Protein (Part 2)

2019-04-102019-04-10 by Steph

protein, foods, greek, yogurt, cottage, cheese, eggs, steak, chicken, turkey, breast, tuna, peanut, butter, quinoa, mixed, nuts, edamame, green, peas, wheat, germ,

If you didn’t read Part 1, click here .

An egg is an excellent source of protein and its protein is so good that the egg is used as a basis of comparison to evaluate the protein quality of other foods. The egg has an arbitrary value of a « perfect » 100% :

Food	Protein rating
Eggs (whole)	100
Fish	70
Lean beef	69
Cow’s milk	60
Brown rice	57
White rice	56
Soybeans	47
Whole-grain wheat	44
Peanuts	43
Dry beans	34
White potatoes	34

In the table, there is the value of whole eggs and it’s done on purpose. There is a fashion that consists only of eating the egg’s white because the yellow contains fat and cholesterol (which the egg’s white doesn’t have). The problem is that the egg’s yellow contains as much protein as the egg white and the majority of the vitamins and minerals of the egg.

In the table, you can see that rice, potatoes and beans give less usable protein than eggs and fish. It’s because that they have few essential amino acids. However, you can combine foods that have little useful protein so that the mix of all this gives you the amount of usable protein you need.

With this combination of feeds that have little usable protein, adding a complete protein food makes an excellent meal.

This combination of food with little usable protein is convenient because these are foods that are generally low in calories and fat, which is not the case for many complete protein foods. When you try to get as much muscle as possible with less fat, it helps a lot. You can also have fat-free protein with supplements.

In Part 1, I said that foods with little usable protein devoid of some essential amino acids, that’s why you have to have a special combination with food to make up for that lack. In « Diet for a small planet » by France Moore Lappe, the following combinations are recommended :

Grains plus Seeds

Breads with added seed meals
Breads with sesame or sunflower seed spread
Rice with sesame seeds

Grains plus Milk Products

Cereal with milk
Pasta with milk or cheese
Bread with milk or cheese

Grains plus legumes

Rice and beans
Wheat bread and baked beans
Corn soy or wheat-soy bread
Legume soup with bread

By remembering these food categories, you will be able to combine your foods to have the maximum protein available for use. You can also read a nutritional guide to know which of the 8 essential amino acids is missing in a food to be more precise, but with these food categories, it’s easier.

You just have to calculate the amount of protein you need per day, apply what you just read and reach your goals.

Subscribe to my newsletter and share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

P.S. If you’re in Miami and you like Caribbean food, go to my cousin’s bistro to eat Haitian food, click here .

Stress Fractures

2019-03-242019-01-04 by Steph

What’s up ? This is THE stephane ANDRE. With my training, I’m interested in biomechanics to avoid injuries. I read « Sport Medicine Media Guide » and I learned some good stuff.

A stress fracture is an overuse injury. Human body creates a new bone to replace a bone that has been broken due to the stress of everyday life. This process is done every day to keep the balance. Unfortunately, this balance can be disrupted because of excessive physical training. There are several factors that can prevent the body from creating enough bone and this make microcracking, called « fracture stress ».

The most common factor of fracture stress is an excessive increase in the intensitiy or frequency of physical activity without adequate rest period. Other factors are nutritional deficiencies, mechanical influences, lack of sleep, systemic factors (hormonal imbalance, etc.) and metabolic bone disorders.

There are case of development of eating disorders and/or amenorrhea (infrequent menstrual periods) for some female athletes who are preparing for a competition. These 2 conditions can create a decrease in estrogen that can decrease bone mineral density. This increase the risk of stress fractures.

Stress fractures are often seen in athletes (especially runners) or military recruiting. For an athlete, 1.6km run is 110 tons of force absorbed by the legs. Bones aren’t made to resist this force (energy) so it’s the muscles that have the function of absorbing shocks.

When the muscles get tired, they stop absorbing the forces and eveything transferred to the bones. Stress fractures occur in almost all bones but are more common in lower bone, expecially the tibia. Depending on the type of sport, there’re distinctive stress fractures such as the elbow in throwing sports, the ribs in golfing and rowing, the spine in gymnastics, the lower extremity in running activities and the foot in gymnastics and bascketball.

Diagnosis

stress, fracture, foot, x-rays, metatarsal,2nd

Stress fractures create pain in a limited area directly above the tip of the bone where the fracture occurred. The pain is raw because of physical activity and relived with rest. The sensitivity of the bones is the most obvious conclusion to the physical examination.

With regard to X-rays, this isn’t a tool that actually helps to diagnose an early stress fracture because the bone often looks normal and the microcracking aren’t visible. It’s difficult because after several weeks of rest, the bone begins to repair itself and shows a healing reaction or callus on X-rays.

An early stress fracture is usually confirmed by a bone scan or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Treatment

Stress fractures are generally classified as low-risk (will not become a serious fracture) or high-risk (will become a serious fracture).

Low-risk stress fractures usually require a rest period of 1-6 weeks of limited weight bearing activity progressing to full weight bearing may be necessary. Return to physical activity should be a gratual process.

Low impact activities like swimming or biking are recommended to maintain cardiovascular condition when the pain is gone. When the patient can comfortably perform low impact activities for long, pain-free periods, the patient can begin high-impact activities.

High-risk stress fracture have the danger of becoming a complete fracture. For athletes suffering from chronic pain and having normal x-rays results, it’s recommanded to use a bone scan or MRI. High-risk stress fractures should be treated as traumatic fractures (with cast or surgery) because of complications.

Prevent

food, vitamin,d, carrot, papay, meat, ,egg, chees, broccoli, fish, sweet, potato, mango, pepperoni, apricot, peach, melon, avocado

calcium, food, almond, amarant, grain, aparagus, apricot, artichoke, baked, bean, haricot, blackberry, blackstrap, molasse, blackcurrant, bok, choy, brazil, nut, bread, wholemeal, brocolly, chickpeas, cinnamon, edamame, soya, fennel, kale, kidney, olive, orange, sesame, seed, milk, spring, green, tofu, swede, walnut, watercress

Here are tips developed by AAOS to help to prevent stress fractures :

When an athete does a new sport activity, it’s necessary to program progressive goals. For example on the 1^st day, don’t run 8km but rather increase the distance gradually per week.
Cross-training => Alternate activities to achieve the same fitness goal helps to avoid stress fracture injuries. For example to achieve a cardiovascular goal, alternate cycling and running (cycling one day and riding the other day) is excellent. Adding strength training and doing flexibility exercises help improve performance.
Have and maintain a heathy diet with foods rich in calcium and vitamin D.
Use good equipment. Don’t use running shoes, gloves, etc, very old and very worn.
If during physical activity it start to swell or the pain starts, stop the activity right away. It’s essential to rest for a few days. If the pain continue, you should see an orthopedic surgeon.
It’s important to recognize early symptoms and treat them appropriately to return to the sport with a normal level of play.

Stats

Stress fractures occur less frequently in those of black African descent than in Caucasians, due to a generally higher BMD (bone mineral densitiy) in the former.
Women and highly active individuals are also at a higher risk, The incidence probably also increases with age due to age-related reductions in BMD.
Children may also be at risk because their bones have yet to reach full density and strength.
The female athlete triad also can put women at risk, as disordered eating and osteoporosis can cause the bones to be severely weakened.

Subscribe to my newsletter and share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

P.S. If you’re in Miami and you like Caribbean food, go to my cousin’s bistro to eat Haitian food, click here .

Calories Are Good Or Bad

2017-01-262017-01-26 by Steph

I read a Nerd Fitness article and there is good stuff.

In the world of nutrition, we can find contradictory things. It depends of the point of view of people about food :

I’m Paleo and I eat only meat, vegetables, fruits and nuts.
My diet is based on my macros (protein, carbs, fats). Paleo is ridiculous.
Fool, a calorie is a calorie. You can lose weight by eating less.
I have a good physique and I eat pizza. I’m weird

Each person has his/her vision about « eat healthy ». It for this reason that this theme is confused with a lot of contradictory scientific studies.

What’s this

A calorie is a unit of energy

This is the equalent of 4.184 absolute joules (that is different of 1.21 gigawatts.

Here what is means : 1 calorie of food is equivalent to 1 kilocalorie that is the amount of energy required to increase the temperature of 1gr of water from 15C° to 16C°.

In a certain way we can say that a calorie is a calorie but what is interrests us is « does different kind of calorie affect our body differently ? »

Is what 1000 calories of cookies is the same as 1000 calories of grass-fed steak and vegetable ?
Does our body treat these foods differently or it’s only energy in and energy out ?
Does the type of food affect our body other than just to lose weight and gain muscle ?

These questions create a lot of debates and on internet everything is amplified with people who show scientific studies. Internet is good to debate but we’ll go deeper.

First step

It doesn’t matter the « nutritional philosophy » you have, but something is obvious. How you eat is responsible of 80-90 % of your success ou your failure.

You can improve you cardiovascular heath by running a lot but if your goal is to transform your body, how you feed your body will play an important rôle.

Training (exercices) have a role of support of maintenance of the body.

When we talk about pure weight loss, eat less calories that you burn each day is the key of the equation.

But we want do everything to avoid to have heart disease and diabetes. It for this reason we need to focus on the food’s type that we eat and the amount of food that we eat.

Calories are equal to loss weight

A person eat around between 3000 and 3500 calories per day of everything he/she wants. And now, he/she wants to lose weight.

This person decides to eat 2200 calories per day by eating less. This person doesn’t change what he/she eat but change proportions.

This person see that he/she loses weight, it’s good and it’s possible that he/she feels unhappy because he/she decreased drastically his/her normal amount of calories. Yet, it’s a good step in the right direction.

When we consume on average less than 500 calories per day, we burn 500 calories that we have in excess in our body. We can combine this with exercice and we can lose aound 0.45kg (1lb) of body mass per week.

As quoted on Examine.com , « a net negative energy balance…is responsible for weight loss ».

You noticed, it says « lose weight » and not « lose fat ».

It’s at this point that the big problems begin. People eat less and it’s enough for them.

We know our body react differently to certain types of food like sugar. Certain food fill the stomach more than other without have a lot of calories (vegetable). And others fill us less the stomach with a lot of calories (soda, cookies and candy).

Remember that all processed foods are scientifically created so that you are always lacking this type of food as a drug addict.

Use small plates is very effective to help to eat less. A study from Cornell University found that if they gave people a large tub or a medium tub of popcorn, and then gave them stale popcorn, the size of the tub mattered far more than the staleness of the popcorn in determining how much people ate !

We’re not rational creatures. Some food are dense in calories and low in nutrients and make us hungry all day.

Compared to a diet of vegetables and meat, it’s the opposite. It’s food low in calories and dense in nutrients and we have a sensation of satiety. Which make it easier the reduction of calories to lose weight.

If you have a lot of weight to lose, eat less to start to be in the good direction.

Now if you want an athletic body, it’s a little bit different. There is 2 type of food that affect the composition of our body and our athletic performances.

Eating for health and success

To have an athletic body, you must take care about your macros (a certain amount of fats, carbs and protein).

It’s clear that 100 grams of vegetables carbohydrates is not equal to 100 grams of candy :

Consideres that sweets and processed food are created for you to eat and buy more like a drug addict.
Look the difference of micronutrients between vegetables and candy
Pay attention of your energy after eating vegetables and sweets/candy. With which you have the most energy ?

We searching a way to eat that allow us to have a good look/appearence and to feel good. A diet that takes us away from the hospital and allows us to enjoy life.

Look, if you like the idea to eat less but you don’t like the idea to count calories and macros each day, you can hack something. Stay focus on a type of food : Real food !

Instead to count calories

At each meal, have 1-2 vegetables in your plate (or the half of the plate) and have a great source of protein.

Not aim to lose weight for a few weeks

Track your calories and macros for few days or 1 week to analyze what you eat. Take note, note the size of portions and do the total of the quantity of the day. This allows you to plan your meals during the day and during all the year.

We know that eat less and to more physical activity, help us to lose weight and we are still overweight. Eat less isn’t a permanent solution because there is also the element of behavioral psychology.

Real food

It’s simple, our body is a complex machine. And even if a calorie is a calorie is a simple equation to lose weight, each « health » factor can be affected by the quality and nutrients of this calorie.

For this reason, I want you eat real foods, decrease sugar and think long term (new habits) rather than the 12-weeks formulas.

What methods you used and that didn’t work ?

What are your goals ?

-Steph

P.S. Do you want a free training program ? Click here

Lost In Getting Healthy

2016-11-23 by Steph

I read a Nerd Fitness article and there is good stuff.

You already heard this : « Life, isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon ». Do you think is right ? Me, I think life is a special labyrinth.

Life, a labyrinth

A blog talk about this, click this article « Life is a Maze, not a Marathon » . This concept can be use to be healthy.

In the game of life, we must find a way to be have a better life and to find a way to use all our potential.

When we try to change a lot of things, it’s hard to adapt it all. Change take time and think about a marathon reassurring us.

But, a marathon means with each step, we go forward. We will finish the marathon with this process, it’s certain.

In life and in the quest to have a better lifestyle, there is a lot of unexpected events. Intead to think your journey is like a marathon where you know all the difficulties in advance, think life is a labyrinth that change all the time.

If your quest to have a better lifestyle was like a marathon, it would be like that :

I tried to lose weight and I failed. I’m a loser and I will never reach my goals.
I can’t eat healthy foods. Something is wrong with me
I tried a training one time and I didn’t like it. Training isn’t for me.
I applied for this job I wanted and I didn’t have it. I’m condemned to have a miserable life.

Instead of this, you’re in a labyrinth with your goals in center. You will find deadlocks and this doesn’t means you’re an incompetent person. They’re simply paths that don’t work.

I tried to lose weights and I failed – I will try again with a new tactic. I will do it again with a different way. The last time, I tried to count calories. This time, I will only focus to eat a better foods.
I tried a training one time and I didn’t like it – I will do a different type of training that seems to please me.
I applied for this job I wanted and I didn’t have it – Well, I need to change my tactic and stand out differently for the next job.

Fight your stubbornness

I thank video games to push us to make challenges and we don’t have any problems to dedicate thousands of hours to push « continue » to win.

However, this stubbornness and this devotion can be a blessing,but they can be a curse about be healthy.

Sometimes you will be guide to a bad path. When you continue in a deadlock you waste your time and you get away from your goals.

Often our obstinacy force us to lose our path because we have already started a wrong path. Let’s see :

We force ourselves to count our calories and to run more often when this don’t give us results. And we give up quickly this strategy every time. Change the strategy with a strenght training and eat only clean foods.
We stay in a deadlock with the job because we got our degree and we think we should do. This is the « good enough » syndrome and this is very very dangerous. Change it, we’re better than this.
We stay in a unhealty relationship because we’re together so long and we accepted to have a miserable relationship. We need to realize we deserve to be happy and we need to take care of ourselves.

Sometmes take a new direction is the better thing than you can do. Not because you give up what you do, but instead you give up a bad thing and this allow you to focus all your efforts to the good path.

Lost in the labyrinth

In labyrinths, there is always a moment where you must choose between three paths and you don’t know which one choose.

In life, there are times where you don’t know which paths choose and it’s stressing.

The worst thing you can do is to sit and complain because you don’t know what to do. Information can help you to choose. Educate yourself to choose the good direction.

« May be I must do this training or this type of training or this style of training ? »

« May be I must do this diet or this nutritional plan or this one ? »

Instead of remaining paralyzed, here how to do :

Do research to determine which path is better than others. Each path have its own characteristics and there certain that you would like to avoid.
Choose a path for a reason. With a litte research, you see which path you like most. Whatever the reason, choose a path and start as soon as possible.
Give yourself a chance to have a little result to test a path. When you’re lost, you leave mark on walls to leaves traces to don’t do the same mistake. If the path don’t work, you need to know. Test for 2 weeks a training and look if you have results. Test for 2 weeks a diet and look if you have results. If this don’t work, do again this process with a different training and a different type of diet.

You can’t save the world and you can’t finish the labyrinth while sitting. Do research and take a logical decision can help the processus but sometimes you have to act.

The life is a labyrinth very very difficult to solve. People who say they understood everything in life are liars.

When you have several choices, educate yourself the more you can and choose a path.

When you find a deadlock, mark it in your list and try a different path.

Courage and determination are important to have victory. With enough perseverance to test different paths to find the good path, you continue and find your goals in the center of the labyrinth.

Start. Don’t feel guilty when you’re in a deadlock, try new paths.

You will find the end, my friend.

-Steph