDL, type II diabetes, excess weight in the abdominal area, and plague build-up in your coronary arteries and brain. At this point your cells have become insensitive to insulin, similar to becoming insensitive to odors in a room. You notice odors when you first enter since you are sensitive, but eventually you become insensitive to odors until you leave and come back again. Your pancreas puts out insulin, but it will not produce excess insulin forever. When it slows down the production of insulin, the blood sugar level will go up, causing type II diabetes.

Insulin balance is important for other functions too. Insulin builds muscle and stores protein. Insulin also stores magnesium. Magnesium is important in maintaining a healthy blood pressure. But when your cells become resistant to insulin, you cannot store it and it is lost through urination. Magnesium is also important in creating cellular energy that helps to manufacture insulin. So even when you take excess magnesium it may not get into the cells if they are too insulin resistance.

Insulin also causes the retention of sodium, which causes the retention of fluid, when combined with high blood pressure can cause congestive heart failure. Insulin is a stimulant to the sympathetic nervous system and heart attacks come on more often after a high sugar or carbohydrate meal due this quick increase in insulin.

There is a direct correlation between combined triglyceride and HDL levels, and insulin levels. You can control your cholesterol and triglycerides by controlling your insulin levels. Too much insulin will also raise the LDL cholesterol levels. Without a specific blood test for insulin levels you can divide your triglyceride level by your HDL level, and if the equivalent is greater than 4.0 then you probably have high insulin levels. Your triglyceride level is a direct correlation to how you use sugar in your system, and can be reduced by removing sugar and processed carbohydrates from your diet and by increasing resistance based exercise.

Different cells in the body become insulin resistance more quickly than other cells. The liver becomes insulin resistant first, then the muscle tissue, then the fat. When the liver becomes resistant it suppresses the production of sugar. Your blood sugar level is the result of two things, the sugar you have recently eaten and how much sugar your liver has made. If your blood sugar is high when you wake up in the morning then your liver is making sugar during the night, indicating insulin resistance. If you wake up dizzy in the morning that can be an indication of partial insulin resistance due to blood sugar fluctuations during the night.

The next tissue to become insulin resistant is the muscle tissue. Muscles store sugar to burn for energy. When you are insulin resistant you will have trouble burning fat, so you will have to burn sugar stored in your muscles. This will cause muscle weakness or pain.

Your fat cells take longer to get insulin resistant. That is why we gain weight in the abdominal area when we have partial insulin resistance. Insulin takes sugar and stores it as fat in your cells. So until your fat cells become totally insulin resistant you continue to gain weight. Then your weight will plateau as the fat cells protect themselves. Your linings of your arteries do not become insulin resistant, and as insulin increases, more plague will build-up in the lining. This is why coronary artery disease is much higher in people with insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance even affects the thyroid. The thyroid produces mostly the T4 hormone. This T4 hormone is converted to T3 by the liver. When the liver gets insulin resistant then is cannot convert T4 to T3 very well. Insulin helps to control other hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone as well. The adrenals are also affected by blood sugar and insulin imbalances. The adrenals control your stress hormones and the biggest stress on your body is eating a meal high in sugar and processed carbohydrates. It causes adrenal stress making you feel more nervous and stimulates your brain to crave more sugar. So you eat more carbohydrates causing your blood sugar to go up for a short time and crash later on. This continuous change in blood sugar stresses your adrenals causing cortisol imbalances, pancreas stress and insulin resistance.

To prevent osteoporosis we are told to take calcium. Yet when you are insulin resistant the bones do not absorb the calcium since your body now has trouble building new healthy tissues. Excess calcium can end up in the arteries causing plaque build-up. Another sign of aging caused by an increase in insulin resistance can be seen when skin does not heal as quickly as it used to, or leg sores develop on the lower part of the leg.

How can we reverse insulin resistance? Diet is a huge factor. The amount and type of carbohydrates in our meals can either increase insulin resistance or make our cells more insulin sensitive. Look for high soluble fiber in carbohydrates you eat. If we eat foods with no fiber, insulin will become out of balance more quickly. When we eat foods high in soluble fiber then our cells will become more insulin sensitive.

Learn to use the Glycemic Index or Glycemic Load charts available today. These charts are useful in helping you understand which foods translate to sugars in our system too quickly. Potatoes turn to sugar very quickly in our cells, grains also. Non-starchy vegetables have the lowest glycemic index or glycemic load values, and these are the only types of carbohydrates we should be eating to reverse insulin resistance.

The two reasons we need to eat are to create energy to be able to replace tissue, and to gather up nutrients for maintenance and repair. Proteins and essential fatty acids provide much of the nutrients we need to repair and build healthy tissues. Your body uses sugar and fat as fuel. Excess sugar is stored as fat since the body can store very little sugar. Sugar is meant to be fuel to be used in an emergency situation. It is a turbo charger, a very hot burning fuel. If you need fuel over and above what fat can provide, you will burn sugar from your muscle tissue.

You can increase insulin sensitivity by taking omega-3 oils. Essential fatty acids help to increase the level of nutrients getting into cells by increasing the fluidity of the cell membrane. When our cells are insulin resistant the cell membranes do not allow nutrients into the cells since the cell receptors are not able to function. The omega-3 fatty acids improve the circulation of nutrients into and energy out of the cells. Your primary energy source should be from fat. But do not eat a lot of saturated fat since most of the excess fat we store is saturated fat. When insulin levels go down the triglycerides will start releasing some of the stored saturated fat. Your cell membranes require a balance of saturated and poly-unsaturated fat, and keeping that balance is what helps improve the fluidity of the cell membrane. Good sources of fats are nuts like almonds and walnuts. Nuts are a great source of protein mixed with mostly mono-unsaturated fatty acids. Supplementing with EPA-DHA fish oils is very beneficial in improving insulin sensitivity. EPA helps reduce inflammation in tissues, especially the arteries, and DHA is extremely helpful for circulation and brain function.

Fructose is a type of sugar that can contribute to weight gain and insulin resistance. Fructose is metabolized to fat in your liver. In the past, fructose was considered to be beneficial for people with type II diabetes and insulin resistance. But in a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, November 2002 it was found by testing hormonal factors that fructose actually promotes disease more than glucose.

Protein is used as an essential building block to repair damaged tissue and build healthy cells. All of your DNA are dependent on protein to keep your cells functioning properly. The amount of protein to consume per day depends on the activity level. We require around 1 gm. of protein per day for each pound of bodyweight. For example a 150 lb. person will need 150 gm. protein each day. There are about 6 gm protein per oz. of meat, so to get 1/2 your protein from meat (75 gm) you will need about 13 oz. total, or about 4 oz. each meal (an amount the size of a 1/2 chicken breast).

Resistance training is a better exercise than aerobic training for people with insulin resistance. By exercising certain muscles you increase the blood flow to that muscle, and one of the factors that determines insulin sensitivity is how much blood can get into the cell. By combining a low carbohydrate diet of mostly non-starchy vegetables, with low saturated fat protein and omega-3 fatty acids, and resistance training exercise, you will be able to increase your insulin sensitivity over time. This lifestyle change in diet is the best way to improve your chance of a healthy long life free from the many problems insulin resistance can cause
 

Get Your Basics First !

Alot of people come in my store asking for fancy preworkout powders or prohormones or expensive creatines but after I talk to them a few minutes I realize they aren’t even consuming the basics. Those of you who read my articles or know me know that even though I own a supplement store I always tell people “Whole food is always best”. Supplements are meant to fill gaps in your diet, or as a convenience item when whole food is either not 1)available 2)affordable 3)digestible 4)convenient. So here’s a brief breakdown on “The Basics” and why they’re necessary:

1) Multivitamins – Lets face it, our food these days is not as nutritious as it was 100 years ago due to farming and grocery practices I don’t have room to go into right now. Multivitamins (tablets, capsules, or liquid) make sure you are consuming all your essential micronutrients and cofactors to make the body run smoothly as if it was a finely tuned sports car instead of a 20 year old lawnmower.

2) EFA’s (Essential Fatty Acids) – They are called essential for a reason. The typical American diet is loaded with bad fats that have an inflamatory effect on the body. EFA’s such as fish oil, flax, coconut, borage, evening primrose and others have an anti-inflamatory effect on the body and balance out the inflamatory fats. This not only aides in fat loss but overall health and recovery.

3) High quality protein powder – It wouldn’t be considered a basic if everyone at an ample amount of high quality protein for 4-6 meals a day, and some people do…but most don’t. The meal most usually lacking in protein is breakfast with most people consuming coffee, cereal, fruit, maybe a granola bar with a yogurt, or even a couple eggs and a piece of toast….but NONE of these have an AMPLE amount of protein, even the 2 eggs or yogurt which only contain about 6 grams of protein apiece. Take your IDEAL bodyweight in pounds, divide by the number of meals you eat in a day, and that’s approximately how many grams of protein you should have in EACH and EVERY meal.

Notice the relationship between all the “Basics”? They’re the most nutritious components of most of the foods that we eat (or don’t eat) and they’re common sense nutrients that should serve for the basis of a diet, but in most instances where you just can’t get enough of them from your food due to circumstances out of your control…..well, that’s why supplements were created.
 

Growth Training, Not Strength Training

Most bodybuilders train like Powerlifters.

Benchpress 1st set – 12 reps, 2nd set – 10 reps, 3rd set – 8 reps, 4th set – 6 reps. Incline bench same routine. Deadlift same routine. Squat, Legpress, Curls, Skullcrushers….same. Does this resemble your workouts? What would you like to have more: A muscular ripped physique or a big frame and strong as a bull? There is no right or wrong answer, everyone has different goals. If your main goal is strength, keep training the way you are….heavy weights and progressive low reps. This type of training is great for developing the neuromuscular connection which is the basis for strength. However, if you want to be a bodybuilder….not necessarily a 300lb freak (they see this as a compliment) but you choose your physique over your strength….then you are training WRONG. I’m sure you know alot of people who have developed great physiques training with a pyramidding scheme, where heavy weight and low reps is the basis of the workout philosophy. But what no one knows is how great their physiques would be and how much MORE muscle they would build if they would just train in a way that builds the most muscle.

High reps – I’m not talking about “burnouts” done with just the 45lb bar, I’m talking about rep ranges of 15-25 reps per set done with the correct weight so that those 15-25 reps usually represent the point of “failure” for that set. By doing so you recruit more muscle fibers, deeper fibers, and your overal poundage for your exercise [weight x reps x sets] is higher in the end which equals more overall muscle growth, instead of just the superficial (surface) fibers that are well adapted to your 4 x 12,10,8,6 workouts. Rep after rep that you do, muscle fibers get exhausted, their ATP depleted, and deeper ones recruited to handle the ensuring weight. If you never go past 12 reps, then you have never stimulated the fibers deeper than those recruited on rep #12. Take a moment to think about this.

Long rest periods – I hear people preach all the time that rest periods should be 60-90 seconds long, mostly this information started with newbie personal trainers who just got their weekend certification. Forget you ever heard this information….seriously. If you are training for an endurance sport, doing Cross-Fit, or want to just be lean and like doing circuit training, thats fine…this does not apply to you. But if you are a bodybuilder at heart and your goal is to pack on as muscle muscle in as short of time you should be resting 3-5 minutes in between sets…..every set. While the majority of your ATP is regenerated in 60-90 seconds, a decent percentage takes alot longer to reload. Once you start taking longer rest periods between sets notice your strength goes up for each set….you can lift more weight and/or more reps which = more total weight lifted for that exercise [weight x reps x sets] which = more muscle growth.

There’s more to it than just this but these two aspects of training are paramount to your results. Every workout needs to be switched up once in a while to avoid a plateau, so I’m not saying there is absolutely no place in a bodybuilders workout for STRENGTH TRAINING….but for the most part, dont think strength training, think GROWTH TRAINING!
 

Post Workout Recovery Products: Slim Pickins

So you’re wondering what is the ideal formula to take after your workout in the form of a recovery shake. You’ve probably read my post “Post Workout Recovery 101? where I recommend you replace your typical whey protein shake post workout with a blend of hydrolyzed protein, fast digesting carbs, leucine and BCAA’s, and glutamine and/or citrulline. So lets look at some of the most popular supplements that are designed especially for post workout:

1) BSN Cellmass – Everyone has probably taken Cellmass at least once, along with every other BSN product because BSN is the biggest supplement company on the planet right now. Whats contained in Cellmass: mixed creatines, glutamine, leucine and BCAA’s, insulin potentiators, and some electrolytes and phosphates. Hydrolyzed protein and carbs are missing completely even in the new Cellmass NT.

2) VPX Synthesize – Besides being basically a stimulant free version of NO-Shotgun, this formula is similar to Cellmass in a way. It contains mixed creatines, citrulline malate, leucine and BCAA’s, and even a small amount of hydrolyzed protein. Let’s clarify something about the protein though. Jack Owoc, owner of VPX, decided when he made this and the new NO Shotgun V3 that he could classify every ingredient in there as protein. That’s why you see Shotgun and Synthesize listed as having 20g of protein on the supplement facts panel, but make no mistake there is not 20g of protein in that formula. If you compare to an updated supplement facts panel on the NO Shotgun variety pack with 20 stick packs in it, it still says 18g of protein at the top but then below that breaks down the ingredients into separate groups. The first group which lists the proteins lists: Casein hydrolysate, whey protein isolate, and whey protein hydrolysate as 3.5g. I’m sorry Jack, but 3.5g of protein is 3.5g of protein….not 20. Not that VPX Synthesize is a bad formula altogether but in the opinion of this author, it lacks enough hydrolyzed protein to be significant and like BSN Cellmass NT it still lacks carbs = no insulin release.

3) Gaspari Size-On Max Performance – This is a new product which was reformulated from the original version of Size-On and in my opinion much improved. It contains mixed creatines, 5g of Leucine plus other BCAA’s, two of the best forms of glutamine on the market, 39g of carbs including dextrose, and 7g of hydrolyzed protein. Now we’re getting somewhere!

4) Universal Torrent – In this author’s opinion this is one of the most underrated supplements in the whole industry. Each serving contains: 20g whey protein hydrolysate, 52g carbs predominantly dextrose, 8g of L-Leucine, 7g of a blend of Glutamine, Citrulline Malate, and Taurine, and 3g of mixed creatines. It also helps that this product tastes really good (like candy) as do all the other products as well.

Choosing a post workout formula is still up to personal preference and alot of times brand loyalty has alot to do with it, and even the formulas that are lacking ingredients can be beefed up using carbohydrates such as AST DCG (dextrose) or Professional Supplements Pure Karbolyn, or pure hydrolyzed proteins such as AST VP2 or Optimum Nutrition Hydrowhey. This is just some post workout food for thought (pun intended).
 

Post Workout Recovery 101

I feel this is an area that needs some clarification because there is alot of wrong and outdated information going around on what a person needs to consume immediately following their workout for maximum recovery. The old school of thought is – LOTS OF WHEY PROTEIN! (or a weight gainer shake). Let me explain why this will never give you the results you want:

1) Insulin is your friend: The most anabolic hormone you should be concerned with after you workout is insulin. Insulin is considered 5 times more anabolic than testosterone and the only way to release insulin is carbs….fast digesting ones. So you want to make sure your post workout recovery shake is rich in fast digesting carbs such as Dextrose (sometimes listed as D-glucose which stands for detrorotary glucose).

2) Glucagon is your enemy: If you slam just dextrose after a workout chances are you will release so much insulin that you will drop your blood sugar too low and then your body will release glucagon and leech glycogen from your muscles to recoup your blood sugar. However, L-Leucine inhibits glucagon secretion.

3) Digestion is key: The faster your post workout nutrients digest, the faster they get assimilated by the muscles. Digestion is slow down by two things – FAT and FIBER. You want NEITHER of these in your post workout meal. So as long as your post workout recovery shake has no fat or fiber, what protein do you want it to contain? Casein is the slowest digesting so thats out. Egg protein digests in about an hour. Whey protein isolate digests in about 40 minutes so does that mean whey isolate is ideal? Well….almost. The only protein that digests faster than a whey isolate is a HYDROLYZED protein. A hydrolyzed protein is one that has been enzymatically pre-digested from its long protein chain to short lengths of 3-4 amino acids called peptides. Peptides are known to digest faster than whole proteins and even faster than individual free form amino acids. So that leaves either a casein or whey hydrolysate as the superior form of protein post workout and both digest in about 20 minutes.

4) Combatting ammonia – Are you familiar with D.O.M.S. (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness)? It’s that soreness that seems to last for days after your workout. Most people think this is caused by lactic acid but lactic acid is water soluble and out of your body shortly following the end of your workout. D.O.M.S. is caused mostly by ammonia, which is the second byproduct of exercise, and is not water soluble so stays in the muscle for a long time. You can get rid of ammonia though, the most well known ammonia scavengers are L-Glutamine and L-Citrulline. For proper recovery and to ensure that you don’t mistake D.O.M.S. caused by ammonia build up for true muscle damage when deciding when to work the same muscle again, you want to make sure your post workout formula is loaded with Glutamine and/or Citrulline.

So in summary, here are some (but not all) of the most essential ingredients in a corrent post workout recovery drink. Compare this to what you are currently consuming following your workout:

- Fast digesting carbs such as Dextrose
- Branch Chain Aminos such as Leucine
- MINIMAL Fat and Fiber
- Hydrolyzed protein such as Whey Hydrolysate or Casein Hydrolysate
- Glutamine and/or Citrulline as ammonia scavengers