I had a conversation with a family member of mine about vegetarianism…If you can find lean protein sources other than animal meat, is it still good or are there other drawbacks or anything surrounding that regarding optimal health?

Answer

First of all, yes. In theory, non-animal protein sources can be used for good health, but realistically it’ll probably be a hard route to take.

The two aspects we’ll look at to understand this better are quantity and quality.

Quantity

Quantity is actually the biggest roadbump and as we’ll mention later on, quality just compounds the issue.

A fairly agreed upon realistic minimum for protein intake lies somewhere around .5 grams for every pound of bodyweight per day. Now mind you this is a minimum value and is geared more towards not excessively active individuals (walks in the park not counting as excessive activity) who are eating simply for maintenance and general health.

Let’s use a sample couple, Jack and Jill. Jack is a 5′ 9″, 160 lb male while Jill is a 5′ 3″ 110 lb female. Both are in generally healthy weight ranges, have desk jobs, go bowling once a week together, and go for leisure walks when the weather’s gentle.

Using our set minimum, Jack should be getting at least 80 grams of protein per day and Jill needs at least 55 grams.

To get an idea of how this would play out, we’ll look at what they might eat. Being both vegetarians, their main protein sources would be:
-Beans
-Nuts and seeds
-Soy/alternative milk
-Vegetables
-Grain

Beans
Beans, while they have a fair amount of protein per sensible serving, are more dense in carbohydrate. A cup of beans tends to range from 40-50g of carbohydrate (10-15 of which are fiber), while the protein is typically around 10-15g in that cup. Fat is usually virtually absent unless prepared with fats.

Nuts and Seeds
Nuts are much more modest in their carb to protein ratio, but are heavily a fatty food. A handful might have 2-6g of protein, only 3-9g of carb (1-3g being fiber), but 12-21g of fat. Seeds follow a similar trend. In a handful we see 5-9g of protein, 4-10g carb (none to 8g fiber), and 10-14g of fat.

Alternative Milk
Soy and alternative milks are somewhere in the range of 14/5/3 grams of carb/protein/fat in a cup. Some are fattier than others, but they’re all generally more dense in carbohydrate. Coconut milk is extremely fatty: a cup contains about 48g with only about 6g of protein and carb.

Vegetables
There’s a pretty good amount of variance in vegetable nutrient profiles, though most are naturally absent of fat. A cup of green beans is fat-free, has about 2g of protein, and about 8g of carb. A cup of broccoli registers as also fat-free, with 3g of protein and 6g of carb. A whole cucumber is also fat free and has 11g of carb and 2g of protein. A potato clocks in at a whopping 34g of carbohydrate, with 3g of protein, and no fat either.

Grains
There’s a decent range of difference with grains as well. A slice of whole wheat bread: 12g carb, 4g protein, 0g fat. A cup of plain, cooked pasta has 35g of carb with 7g of protein, and a single gram of fat. A wheat dinner roll is around 13g carbohydrate and 2g of protein and fat.

What all this number mumbo-jumbo really comes down to meaning is this: nearly all non-animal protein sources more concentrated in either fat, carb, or both. Because of their density in these other nutrients, and many of them are very fibrous and watery, they fill you up before significant protein is taken in.

Even under the assumption of a balance between all of those categories, it’s a hard goal to fill. A cup of pasta, a cup of broccoli, a handful of nuts or seeds, and a cup of beans with a glass of imitation milk would put the protein total at somewhere around 30-35g on average, and that’s a lot of food!

Jill would need a little less than 2 of these meals to hit her minimum, while Jack needs about 3. If beans seem to always give both of them gas (putting a strain on their relationship), it’s likely they’ll cut those out or cut back on them. If nuts and seeds give them the bubble guts and block normal digestive flow, they’ll get reduced too.

Worst of all, this is under the assumption that the protein taken in is all perfectly used, which sadly isn’t the case.

Quality

Vitamin content, mineral content, inflammatory factors, essential fatty acids, and some other components of food are of concern to health, but are beyond the scope of this response. For now we’ll stick to three components: digestive efficiency of different proteins, fiber, and protein quality.

Human digestive efficiency
No process in the body is seamless or perfect, and digestion is no exception. Animal products are absorbed the most efficiently at about 95%. An oddity is that peanut butter actually falls in that range, too. Vegetarians note.

But, save peanut butter, non-animal food isn’t digested as well. Only anywhere from 76% to 86% of those proteins are digested, the rest pass through digestion and down the toilet.
Our well-rounded 30-35g now drops to somewhere in the vicinity of 23-30g.

Protein quality
Protein quality, simply, is how well or not the human body will use protein after it’s digested. We wanted to address this because there’s a lot of back and forth on the protein quality of both animal and non-animal foods.

As silly as it is, despite all the arguments, protein quality is actually pretty irrelevant. If there’s general malnourishment, negative calorie balance with not enough food, and single-source poor proteins, it can start to become an issue.

But, since Jack and Jill live in a modern society with grocery stores, restaurants, and generally plenty of food (and I’m assuming most readers are too), this isn’t a huge concern.

Fiber
Among plenty of other health benefits, fiber is well known for keeping you regular. Of interest to us are three major qualities of fiber:
-Increased fullness
-Slowed gastric emptying/Fuller longer
-Impaired nutrient absorption.

The first two were mentioned earlier but to reiterate: because of them and the water content in the foods, it’s hard to eat a lot of them. People dieting can use this to their advantage as it’ll help control cravings for naughty foods by keeping them full from generally better foods. This works in the opposite direction for this situation, though. Fiber really fights against those trying to fit in adequate dietary protein to a non-animal diet.

As if that weren’t troublesome enough, fiber also blocks some absorption of nutrients. Our concern, protein, is blocked another 5 or so percent with the higher fiber nature of this eating pattern. By the time it’s all said and done, that food which was very filling and hard to stuff down only really brought in a functional 22-28g of protein.
Bringing Jill to need 2 of these meals or a little more to meet her 55g requirement, and Jack to need closer to 3 and a half or 4 of these meals.

If someone were heavier (raising his or her need), more active (raising his or her need), dieting (raising his or her need), or trying to put on weight (which typically implies mainly lean weight, so again raising his or her need), this gets a hell of a lot more problematic.

To Summarize

Lower protein density in non-animal foods to begin with makes it harder to eat enough protein initially. Digestive efficiency of these proteins limits how much of those are even absorbed. Fiber, a stronger point of this diet, not only is part of what makes these foods so hard to eat in high amounts, but even contributes a little bit to blocking protein absorption further.

More or less, while it’s technically possible to get adequate protein on a non-animal diet, don’t expect it to be easy street.

Did you have a question that you would like the EMI team to answer?  If so, send all questions to questions@eatmoveimprove.com.  We look forward to hearing from you!

85-90% of people are deficient to severely deficient in Vitamin D. This is because we get very little from our diets except for fish and in fortified dairy now. This is exacerbated by having jobs that are indoor. When we do go outside we use sunscreen which blocks UVB radiation that allows Vitamin D production to occur in our skin.

Other countries such as Russia take measures to obtain proper levels of Vitamin D. Unfortunately, this is an uphill battle in countries like the U.S. and Britain. (edit 2/2/10 — Finally getting some recognition.

This is particularly alarming because of the health benefits of Vitamin D on our bodies. Those with darker skin are often more deficient than others because it takes more sunlight to produce the same amount of Vitamin D as other ethnicities.

I would encourage everyone to start supplementing Vitamin D if they do not work an outdoor job, eat fish everyday, or drink at least a half gallon of milk a day or other dairy. There is 100 IU per cup at 16 cups in a gallon is 1600 IU total. Current government recommendation is 400 IU per day for adults and less for kids. This is too little to reach sufficient levels, especially for those allergic to dairy.

The benefits are too great to ignore.

Note: For those wondering, I did put a link to the one I buy in the conclusion. It’s the cheapest, high potency one I’ve found with good reviews.

1. Bone health

Of course, there is the obvious relation of Vitamin D and bone health and prevention of rickets (softening of the bones). Most compentent doctors will tell you to supplement with Vitamin D because it increases the rate of osteoblast activity leading to faster healing from bone breaks. In addition, like the study above indicates there is evidence in post-menopausal women (because lack of estrogen is correlated with osteoporosis) that it decreases the risk of fractures as well.

Vitamin D supplementation may also help prevent chronic degeneration such as in osteoarthritis as well as rheumatoid arthritis.

A bit more on fractures anecdotally from an MD plus some additional commentary on blood levels that may or may not be optimal in the comments.

2. Immunomodulation

Vitamin D is also implicated in many upper respiratory tract infections. For example, Vitamin D deficiency is implicated with Influenza (1) (2) and tuberculosis and other viral respiratory tract infections. Also, the recent swine influenza epidemic can also be countered with supplementation of Vitamin D. The largest study on Vitamin D to date showed that Vitamin D deficiency is related to an increased amount of the common cold and other upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs and RTIs).

In addition, asthma especially childhood asthma is related to Vitamin D deficiency as is cystic fibrosis, obstructive lung disease, and pneumonia (2) (3) (4) (5).

The modulation of the immune system by Vitamin D produces anti-microbial peptides such as cathelicidin and defensins. Cathelicidin and other AMPs strongly protect against bacterial, viral, and fungal infections (1, 2, 3, 4). Vitamin D also increases and stimulates activity in monocytes, neutrophils, natural kill cells and other T lymphocytes. This helps fight off infections. This one article explains it a bit more in depth if you are interested.

Finally, a wiki has been produced on Vitamin D and influenza. It goes into a bit more depth than this article, so feel free to browse it if you want more proof.

My own experience with Vitamin D and influenza was that my fever was obliterated in one day, and I returned to full health within 3 days. Normally, going through a full course of the flu takes at least 5-7 days to heal from.

3. Cancer

Vitamin D is also associated with decreased risk of at least 15 different types of cancers such as colorectal, breast, ovarian, pancreatic, etc. (1), (2), (3). The significant part of this is that supplemention or sun exposure for as little as 1,000-2,000 IU decreased risks of having a lot of the above cancers by as much as 40-77% or more.

The above immunomodulation contributes to this decreased cancer risk. Natural killer cells, for example, help prevent and destroy cancer cells.

We are told to avoid sunlight because of the damage to our skin and potential for developing skin cancer. This is partially true. There is an increase in two skin cancers from sunlight: basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). However, risk of melanoma decreases with increased exposure to sunlight. The key point here is that BCC and SCC are “benign” cancers in that they rarely metastasize. Melanoma easily metastasizes (aka becomes malignant and spreads) and subsequently makes up approximately 90-95% of all skin cancer deaths. Melanoma risk is increased substantially by sunburns, especially in younger populations.

Thus, it is important to increase sun exposure without sunscreen if at all possible while avoiding sunburns, or to supplement with Vitamin D or obtain the necessary amounts in your diet.

4. Cardiovascular disease

Vitamin D is found to decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease. For instance, another study indicates that there is an increased risk of hypertension, increased VLDL triglycerides, impaired insulin metabolism, and lipoprotein lipase activity with Vitamin D deficiency. Indeed, Vitamin D deficiency is associated with atherosclerosis (accumulating plagues), coronary artery disease, high cholesterol levels, and increased risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack) during the winter.

The theory on Vitamin D deficiency and increased risk of cardiovascular disease is because of cholesterol. Remember in the beginning when we examined that Vitamin D is produced through reactions involving cholesterol? Well, if you are Vitamin D deficient, your body is going to try to up your levels of cholesterol to try to synthesize more Vitamin D from the little amount of time we spend in the sun as modern humans.

Thus, cholesterol increases, LDL and vLDLs (bad lipoproteins) increase to carry the cholesterol to where it needs to go. HDLs decrease as cholesterol does not need to be removed from the skin and other tissues as the body needs it there to synthesize Vitamin D at an sun exposure. Inflammation abounds and leads to atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, and other cardiovascular maladies.

Cholesterol reduction during summer months.

It’s really quite an interesting chain of events, but extremely good that decreasing risk is so easy. However, extremely sad that most doctors and people are unaware.

5. Inflammation

Vitamin D is linked with inhibiting proinflammatory cytokines and preventing low extracellular calcium levels which modulate endothelial inflammation. As you may well know, our diets in the modern age are pro-inflammatory because of the large amount of carbohydrates we eat. We also get very little omega 3s with disproportional increases in omega 6s (omega 3s are anti-inflammatory, omega 6 are pro-inflammatory). For example, meat and chicken such as grass fed vs. grain fed show improved omega 3 vs. omega 6 ratios for the former rather than the latter. A pro-inflammatory diet is associated with poor healing, and a lot of the illnesses above.

6. Intestinal / gut health

Likewise, with the point above about inflammation which is a major player in any of the inflammatory bowel diseases such as Celiac’s, irritable bowel syndrome, etc. (2) Part of the problem is that the inflammation in the gut prevents proper absorption of nutrients, one of which is Vitamin D. If Vitamin D levels are low as we already noted it cannot help much with down regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Thus, malabsorption of Vitamin D and the ensuing increased inflammation leads to a progressively worse condition.

Note 1: Both inflammation and instestional gut health are actually sub-sets of immunomodulation (as is cardiovascular health and cancer risk to some extent). All of these are interconnected.

7. Autism?

One meta-study review indicates that Vitamin D deficiency may be indicated in cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, autism, and a host of other illnesses.

There has been some debate about Vitamin D deficiency and autism. There may be a link as low Vitamin D levels in either the mother during pregnancy and/or the child during development. Further studies are obviously required.

The Vitamin D council has put together a nice comprehensive article on the topic. Here is another study and an article in Scientific American about Vitamin D and its potential link to autism.

8. Depression / Seasonal Depression / Schizophrenia

There is some indication that Vitamin D deficiency is also associated with depression and seasonal depression. (1), (2), (3), (4), (5). If you are prone to moody swings especially with the seasons, it may be a good idea to supplement with Vitamin D.

Vitamin D deficiency may also be linked up with schizophrenia (2) (3) because of abnormal brain development. This goes along with depression and autism as both of these are also potential neurological disorders.

9. Other autoimmune and chronic conditions

Vitamin D deficiency has been implicated in “multiple sclerosis, lupus, and psoriasis, and chronic conditions such as osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, metabolic syndrome, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.“ Additionally, besides the aforementioned fibromyalgia and CFS, there is some indication of improving outcomes of general musculoskeletal pain and myositis (3) (4).

10. Obesity

Of note is this post from Whole Health Source. Great blog, highly recommended.

Vitamin D in particular plays an important role in immune responses (including inflammation), and also appears to influence body fat mass. Vitamin D status is associated with body fat and insulin sensitivity in humans (14, 15, 16). More convincingly, genetic differences in the vitamin D receptor gene are also associated with body fat mass (17, 18), and vitamin D intake predicts future fat gain (19).

11. Improvement of sleep quality

Unfortunately, there is nothing in pubmed at the moment about this that I’ve seen so far, but I feel it must be mentioned. A bunch of people have e-mailed me since the posting of this article and have mentioned that Vitamin D improves sleep quality. I have found this to the case as well. My sleep drastically improved (first time I was able to sleep through the night well in months) after starting to take Vitamin D.

If you sleep is crappy why not try it? Even though it’s just anecdotal evidence so far.

Summary

The reason why Vitamin D results in such a widespread effects in the body are for two reasons.

1. As previously mentioned, Vitamin D is derived from cholesterol and is “hormonal-like” in its effects on the body. Hormones are some of the strongest chemicals in the body and significantly alter cell growth, differentiation, metabolism and immune function.

2. Vitamin D receptors are ubiquitous within the body and appear on almost every type of tissue. This will be discussed later in section 4.

The fact that steroids are illegal regulated drugs within the USA and many other countries should tell you that they have powerful effects on the body. Vitamin D is similar in structure and exhibits similar effects. Thus, deficiency in Vitamin D causes widespread problems in the body.

Vitamin D deficiency is so widespread in the world’s population (especially American) and correlates well with the rapidly declining health of the populations. Though it is clearly not the only reason because of things like processed foods and overconsumption, it is one big reason to look towards this readily available simple and cheap solution to improving health and certain risk factors.

Of course, this does by no way mean that Vitamin D is a panacea that cures all ills. Rather, it should be used as one part of the plan to improve many areas of health simultaneously in accordance with healthy nutrition and exercise.

Note 2: There are many more studies than just the ones I listed here. I just chose a few to get you rolling with Pubmed. If you are interested in any of these topics, then search “vitamin D” with any of the bolded terms above and you will find a lot of studies on those topics.

Note 3: The prevalence of increased risk of cardiovascular disease and other such illnesses among those with darker skin color may by explained by Vitamin D deficiency because they are getting less from the sun than the rest of the fairer skinned ethnicities. Higher blood pressure, higher cholesterol, etc. result.

Note 4: Still skeptical? This great article, this article, and this study discuss the health benefits above. This other take on similar information (with some different references) may interest you.

There is a large amount of evidence from studies implicating optimal Vitamin D levels and athletic performance. Fortunately, most of these studies which are from the old Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries (who knew something about increasing performance during the ’50s to the ’70s) are compiled into this PDF file.

There has also been some recent lay-person articles on the subject such as this one from T-nation.

Suffice to say according to the research it seems that approximately 50 ng/mL is optimal for athletic performance. Vitamin D does scale somewhat to weight so the heavier you are you may need to take a bit more or less depending.

The performance benefits are increased muscle mass, increased strength and explosiveness, and ability to recover. These results range from very significant to noticable. A lot of it depends on how deficient you were in the first place getting up to 50 ng/mL, and how Vitamin D responds through receptors in your muscles.

Sunlight provision

If you choose not to supplement, you must at least know how much Vitamin D production you are receiving from the sun and from other sources.

The maximum amount of Vitamin D produced from the sun is approximately 10,000 IU per day. This study also shows that it can be achieved by full body exposure for 20 minutes of UVB radiation (no sunscreen) in fair skinned individuals. If exposure is less than full body, it may take longer to achieve maximum levels. Similarly, another study indicates that darker skinned individuals may require 3-6x more time in the sunlight to achieve the same amount of Vitamin D production as fair skinned individuals.

Prolonged exposure to sunlight does not cause Vitamin D toxicity. Maximum production levels are approximately 10,000 IU per day because the precusors to Vitamin D3 reach an equilibrium. Further production is degraded within the skin. This correlates well with the proposed higher safety limit discussed in toxicity concerns.

Supplementation

If you are severely deficient from never going out in the sun and never drinking or eating dairy, it seems that supplementing 10,000 IU for about 4-5 weeks will bring up levels to around 50 ng/mL.

From there, maintenance of Vitamin D levels are about 100 IU for every 1 ng/mL. Thus, to maintain these levels, approximate supplementation of 5,000 IU/day is necessary.

I was severely deficient (rarely go outside, no dairy, rare fish) so I am doing the 10,000 IU/day for 4-8 weeks transitioning into 5,000 IU/day. I am currently starting week 5 at 10,000 IU/day at the time of the publishing of this article. I have had no ill effects so far.

Supplementation of Vitamin D should occur with magnesium and calcium as well as they work synergistically in the body. As long as you are eating a health amount of fruits, vegetables, and meat you should be fine; however, if you are worried you should take a calcium and magnesium supplement as well.

You want to be taking at least 100% of daily value of calcium and magnesium along with your vitamin D. This would be approximately 1000mg of calcium and 400mg of magnesium.

If you have not clicked on any of the articles before, please read this one on why 10,000 IU is recommending to bring up levels in healthy adults. This will also be further discussed in the next section.

Toxicity concerns

Toxicity concerns have been raised with such high supplementation given the federal government’s current recommendation 400 IU for adults and less for children. Although there is talk about changing the proposed upper limit to 10,000 IU in healthy adults in a study that is supposed to be released in the spring. Another risk assessment confirms the 10,000 IU upper level safe limit in healthy adults.

If you are still worried, a safe bet with the above recommendations is 5,000 IU and close watch for toxicity symptoms. If your levels get too high, you may get feelings of intense thirst, having to urinate frequently, weakness, nervousness, potentially nausea and vomiting. If you encounter any of these symptoms you should back off supplementation as well as calcium rich foods.

There is a small percentage of people that are sensitive to doses so they may have to supplement with much lower amounts than the amount recommend above.

Knowing your levels

The only way to know your true levels are through blood tests. If you have biannual or annual visits to the doctor for blood work then you can request a 25-hydroxy Vitamin D test. The link above contains some guidelines to follow if you are to request one.

This article discusses the accuracy of some lab tests as well as other toxicity concerns of megadosing. It’s worth a read.

Alternatively, there are self tests you can use although I cannot vouch for the accuracy or veracity of such tests.

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/deficiency/am-i-vitamin-d-deficient.shtml
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/d-action
http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/ItemLC081950/Vitamin-D-25-Hydroxy-Blood-Test.html

The scale for Vitamin D deficiency fairly variable, but later research suggests:

• 0-14.9 ng/mL = Severely deficient
• 15.0-31.9 ng/mL = Mildly deficient
• 32.0-100.0 ng/mL = Optimal
• >100.0 ng/mL = Toxicity possible

As stated, optimal levels for athletic performance should be at approximately 50 ng/mL. However, for normal health people who do not exercise it is generally best to aim for the 50-80 ng/mL range.

However, there is this one study that always bothered me.

Milk ingestion stimulates net muscle protein synthesis following resistance exercise.

PURPOSE: Previous studies have examined the response of muscle protein to resistance exercise and nutrient ingestion. Net muscle protein synthesis results from the combination of resistance exercise and amino acid intake. No study has examined the response of muscle protein to ingestion of protein in the context of a food. This study was designed to determine the response of net muscle protein balance following resistance exercise to ingestion of nutrients as components of milk. METHOD: Three groups of volunteers ingested one of three milk drinks each: 237 g of fat-free milk (FM), 237 g of whole milk (WM), and 393 g of fat-free milk isocaloric with the WM (IM). Milk was ingested 1 h following a leg resistance exercise routine. Net muscle protein balance was determined by measuring amino acid balance across the leg. RESULTS: Arterial concentrations of representative amino acids increased in response to milk ingestion. Threonine balance and phenylalanine balance were both > 0 following milk ingestion. Net amino acid uptake for threonine was 2.8-fold greater (P < 0.05) for WM than for FM. Mean uptake of phenylalanine was 80 and 85% greater for WM and IM, respectively, than for FM, but not statistically different. Threonine uptake relative to ingested was significantly (P < 0.05) higher for WM (21 +/- 6%) than FM (11 +/- 5%), but not IM (12 +/- 3%). Mean phenylalanine uptake/ingested also was greatest for WM, but not significantly. CONCLUSIONS: Ingestion of milk following resistance exercise results in phenylalanine and threonine uptake, representative of net muscle protein synthesis. These results suggest that whole milk may have increased utilization of available amino acids for protein synthesis.

Why exactly is whole milk superior increasing amino acid uptake and rates of protein synthesis in this study even in isocaloric milk (significant in 1 category, more in 2, and slightly below in 1) plus totally dominating the FM?

This question bugged me for a while because the “butter fat” in milk doesn’t have any special qualities on its own. It sat at the back of my mind recently until I started researching more on Vitamin D.

As it turns out, Vitamin D is a fat soluble hormone that is best absorbed in the intestines with other fat. Fat is absorbed as micelles in the intestines to the lymphatic ducts. From there it is transported up the thoracic duct into the left subclavian vein.

Could it be that Vitamin D was acting on muscles post workout to boost protein synthesis OVER that of post workout carbohydrate and protein alone?

It turns out that muscles, along with most other tissues in the body have vitamin D receptors (VDRs). Most of which are located on the nuclear envelope and will modulate transcription of DNA.

It has been shown that VDR binding activates tyrosine kinase cascades in muscle cells. For you lay-people the activation of tyrosine kinase cascades are usually seen in cell growth and differentiation. Similarly, other studies (2), (3), (4), (5) have confirmed this finding and also shown involvement of VDR activity with calcium modulation and MAPK cascades in muscles (which are also responsible for cellular growth and differentiation). Ca2+ modulation by genomic and non-genomic mechanisms may account for potential increases in strength as Ca2+ binding is part of the process of myosin head binding to actin myofibrils before contraction.

In addition, research also demonstrates that Vitamin D regulation in involved with increasing the amount of insulin-like growth factor binding proteins (receptors) while IGF-1 can also elevate Vitamin D3 levels. Follow up studies (1) (2) have confirmed this and narrowed down the association of VDRs to the regions with IGF binding proteins 1, 3 and 5.

These processes and their anabolic effects on muscles are thoroughly discussed in Vitamin D, Volume 1 by Feldman, Glorieux, and Pike from pages 885-898 (google preview does not allow all the pages to be seen).

Again, for the lay-person you should know about growth hormone and its anabolic effects on the body, correct? The production of the IGF family (peptide hormones) is stimulated by growth hormone. They are responsible themselves for most of growth hormone’s anabolic effects on the body.

Increases in IGF binding proteins is similar in nature to insulin sensitivity. We often talk about insulin sensitivity and how insulin resistance causes type II diabetes. For example, increases in insulin sensitivity occur through exercise and regulation of carbohydrate intake. This means the amount of receptors are increasing, which means the body needs less insulin to deal with blood sugar levels. The opposite occurs in insulin resistance – receptors are down regulated and your tissues have less and less receptors until you get diabetes because your pancreas cannot produce anymore insulin.

In this case, increased amounts of IGF receptors leads to more sensitivity to IGF’s effects on the body. Thus, you will have more potent anabolic growth per amount of hormones produced in your body. We can all see why this may be potentially big for muscle gains. It is like taking steroids without taking steroids. In addition, there is the tyrosine kinase and MAPK cascades promoting muscular growth.

Unfortunately, there has been no studies done specifically on Vitamin D supplementation with and contrasted against carbohydrates and protein post workout. Although the whole milk vs. isocaloric skim milk does show indirectly that there is some benefit of probably Vitamin D absorption acting on increasing protein synthesis and growth within the muscle cells.

So what does this mean?

Honestly, I do not know what it means until there is an official study on it.

The milk in the study was only 237g which is approximately 1 cup. This is 25% of the recommended daily dose based on government nutrition standards. The current nutritional standard is 400 IU per day for 100%. Thus, the study participants were getting 100 IU. If they were deficient or severely deficient this may have made a big impact on their protein synthesis rates.

Now, compare this to supplementation with potentially 5,000 IU of Vitamin D post workout with carbohydrates, protein, and fat. There may be a HUGE effect on muscle protein synthesis.

My personal story: I started supplementing with Vitamin D at 10,000 IU for about a month. It just so happens that I usually workout then eat my dinner and take my supplements along with dinner. In this month I have been eating a bit less, but yet I have gained approximately 3-4 lbs of lean body mass and dropped a bit of fat. Now, the muscle gain could have occurred just from increased performance with my workouts, but I am almost positive that some of it has to do with increased protein synthesis post workout from the Vitamin D supplementation. Thus, I am continuing on with 10,000 IU post workout transitioning into 5,000 for maintenance.

If you are interested in maximizing your muscle gains, it may be a good idea to see if this can potentially work for you just like BCAAs/leucine have shown to have potent anabolic effects.

If you do try this, feel free to comment (1) whether it works or not. Also, post (2) whether you were deficient before or not, (3) when you started taking it PWO, (4) how many days/weeks it has been, and (5) your results compared to your normal PWO. I’d love to know if this works for you and get some data.

Note 5: This may also explain the “steroid-like” effects of the recommended gallon of milk a day (GOMAD) associated with such programs as Starting Strength and powerlifting. Vitamin D deficiency being corrected besides the calories and potential bovine growth hormones (although most of the peptide hormones should be hydrolyzed by enzymes in the stomach/intestines which is why I don’t think bovine GH plays a big role).

1. There are significant health benefits to supplementing Vitamin D on borderline “panacea” levels if you are deficient which 85-90% of people are.
2. Getting a Vitamin D level of 50 ng/mL can increase your athletic performance.
3. Supplementing Vitamin D with fat post workout coupled with carbohydrates and protein may lead to increased muscle gains over just post workout carbohydrates and protein.

Vitamin D is fat soluble. Fat soluble hormones when taken “regularly” average out over 3-4 weeks. So if you wish to have say 5,000 IU/day and you only have 10,000 IU pills then one every other day is fine. Similarly, you could take 35,000 IU once every week. I have currently been taking 10,000 IU per day since this article was published until now (Oct 11 2009 – Oct 15th 2010) and feel great.

At 5,000 IU a day, Vitamin D supplementation is little more than $1 a month. And for the benefits above there is probably nothing that will benefit you more per cost ratio.

Vitamin D cost is fairly cheap. 360 pills at 10,000 IU for ~$24 is what I’ve bought and recommend. (“LOW052″ coupon at checkout will get you $5 off plus save me some money on my purchases). With the discount it comes out to 1895 IU/cent.

If those are out of stock, you can go with 360 pills @ 5k IU or 120 pills @ 10k IU as they represent the other best bang for buck with the $5 off LOW052 coupon code.

Alternatively, someone notified me about this Vitamin D supplement. It’s a liquid if you don’t like soft gels albeit a bit more expensive than the above (1800 IU/cent)

Also, like I said earlier Vitamin D works synergistically with calcium and magnesium in the body. To get the full effect you need to have adequate amounts of each. If you’re eating adequate amounts of natural foods like fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. you should be fine and don’t need to supplement calcium or magnesium. Otherwise, supplement them. This cal-mag-zinc is the one I am using (MUCH cheaper than ZMA too). The alternative is to purchase them separately or go the ZMA route + Calcium on the side. Go whatever route you want.

I. Diet modulates weight.
II. Exercise modulates body composition.

1. Nutrition quality will improve how fast you lose or gain weight.
2. Exercise intensity will improve how fast your body composition changes.

Nutrition and exercise also have a big impact on health. Sleep also strong impacts the results and health very strongly as well so quality of sleep is important.

Everything can be derived from these sets of statements. Let’s look at a couple of common examples.

1. You are obese and want to slim down.

Losing weight depends on nutrition. This is also why six packs are said to be “made in the kitchen.”

A. If you are eating too many calories and/or junk calories, your body is not going to want to drop any weight at all.

B. Similarly, if you are eating much too few calories, your body does not want to drop weight as well because it’s going to enter starvation “energy saving” mode. This is a critical mistake that many people who want to lose weight make.

It is best to stick with an energy deficit of somewhere between about 300-500 calories below basal metabolic rate (may increase if activity increases).

In this case, exercise here is going to help modulate body composition while the pounds come off. For example, if you end up not exercising, your body will indiscriminately drop muscle mass as well as fat mass. However, exercising will help keep muscle mass and maybe even gain some while letting the body drop off fat mass which will improve body composition.

Exercise here is the most important for any significant body composition change. Depending on the different types of exercise, your body may see fit to increase muscle mass and/or burn off excess fat mass (in conjunction with proper nutrition).

Diet is still very important because quality foods will produce faster body composition changes. This depends a lot on genetics (hence why elite athletes can generally eat crap and get away with it), but even with good body composition changes with junky food may be at the expense of overall long term health.

3. The underweight person looking to “bulk up” with muscle.

Diet is the most important. This is a weight issue, and the person is looking to gain weight. Thus, they need to eat more.

This time around adding body mass will be variable according to the exercise (or lack thereof) because it affects body composition.

A. Lifting weights with a hypercaloric diet will tend to put on more muscle mass than fat.
B. Eating more without exercising tends to put on all fat as seen by the obesity rates in America.

Onto the details…..

I. Regarding the quality of diet

Quality of diet is highly dependent on the genetics of the individual. Some people may be allergic to foods such as gluten or dairy, and consuming such food would be detrimental to overall health.

The one thing we can say is that improvements in the quality of diet directly leads to results in weight (maintenance, gain or loss) as well as quality of health. Since we literally are what we eat, if we take in junk food all the time our health is probably going to decline, and the body will probably gain weight as junk food has a high caloric value.

Healthy bodies operate better mentally, physically, and emotionally so it is VERY important to get high quality nutrients.

There is a simple rule you can follow. Here’s the link from the previous posts’ nutrition section.

Here’s a more detailed post by one of my friends if you’re curious beyond the above link.

I strongly advise eating Paleo. Check out Robb Wolf for more details.

II. Regarding the quality of exercise

High intensity or high power output exercise — heavy lifting, intervals, metabolic conditioning, etc. — produce the fastest body composition changes. In response to stress, your body produces a neuroendocrine response in which it releases a lot of anabolic hormones to help repair your tissues to adapt to the stressors. The stronger the stressors, the more hormones are released. Hormones will modulate your body composition through nutrient partitioning.

Edit: some recent research has shown that more localized factors are more important for hypertrophy.

Damage to your muscles and their growth/adaptation require energy to repair which will be provided by through diet. If the energy need exceeds than of which the diet provides (hypocaloric diet for the obese & isocaloric diet for those who want to maintain weight), then the body tends to metabolize adipose tissue to supply the energy.

In essence, our bodies adapt to stress. The higher the stress the bigger the adaptation. This is why higher intensity protocols such as weightlifting and HIIT get stronger adaptations to them than lower intensity such as cardio or very light weights.

The regulation of body composition operates according to the law of diminishing returns (aka logarithmic scale). This means that the improvements will be much greater the higher the body fat percentage & with less muscle mass, but much lower as the body fat percentage drops & with more muscle mass.

One fitness myth is that you cannot add muscle and lose fat at the same time; this is wrong and occurs frequently in obese individuals who are losing weight while doing high intensity exercise. However, as the BF% drops into the teens and single digits, it does not occur as much if at all.

III. Regarding the reliance of diet and exercise to each other

In general, we would tend to say that overall improvement of weight and body composition is 80-85% diet and 15-20% exercise. This is because we are eating almost 21 times per week (maybe more) and only working out about 3-5 times a week.

These are the times that you will be affecting your weight and body composition, so they need to be used wisely. We often taking eating and exercising for granted, but if you want to make any significant weight or body composition changes these times must be taken seriously. Both quality and quantity matter.

Firstly, this article outlines a very simple, basic methodology that will allow you to take the first steps towards eating better for health. It is my opinion that this methodology is applicable for a vast majority of individuals. This article is not a list of healthy foods. Do note that there there is a sample menu listed below. This does not mean that this sample menu is anywhere near a comprehensive list of foods that are healthy.

This article will not address the dozens of ideologies and schemes that exist in mainstream dieting (high carb, low carb, etc.), nor will it address things like why breads/grains are poor dietary choices. Rather, it will address a structured, simple methodology to increase the “quality” of your food. This is what most credible nutritional sources will say is the first step to proper nutrition. If you need a simple rule of thumb and some interesting information on how to identify healthy foods then you should check out this article from the Life Spotlight.

Secondly, I want to point out that diet itself will not put on any muscle mass – for most people, anyway. While a small amount of weight loss is possible with purely dietary changes, proper diet must be coupled with an appropriate training regimen for your body composition goals in order to achieve optimal results. If weight loss is the goal then, oftentimes, there are significant lifestyle changes that come into play. I support changing diet first since it is easier for most people to change the way they eat than to add a new workout routine to a busy schedule. Once your weight levels off from dietary changes alone, then it is usually a good time to look into an appropriate exercise program. Ideally, however, diet and exercise should be part of one’s everyday lifestyle.

Finally, in the past I had some different foods listed as special food items. I have cut some items out of this list because I prefer that novices who are just starting out avoid high-carb meals. As a result quinoa has been removed from my list of “other good foods” and oatmeal has the caveat of eating one serving per day. These foods are very calorically dense and are not good choices when learning how to eat properly. These types of foods are great but their place is not in the program for someone just getting started, in my opinion. Do note that if you find that you operate better with more carbs then it is still easy to implement high-carb meals while adhering to the guidelines below.

I am attempting to keep this short so that most people will be able to fix their diet without going into too much detail.

I. High-Quality Food Categories

Without going into much detail we can boil high-quality nutrition down to 7 basic categories:
1) Vegetables – Source of carbohydrate.
2) Fruits – Source of carbohydrate.
3) Beans – Source of carbohydrate.
4) Meats – Source of protein.
5) Fish – Source of protein.
6) Nuts – Source of fat.
7) Seeds – Source of fat.
Oils – Source of fat. If trying to gain weight, pour it on everything including ice cream. Well…maybe not ice cream, but you get the point. If you need to gain weight, the fats listed on the table at the bottom of this site can be very useful. If you are trying to lose weight you should probably limit the amount of oil you consume due to the high caloric density

Additionally, there are some high-quality foods that are rather ambiguous and need to be addressed individually:
A) Olives – Source of fat.
B) Avocados – Source of fat.
C) Coconuts – Source of fat.
D) Eggs – Excellent source of protein. Interchangeable with meat sources. (1 whole egg = 1 oz. meat or 2 egg whites = 1 oz. meat)
E) Dairy

• Milk – Whole milk is good if you are trying to gain weight. Skim milk is good if you are trying to lose.
• Cheese – Only recommended to those who want to gain weight. Avoid if trying to lose.
• Cottage Cheese – 3% milkfat is fine if trying to gain weight. Low-/nonfat if trying to lose. Low-calorie fruits spruce up flavor.

F) Oatmeal – Source of carbohydrate. Eat this at most once daily as part of a balanced meal – which means you need to include protein and fat.

II. Menu Creation

With these categories, you can make a comprehensive menu of foods. On your own, personal menu, you should list any and all foods in these categories that you enjoy. Additionally, list any foods that you can just tolerate. As you get used to eating better, the foods you can barely stand now will start to taste better, as well. Remember, it takes 21 days on any regimen, whether its exercise, diet, or even a new job, before the whole ordeal becomes routine in your brain. Keep this in mind as you transition into your new diet – you will need at least three weeks to acclimate psychologically and physiologically.

Menus can vary dramatically from person to person and still be very “healthy.” Your menu should be your own and based on your personal tastes and preferences.

For clarity, an example of a good starting menu is shown below:

When you make your own menu, I suggest that you carry it around with you everywhere you go. The goal is to constantly expand the menu as you learn new food items that you enjoy that fit into these categories.

III. Five Simple Rules

These categories come with a basic set of five simple rules for each meal:
1) Many Veggies – At least 2 cups (total) of veggies with every meal. These can be spruced up by cooking with onions, garlic, spices and oils.
2) Always Meat – At least 4-6 oz. of lean meat or fish. Roughly speaking, 4-6 oz. is a palm-sized portion or larger. Lean meat is poultry (chicken, turkey, hen), lean cuts of beef and pork tenderloin. Most other cuts of pork are not lean. Avoid beef altogether when you are first starting since it is hard to identify the lean cuts when you are new. Some people eat over a pound of meat/fish each sitting, depending on their goals. A minimum of 4-6 oz. is a good place to start.
3) Fruits Vary – Some fruits, like bananas, pears, peaches and apples, are loaded with sugars so you should limit the intake of such fruits to one per meal. Other fruits, like berries and melon, can be eaten with virtually no limit. Berries should be a staple in all diets due to their high concentration of antioxidants. More information on the amount of calories in these fruits can be found by searching www.nutritiondata.com.
4) Replacing Veggies – If you aren’t in the mood for veggies, you can replace 1 cup beans for every 2 cups veggies. You can also eat beans with your vegetables, if you like. Try not to put veggies off, but its okay to do so sometimes. Veggies can also be replaced by fruit. High quantities of the low-calorie fruits such as berries, melons, etc., can replace vegetables. Alternatively, low quantities (1-2 servings) of the high-calorie fruits, such as bananas, dates, peaches, pears, etc., can replace vegetables, as well.
5) Eat Fat – Eat nuts, seeds, olives, avocado, coconut or olive oil with every meal. For weight loss, a male would want around 6-10 nuts, half an ounce of seeds, 4-6 olives, 1/4 of an avocado, 25 g. coconut or 1 tsp. of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). Do keep in mind that, oftentimes, women may consume much smaller quantities – sometimes as little as 50% of what is listed above – depending on their goals. In general, for weight gain, eat significantly more than these quantities – you will know when you had enough if you are trying to gain. As you lose fat and your goals change, realize that the amount of fat that you need will change, as well!

IV. Snacking

Snacking is acceptable when you are just focusing on improving the quality of your food. Snacking is encouraged by some methodologies and discouraged by others. Both have good reasons for these recommendations, and it usually depends on the context and goals. For those just starting, however, make sure your snacks only come from foods on your menu. If possible, make snacks contain a source of fat, carb and protein so that they are “balanced.”

V. Supplementation

One final note is that supplementation is something that should be done only when one knows what they are doing. Most times, supplements will be a waste of your time and money. The best way to get everything you need is through whole foods. However, I suggest three supplements below that I believe everyone should make part of their daily routine. Supplementing as specified below is relatively inexpensive when compared to the benefits MOST HUMAN BEINGS experience from this supplementation.

A) Supplement with 3-5 g of DHA+EPA fish oil. Every day. At a bare minimum, take in 2 g. Note that when I say 2 g. I mean the combined value of EPA and DHA. If your pills have 280 mg. EPA and 120 g. DHA then the total EPA+DHA is 400 mg. You would need to consume at least 5 of these pills daily.
B) Drink green tea. Every day. If you are concerned about caffeine, brew one cup with a green tea bag, discard the water, then use the same tea bag with fresh, boiling water. This eliminates most of the caffeine while maintaining most of the antioxidants for which we are drinking the tea.
C) 2 multivitamin pills daily, with food. Every day. Centrum brand is cheap and should be just fine. One should consider upgrading to a multivitamin with no iron so that dosages can be increased dramatically without worrying about iron poisoning.

1) Mistake: Not Enjoying the Process

Let’s be realistic – human beings typically don’t do things they don’t enjoy. Diet and training are no exception.

This is not to say that you need to love every minute at the gym. When I am going in for my last set of a heavy squat I sometimes can’t help but stare at the ground and mutter, “I really don’t want to do this.” The same goes for the sets of work for one-armed chin-ups. The negative feelings, however, are far outweighed by the positive. All in all, when I walk out of the gym I find that I thoroughly enjoyed myself – despite the fact that I may have had a bad day or didn’t perform as well as I wanted.

Similarly, when it comes to diet, very few of us are happy to watch everyone else eat the birthday cake or huge bowl of ice cream. Forcing yourself to sit on the sidelines of social eating is going to set you up for a poorly balanced diet. This is because many people fall back into the trap of consistently eating poorly after a “day off” from eating well.

This gives rise to two troubling questions: How can I enjoy what I hate? How can I consistently stay away from what I love?

To address the first question, we need to find goals that you would absolutely love to achieve. Maybe you really want to run that mile track around the park. Maybe you play in a weekend softball league and would like to get around the bases faster. Maybe you just saw a video of someone demonstrating parkour and that really lit your fire. Everyone’s life involves movements – find the movements you really enjoy performing and identify workouts and short-term goals to achieve them. Going to the gym for years to “look good” will have one of the following results:
(a) You stop working out after a short time.
(b) You get bored and become jaded.

To address the second question the answer is simple: don’t. Dieting and training doesn’t need to be boring. If you seriously don’t like tuna and brussell sprouts then you don’t need to eat them even though they are undeniably “healthy” foods. Instead, identify those foods that are really enjoyable to you AND considered healthy. Make a menu of these healthy foods and then you know exactly what you can eat and what you can avoid. Even then, once you have established a relatively “healthy” way of eating you may want to incorporate a scheduled “cheat day” into your routine. Avoiding the things you love for an unpredictable period of time is a proven cause of stress. Having a cheat day alleviates immediate stress; scheduling the cheat day alleviates long-term stress.

The key to healthy living and dieting is consistency. If you have one day a month or week where you eat a terrible meal that’s not a travesty. If you have terrible meals every day then its a problem. The best way to stay consistent in eating healthy is to schedule a cheat day (one day a week or something similar) and stick to it no matter what. This helps keep sanity and you get to really eat the things you love.

2) Mistake: Not Understanding Mistakes

Over my years of training in various disciplines, I obviously made many mistakes, learned a bunch, and grew from it. I see many people who, in their training, lack the open-minded nature to understand that what they are doing is not correct. Rather than admit that they may be wrong, they continue to do poor workouts without exploring their methodology. Understanding that you will err in some way is an important part of the growth process.

3) Mistake: Working Too Hard

When most people find their way into an athletic lifestyle, they get addicted to their sport and to being active. This is great but comes with a major caveat.

Many athletes, even some who consider themselves seasoned, often neglect the importance of rest and recovery into their regimens. Working out for 6 hours, 7 days a week, is a bit overkill. When I first fell into my athletic lifestyle I was going to the gym twice a day for 3 hours at a time, then would scratch my head as to why my performance was not improving.

A vast majority of the population can be considered a novice or intermediate trainee. At this level one can recover quite quickly from the stresses of a workout. Therefore, a short, 20-30 minute workout 6 days of every 8 will provide substantial performance gains. Depending on goals, these times and cycles will vary, but the bottom line is that less is usually more.

You must remember that you are an individual, and your own rest cycles will be determined based on your personal level (novice, intermediate, advanced, or elite) in your domain (all inclusive, power lifter, weight lifter, long-distance runner, short-distance runner, bodybuilder, etc.).

4) Mistake: Violating KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)

A common error I see among novices, self included, is a lack of simplicity in diet and exercise routines. Usually those who become obsessed with fitness start reading very much, from very different sources. The sources never seem to agree and always seem to have very strong points that contradict one another.

Results, however, are one thing that you can never, ever question. At a novice and intermediate level, keep your workouts simple. Do not worry about your fast and slow twitch fibers. Don’t worry about your energetic pathways. Don’t worry about your omega-3 to omega-6 ratios in your diet. Sure, these things are important, but you are better off worrying about them when you know much more about them. If you stick to eating real, whole foods in tandem with a regular workout program then you can certainly see major results before you have much knowledge about the details.

If you try to make things too complicated too soon, it is disheartening and you wind up swearing off training, diet, research or all three because it is much too complicated.

An important thing to remember is that, no matter who says any different, no one knows EXACTLY how the body works. An overwhelming number of biological and physiological findings have occurred within the past 20 years, and most of the groundbreaking discoveries have only been happening in the past 100 years. Hell, DNA was only discovered in the 1940s. The effects of IGF-I on muscle growth are still being explored, and were only been discovered about a decade ago.

The point is, don’t let yourself get bogged down by science that is still yet incomplete. Train for results.

5) Mistake: Blindly Following Sources/Informers

This is where the fitness industry fails horribly in delivering quality content to its members. Standing in line at the grocery store you can be looking at five different magazines – each of which is advertising 10 days to flat abs or 30 days to sexy legs. Sadly, an overwhelming number of people begin a program involving these ineffective cookie-cutter workouts. The results are never good – this is just a bad idea.

Another bad idea is to not question a more scientific or practical source – such as an article from the Journal of Applied Physiology or the ACE’s certified personal trainer study guide.

Having dealt with dozens of PhDs and trainers on a daily basis, all of whom are well respected in their field, I have come to learn much about the knowledge possessed by both individuals on opposite sides of the spectrum. Whether the source in question is a PhD or a trainer, they have respect from a group of people somewhere. Their certifications, degrees and titles leave people with the impression that they know what they are talking about. While many PhD holders and trainers have an in-depth knowledge of a specific aspect of their field, oftentimes the buck stops there. Some individuals in these positions realize the limitations of their expertise. Others, however, apply their specific knowledge to a broad domain – which results in myths and falsehoods spreading through the fitness industry like wildfire. A good example of this is how many studies attempt to extrapolate data found in a nutritional study based on a population of ten undergraduate students.

Recent studies are showing that individuals totally turn off the part of their brain associated with critical thinking and counterarguing when they are confronted with advice from someone they consider an “expert.” [1] The way to counter this natural tendency is to remain vigilant and question all sources.

With this in mind, anything written by a trainer or PhD should be taken with a grain of salt until they have been proven credible through your own research or their acceptance in the fitness community in which you belong. Even then, one should constantly be trying to reevaluate the validity of the expert statements. Would you convict someone of murder based on a single eyewitness testimony? Some more hard evidence is usually needed.

You should always question what people tell you, including those who are “credible.” What you will come to realize over time is that some people know very much about one domain but know little about another. For example, Fred Hatfield (a.k.a “Dr. Squat” and, anecdotally, a PhD holder) knows much about heavy squatting, but I would not go to him for advice or information specific to planche progressions. Some (poor) trainers think that because they know much about one domain, that they know much about all domains. This is just not true. You will never see an expert on airplanes trying to fix a locomotive. They are two different things, both accomplishing similar goals, and you should keep this in mind when reading articles or asking advice from trainers.

A true professional trainer will not only enjoy answering these questions, they will likely be happy that you asked. If your trainer gets upset by questions like this I would seriously question their experience and merit.

6) Mistake: Lack of Goals

Goals are pretty much the only reason any of us exercise. Training is a means of achieving your goals. You probably have goals even if you don’t think you do. However, you likely have not framed them in a quantifiable, useful manner.

For a long time I had no quantifiable goals, I just wanted to “look better” or “not be fat.” You run into this mistake with a lot of people, in my experience. Their only goal falls into the following categories: “be skinny,” “workout without getting too big,” “be healthy,” “looking good naked.” To fix this trend, it is important to make sure your goals are quantifiable. Setting quantifiable goals, a wide variety of them, will accelerate your training vastly whether you are male or female.

Quantifiable goals usually have a magnitude and specific direction. “Be able to perform 10 kipping pullups” is a good quantifiable goal. “Lose 10 pounds by May 1″ is another good example.

Firstly, setting quantifiable goals gives you direction. It gives you something to check off a list. Studies show that creating to-do lists, and then checking things off of them, actually releases neurotransmitters that heighten mood. If you don’t believe this, try it for yourself – you will notice that crossing something off your list actually does give you a little bit of a high.

This is what psychologists call “positive reinforcement” and is known as the most effective method of behavior modification. We are modifying you as an athlete and your dedication to your training. Taking advantage of your biochemistry and psyche is a great way to accelerate your training and keep you focused on an ever-changing list of achievements. Before you know it, the list of goals gets tremendous and you have tons of new things that you want to do. With a longer goals list there is just that much more room for growth.

7) Mistake: Failure to Keep a Log

This is another one that is pretty major and often overlooked. When you do finally set goals, how do you know when you have achieved them if you never write them down? If you do write them down, but do not note your progress, how do you know that you are actually getting closer to your goal? If you feel like you are on a hamster wheel in your training, looking back over your log is a great way to make sure that you are not just running in circles but actually progressing.

Another aspect of log keeping, especially in a skill sport like parkour, gymnastics or weight lifting, is often overlooked. Recording your training in a log allows you to record how you have been FEELING during these workouts. Sure, your day of training might have sucked, but you might have felt that you were not up to par that day. Maybe you had a stuffy nose or you went on a bender the night before, which negatively impacted your performance. It also lets you note how much fear and/or confidence you had that day. I recently went to the Museum of Sports in NYC where some logs of elite-level athletes were put on display. Each of these logs not only listed performance metrics, but also their state of mind and thought process. It was nice to see things like “Felt great today, focused on positive thoughts and the game went really well” in an olympian’s training log. These small, seemingly insignificant thoughts impact your training, which impacts you reaching your goals.

Another benefit to keeping a log, especially if you maintain it on a forum, is that this leaves it open to critique and criticism. At this point, you should understand that you WILL make mistakes. Asking others, especially those with more experience than you, to review your logs allows you to get more detailed advice from them and achieve your goals faster.

Mistake: Misunderstanding Workouts Selection

It is extremely important to understand why you are doing what you are doing.

Perhaps someone suggested that you do a 5×5 linear progression on olympic lifts. Maybe another person told you to do a split routine including biceps curls, bench presses and front shoulder raises.

Which one do you do? What influenced your decision?

If you honestly don’t know why you do the exercises you are doing, then I recommend that you STOP doing them until you figure that out. A good example of this is wall sits. Many people do this exercise, but why? There are few, if any, situations where your body will be in this position functionally. Yet many people train this, some of them with goals to hold wall sits for over an hour. There are many workouts and goals like this. If that is what you want to do, then more power to you, but you should understand WHY you are doing it.

Once you identify why you are doing a certain movement, you should really verify that this movement/technique will actually help you achieve your goals. This can be done by seeking out external resources and experts with more experience and better formulated opinions than your own while you figure out the details.

9) Mistake: Arrogance

Once I started hitting some of my goals, particularly in weight loss, I began to think that if anyone needed advice they should come to me. It took me being put in my place by quite a few people before I realized that I did not know it all. I think this is just human nature, because since I realized the error of my ways, I have noticed this is a problem with many people.

One thing to remember when giving advice is that there will always be someone out there with more knowledge and information than you. Unless you can back it up with solid facts, don’t say it or pretend like you know anything about it.

Coaching people takes experience. Not just experience doing something for yourself, but experience as a teacher and a trainer. You need a solid understanding of what you are trying to coach. A solid understanding denotes that you have examined multiple people from multiple angles.

At my current level of experience and understanding I do not consider myself any sort of authority in any aspect of fitness. This is why I give most of my advice with the disclaimer that it’s based on my personal research and opinions rather than my professional knowledge.

This is something many people can, and will, learn the hard way. The hard way means posting or speaking out in public and being put in your place brutally by someone who knows much more than you. When this happens to you, then my advice is to embrace the moment, be humbled and hit the gym/library to learn more so it doesn’t happen again.

10) Mistake: Reinventing the Wheel

We see further ahead by standing on the shoulders of giants. That is, we learn more by learning from those before us. As I said before, there is no real reason to try to invent movements or ways of training. People have been training for centuries. Some of the best methods of getting strong and fast for long periods of time are already well known and developed.

It will save you a lot of time if you learn to ask the right questions and read the right articles so that you can stick with what has been shown to work, as opposed to trying new things that will just impede your training.

While gains at the highest levels of performance are constantly being reevaluated, you should wait until you know more about the techniques surrounding your goals before attempting to work out like an elite athlete.

Keep it simple and always focus on achieving your goals!

References:

1. Engelman, J. B., Capra, C. M., Noussair, C., and Berns, G. S. (2009). Expert financial advice neurobiologically offloads financial decision-making under risk. Public Library of Science One, 4, e4957, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004957.