This might just be the best Stuff You Should Read post in history. Seriously, it is that good.
1. While not really an article to read, check out this flowsheet sent to me by a reader/former client – How to find REAL FOOD at the supermarket. Overall it is a pretty helpful tool and I find it amusing as well.
2a. A House Divided. By Kellie Hart Davis via Tony Gentilcore’s blog. Kellie wrote a guest blog for Tony that might simply be the most touching post I have read all year. This is a must read for every single reader of this website. I think this is my favorite quote of the entire post – “Disease isn’t a part of aging; it’s a force of habit. It’s the inability to take action by putting your quality of life before indulgence, idleness, and insecurity.”
2b. Can I Have Your Attention Please: Pizza is Now a Veggie. By Tony Gentilcore. Tony rips apart the fact that Congress passed a new bill that as far as school lunches go, pizza now counts as a serving of vegetables. Seriously ridiculous stuff and Tony covers it in his usual entertaining manner.
3. 12 Tips to Tune the Nervous System. By Anthony Mychal. Anthony provides an easy-to-understand look at the nervous system and how it plays such an integral and misunderstood role in exercise and health. I really enjoyed this article and found Anthony’s writing style to be enjoyable to read and educational at the same time. It was really good, much like a Dan John article.
4. Stephen Guyenet’s entire series on whether insulin causes obesity. This is a much-discussed topic that in reality is poorly understood by most. Stephan does a fantastic job laying out the evidence and showing that insulin is far from the main driver of fat accumulation. Top-notch stuff as usual.
EC just posted the final piece of my 2 part series on coffee on his site Coffee Consumption & Health: The Final Word – Part 2. I highly recommend you check it out as I wrap up with some really interesting data on coffee and Alzheimer’s.
This series has generated some lively debate as many people are adamant that coffee is harmful to health regardless of the fact that the data mostly does not support that assertion. Too often people want to believe in conjecture and theory rather than boring facts, and I think coffee falls into that category. That may be because coffee consumption is often thought of in conjunction with a poor lifestyle – cigarette smoking, inadequate sleep and poor dietary habits – rather than an individual food.
I want to make clear that the conclusion of my article is a broad statement, and each individuals needs may or may not be different. What may be good for the population as a whole may not be good for you as an individual and I think it is important to keep that in mind, but also remember that I can’t account for every scenario in a 2,000 word article!
So today my daughter Kate is exactly 6 months old. It seems utterly incredible that she has now been a part of my life for half of a year, and I have changed more diapers than I care to count! She is happy and healthy and growing like crazy! She is about 18.5 lbs and 28ish inches long (we measured and weighed her ourselves, so it is more of an approximation). Just thought you all might appreciate a little update.
On another note I just had an article published over at EC’s website entitled Coffee Consumption and Health: The Final Word – Part 1. This is a topic near and dear to my heart as I love my coffee in the morning, so be sure not to miss it!
I realized I haven’t done a random thoughts blog in quite a while, and it is a nice change of pace to cover several topics with a broad brush rather than one topic so in-depth. With that in mind, here we go!
1. I know that a lot of people struggle to find that balance between healthy and quick when it comes to dinner. If you are anything like my family and you and your significant other both work, it’s not always easy to whip up a delicious dinner that is helping you meet your needs.
Well one food item that we find comes in handy is Minute Rice Ready To Serve. It comes in pre-portioned plastic containers. My wife and I will split one container in addition to our meat and vegetables of choice. We actually poor the rice into a small glass bowl and then microwave it for the 60 seconds, as I do NOT microwave plastic. While my preferences is potatoes, the time difference in preparation certainly makes a good case for this on time-crunched nights.
In addition the ingredients list is miniscule. Often in rice products like this you will see tons of additives, so one reason I like this product is the minimalist ingredient approach. It also comes in white, brown, pilaf and more options if that is your thing, though we mainly stick to the brown and wild, brown and a little white when the mood strikes. May not be perfect, but it is a pretty damn good option when time is of the essence.
2. The other day I was early for my work in an out-patient clinic, and I have to use my business debit card at least once per month or I get a $15 fee, so I stopped into the Dunkin Donuts drive through to get a coffee (it is ridiculous that I have to spend $2 to save $15, but it is what it is). The line was insane. I actually timed myself, and it took 9 minutes from the time I got into line until I actually received my coffee! 9 minutes! The point of this piece is that many people claim they don’t have time to make breakfast, yet they have time to drive to Dunkin Donuts and then wait nearly 10 minutes to actually get their breakfast! You could have made and eaten a bowl of oatmeal with a Greek yogurt and some fruit as well as a cup of coffee, and cleaned up after yourself in less time and spent less money!
Stop making excuses and simply hold yourself accountable. You will be happier, healthier and have more money. What more could you want?!?
3. Reread my 2-part series on time-management (Part 1, Part 2). You will thank me. My wife and I have already found just making a few of those changes that we had not yet adopted making a tremendous difference for us. Just do it.
4. Be on the look out for some new articles from me in the next month or so. EC will have one on his site soon, as well as some other ones I have in the works that I think you guys will really like (one on saturated fat, one on polyunsaturated fat, maybe one or two others depending on time). I will keep you posted.
A reader recently sent me a question about a popular food movement – Raw Food – and the idea that cooking food somehow makes them nutritionally inferior. See my take.
Q. Brian-
I’ve been hearing a lot recently about how cooking foods changes the nutrient profiles. For example, when you cook meat, many of the proteins are killed. My wife went to a nutritionist who recommended a whey protein that had not been heat pasteurized, thus keeping the proteins in tact. How does this relate to your suggestions regarding a high protein diet?
The follow up question, as it relates, is what do you think about the Raw diet philosophy? The Raw folks tend to be vegetarians which means they never eat “complete” proteins. Isn’t eating complete proteins a foundational concept of good nutrition?
While this post is not exactly specific to nutrition, fitness or health in general, in reality learning to manage time appropriately can go a VERY long way in reducing every day stressors and improving our overall sense of well-being. Reducing stress is one of the most effective ways to improve overall health, so indirectly I think this ties in nicely with my general scope.
I like to think my time management skills are fairly good, as it is something I have read about and try to work on relatively consistently; but let’s be honest, I think we can all stand to improve in this area in some capacity. Myself most certainly included.
Here are the first 3 of the 6 tips I think are key to managing time and therefore creating the time to do other things – like exercise, read, meditate, spend time with your family or whatever else interests you.
There aren’t many things more American than pizza. While yes it may hail from Italy, I would be so bold as to say it was America who took it to the next level. Unfortunately most pizza is not we might consider to be a physique-friendly food. It tends to be very calorie dense and eaten in large quantities. It also tends to be incredibly high in sodium and often loaded with low-quality high-salt processed meats. Not a winning combination.
Fortunately there are some fantastic pizza recipes out there that allow us to enjoy this fantastic food and improve our health in the process. One recipe in particular is the Chicken Pesto Pizza from Gourmet Nutrition. It is utterly delicious and is my personal favorite recipe from the entire book.
I have also come across another recipe that is absolutely amazing as well. It is much more like a traditional pizza than the one from Gourmet Nutrition, which is nice.
BSP Chicken & Cheese Pizza
Ingredients
1 Ezekiel or Alvarado St sprouted grain burrito size tortilla
1 pre-cooked chicken breast, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped or minced
1/4 cup Organic Valley Italian Blend organic shredded cheese or cheese of choice
1/2 cup dry-packed sun-dried tomatoes, soaked in water to rehydrate, drained and chopped
2 teaspoons dried basil
1 teaspoon thyme
Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 F.
Place tortilla onto pizza stone. Arrange chicken, garlic, cheese and tomatoes on top of the tortilla. Sprinkle basil and thyme evenly over pizza.
Bake on the lowest rack of the oven until the tortilla turns brown and the toppings are hot, about 15-20 minutes.
Serve immediately and enjoy!
On another note don’t forget that tomorrow night at midnight is your last chance to get the Show and Go Training Systemat 50% off. Eric also added an additional bonus for anyone who purchases Show and Go before midnight tonight!
This new Bonus is called ‘Warm Ups 2011′ and it goes behind the scenes at Cressey Performance and shows you how he prepares some of the top athletes in the world to prevent injuries and maximize performance. Tim Collins, one of EC’s professional baseball players even demonstrates it. Pretty sweet.
Even if you can’t purchase it before tonight, the 50% off sale only lasts until midnight on Friday so don’t let it pass you by. Between EC’s training, soft-tissue work, warm-ups, and conditioning and my nutrition and supplementation, Show and Go will make you fitter, leaner, more muscular and healthier while improving mobility, flexibility and performance all at the same time!
A reader sent me a hilarious video that I think you will all enjoy. It is information like this that simply confuses people and has them question good dietary practices.
Seriously awful. All those terrible monounsaturated fats in eggs, and those terrible omega-3′s. Yes there is some saturated fat too, but that’s not a problem either.
We also don’t want to take into account all of the other nutrients in the egg yolk do we:
choline
vitamin A
vitamin D
B vitamins
lutein
zeaxanthin
biotin
protein
and more!
That is a perfect example of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Due to the small amount of saturated fat in an egg he is recommending to toss it out, regardless of all of the other incredible nutrients you are tossing out with it. Simply foolish.
Stuff like this happens all of the time in the nutrition field unfortunately. People go to these weird extremes or cling to fad diets looking for the “magic” answer. It’s not there, and it certainly is not about throwing away glorious egg yolks.
On another note my buddy Kevin Neeld released his Ultimate Hockey Training Systemtoday along with a cool video describing its awesomeness. In all seriousness Kevin is the Director of Athletic Development at Endeavor Sports Performance in NJ, and he specializes in training hockey players just like Eric Cressey specializes in baseball players.
Kevin works with tons of high school, college and professional hockey players, including some top guys in the NHL and he knows his stuff. To boot I was also fortunate enough to write the Nutrition Guide for this product as I played competitive hockey for the first 20 years of my life. I have also trained and nutritionally counseled high school, college and professional hockey players myself.
This product was created by guys who have not only played the sport at a high level (Kevin played D1 college hockey, I played in juniors), but who coach and work with guys (and girls) who actually play the sport. That is a rare combination and most certainly is a recipe for a kickass product, so if you are in any way involved with hockey do yourself a favor and check it out. To top it all off you actually receive a physical book when you place an order as well as immediate access to the PDF. How awesome is that?
He’s offering a full 50% off on the system and is giving away some really cool bonuses to boot, including a free LIVE Question and Answer Session for anyone who purchases by Tuesday at midnight and can have their questions answered on the spot!
I’ve known Eric for several years, and worked for him for 3 of them, and I can personally tell you that he is one of the best performance enhancement coaches in the world, working with over 70 professional athletes, as well as hundreds of college and high school athletes, in addition to the everyday gym goer. He has worked with them all and has combined that knowledge into one amazing training system.
Now you can save 50% off his most popular program here:
In addition, for those of you who don’t see the picture on the right side of your screen (your right), I wrote the tag along Nutrition Guide for Show & Go, which is also available in this sale, so check it out!
Posted on November 23rd, 2011 by Brian St. Pierre
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