Older Bolder Life

Stronger | Leaner | Sharper | Longer - From Older Bolder Fitness

Foundation Series

Carbs: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Part 2 – The Good)

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From yesterday’s post about The Bad and Ugly Carbs –

Of all the questions about a healthier lifestyle I typically field from curious potential clients, friends, and family, by far and away the most common one has to do with carbohydrate consumption, and most specifically, “what are the good carbs I can still eat?”

Of note, this isn’t a discussion of the science underpinning the (common-sense) rationale for choosing a lower carb, moderate protein, higher fat lifestyle – it really is a lifestyle, not a “diet”; this discussion is meant to lay out a practical, fairly concise (maybe not) roadmap for those who’ve made the decision to give this concept a spin.

Yesterday we talked about unhealthy carbs, the bad and ugly carbs if we’re going to hold to that metaphor, that need to be swept out of your life, and for those of you pondering jumping onto this healthy bandwagon, probably swept out all at once.

A Word About Carb-Phobia

As has happened to many of us in the Primal/Paleo/Ancestral health worlds, at some point you might be accused of being “Carb-phobic” by someone touting a high-carb, low-fat approach to food, or by someone mired in the muck of a SAD diet.

Frankly, nothing could be further from the truth.

This isn’t a carb-phobic approach, it’s actually the polar opposite. This approach leverages all the best nutrient-dense, fiber-packed, texture and flavor-rich carbs available with little if any of the excessive, insulin-spiking, glucose floods that highly-processed carbs bring to the table.

This isn’t a carb-phobic approach, it’s a smart carb/intuitive carb approach.

So What “Good Carbs” Are We Talking About…

Let’s start with the easy one, the carbs I’d typically argue that you eat with abandon until sated, and the first on the list won’t surprise you – the green leafy vegetables:

  • Lettuce, all types
  • Chard
  • Greens – beet, collard, dandelion, mustard, turnip
  • Broccoli Rabe
  • Kale
  • Spinach
  • Purslane
  • Watercress
  • Sea vegetables – kombu, nori

Now throw in colorful and cruciferous vegetable all-stars:

  • Artichoke
  • Asparagus
  • Avocados (actually a fruit…)
  • Beets in moderation
  • Bell Peppers
  • Bok Choy
  • Broccoli
  • Brussel Sprouts
  • Cabbage
  • Carrots in moderation
  • Cauliflower
  • Celery
  • Cucumbers
  • Eggplant
  • Endive
  • Fennel
  • Garlic
  • Kohlrabi
  • Leeks
  • Mushrooms (most varieties)
  • Olives
  • Onions
  • Parsnips in moderation
  • Peppers
  • Purslane
  • Radish
  • Rutabaga in moderation
  • Tomatoes

The best fruits are those lower in fructose (read Dr. Gundry’s pitch on fructose if you haven’t yet); the top choices include:

  • Blackberries
  • Blueberries
  • Boysenberries
  • Cranberries
  • Gooseberries
  • Raspberries
  • Strawberries

I’d like to cover other fruits in more detail in another post, given the complexities of fructose processing and the nuances of using fruit to best accomplish your goals, whether those goals be simply optimizing your nutrition, further weight loss, physical performance enhancement, or accommodating a unique metabolic or functional quirk of your own.

If you haven’t yet, it’s time to jump on the Good Carb train and get moving toward your health and wellness goals.

Carbs: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Part 1 – The Bad and Ugly)

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Of all the questions about a healthier lifestyle I typically field from curious potential clients, friends, and family, by far and away the most common one has to do with carbohydrate consumption, and most specifically, “… so what are the good carbs I can still eat?”

Of note, this ISN’T a discussion of the science underpinning the (common-sense) rationale for choosing a lower carb, moderate protein, higher fat lifestyle – it really is a lifestyle by the way, not a “diet”; this discussion is meant to lay out a practical, fairly concise (maybe not) roadmap for those who’ve made the decision to give this concept a spin.

That said, let’s first tackle The Bad and The Ugly carbs that need to be left in the proverbial dust as you turn the page on the SAD (standard American diet) days of the past and take a very intentional first step toward a healthier approach to food.

An Over-Simplified Overview of the Carbohydrate Problem

I often explain to friends and clients that problematic foods in the SAD way of eating can be thought of as the legs of a three-legged stool: those problematic legs are grains, sugars in their various forms, and heavily processed, chemically-altered, often hydrogenated fats and polyunsaturated vegetable oils.

Oils we’ll tackle on another day, but today let’s talk about grains and sugars.

Of note, it simply isn’t possible to explain a topic this complex in a matter of a few paragraphs; there are entire books (take Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD as a prime example) that have detailed grains’ egregious impacts on human physiology in detail. We’ll delve into more of the nitty gritty at a later time, but here we’ll run through the highlights (or lowlights) of the grain and sugar problem.

Granted, for the last 10,000 years or so of human history, grains have been the cornerstone of human consumption. The challenge for our human physiology with regard to grain is quite simple however, that being that grains delivered insanely excessive levels of carbs to our systems, along with a bevy of anti-nutrients (i.e. gluten, among a host of other lectins, and phytates in excess).

Ingested and absorbed carbs that aren’t immediately burned are converted into triglycerides in the liver and stored in fat cells. Chronic pattern of high-carb consumption triggers excess insulin production, which then triggers hormonal responses (for example cortisol and adrenaline responses) that trigger, among other things, excessive systemic inflammation.

Often overlooked is the simple concept, detailed by many over the years, that as humans we do not have a documented, essential need for any processed carbohydrate to run our bodies at peak efficiency. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

So What Grain and High-Carb Products Get the Boot?

All bread and flour products. The list is long and distinguished – all breads, donuts, scones, crackers, tortillas and tortilla products, pizza, sandwiches, etc.

Sweets and desserts – cookies, brownies, pies, cupcakes, cake, etc. (all baked treats), candy and all confections, frozen desserts (damn), and all sweeteners.

Grains you cook with – barley, bulgar, couscous, millet, rye, amaranth, grits and polenta.

Pastas – yep, even the special versions enhanced with other legume or vegetables.

All rice, though note that wild rice can be an exception as it’s actually a grass, not a grain, though still has a fairly high high net carb content.

All chips and puffed/puffy snacks – think things like Cheetos, goldfish, popcorn, and the infamous rice cake.

Baking ingredients – all flours, corn meal, corn starch, typical baking powders (milk, bread gluten, maltodextrin), sweeteners like corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, lactose, malitol, and xylitol; baking mixes are out the window too. Chocolate (and other sweet baking chips) are to be avoided, though choc chips with >70% cocoa or unsweetened 100% cocoa powder can be used judiciously for a treat!)

Oatmeal and other grain-based cereals.

Syrups, especially HFCS or agave-based, are to be avoided.

Beware these beverages: designer coffee drinks, fruit juice and fruit-flavored drinks, energy drinks, milk and non-dairy milks (almond, rice, soy, etc), sports drinks, sodas, sweet tea, sweet cocktails.

Condiments to ditch: standard ketchup, jams, jellies, and preserves, honey mustard, mayonnaise (unless you’re making your own with acceptable oils), salad dressings with PUFA oils, low-fat salad dressings. Watch condiments carefully, many contain shocking amounts of HFCS.

Fast foods, prepared-ahead/highly-processed foods and food products (read those labels).

Legumes’ role in a Primal-type food plan might be debated by some, though particularly for those not yet at their ideal body weight with weight to lose, legumes bring a high-carb burden for the nutrients they typically bring to the table, and should be avoided or certainly minimized. Legumes to avoid include alfalfa, beans, peanuts (and PNB), peas, lentils, soybeans (that means tofu too).

Starchy vegetables, to consume in moderation or avoid, pending your goals and current status, include potatoes (white-fleshed potatoes certainly, sweet potatoes and yams in moderation), cassava, taro, squash (including pumpkin), and some would put beets, carrots, Jerusalem artichokes, parsnips, and rutabaga on this list as well.

Tomorrow let’s talk about Good Carbohydrates…

Foundation Series: Fitness Secret Weapon No. 1 – MOVE

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I had an interesting conversation over the weekend with a good friend from Montana.

He’s a very successful businessman with a loving family; though his principle business interest is commercial (multifamily) real estate, he and his two sons run an impressive grass-fed cattle operation in Montana on three fairly large land plots (they call them ranches up in that part of the world).

We’ve known one another for a lustrum or better now, and he’s been impressed enough with my body composition (and other) changes over the past eighteen months to himself jump on the Primal bandwagon. Working on his seventh decade of a very active life, he’s still out in the field six of seven days per week, though spends the bulk of his time behind a desk. He and his clan have additionally weathered a heart-wrenching tragedy this spring with the loss of a daughter-in-law.

After a rapid and for the most effortless weight loss for the first four months as a Primal guy, he’s been stalled now for the last two months and change. Even more frustrating to him was the fact that he felt his overall fitness level hadn’t changed radically since the New Year. So he called me Saturday afternoon, feeling just a bit defeated, and looking for some answers.

Time for a Bit of Long-Distance Detective Work

The first half hour of our conversation was spent with me mostly listening, prompting with a question here and there, but gradually a consistent story began to take shape, focused around two things.

One, and of lesser importance in the big picture, my friend had been consuming (too much) fruit (mostly South American in origin) on a near daily basis during the long Montana winter, which, pending where you happened to live in the state, persisted via a snowy, cold spring until late April or early May this year. This is another story for another day, but suffice it to say that fructose has been the undoing of many a concerted weight loss attempt.

Two, and perhaps most critically, my compadre hasn’t been moving enough. Yes, he’s busy, some days putting in 15 hours between desk, truck, and tractor, but we pretty quickly came to the same conclusion – he’s been far too sedentary coming out of winter and having dealt with the issues they faced as an extended-family unit this spring.

Back to the Basics with the Secret Weapon of Movement

One of the first things we did together was agree that movement – general, everyday, functional-task linked movement is a critical cornerstone for good health (and the Primal lifestyle). I reminded him that the movement we’re talking about here, the essential, get-off-your-butt and just move stuff, isn’t really what most would call targeted exercise or higher-level training (Sisson speaks to the distinction ably here), but really ought to be something we all think of as an essential, pretty much non-negotiable part of our day.

While for many a goal of 10,000 steps a day is ambitious, my friend noted that much of the tasking that he does “around the place” could be easily accomplished on foot instead of from the seat of a four-wheeler, truck, or tractor. Given the trials of the spring, and a generous spring runoff, he’d not be fly fishing much, though had two excursions involving hiking set up for this week (dang, that sounds like fun).

We chatted about ways to incorporate quick walks into his day, like a quick walk breathing in those glorious summer Montana mornings before settling in for the day’s work, a 10-minute stretch every two hours (or less) during the desk day, a 20-30 minute walk after dinner, and rewarding himself with at least one 2 hour or better hike each week to fish his favorite waters on the Big Hole River near his home.

We agreed that for him, a rational, baseline goal for moving in some form of low level aerobic activity (it works for most of us, too) would be in the 5-7 hours per week range, shooting for at least an hour per day or better (in a addition to his HIIT and resistance workouts he’s been fairly diligent with so far).

Bottom line, moving more is something we all can fairly easily incorporate into our day; it may take a bit of effort and reprograming and old habit or two, but the results build in quickly.

Foundation Series: When It Comes to Exercise, There are Times When Less is More

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In the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual worldwide survey of current fitness trends (the 2018 edition), they ranked high-intensity interval training (HIIT) at the very top as per the image/list from the article to the right.

That’s of course no surprise to many, though it seems I run into people just about every day who aren’t sure what to think about HIIT, presume that it’s too extreme for those of us over 40, particularly if we’re significantly deconditioned and/or overweight. There’s another cadre of HIIT skeptics who fall into the “chronic cardio lifer” category.

Yet the pull of HIIT is inescapable.

HIIT offers for most identical – or greater – fitness benefits compared to much longer, historically traditional cardio-focused workouts. High-intensity interval training can be completed much more quickly, is damned efficient at producing its benefits, induces less physical (and quite possible biomechanical stress, pending your workout choices) stresses on your system, saves joint wear and tear, and provides a great change-up in your routine.

A Quick Glance at HIIT in the Literature

I know, I know, almost everybody you read these days reaches back to one of the first (landmark) studies published looking at HIIT vs moderate-intensity cardio – the 1996 study in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. HIIT completed five days per week was clearly more effective than traditional cardio in measures of both aerobic and anaerobic fitness; of note, the workout program in the study was eventually described as the Tabata protocol (20 second sprints, 10 second rests, 7-8 reps).

But wait, five days of HIIT per week? This study from the International Journal of Obesity in 2008 showed impressive benefits from only three times per week HIIT over 15 weeks, with body changes impressively better than the moderate-intensity cardio group.

This study from 2007 showed low-volume HIIT (sprint training) physiologic improvements were basically the same as (for the day) typical endurance training regimens. Another study from 2006 again demonstrated similar benefits in a low-volume sprint group compared to a high-volume endurance group in exercise tolerance/capacity and a detailed skeletal muscle analysis.

And despite chronic cardio’s dominant position for decades as the purported cornerstone of improving cardiac function and health, this study (2008) clearly demonstrated that HIIT was as effective as traditional endurance training in measures of arterial stiffness and flow-mediated arterial dilation. Even my own specialty (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) has recently published a study on HIIT in cardiac patients, with a good review of workout intensity recommendations as well.

A Few Quick Thoughts on Starting Your Own HIIT Program

Without a doubt those with significant cardiopulmonary disease such ischemic or other heart disease, valvular disease, history of MI (heart attack), or cerebrovascular disease (stroke) should clear a HIIT program with their physician. For that matter, if you have any major medical or orthopaedic issue (T2 or T1 diabetes, hypertension, any arthropathy whether it’s degenerative/osteoarthritis, gout, or others, or perhaps osteoporosis), it’s worth clearing HIIT with your doc.

Don’t forget that you can accomplish a very effective HIIT workout with lower-impact exercise; the HIIT game is all about intensity, briefly pushing to 85 (up to 100) percent of your age-adjusted maximal target heart rate with short bursts of more intense effort, combined with/alternating with brief (yet still moving) recovery periods.

For the more mature among us, I often suggest starting with common-sense, fairly simple, whole-body/at least multi-joint movements/exercise for your HIIT program. Think of simple stuff like swimming, walking lunges, walking up an incline/hill, hill jogging/running, simple sprints (i.e., running, stationary bike, elliptical). Even squats, pushups, or jumping jacks will work.

Start slowly, listen to your body, and don’t push for more than one HIIT workout per week or even every ten days to start. You may need to experiment with several different specific workout versions to find what fits your capacity, tolerance, current level of overall fitness, and interests today (remember, this is supposed to be fun).

More on HIIT to come shortly.

Foundations Series: Cultivating a Sense of Wonder

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Every child I’ve ever observed, whether as a medical professional or simply as an interested observer of the human condition, has always at one point or another demonstrated a profound sense of wonder and native curiosity about the world at their fingertips.

Perhaps spending a week recently helping care for our three-week-old grandson in Montana prompted thinking about how we should marvel at the natural world around us more often (probably much more often) than we do.

There are countless things we all encounter daily that should stoke and provoke our sense of wonder and curiosity, and yet we’re often distracted by the urgencies of the moment or digital diversions overtly (and covertly) designed to sidetrack our thoughts and behaviors to some other end.

What I’m calling a sense of wonder here, others might simple define as curiosity.

During my years in office practice, I slowly began to realize that even in the face of profound pathology or injury, patient outcomes were most often greatly improved when said patient exhibited a great deal of interest in their condition, firing questions, reading, calling for clarifications, etc. Curiosity consistently worked in their favor, even in the face of intractable medical challenges.

[By the way, even though recent data suggests physicians interrupt patients quickly (11 seconds in this this study!), there are still some patient docs out there who’ll listen. Your mission is to find them.]

Curiosity isn’t an easy concept to measure in traditional medical-model research environments, though there’s this study that revealed correlations between curiosity and mortality, with both men and women who were deemed curious outliving their non-curious counterparts.

In the past few years there have been calls to look deeper into the psychology and neuroscience of curiosity, and even business schools (Wharton in this example) have found it useful to ponder the concept.

Flexing Your Curiosity and Sense of Wonder Muscles

I like to challenge any and everyone I spend time interacting with of late to be more curious about life in general, particularly if you happen to be someone waking up to the reality that the standard American diet isn’t intended to make you healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Ask questions; particularly ask “why” when you’re given advice, or “how” when it’s suggested you do something, or approach a problem in a particular way. Don’t “google” something, do some genuine research. Pay less attention to reviews and crowd-sourced opinions about topics and more to the science and experiential data that’s available.

Sure, you might have to do some digging, and it may take a trip to the bookstore, or heaven forbid, a library (remember those)? Pro Tip: University and medical center libraries are often great resources.

And don’t forget your play and recreation time. Delve into that art, music, or language project you’ve been putting off for years. How about learning to fly fish? I’m a devoted fly fisher in a family of fly fishers – it’s an astoundingly rich hobby, packed with artists and creative types, and with hoards of pedantic backroads of history, tradition, entomology, etc to get lost in. Fly fishing won’t save the world, but you’ll be a better person for engaging…

The more you marvel at the world around you, and the more often you flex those curiosity muscles, the better equipped you’ll be to master tomorrow, and lead, teach, and provide for those you care for.

Foundation Series: Functional Fitness Is Where It’s At

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Way back when starting my residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Utah (Salt Lake was a great place to live back in the mid-80s), the term functional fitness wasn’t a popular buzzword in the everyday fitness world.

Functional fitness (as a term) was really used primarily in a medical arena, most often as we worked as a team to restore injured and compromised individuals’ mobility as well as their ability to do what are loosely termed “activities of daily living” – all those things we do to manage ourselves, our households, and most often our work in a given day.

A great deal of what the members of the rehab team did in this functional training was very practical, geared toward equipping a person to perform useful tasks with greater ease, efficiency, and proficiency. (To this day I’m deeply inspired by some of the transformations in function I witnessed during those years.)

Functional Fitness is a hot topic these days it seems, and for good reason. I’m all about the functional fitness movement (no pun intended), particularly for those of us over 40 (you could really easily argue that could be 30) who are beginning to feel some of the symptoms of joint wear and tear (aching, stiffness, etc), aren’t as fit as we used to be, are a bit too sedentary, are beginning to pack on extra pounds, or are just overwhelmed with the urgent life tasks that seem to dominate some (if not most) days.

Getting a Grip on Functional Fitness

Like most involved in the wellness and health worlds today, it seems like I’m singing the praises of and talking details about functional fitness just about every day.

I like to keep things direct and simple, and define (more or less) functional fitness as movement and exercise that’s geared toward improving our body’s ability to complete often complex life tasks we face routinely, as opposed to building, for example, the biggest biceps or triceps possible, or trimming seconds off a timed run or swim.

Functional fitness implies personalization. We’re all unique in terms of our specific physical construct, metabolism, and psyche; the tasks we complete as part of our home and work days are different and unique to us, as is our play.

Why wouldn’t we optimally build out an exercise routine that is designed to peak our performance of both these daily tasks and our play?

Yet so often we try and force our bodies to grind through training routines that aren’t necessarily functionally targeted, that might isolate and build impressive individual muscles yet leave us woefully unconditioned and unprepared for various challenges we face in the real world every day.

[I’m always reminded of an interview I read years ago back in the infancy of triathlon competitions; one of the earliest heroes of the sport, Mark Allen, noted in an interview that despite his being a champion swimmer at the collegiate level, he found himself woefully unprepared early in his career to meet the challenges of cycling and running.]

Functional fitness focuses on core strength, balance and stability, functional strength, solid cardio (without overtraining), and multi-planar, multi-muscle (often arm, trunk, and leg together) movements and exercise.

There’s no magic program to simply plug into; as noted above, functional fitness implies personalization to the demands your life puts on you. At the most basic level, Mark Sisson’s 4 Essential Movements of the Primal Blueprint could be a great place to start, though we’ll be talking a great deal more about functional fitness over the next months.

It’s time to get moving, and start building up your functional capacity and reserve. Life is all about function.

Older Bolder Foundations: Making the Best Fish and Seafood Protein Choices

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We’ve been talking lately about making the best possible choices when shopping for proteins, covering a few principles regarding red meat proteins here and poultry proteins here.

The health benefits of regular seafood consumptions are pretty much indisputable (see here and here for example), with some particular precautions duly noted, and include reduction of chronic inflammation, improved mood and decreased risk of depression, improved cardiovascular and pulmonary health/function, and improved cognitive function across all age groups.

SMASH Your Fish

Two key principles in selecting the best fish choices include selecting fish from colder waters (higher omega-3) and fish lower down the food chain (to minimize concentration of mercury and other contaminants as you move further up the chain).

Remember the SMASH fish five: salmon, mackerel (not king mackerel), anchovies, most sardines, and herring. Smaller fish are most often more economical, and many are canned using quality oils (check to be sure).

Wild-caught fish from remote, pollution free waters should be top on your list (Bristol Bay salmon, we’re thinking about you).

Fish Farms, For the Most Part, Are Not Your Friend

Most farmed fish and shellfish, particularly those raised out of country, are fairly high risk given their exposures to substandard feeds, antibiotic use in pens to address infections caused by compromised water and conditions, are often pesticide-treated given infestations of their tanks, and are often raised in toxic, polluted waters. Many farmed fish and shellfish are even fed artificial coloring agents to tint their flesh more like their wild cousins (common in some Atlantic salmon farms).

There are exceptions to the ‘avoid most farmed fish’ caution, and include domestically raised catfish, barramundi, trout, tanked-farmed coho salmon, crayfish, and most domestically propagated shellfish.

Fish Priorities for Your Plate

Top of the list every time will be the wild-caught, cold-water, oily fish – think the SMASH five; followed by other sustainable, wild-caught fish from pristine waters.

Fish lower on the food chain are your friend for the most part; fish higher on the food chain (i.e. king mackerel, American eel, Chilean sea bass, orange roughy, marlin, shark, swordfish, and some tuna – ahi and big eye) are more prone to bio-accumulation of toxins.

Sustainability of fish stocks has been and will remain a prime concern; for that reason we agree with those who suggest limited consumption of Atlantic cod, halibut, sole, bluefin tuna, and even flounder.

There are several resources available, though the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch site is probably the most commonly sited resource you need to bookmark and use, and they have a handy pocket guide you can print and carry with you (image cut below).

Fish You’d Never Want to Serve Your Family

Though I was not convinced of this until several years ago, almost all farmed fish from Asia should be avoided given concerns over very lax management of water quality, specifically related to pollution and toxin levels, as well as substandard feeds used.

Another fish to avoid consistently is farmed Atlantic salmon, the species most commonly served by fishmongers and restaurant providers across the country. There’s years of data exposing the travesty of this particular industry, dig around a bit and read more if you’re skeptical.

The Mercury vs. Selenium Debate

We’ve all been cautioned for years about the impressive levels of mercury found in fish stocks, increasing as you move up the food chain, though there’s increasing data available that suggests naturally occurring selenium in fish (high levels except in swordfish and sharks) indeed counteracts many of the concerns regarding mercury in fish. A couple of interesting reads to overview the issue if you’ve not read much on this topic can be found here and here.

Older Bolder Foundations: Making the Best Poultry Protein Choices

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Last week we talked a bit about making the best possible choices for the red meat proteins (wild game, beef, bison, pork, lamb, and goat) you choose to enjoy in your meal rotation.

Today lets cover quickly some key concepts regarding poultry, which for most of us purchasing poultry are talking about chicken and turkey (as opposed to harvesting wild birds – think wild turkeys, ducks, pheasants, geese, quail, and doves for example).

The objective here is to look for and consume pastured poultry (as opposed to CAFO poultry), though it’ll likely take a bit more effort to find than comparable options in the red meat arena.

Pasture-raised birds are so much more tasty and nutritious than their confined (CAFO) kin; folks tend to forget than most fowl are omnivorous, and CAFO operations in essence force feed birds a vegetarian (grain based) diet along with the flood of other unhealthy and in some instances downright offensive supplemental feed products, antibiotics, pesticides, and more.

We’d join the chorus of folks who suggest the very best option is finding a local producer with whom you can verify that birds are truly pasture-raised; they may be feed supplemental grains as well.

Chickens certified as organic by a mass producer are likely indeed fed organic grains but are most often not pastured; their vegetarian diet produces an inferior product compared to pasture-raised birds.

Buy whole chickens (if you never learned to cut one up, check out the video below) and use everything, including the organs, bones (chicken stock is a great thing to keep in the freezer), and render that delicious chicken fat.