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Newsletter 25/09/07

In this week's issue:

Dangerous Dieting
25 Reasons To Drink Green Tea - Part 1
Mixed Martial Arts And Size Zero!
Precision Nutrition Tip of the Week #1

Hi, and welcome to the new style AGF newsletter! As I mentioned in the email, I have been trying to figure out a way to make the newsletter the same 'style' as the main site, plus use some cool tricks like embedded pictures and videos.....and finally came to the conlusion....just put it on the site! To clarify though, this page is not linked from the main site and is still exclusive content for newsletter subscribers. Hopefully it will increase the number of people that recieve and can view the newsletter, as I am aware there were some problems with the email delivery and text/background colour before.

Dangerous Dieting

(from HealthDay news)

"The right way to diet and lose weight is slowly, over time, and while eating a balanced diet with plenty of healthy foods, the American Heart Association says.

Diets that encourage eating only one type of food or encourage rapid weight loss can be dangerous to your health.

The association offers this list of the possible risks posed by fad diets:

Nutritional deficiencies caused by a lack of a balanced diet.
Lack of physical activity from emphasis on diet only can increase the risk of heart disease.
Lack of variety in foods can cause boredom and frustration, and make it difficult to maintain the diet for more than a brief period.
Severe restrictions on the foods you can eat may make it difficult to establish and maintain a healthy diet in the future.
Many quick weight-loss diets are based on unfounded claims that may do more harm than good."

This story is backing up the need for a good balanced diet - any diet that says that you should never eat certain things is short-sighted at best. Almost all (naturally occuring) food sources have different vitamins, minerals and nutrients, so it is best to get a good varied diet whilst sticking to certain healthy guidelines. This is one of the great things about the Precision Nutrition system - there is a time and a place to eat anything you want. Although it certainly can't be interpreted as 'pizza and beer at every meal' (unfortunately), it does give a little more freedom than the diet in this video!

25 Reasons To Drink Green Tea - Part 1

1. Green Tea and Cancer
Green tea helps reduce the risk of cancer. The antioxidant in green tea is 100 times more effective than vitamin C and 25 times better than vitamin E. This helps your body at protecting cells from damage believed to be linked to cancer.

2. Green Tea and Heart Disease
Green tea helps prevent heart disease and stroke by lowering the level of cholesterol. Even after the heart attack, it prevents cell deaths and speeds up the recovery of heart cells.

3. Green Tea and Anti-Aging
Green tea contains antioxidant known as polyphenols which fight against free radicals. What this means it helps you fight against aging and promotes longevity.

4. Green Tea and Weight Loss
Green tea helps with your body weight loss. Green tea burns fat and boosts your metabolism rate naturally. It can help you burn up to 70 calories in just one day.

5. Green Tea and Skin
Antioxidant in green tea protects the skin from the harmful effects of free radicals, which cause wrinkling and skin aging. Green tea also helps fight against skin cancer.

6. Green Tea and Arthritis
Green tea can help prevent and reduce the risk of rheumatoid arthritis. Green tea has benefit for your health as it protects the cartilage by blocking the enzyme that destroys cartilage.

7. Green Tea and Bones
The very key to this is high fluoride content found in green tea. It helps keep your bones strong. If you drink green tea every day, this will help you preserve your bone density.

8. Green Tea and Cholesterol
Green tea can help lower cholesterol level. It also improves the ratio of good cholesterol to bad cholesterol, by reducing bad cholesterol level.

9. Green Tea and Obesity
Green tea prevents obesity by stopping the movement of glucose in fat cells. If you are on a healthy diet, exercise regularly and drink green tea, it is unlikely you'll be obese.

10. Green Tea and Diabetes
Green tea improves lipid and glucose metabolisms, prevents sharp increases in blood sugar level, and balances your metabolism rate.

11. Green Tea and Alzheimer's
Green tea helps boost your memory. And although there's no cure for Alzheimer's, it helps slow the process of reduced acetylcholine in the brain, which leads to Alzheimer's.

12. Green Tea and Parkinson's
Antioxidants in green tea helps prevent against cell damage in the brain, which could cause Parkinson's. People drinking green tea also are less likely to progress with Parkinson's.

13. Green Tea and Liver Disease
Green tea helps prevent transplant failure in people with liver failure. Researches showed that green tea destroys harmful free radicals in fatty livers.

Part 2 next week!

Mixed Martial Arts And Size Zero!

This came up in conversation with a client the other day, and I thought it'd make a great topic to write about! First, a little background...

In mixed martial arts, as with many combat sports, there are weight classes set in intervals of roughly a stone. Fighters are only ever matched up within their own weight classes, as a much larger individual has too big an advantage in terms of strength and mass and will often beat a more skilled smaller guy due to size alone. The weight classes eliminate these one-sided fights.

Now, some examples. The two pictures below are of Sean Sherk and Randy Couture, who are both UFC champions.

sean sherk randy couture

Both are about 8% bodyfat or thereabouts, both are in great shape and renowned for not tiring out. Looking at their build, they have pretty similar proportions. So you'd think it'd be a great fight between the two of them then? There's one problem.....Sherk weighs 155 lbs (11 stone) and Couture weighs 225 lbs (16 stone). If they ever did fight, Sherk would have a serious problem! On the other hand, Couture would have a serious problem fitting into one of Sherk's shirts. In order to get down to 155, he would have to lose 70 lbs of muscle, and even then may not fit into the same clothes due to having a much larger bone structure.

This is why I find the current obsession to be a size zero ridiculous - people have different body types, bone structure etc. and there is never going to be a 'one size fits all' solution to anything, let alone clothing! What you should instead strive for is minimal levels of body fat whilst maintaining a healthy amount of muscle, within the framework of your own body. This is a path that is much more likely to lead to success than blindly trying to reach a size that is impossible to do, and you are more likely to feel good and be healthy if working with your body's potential.

In summary, stop worrying about weight and size, and instead concentrate on fat.......or I'll set Randy Couture on you!

Precision Nutrition Tip of the Week

Tip #1
Eat Pasta... Carefully
by Dr. John Berardi

As a God-fearing Italian, I have to admit that I love pasta. But, as a gut-fearing weight lifter and athlete, I definitely have to choose the lower GI, nutrient dense whole-wheat variety. During training phases that require or allow for higher carbohydrate intake (higher volume training) I'll eat one whole-wheat pasta meal per day. During other phases (like where I'm trying to lose fat), the pasta stays on the shelf in favor of a higher lean protein, good fat, and fruit and veggie intake.