I received an email from a guy named Joe who found a link I posted on kale, http://golamb.blogspot.com/2015/06/whats-deal-with-kale.html.
This is what he writes:
I was wondering if you’d consider adding my article to your page if you think it would be educational and helpful for your readers. I’d love any feedback and critiques as well on it.
Well, here is the rest of Joe's email, along with links to his stuff. It's worth a look and let's face it, you can't get too smart about the food you eat.
My name is Joe and I’m the co-owner of ThriveCuisine.com. We’re dedicated to spreading scientific information about the healthfulness and disease preventing power of vegetables/fruits. A simple message, but one we feel is important.
I noticed you had this post that featured one of our favorite vegetables: Kale!
I actually just finished creating my own write-up on Kale which I hope turned out to be very comprehensive and informative. Check it out here.
In addition to the basics and history, one of the things I attempted to do differently was go into greater detail about the actual peer-reviewed studies that have been done on kale itself in a way that doesn’t make someone’s eyes glaze over. I also addressed the issue of whether you can eat “too much” kale, which I have seen circulating around the internet.
Either way – thanks again for featuring one of our favorite cruciferous veggies. Hope to keep in touch and/or work with you on something else.
Cheers, Joe from ThriveCuisine.com
Most people generally know that protein is related to building muscle, even if they don't understand the science
behind it. Protein is a critical macronutrient necessary for maintaining our bodies and helping us keep up with our workouts. A high-protein diet tends to generate some controversy (how much protein is too much?), but undoubtedly, a low-protein diet can have negative, harmful and potentially life-threatening side effects those involved in regular physical pursuits, which is why it's almost never recommended for those who are especially active.
Even if a low-protein diet doesn't cause severe health problems, going too low can still bring about many unpleasant and unenjoyable side effects. Here are some of the classic symptoms of a low-protein diet to watch out for.
1. Low energy: Protein has 20 types of amino acids, which are essential for moving oxygen around in the blood. Oxygen is critical to all the functions in the body. Without enough of these amino acids, the body starts to experience the subtle signs of low oxygen, which typically manifests itself as low energy levels, fatigue and tiredness. As a result of inadequate protein intake, you can experience muscle atrophy (wasting), struggle with weight gain, and feel a constant need to sleep. On top of that, low protein has negative effects on everything from your liver to your skin to your hair to your brain. The resulting damage to your body also produces the effect of low energy, as your body attempts to function without enough protein to power your muscles and organs.
2. Loss of muscle mass: For the physically active, undoubtedly the worst symptom of a low-protein diet is the loss of muscle mass. Protein is necessary for the construction of healthy muscles. Conversely, when your dietary intake doesn't give your body the amount of protein it needs to function, it will begin to cannibalize the protein in your muscles in order to sustain itself. Your muscles begin to atrophy in the absence of protein even if you continue to work out and try to build them up. The loss of muscle leads to slower metabolism and weight gain, creating a cycle of weight gain that no amount of exercise can effectively combat. The loss of muscle mass also aggravates fatigue and makes you feel weaker, and it can produce uncomfortable symptoms like muscle cramps that cause pain and make it harder to exercise.
3. Weakened immune system: A low protein diet can have a harmful, weakening effect on your immune system. Without the full range of amino acids, particularly glutamine and arganine, your immune system cannot function effectively. The absence of protein can deplete your white blood cell count, making it difficult for your body to fight off infection. Researchers have linked a deficiency in protein to HIV infections, as the body is less prepared to fight off the virus, leaving you more likely to become infected.
4. Edema: With a low-protein diet, your body may begin to retain water, which can cause weight gain and uncomfortable bloating; this is called edema. This is because the amino acid albumin found in protein is normally used to help keep fluids from passing through the cells of the blood vessels. When you don't have enough of this amino acid, fluids begin to seep through and escape into your tissue, flooding it and producing swelling and pain. It typically goes down to your lower extremities, causing swollen legs, ankles, feet and hands. An increase in protein would help introduce the albumin your body needs to treat the edema.
5. Blood sugar problems: Insufficient protein in your diet can lead to blood sugar problems, particularly if carbohydrates are replacing the protein in your diet. Protein is broken down into glucose, which helps your blood sugar, but it is broken down very slowly, which prevents the need for a sudden spike in insulin levels to manage the glucose. Protein also keeps your sense of fullness longer, which helps stabilize blood sugar. An erratic and frequent change in blood sugar is linked to increased rates of diabetes, whereas stable blood sugar, controlled by a diet rich in protein and complex carbohydrates, can help keep your blood sugar on an even keel.
Protein is necessary for virtually all your organs to function well, and for the health of your muscles. Don't neglect this macronutrient in your diet, or you may find it harming more than just your workouts.
by Marlene Harris, NSCA-CSCS
One of the more obscure facts in nutrition is this; in order to process food into a usable form, our bodies need to invest energy into breaking the chemical bonds within the various macro-nutrients. Even less discussed is the individual contribution of each macro-nutrient (protein, carbs, & fats) to this energy investment, which is referred to as “TEF”. TEF stands for “Thermic (heat) Effect of Food”, and is science speak for the metabolic impact of your food intake. To sum it up, we have 2 layers of TEF; the overall effect of food intake, then the impact of each of the macro-nutrients individually.
Layer #1: In general, the average overall TEF for your total daily caloric intake is about 10%. As an easy example, if you eat around 2,000 calories per day, about 200 of those calories will be spent breaking down the foods you’ve eaten into usable parts (depending on the composition of your meals, as you’ll see below). This leaves you with a net calorie intake of around 1,800 calories (again, depending).
Which brings us to Layer #2: The TEF for proteins, carbs, and fats, individually, as outlined below.
Protein: 20-35 % of the calories you take in as protein are burned just in breaking it down into its component parts, the amino acids. The bonds between the amino acids are robust, and require more energy to break than those in carbs or even fats. This means that for every 100 calories in protein you eat, you’ll burn 20-35 calories in processing that fuel source. As such, your net caloric intake is somewhere between 65 and 80 calories, depending on the protein source. Yes, to complicate things further, different protein sources=different TEFs, but we won’t go any further with that thought, so relax!
Carbohydrates: 5-15% of the calories you take in as carbs will be burned in their processing. This means that for every 100 calories in carbs you take in, you’ll burn 5-15 calories in breaking them apart for your body’s use. Obviously, the bonds between carb molecules are much easier to break than is true for proteins. This is what make it a faster energy source; its broken down faster. As with proteins, different carb sources have different TEFs as well. The TEF for broccoli will be much higher than the TEF for a soda cracker.
Fats: 3-5% of the calories you take in as fats will be burned in processing, or, so for every 100 calories of fat, you’ll burn just 3-5 calories in processing. Unlike the type of fat stored in our love handles, hips, thighs etc., apparently, our body doesn’t have to work very hard to break the bonds in dietary fat. Despite this, dietary fat isn’t a quick energy source like many carbs—you won’t feel a quick energy jolt from fat intake.
Important Side-Bar Note: Fat is a paradox; when in a substantial caloric deficit (think: very low calorie & starvation), our bodies prefer to break down our muscle for fuel rather than our stored fat. Yes, our muscle is actually easier for our body to break down than our stored fat. Yet when it comes to dietary protein, it’s more difficult to break down than dietary fat. Strange, but biologically, muscle is more expensive calorically tor our body to maintain than fat, which is why muscle (particularly Type 2/strength muscle) will be sent packing if no stimulus indicating use/need is present, especially in a low calorie intake situation. (Hint: that stimulus most certainly includes strength training!). In case you’re curious (and I know you are…), 1 pound of muscle will cost you roughly 30-50 calories per day metabolically, but 1 pound of fat will only cost you around 2 measly calories per day. Let’s say person A has 10 more pounds of muscle than person B. Setting all other metabolic considerations aside for simplicity, person A would burn roughly 300-500 more calories every day than person B. Think about it!
Returning to the topic at hand, what implications does TEF have in terms of meal construction? Let’s have a look! For the sake of simplicity, I’ll use the middle of the range #’s for each of the macro-nutrients: 28% for protein, 10% for carbs, and 4% for fat.
Scenario #1: You eat a 600-calorie meal that contains 350 calories in protein, 250 calories in carbs, and 100 calories in fat. Using %’s in the middle of the TEF ranges, you’d burn around 98 calories in busting up the protein, 25 calories in processing the carbs, and a measly 4 calories in fat processing for a total cost of around 127 calories.
Scenario #2: Say you compose a different 600-calorie meal as follows: 350 calories in carbs, 100 calories in protein, and 250 calories in fat. Again using %’s in the middle of the TEF ranges, you’d burn around 35 calories in carb processing, around 28 calories in protein busting, and a 10-calorie investment in fat processing. Total TEF cost= around 73 calories. A rather significant 54 calories less than the metabolic cost of the meal in #1. Let’s extend this out over a 3-meal day: #1=381 calories expended, #2=219 calories burned in processing. Over a week, the numbers become even more jolting: #1=2,667 calories burned in processing, #2=1,533, a difference of 1,134 calories (closing in on an entire day’s worth!) Imagine what the difference would look like after a month! (Go ahead, do the math, I dare ya!) Let’s do 1 more scenario.
Scenario #3: You construct another 600-calorie meal that looks like this: 350 calories in fat, 250 calories in protein, and 100 calories in carbs. Here’s your approximate burn rates (using the middle %’s of the ranges): 14 calories for fat, 70 calories for protein, and about 10 calories for carbs, totaling around a 94-calorie investment. A bit higher metabolic cost than #2, but not quite as good as #1.
Take home messages:
1). The values used in the examples are simplified for illustrative purposes and should not be taken as set in granite, but…
1). When it comes to calories, quantity matters, but so does quality. In addition to nutrient, vitamin, and mineral content, TEF is a part of meal quality. A higher TEF will serve you more favorably for increasing your metabolic rate, even given the same # of calories.
2). When it comes to metabolic demand of processing, protein is king of the hill. This means that including a larger portion of protein in your meal will actually cause you to burn more calories digesting it due to the extra work your body has to do in processing it. Besides this, there’s only one nutrient that builds muscle, and (Spoiler Alert!) it’s NOT fat, and it’s NOT carbs…
3). The higher metabolic demand for protein processing also creates better satiety, the sense of fullness and satisfaction ala “I can stop eating now”. Better satiety also means you’ll stay satisfied longer, and be able to have better, more consistent energy for a longer period between meals. Both highly important to fat loss and productivity!
4). Hopefully this discussion has also got you thinking about why I always say that whole, nutrient dense foods are best when creating meals. You not only get a better array of nutrients from foods in their natural form working synergistically in your system, but whole foods also come at a metabolic cost, which can help stoke the fires of your metabolism.
One Last Note: Here’s an interesting tidbit I stumbled across while researching this topic, and yet another reason why it’s better to be leaner than not. Apparently, the leaner you are, the more efficiently you torch your chow. Here’s a quote from a major study on the subject: “Lean people have a thermic effect of food that is approximately 2 to 3 times greater than obese people during rest, after exercise, and during exercise.”
The study: Segal KR, Gutin B, Albu J, Pi-Sunyer FX. Thermic effects of food and exercise in lean and obese of similar lean body mass. Am J Physiol. 1987 Jan;252(1 Pt 1):E110-7.
By K. Aleisha Fetters
Squats are one of the best exercises you can do—that is, if you do them 
correctly. Check out these 6 super-common squatting mistakes and learn how to fix them for a stronger you, better butt, and leaner body.
1. The Problem: Your shoulders and back are relaxed. Without proper tension in your shoulders and back, your entire squat breaks down: You round your back, you lose control, and apart from being able to lift less weight, you also up your risk of injury, says strength coach Tony Gentilcore, CSCS.
The Fix: Pull your shoulder blades down and together. This simple switch will engage your core and keep your body from becoming loosey-goosey, Gentilcore says. You'll be shocked how much stronger you'll feel. Plus, by squeezing your shoulder blades down and together, you’ll be doing an important postural exercise to help reset that rounded-forward pose we all fall into so easily.
2. The Problem: Your knees fall toward each other. Caved-in knees are a telltale sign that your outer thighs are lacking in strength, Gentilcore says. If you let your knees cave in, you'll only exacerbate muscular imbalances.
The Fix: Anchoring your feet to the floor can go a long way toward keep your knees where they need to be, he says. Take a "tripod" stance, making sure your weight is evenly distributed under your big toe, little toe, and heel. Then, pretend you're trying to spread the floor between your feet. Push your feet into the ground and out to the sides. Your feet shouldn't actually move, but you should feel some tension in your hips. That will give you some more stability so your knees don't cave in, Gentilcore says.
3. The Problem: You never squat below parallel. "There's a big misconception that squatting below parallel is bad for your knees. That's completely false," Gentilcore says. "If you have no knee issues, squatting deep is perfectly healthy and can actually make knees stronger." Plus, deep squats work parts of your glutes that shallow squats just don't.
The Fix: Squat as low as you can comfortably. The ideal depth is going to be different for everyone. But, by and large, you should aim to squat until the top surface of your thigh is just below your knee, Gentilcore says. Meanwhile, as long as you feel comfortable and in control, you can go even lower, says Nick Tumminello, owner of Performance University and author of Strength Training for Fat Loss. Just remember, squats should never hurt. If they hurt, that's your body telling you to change how you're doing them.
4. The Problem: You've only tried one type of squat. Squats come in a all shapes and sizes—just like the women who perform them, says Gentilcore. You've got back squats, front squats, goblet squats, stepping squats, plyometric squats, the list goes on.
The Fix: Mix up your variations for maximum results. While every type of squat will do wonders for your lower body, each variation emphasizes different muscles, such as your hamstrings or glute medius (side butt). Hit a few variations every week and you'll get the benefits of all of them, he says.
5. The Problem: Your knees extend way past your toes. The farther your knees jut out past your toes, the more you stress your knee joints. If you have sensitive knees, that could spell injury, Tumminello says.
The Fix: Keep your knees in line with your toes. While it's perfectly OK if your knees extend a centimeter or two in front of your toes, focusing on keeping them behind your toes is an easy way to make sure you don't end up taking things too far forward, he says. "Ideally, your hips should move back just as much as your knees move forward," Gentilcore says.
6. The Problem: You squat once a week. The less often you squat, the longer it will take to see results, in terms of strength, sculpting muscle, and metabolic benefits, Gentilcore says. Squats are incredibly efficient: They work more muscles and burn more calories than just about any other movement.
The Fix: Squat two to three times a week. To find a happy medium between undertraining and overtraining, shoot to perform squats two to three times per week, he says. One day, lift heavy weights for only a handful of reps. One day, lift lighter weights for about a dozen reps. If you decide to add a third day in there, try a different squat variation, he says.
by Chad Howse
Breezing through the pages of Titan, the biography of John D. Rockefeller, I realized the secret to him becoming the richest man in the world was the same secret that Andrew Carnegie used. I continued reading and realized that Napoleon Bonaparte used this same habit, and when he lost the habit, he failed. Theodore Roosevelt, Hemingway, Bill Gates, Tim Ferris, Warren Buffett, it doesn’t matter the name nor the profession, when success is attained it comes as the result of a habit every one of us have access to.
This habit is discipline, and it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about making more money or spending less, living an adventurous life, or building a better body...your desire to succeed, to lose fat, to become fit, acquire wealth, experience adventure, or just about anything else, hangs on your ability to be disciplined. Discipline gives you the freedom to realize your potential, and to have the things you want in life.
No matter what your idea of success is, you need to ACHIEVE (do something) to get it. Accomplishment is why you're here, it's using your talents and your interests to CREATE a great life instead of wishing it would happen (which is what most people do).
If you don't succeed you're going to find yourself on your death bed regretting that you didn't do more and become more. Regardless of whether success looks like a leaner/more fit/healthier body, a better job, a billion dollars, boats, mansions, or simply creating a quality life, it all depends on your ability to be disciplined.
Why aren’t you as successful as you COULD be? SIMPLE (think about it…): Are you as disciplined as you could be? Are you focusing on the right things, that is, the steps and habits that will lead you to what you want? If you haven’t taken the right steps or formed the necessary habits required for your vision to become reality, you can hardly expect to get results.
No matter how audacious your goal is, the reason for your lack of success has nothing to do with innate intelligence or talent, but a lack of discipline, over time. The more focused and the more disciplined you are, the less time it will take you to accomplish your goal, no matter how improbable it may seem.
Why aren’t you disciplined? Our society sets you up to destroy your attempts at discipline. Think even in terms of distraction. We used to do our writing on typewriters, it’s now done on computers. With a typewriter there’s one option, do your work. With computers, there are endless options, and only one small part of them is your work.
Think about what we aspire to in our society. Thanks to things like social media, we now aspire to portray an image rather than becoming the person we want to become. This portrayal is led by “feel good” dialogues and consumerism which promotes acquiring debt, not value. We buy to fit in or to make others envious, using funds we really don’t have.
Our society trains us to lack discipline. Rather than reinforcing the habits that keep you average (or below) in comparison to who you can be and what you could accomplish, try a different approach. The code of discipline is simple, to be disciplined you have to practice discipline, but we all know this is easier said than done.
Discipline requires structure and direction, and if you don’t create the right structure, one that allows a degree of flexibility, you’re not going to remain disciplined for that long. Discipline without longevity isn’t discipline, it’s a fad, and it’s useless. On top of that, discipline commands that you have a clear idea of where you want to be, who you want to be, and what you want to accomplish.
Much of our quest to become disciplined can be justifiably spent on figuring out what we want to be disciplined on. Then there’s distractions and our own resistance. We may want to be disciplined, we may know what we should spend our time doing and what we want to accomplish, but we don’t actually do what we need to do.
We still fail to create the right habits and keep the bad ones even if we know what’s best for us. Smokers know that smoking is bad, yet they still do it even if they want to quit. Porn watchers do the same. Lazy people, the same. Overweight people, unfit people, people who spend too much. They all know what they should be doing, and yet they don’t do it. This means you can’t rely on willpower. You have to use every trick in the book, every tactic, tool, and app you have access to. You have to start small, then go bigger, but you have to start somewhere by taking action, even if only a small one.
So, rather than focus on a muscle building program or a money-making program or an investing program, why not focus on the single thing that each endeavor, each goal, each dream depends on? Another workout program won’t solve your problem if you don’t work to develop the disciple to use it. Rather than theory or 'inspiration', discipline needs to be trained as if it were a muscle. Like a muscle, it gets stronger every time you use it.
Whether you're trying to burn fat, build muscle (or both), persist longer, quit some bad habit or another, earn more money, keep more money (yes, they’re 2 different things…), or simply live a successful life, however you envision it, on your own terms, discipline will help you create the habits that will help you accomplish the goal. The shortcut you hope exists will never come.
Developing the simple habit of discipline allows you to accomplish anything, it's the one skill that's transferable throughout every goal, pursuit, and plan.
Instead of focusing on what you intend to accomplish, focus instead on the habits, the mindset, and skills that your goals depend on. Take action in developing the virtue that your goals need in order to be realized, discipline. You're simply not going to get what you want in life without it.
