Protein - 3.2 or 4.0?

I got a question about this sentence:
"Some say an average of 3.2kcal of protein becomes fuel after to losses in hair, skin, nails, and protein spills from urine"

In this post:
Attia & IFIK

If you burn protein in a bomb calorimeter, it shows 4 kcal of energy produced per gram of protein.  However, in a human, protein often goes to structural usage prior to becoming fuel.  And the proteins that go into your hair, nails, skin, GI lining, and other such structural uses obviously never become fuel.  Further, some of the proteins that come back into circulation after serving as a muscle cell can spill into the urine if the dump from damaged muscle is fast/large enough.  Lastly, there're folks that say even protein that goes directly into gluconeogenesis is converted with efficiency loss.  IOW - it's hard to know exactly how much of protein's caloric potential is ever actualized.  So if you care about calories, it may make more sense to use a conversion factor of 3.2 kcal/gram than the 4 kcal/gram that most of us have heard over the years.

Either way, in Attia's case, his moderate protein intake - moderate given his training schedule and fitness goals - shows how little he's consuming in kcal from protein and carbs, and how much more he's getting from fat.  The significance is his weight loss, fat loss, performance, his health indicators are all moving in the right direction, ESPECIALLY compared to his prior days as a high carb, low fat endurance athlete.

This very high fat approach has also worked well for the very public Jimmy Moore, and yours truly.

CrossFit Games Open 13.1

My friend Jon Gilson of Again Faster writes:

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The CrossFit Open is the World's biggest whiteboard, an opportunity to post a score for everyone to see.

For some, the whiteboard is a contest against self, a record of where we are and where we've been, a log of continuous improvement.  For others, it is mathematical proof positive of victory or defeat, a bid for fitness superiority, a record of battle.

Whether it's you versus you, you versus me, or you versus the World, it's time to sign up and throw down.

I pushed the buttons myself last week, not because I have any hope of winning, but because I know that I can define my own game, my own end.  Fittest on Earth?  Hardly.  I'd settle for fittest on my block.  I'd settle for fitter than last year, fitter than yesterday.

Despite my low bar, I know I'm participating in the largest fitness experiment in history, a global, simultaneous execution of the CrossFit Methodology, the most effective general physical preparation program in history. 

Join me, regardless of your end.  Whether you're aiming for the podium, or simply to be a part of something remarkable, push the buttons.

I'll see you at the whiteboard.

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I enjoyed this Jon, thanks for sending.  Fittest on my block!  Hell yes that would be cool!  Even better would be to find I'm more fit than I was this time last year.

We are excited to be doing the Open.  It's my third year, and fifth of participating in the Games in one way or another.  It is Janet's first year to participate, and she beat her goal for 13.1.  My 12 year old did a version of 13.1 tonight and rocked it!  I should take my shot tomorrow.  

The WOD:  40 burpees, 30 snatches at 75#, 30 burpees, 30 snatches at 135#, 20 burpees, 30 snatches at 165#, 10 burpees, and then they separate the men from the men who are not "beastly" with as many snatches at 205# as you can do before reaching the 17 minute time cap.  I'd be very proud to get far enough to get a snatch at 165#, which would be 151 points. 

You can see a video of the second fittest female on the planet performing 13.1 here:  Foucher CFG Open 13.1

Attia & IFIK

For my friends and clients working to get into and stay into nutritional ketosis, I posted one day's worth of meals from Peter Attia's web site as an example.  This post is Attia's typically long and information dense post, but I think I'm on read number five or so and still gaining insights into what he's teaching. IOW, I like it.

Note the percentages of intake:

Carbs - 90g or ~360kcal

Protein - 131 or 419-524kcal (some say an average of 3.2kcal of protein becomes fuel after to losses in hair, skin, nails, and protein spills from urine)

Fat - 218 or 1962kcal

Thus, his intake is ~80% fat.  He is measuring his "success" in nutritional ketosis via a ketone measuring tool (.5 to 1.5 mmol/dl being ideal for "nutritional ketosis"), which was something like $1000.  You and I can get a pocket ketone meter nowadays for a few bucks, but the strips are $2-$6 each.  Thank you Canadian online pharmacy for the $2 strips!  Without that I would not be willing to do the ketone self experiments.

One more note - Attia thinks of himself as an cyclist aka endurance athlete, but also does one workout in three of relatively high intensity core strength and conditioning work.

http://eatingacademy.com/personal/what-i-actually-eat-part-ii-ifik-2

• 7 am — morning workout – flat intervals on bike (75 minutes).
• 1 pm – Nicoise salad:
  2 cup butterhead lettuce, 1 tomato, 10 black olives, 8 oz tuna steak, 1 hard boiled egg, 0.5 cup red onion, 2 oz lemon juice, 4 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp mustard.
• 7 pm – Chicken salad with nuts:
  2 cup romaine lettuce, 1 tomato, 0.5 cup cucumber, 2 oz cashews, 2 oz walnuts, 8 oz chicken breast, 6 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar.

Daily totals:

Carbohydrate – 89 gm

Protein – 131 gm

Fat – 218 gm (about 15% SFA, 70% MUFA, 15% PUFA)

Calories – 2,900

Doughnuts Got A Holed On Me

Once upon a time I wouldn't walk past the doughnut box at work without grabbing a couple.  I didn't think that I could resist, so I wouldn't try that hard.  Since the free doughnuts and trips to DQ for the soft serve and the other sugar feasts were not every day, I survived them relatively unscathed.  But at some point I began to be "de-sugared."  I started to shake the bonds of a lifetime of being a "sugar dog."  As I ate less sugar, when I did eat it, it tasted far less compelling.  The physiological rewards of making my body a sugar dump had decreased so much that I felt less and less drawn to sugar junk.  

In other words, it began to seem like that life long "sweet tooth" had more to do with behavior patterns and physiological responses to habitual sugar intake than to some innate desire for sweet junk.  

These things make even more sense when viewed through the lens of a the Paleo model, which can help us see how chronic carb/sugar intake can set up an addiction cycle which would be as rewarding as smoking, drinking or some other addictive substance.  

I miss the certainty that I could eat a dessert of some kind - almost any kind - and deeply enjoy it.  But, I like how satisfied I feel every day eating regular food, without having to feel stuffed to feel satisfied.  I like the fact that I take one pain pill about every month, compared to 800mg 3x per day as I did in 1999 (and eating far more sugar, and had far more inflammation).  I like it when the doc says "You don't take any prescription medication?"  Or, "I don't know what you are doing, but keep doing it."

Takeaway?  You can interrupt this cycle with persistent effort over time.  In the mean time, every day, every week, every month in which you reduce your carb/sugar intake makes your body less damaged.  The only failure is the failure to get back on the horse in order to learn how to eat for the pleasure of feeling well, and for the natural pleasure real food provides when one is de-sugared - rather than the sugar pleasures of the moment which have to be balanced against the pain of being unwell, weak, and at risk for decrepitude and premature disability.

Keep trying until you find the version that works for you for the duration.

Saturated Fat - Eat More To Have Less

From Volek and Phinney's excellent "The Art and Science of Low Carb Performance":
"You might be thinking "these guys are inappropriately encouraging consumption of saturated fats, given all the hype about it being related to heart disease".  On careful inspection of the scientific literature, however, the widespread belief that dietary saturated fat is harmful turns out to be an out-dated paradigm based upon flawed reasoning.
"Yes, we know that this looks like an outrageous statement.  Se here is a brief summary of the details.  Current evidence shows no association between dietary saturated fat intake and cardiovascular disease (CVD)[50,51].  There is, however, a consistent pattern of increased risk for CVD [52-55] and diabetes [56-68] associated with increased amounts of saturated fat circulating in the blood.  It is a common mistake for people to assume that your intake of saturates is what determines your blood level of this much maligned nutrient, but this is incorrect.  Particularly in the keto-adapted state, fat is being burned at a much higher rate, and this is particularly true for saturated fat.  in two recently published studies we showed that a low carbohydrate, high fat diet significantly decreased circulating levels of saturated fat [23, 59].  It's hard to imagine how dietary saturated fat can be problematic when it is promptly burned to carbon dioxide and water."

This is true for several reasons, all of which are counter intuitive.  First, when the body is given a sugar disposal emergency - which it often is when one is eating the SAD - all of the body biases towards sugar burning.  Second, a sugar disposal emergency drives an insulin response.  High insulin levels trigger the liver to turn blood sugar into saturated fat (measured as triglycerides).  In other words, if you want lots o fat floating around in your blood, eat a lot of carbs, and preferably several times per day with fructose to boot so that you can accelerate insulin resistance.  After enjoying this state for a while, you can look forward to fatty liver disease, meaning the whole cycle will be reinforced as liver function declines.

They mention the correlation between high blood fats and diabetes, but the relationship appears to me to be causal - high carbs and fructose leads to diabetes which is a known correlate for all the bad things we'd like not be die from after living a debilitating, pill popping, mobility limited, sick 10-15 years.

So yes, eat more fat and less carbohydrate to have lower triglycerides.

"Not Since 8th Grade"

A friend, Crusader, comment on the Hero WOD Hamilton:

"50 pullups?  Judas, not since 8th grade."

I suspect that would be a comment many would resonate with except most, myself included, didn't do 50 pullups the entire year of 8th grade, much less in one day or one workout.

And yet, anyone could do Hamilton, using CrossFit's approach of universal scaling.  The idea of a WOD like Hamilton is to throw out something epic, something that anyone would look at, no matter how fit, and think "Whoa."  It's not intended that everyone do this WOD as prescribed.

CrossFit is "constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity."  How much intensity? High intensity relative to the athlete's ability.  Definitely more than you would be expending doing "cardio" at which you could still engage in speech - you should be too breathless and fatigued to discuss anything more complex than what you name is.  But high intensity for a 70 year old athlete isn't the same thing as high intensity for a Games competitor, and most everyone would be somewhere between those two ends of the spectrum, each pushing back on the limits of their work capacity.

What's the goal of this prescription?  Fitness, which could be described as "increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains."  CrossFit's goal is broad, inclusive fitness, which prepares the athlete to be competent in any measure of fitness.  The CrossFit athlete should not be able to compete against a powerlifter in powerlifting, but should easily beat the powerlifter in a long row, run or ride; and would also crush the powerlifter in a short to medium duration event of mixed strength, power, stamina, and intensity (aka a CrossFit WOD).  Hike a mountain covered in snow?  CrossFitter beats the powerlifter.  Climb a tree?  CrossFitter wins.  Run a half mile and deadlift body weight for reps - CrossFitter wins.

My 12 year old son did a version of Hamilton - he did three rounds of row 200m, 15 pushups, run 200m, 15 pullups with bands.  My parents could have done Hamilton - row for 4 minutes to set a benchmark for how many meters they would row each round, do scaled pushups matched to their ability in load and reps (against the wall if necessary), walk ~4 mins, and then do some version of pull-ups.  That might be sitting on the floor with a rope over a pull-up bar raising themselves with their arms as high as possible, or band pulldowns, or ring rows from near standing.

Everyone else would be somewhere in between those extremes.  Perhaps you do 15 pullups instead of 50 so you can finish in under an hour, or do jumping pullups, or do pullups with band assistance. Perhaps one round would be enough - or more than enough.

The point is - start where you are, doing scaled CrossFit, which is the fastest way to become fit enough to do CrossFit bigger/faster/stronger/better.

Hero WOD: Zeus

"Zeus"

Three rounds for time of:


30 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball


75 pound Sumo deadlift high-pull 30 reps


30 Box jump, 20" box


75 pound Push press, 30 reps


Row 30 calories


30 Push-ups


Body weight Back squat, 10 reps

U.S. Army Specialist David E. Hickman, 23, of Greensboro, North Carolina, assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, died on November 14, 2011, in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when insurgents detonated an improvised explosive device near his vehicle. He is survived by his wife Calli, parents David and Veronica, and brother Devon.

Fair winds and following seas on your journey warrior!