I was looking back on a nutrition program I developed in 2001 and thought I would add the introduction on my Blog here in 2008. This was the start of my research in nutrition. I am now educating clients on Metabolic Typing, doing Detoxifications and lab work; however the foundation can be learned by reading below. Every year I continue to make my consulting better and better. In a few weeks I am taking another seminar to do in house & inexpensive lab work that can uncover biochemical imbalances . This will allow me to continue to get to the root of the problem rather than just treating symptoms.
Optimal Fitness Nutrition Program
Intro
There are many treatment methods and variables, which will allow an individual to achieve their goals. When the goal is weight management related (i.e. decrease weight loss and/or body fat loss) nutritional intake is the most important variable of them all. From my experience, 70-80% of successful weight loss and maintenance of that weight loss has to do with proper food intake. When I initially started training clients to reach their health and fitness goals I referred my clients to a Nutritionist for their specific nutritional needs. I only dealt with the strength and conditioning area given that my expertise was not that of a nutritionist. My client’s results were not good regardless of which Nutritionist they were seeing. The change in my client’s overall body composition was minimal due to their lack of adherence to these “cookie cutter programs.” I am not bashing all nutritionists. I truly believe, as in any profession there are good and bad. Nutritionists can play a significant roll given the right dietary program and client.
I agree with the thoughts of many non-traditionalists that something is definitely wrong with our current dietary recommendations. Our population continues to grow fatter and fatter each year despite our increased health consciousness and efforts to cut the fat out of our diets. Some nutritionists will argue that the reason why our population is getting fatter is because we are less active than ever before. Diet, lifestyle and lack of physical activity are contributing factors to our overweight society, with poor and inadequate nutritional intake playing the largest role. Stress also plays a significant role in weight gain and increases in body fat, which is not commonly considered as an influencing variable.
The USDA food pyramid emphasizes a high consumption of carbohydrates. We are told they are necessary because these nutrients are our primary energy source and will allow us to decrease our risk for Coronary Heart Disease. According to Dr. Philip Maffetone, author of In Fitness and in Health, if you follow the USDA recommendations, you are consuming two cups of sugar per day. Maffetone states that this is more carbohydrates than the human body can handle (1997). He believes that over eating high carbohydrate foods leads to an increase in fat storage and diminished human performance. This increase in fat storage will lead to other associated problems, which will increase the likelihood of Coronary Heart Disease. Both Dr. Maffetone and Dr. Scott Connelly (the developer of Met-Rx) believe that high carbohydrate consumption is a relatively new and problematic phenomenon for the human species. Looking back at the evolution of the human species, it was only within the last ten thousand years that humans started increasing their carbohydrate intakes to high levels. Before that point, our ancestors ate what they killed. Dr. Peter Adamo, author of Eat Right for Your Blood Type states that the story of humankind is the story of survival (1996). Neanderthals (50,000 BC) probably ate a crude diet of wild plants, grubs, and leftover kills of predatory animals based upon their lack of strength and skill for hunting. Around 40,000 BC our Cro-Magnon ancestors became skillful and hunted in packs. They became dangerous predators and they thrived on meat. 30-20,000 BC the Cro-Magnon's migrated to different areas of the globe in search of more food and new territories. They ate whatever they could find, which included a diet of berries, grubs, nuts, roots, fish and small animals. By 10,000 BC the Cro-Magnon's had exhausted the food supply due to their continuous population growth which led to war and further migration into new territories.
Adamo believes that somewhere between 25, 000 and 15,000 BC our ancestors were finally able to cultivate grains and livestock and this change in diet resulted in a new mutation in the digestive tracts and the immune systems of the Neolithic peoples of the Stone Age. This mutation was thought to enhance their ability to better tolerate and absorb cultivated grains and other agricultural products (Adamo, 1996).
Drs. Maffetone and Connelly believe that the relatively recent addition of carbohydrates to our diet is the contributing factor to our steady rise in obesity because we don’t have the capacity to tolerate and digest them as we do protein. Connelly further states that since 1980 we have seen a tremendous rise in the weight of our population and that this increase is getting worse instead of better (2000). Connelly describes our present predicament as a “carbohydrate overload". He states that as our society was warned of the danger of fats and told to decrease their consumption, there has been an increase in the production of refined foods. Americans are consuming more sucrose (sugar) than ever before to replace the fat content that was previously there. In addition to sucrose, manufacturers are adding malodextrins and high fructose corn syrup to almost anything that is a low fat replacement, for a higher fat product. These new refined carbohydrate products increase our blood sugar levels and stimulate excess insulin production, which may be the main culprit to our nation’s weight management problem.
Although I am an Exercise Physiologist and Holistic Trainer, and not a nutritionist, I have developed the Optimal Fitness Nutrition Program (OFNP) after a thorough review of the obesity studies and other reputable sources in the exercise science and nutrition field. I have also gathered invaluable information along my path of learning about holistic healing, which has allowed me to look outside the Western Clinical Box I grew up in. I intend to bring together Western and Eastern Perspectives on Weight Management.
In addition, the OFNP resulted from my own failed attempt to decrease my body fat following a diet high in carbohydrates. As a competitive baseball player and Exercise Science major at the University of California Davis, I was told that fat intake should be less than 30% of one’s total dietary intake. I was also brainwashed into believing that carbohydrates are good and fats are bad. For years I avoided fats like the plague. Everything I ate was fat-free. I consumed fat-free cookies, cakes, ice cream, and whatever else said, “New- Fat-Free” on the label. I had no regard for serving sizes, calories, sugar, fiber, carbohydrates, malodextrins, artificial sweeteners, Trans fats and high fructose corn syrup (which I should have been more concerned about). I could not understand why I could not lose the flab around my abdominals, even when I was eating the proper recommended fat-free healthy diet and working out daily. I tried abdominal exercises and I knew they wouldn’t work considering it is impossible to “spot reduce.” This was great for me considering I highly disliked doing abdominal work!
The turning point in my flabby belly was when a friend of mine introduced me to the Zone Diet by Barry Sears. Sears’ book, Mastering The Zone, challenged all of my traditional thoughts. Although Sears had no science to prove what he was saying and was ridiculed by Nutritionists, I saw incredible changes in my friend’s body composition. Within two weeks of decreasing his carbohydrates, he was lean and had abdominals for the first time. I was amazed. After I witnessed his transformation in such a little amount of time, I concluded that I was definitely doing something wrong. I read Mastering the Zone and followed the main principles of the diet, which were to increase my fats and proteins and decrease my carbohydrate intake.
I never counted calories or servings, which Sears suggested, because I felt his recommendations were to low for me as an athlete and it was too much effort. My main attempt was to achieve a balance of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in every meal and I, like my friend, decreased my body fat lower than it ever had been before!
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