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CrossFit Undeniable

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nutrition

Nutrition in the Real World

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We’re kicking off Week 4 of our nutrition challenge. That means the finish line is in sight! It also means we need to start thinking about what happens after the challenge is over.

While we’ve talked about this concept of “nutrition in the real world” each week, it becomes more real as we near the end of the challenge. You’ll have to make solid food choices without the motivation of a point system or the accountability of a peer group.

You might even encounter challenges that you didn’t face during the challenge. Maybe your spouse wants to add in a few of your “old favorites” to the dinner rotation or coworkers want to grab a few more beers after work. Whatever the challenge, now is the time to address them – before they actually come up!

Let’s chat about some of the biggest hurdles and obstacles to maintaining healthy eating habits in the real world and how to overcome them.

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How Your Mindset Plays Into Your Nutrition

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During the first week of any nutrition challenge, it’s easier to maintain motivation. After all, you just started! The reasons for doing the challenge are still clear in your head, and you’re all gung-ho to meal prep.

Two weeks in (like we are now), common struggles and challenges start to surface:

  • Those sugar cravings start to pop up during moments of weakness.
  • Inevitable life circumstances limit the time you have available to prep and force you to make sub-optimal choices.
  • It gets harder and harder to turn down the beer during Sunday’s football game.
  • You have a “cheat meal” and end up feeling bad about it the rest of the day.

Everyone has their own specific temptations and challenges. Whether you’re doing the nutrition challenge or not, you can probably recognize one of the above. If you’re in the nutrition challenge, I’m betting you’ve faced a hurdle during the past week.

This week on our nutrition education series, we’re chatting about the mindset behind nutrition and how our psychology plays a critical role in our success.

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The (Potential) Upside of Skipping Breakfast

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Remember when six (or even eight) small meals throughout the day was the golden standard for a proper diet?

In college, I was all in. I would spend half an hour each morning prepping tupperware with small portions to graze on throughout the day. I thought I was doing everything right – some oatmeal and eggs in the morning, piece of fruit and protein shake mid-morning, chicken and rice for lunch, etc. I felt like I was constantly eating!

This idea of grazing throughout the day (we’ll call it “nutrient timing”) seemed to make sense on paper. For one, it seemed like an obvious way to curb cravings and prevent binging on those donuts in the copy room.

One other supposed benefit of spreading out your meals was to increase metabolism. If we think of metabolism as this inner “fire” of sorts, burning fuel to provide energy, the more we stoke the fire, the hotter it’ll get right? If we eat smaller meals throughout the day, the thinking went, we’ll “rev up” our metabolism so we burn more calories at all times.

It turns out that smaller meals throughout the day might not have as big of an impact as one would hope. The Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition even published a study suggesting that nutrient timing is largely a matter of personal preference and offers little benefit for metabolism and weight loss.

So, if you don’t have to eat every few hours for optimal health, what if we explored the other side of the spectrum? Instead of eating throughout the day, what if we (gasp) skipped breakfast and ate fewer meals in total?

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Review: The Magic Pill Documentary

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The Yolngu people, an Indigenous tribe in Australia, has a deep culture around food. Like many other communities, their customs and traditions around cooking were passed down from generation to generation. Their diet revolved mainly around meats, fish, and locally-source ingredients.

That all changed in the 1980s.

Eventually, the Yolngu people were exposed to a more Western way of life, largely sedentary with an increased amount of refined foods in their diet.

Prior to this exposure to refined foods and reduced activity, the Yolngu people were enjoying excellent health with little to no appearance of chronic disease. They died from…old age. Now, they find themselves in the midst of a health crisis. Diabetes and other chronic diseases are extremely prevalent. They’re dying from disease, not old age.

Hope for Health, an Australian-based organization, hopes to reverse the situation of the Yolngu people, bringing them back to their roots of locally-sourced food, eliminating chronic disease, and greatly improving quality of life. The organization and their efforts formed the intro story for The Magic Pill, a documentary currently free on Netflix. The documentary, created by celebrity chef Pete Evans, champions the benefits of the ketogenic diet, a diet high in fat, low in carbohydrates, for treating autism, asthma, cancer, and many chronic diseases.

What exactly is the ketogenic diet and why does The Magic Pill claim it has such vast health benefits? Let’s find out.
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Do I Micro-wave Goodbye To Nutrition?

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Just about every household in the developed world contains a microwave oven. While there is little argument over the microwave’s convenience, some claim that the microwave strips our food of nutrition and exposes us to radiation. Have those evil corporations duped us again, or are people falling prey to conspiracy theories?

 

How It Works

First off, let’s talk about how a microwave works compared to a traditional oven. Imagine you put a chicken in the oven at about 600 degrees. What happens? The outside turns black and crispy in about 2 minutes while the inside is still completely raw. To cook the meat all the way through, the heat has to be high enough to transfer from the air to the outside of the chicken and from the outside of the chicken to the inside without heating the outside too much. Think of it like a game of telephone. Heat is the message being passed along.

A microwave oven is like using a megaphone. It sends the heat to all of the molecules at the same time through radio waves. These waves are sent through whatever is in the microwave (hopefully food and not Barbie). The water and fat molecules in the food have poles like a magnet; one end positive and one end negative. When the electromagnetic radio waves pass through the food, these molecules start spinning, which creates heat.

 

How Can Cooking Destroy Food’s Nutritional Value?

Many nutrients begin to deteriorate when exposed to heat. That means any heat, whether it is from the oven, a fire, or the microwave. The shorter the exposure to heat, the more nutrition is maintained, which may actually give the microwave a leg up on the competition since cooking times are shorter. There does not appear to be anything diabolical happening in the microwave that doesn’t happen in your oven. In fact, boiling your veggies strips way more nutrients than the microwave does. (Unless you drink the water used for boiling. Which I have done and suggest you try. It’s better than you might expect. But make sure you let it cool first.) There are studies out there that show broccoli losing up to 97% of its cancer-fighting nutrition when it is microwaved. However, the researchers for these studies essentially boiled broccoli in the microwave. The same thing happens when you boil broccoli on the stove. This is why you need to actually read studies and not just headlines. Learn to assume that all researchers have agendas.

 

What About the Cancer They Cause?

Microwaves do give off radiation. Radiation can cause cancer. However, the syllogism you are undoubtedly developing in your head is not necessarily valid. (That’s a funny word, isn’t it? Try using it in a conversation some time. You’ll either sound really smart or giggle like a 12-year-old.) The radiation from a microwave is about the same as from your cell phone and internet router. Not that much, right? But, considering you are being exposed via your cell phone, internet, microwave, etc., it is probably a good idea to do what you can to reduce your daily radiation exposure as much as possible, especially if you are pregnant. Standing two inches away from the microwave while it is running is going to give you your daily dose of radiation. However, the strength of radiation reduces exponentially as you get farther from the source. Give your little nuclear box some room to work. Also, your eyes are particularly sensitive to radiation. Quit staring at the food. It isn’t a magic trick. It will still be there in 30 seconds.

The other way microwaves could potentially cause cancer is secondarily through plastics. The microwaves alter the structure of the plastic, releasing carcinogenic (cancer-causing) and hormonally active (estrogen-like) chemicals into your food. Sounds delicious! Microwave-safe containers are a must.

 

How Do I Survive My Microwave?

The major points to remember with your microwave are to stay at least a couple feet away from it, especially while it is on, and DO NOT microwave your food in plastic. Is it really that inconvenient to put your food on a plate or in a bowl?

To get the most nutrition out of your food, minimize the amount of water you use in the cooking process (that will reduce the loss of water-soluble vitamins and minerals) and the cooking time (which will reduce the amount of damage to the nutrients). Personally, I never microwave anything for more than a minute purely because I am impatient and truly do not care if my food is hot or cold.

 

A Personal Anecdote

I have not conducted any intentional, documented experiments with our microwave, but I did have a recent experience that has made me more intentional about minimizing my exposure to this little box of death. About a year ago my wife had a plant setting on top of our microwave. A friend had recently given the perfectly healthy plant to her. Within a few days that sucker started fading fast. I was actually impressed with how quickly she had killed it. One night I happened to hear on the news about a girl’s science project where she took two plants, watering one with water boiled in the microwave and the other with water boiled on the stove. The one with microwaved water died in about 9 days. Similar stories and videos are all over the internet. I told my wife. She took the plant off the microwave and started using water boiled on the stove. The plant sparked back to life in no time. It was crazy! Now she boils water for all of her plants (while I’m stuck drinking from the tap. What’s with that?). You may notice that there were two variables changed at the same time, the position of the plant and the purified water. But it is definitely food for thought all the same. Especially because of how quickly the plant died and how little we use our microwave. There is plenty going on in the world and in our bodies that we have absolutely no clue about and no control over. Just keep making the best decisions you can so you can thrive and enjoy the ride.

Ain’t No Rest For The WODers . . . Just Recovery

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Way back in the day, when I first started doing intensional exercise (not just playing sports), it was always on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Why? I have no idea. Because that’s how you do it. Then I learned about REST DAYS. While I understand the concept, forget about it! Rest days are for slackers. What we are talking about today are RECOVERY DAYS!

 

No Rest Days!

That’s right—I said it! And here’s why. When people take “rest days,” they usually sit around all day, moving as little as possible. Oftentimes it turns into a “CHEAT DAY” full of potato chips, chili fries, and ice cream. Which totally defeats the purpose. The whole reason for taking a day off from your training is to allow your body to recover from the beating you have been putting it through so that it can rebuild stronger than it was. Sitting idly and stuffing your face with crap does not support this goal.

There is the other extreme, of course—“ACTIVE REST.” While well-intentioned, running a 5k is not recovery. It’s a workout. Low weight, high reps is also a workout. Stop trying to justify it. If you are adding fatigue to your body, it is not recovery. As hard as it can be to pound into some people’s heads, I’ll say it: MORE IS NOT ALWAYS MORE.

 

Recovery Days Are for Recovering

When planning your recovery day, it helps to consider what is going on in your body. Think of your training as causing all kinds of tiny little injuries throughout your body. To heal these injuries, your body goes through a process of inflammation and repair. Obviously, we want to do things that support this process and prepare us for the next training session. This means reducing inflammation and promoting healing.

The first way to do this is with your fuel. Your body needs the building materials to fix and improve where you have been causing damage. I think a lot of people find it easier to eat well on days when they are exercising and harder to eat the right foods on their days off. But you can’t change your car’s oil while you’re driving. It is when you are recovering that all of that high-quality fuel can get put to use. This means quality protein to rebuild tissues and plenty of veggies and fruits to refill glycogen stores and get antioxidants to help the healing process. My favorite anti-inflammatory foods are GARLIC, GINGER, PINEAPPLE, CURRY POWDER, AND TURMERIC. I have at least two of these just about every day either as seasonings on my recovery meals or in a smoothie.

Another way to promote recovery is manually. One way is with compression. You can get compression pants and shirts that are intended to reduce inflammation, you can use VooDoo Bands to squeeze heavily worked areas, or you can use hands and rollers to massage inflammation out. A second way is by moving. Increased blood flow helps remove damaged tissue and brings replacement materials to the damaged area. When I say “moving,” I’m talking about going for a walk, taking a relaxing bike ride, or MAYBE sitting on a rower for a few minutes . . . with the damper at 1. Whatever you are doing, you should be able to carry on a conversation without having to catch your breath. (For all you competitive/chatty people, this is not a challenge to see how much you can do while still carrying on a conversation.) Also, FYI, when your body is warm and the blood is flowing is a great time to WORK ON MOBILITY. So what I’m saying is warm up and mobilize.

Another trick to lower inflammation is COLD SHOWERS. These have been shown to have a number of interesting effects on the body aside from reducing inflammation (like improved breathing and increased resilience against stress), so give it a shot. You can start with a warm shower and crank it to cold for the last minute or so, or suck it up and go cold the whole time.

Before moving on, let’s do a quick recap of our game plan for recovery days. We want to reduce inflammation and promote healing by using FOOD AS FUEL, practicing COMPRESSION and MASSAGE techniques, and GENTLY INCREASING BLOOD FLOW and MOBILIZING. And give cold showers a try. It might replace your coffee.

 

When Do I Recover?

Let me start with a qualifier. If it has been less than a year since you started working out CONSISTENTLY, then just set your workout schedule and stick to it! Don’t worry about your CNS fatigue. If you don’t know what “CNS fatigue” means, then you don’t need to worry about it! The best thing you can do is show up.

If you have been at this for while and want to optimize the timing of your work and recovery days, I have a few strategies for you.

The first thing to do is to take a SUBJECTIVE INVENTORY of your physical and mental state. You can do this in a journal, a workout log, or just as a daily mental exercise. Are you feeling tired? Did you sleep well? Are you sore? Are you cranky? Do you feel like you might get sick? Do you have any nagging aches or pains? Did your workout go like you thought it should? Is your performance weaker than usual? A consistent series of daily questions can, over time, paint you a picture of how you are handling your training volume and schedule. You probably want to include sleep duration and quality as well as diet in this inventory.

The next easy test is your RESTING HEART RATE. The easiest way to do this is to keep a timer next to your bed. As soon as you wake up, grab the timer. While still laying down in bed, count the number of heartbeats in one minute. This is your resting heart rate. If you do this daily, you will begin to see trends. I normally workout Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Monday morning, my RHR is usually around 45 bpm. By Thursday morning, after three straight days of workouts, it is usually around 65 bpm. This tells me that my body is working overtime to recover. After a day of recovery, my RHR is usually back down to about 50 bpm, and I’m ready for another workout.

The third test is HEART RATE VARIABILITY. You will need a heart rate monitor for this one. This measures the time between heartbeats to tell how fatigued your nervous system is. When you are well-rested, your heart beats only when it needs to. This means that the time between beats will vary from beat to beat. The higher the variability, the better rested you are. When you are fatigued, the system goes into a sort of autopilot and your heart beats at a more steady rhythm with lower variability in the rhythm. There are heart-rate monitors out there with apps and what-not for measuring this. I have never used them, so I won’t endorse any, but they are easy to find on Google if you are interested.

So, should you work out every other day, or 2 days on 1 off, or 3 on 1 off? I don’t know! The first step is realizing that recovery is as important as—if not more than—the workout itself. Once you have your recovery process down, start applying the fatigue tests. They might help confirm how tired you are feeling. On the other hand,  they might tell you that it’s all in your head and that you should quit your belly-aching and lift something heavy! I guess you’ll just have to try it to find out.

Do You Know How Much You Know?

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Being healthy is finally cool.

Well, actually, based on obesity rates, I guess talking about being healthy is cooler than actually being healthy. Everyone seems to be an expert on health, exercise, and nutrition these days, even if it isn’t visually apparent. With this in mind, I want to talk about the different levels of smarty-pantsness folks go through on their journey toward health and fitness enlightenment. Hopefully this will help you see where you’ve been, where you are, and perhaps where you want to be.

 

Level 1: Don’t Know, Don’t Care

This, of course, is where we all start. We might also call this one “Ignorance Is Bliss.” The good ole high school days of scarfing everything in sight. I, for one, had zero reservations about eating to and through capacity, especially on enchilada day. Our lunch lady saved any extra hot lunches for me, and I gave them a good home. (Thanks, Mrs. T!) Unfortunately, many people stay here for life.

Back in the day, you didn’t really need to educate yourself about what to eat. The food that was available was grown produce, not manufactured products, and activity level of the general population was higher. Nowadays, if you live in any sort of developed area, you need to pay attention to what you are eating and make a conscious effort to move! Are there times that I wish I could unknow everything so I can be ignorant and blissful? Chya! But that isn’t really an option, and I’m glad it isn’t. I prefer to thrive.

 

Level 2: Know Enough to Be Annoying

Your interest is piqued! Congrats! At this point, you have probably read a couple persuasive articles on Facebook, watched a few documentaries on Netflix, and maybe dropped into a spin class or two. Suddenly, you’re eating “80% Paleo” and can’t figure out why your results from the last two weeks aren’t as amazing as the guy on Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. Your friends are likely ready to sock you one for repeating the same three factoids from Food Inc. over and over while recounting every moment of your lunchtime WOD. I appreciate your fervor, but you need to rein it in a bit. What you are likely to do is annoy your friends and then burn yourself out on this stuff. Your friends are not going to change their dietary and exercise habits overnight, and you are going to get really sick of kale. (P.S. Next person to tell me they eat “80% Paleo” is getting a certified organic, grass-fed, gluten-free knuckle sandwich.)

 

Level 3: Know Enough to Be Useful, Too Much to Be Happy

When you reach this point, you will decide if you love it or hate it. Those who end up hating learning this stuff are usually focused on the scary things. Fear of toxins in all food, clothes, and furniture or worrying about the ill effects of eating too much, too little, too often, or not often enough can leave you worn out and wondering how you aren’t covered in tumors. “I’m a little tired. I should’ve added sugar to my coffee. Maybe I shouldn’t lift today.” “My sleep was a little compromised, so I will probably have a 5% decrease in performance today.” Shut it and lift! This focus on possible causes and effects of EVERYTHING can be paralyzing. You need to find the line between practical and petty.

If you are learning and loving it, this is a great place to be. You are probably the go-to source of info for your friends and family, and you have the info to help them. However, there are two big pitfalls you can get caught in at this point. One is known as “information dump.” This is when someone asks if they should get a protein powder and you unload a 20-minute lecture on the pros and cons of supplements vs. food. Meanwhile, your friend is just hoping you’ll take a breath so he can slip in an excuse to get away. I know because I did this recently and realized it only after the fact. The second pitfall is trying to have all of the answers. When friends ask questions, you might feel the need to have a smarty-pants answer when the best answer is “I don’t know. I should look that up.” There’s no need to lead people astray with guesses, and everyone respects someone willing to admit they don’t have all the answers. Also, if you make up a wrong answer and they find out, you look like a horse’s patoot.

 

Level 4: Know That You Don’t Know

Successfully avoiding the two previously mentioned pitfalls, by offering simple answers when possible and deferring when appropriate, you move yourself toward sage status. This is where you realize, and come to terms with the fact, that you don’t have all the answers and neither does anyone else. Experts disagree about just about everything all the time, so how can you expect to have it all figured out? You will feel a sense of release when you accept that you can’t, and probably don’t want to, control every tiny aspect of your diet and exercise and how it affects your body. The human body is so infinitely complex, with all kinds of systems interconnected and affected by endless amounts of known and unknown triggers, that it is foolish and arrogant to think that you have it all right. A more relaxed and open-minded approach focused on nailing the fundamentals consistently and enjoying playing sports (not just training) and eating occasional treats (hey, you’re only human) is now your road to thrivent health, fitness, and sanity.

 

Knowing Vs. Doing

At every level of this journey of yours, you must understand the difference between KNOWING and DOING. It is easy to educate yourself through reading and watching and hearing. However, until you are implementing ideas and testing theories, how can you say you know? Don’t be an armchair quarterback. What’s the point of knowing how to be healthy and fit if you never put the knowledge to good use? Go out and test what you learn. Seek out new sources for information and not just information that you already agree with. Do some experiments on yourself (safely, of course). Try different diets, different programs, different sports, different lifts—experience what is out there. That base of experience is what wisdom is made of, people. I’m definitely not there yet, but I’m pretty sure knowing that gets me one step closer.


Become A Better Human
This came up on my Morten Lauridsen Pandora channel while I was writing this article. Gives me chills every time. Thought I’d share to beautify your day. 

The Opportunity Of Injury

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When you consistently push your limits, which is necessary to create change, it is inevitable that you will, at some point, get hurt. You can only poke the beehive so many times before getting stung. Once you feel that sting, it is important to know how to deal with it.

The first thing to understand is the difference between HURT and INJURED. If you are hurt, you can continue doing what you are doing. It may be uncomfortable, but it will not cause more damage if you continue. Rub some dirt on it, and suck it up. If you are injured, damage has been done that needs to heal in order to prevent further damage. If you hear a pop or crack or feel a sharp or hot nerve pain, you need to stop. Understanding this difference is YOUR JOB! A coach can only know so much and can’t guess at what you’re feeling. Get to know your body and be conscious of how things should feel.

When a body part is injured, your body goes through a healing process. The first step is INFLAMMATION. When tissue is damaged, blood flow is compromised and cells die. Your body sends extra fluid to clear out the dead cells and introduce new ones. The fluid can seep through damaged vessels into the damaged tissues, causing swelling. Your body also increases blood flow to the injured area while enlarging blood vessels upstream of the injury and constricting those downstream. This also contributes to swelling. Inflammation can be painful, but it is necessary in the healing process.

As inflammation subsides, the PROLIFERATIVE PHASE begins. Now that the dead tissue is removed, new scar tissue is laid down. This is a HUGE point, so don’t miss it! Scar tissue is formed in line with the forces placed on the area, and then shortens to minimize the size of the injury. What does this mean? It means that if you sprain your ankle and start walking on the outside of your foot with your foot rolled out and arch flattened, your tissues are going to heal in that crappy position and then shrink-wrap themselves into that crappy position. Remember the movie Rookie of the Year?  Funky butt lovin’ is right! This is why it is so important to maintain good positions, range of motion, and movement patterns throughout the healing process.

Finally, in the REMODELING PHASE, scar tissue is replaced with stronger tissue. This will probably never be back to completely normal, but it gets close. Again, this tissue is laid down along lines of stress, so don’t mess this up!

Now that we know what happens during healing, how do we assist and optimize our healing? First off, your fuel! When injured, your body needs high-quality food to fuel the healing process. Good sources of protein provide the building blocks for the new tissue being built. Arganine and glutamine are two amino acids that can be supplemented to aid recovery. My favorite anti-inflammatory foods that help healing (or help day-to-day recovery from WODs) are turmeric, garlic, ginger, pineapple, and any Omega-3s.

After an injury, the most popular go-to is ice. However, the few studies that have been done on the subject have shown the only significant benefit of ice is preventing second injury that would be caused by severe swelling in the first thirty minutes or so after the injury. Beyond that time period, compression and elevation will help aid the inflammatory process. The waste being cleared out of the injured area gets drained through the LYMPHATIC SYSTEM. The heart does not push fluid through this system, your muscles do. Think squeezing Gogurt out of its tube. If it is painful to move the injured area, compression (like a VooDoo Band) can squeeze in place of your muscles. Of course, once you can move without pain, get moving!

Too many people think that because they are injured, they can’t go to the gym. This is total nonsense! Exercise is crucial for your healing, both physically and mentally. Just getting your heart rate up increases blood flow throughout your body, which your injury needs. You can use this opportunity to focus on weaknesses that you may have been neglecting and on maintaining strength in your healthy parts. Unilateral movements (one arm or one leg) don’t get used too often, especially in CrossFit, but these can be extremely useful in building strength, stability, and control. If you need suggestions of ways to work around your injury, ask a coach or Google. No matter what your injury, there is something you can come in and do.

Mentally, you need to stay in your routine. One week away from the gym and suddenly what was “me time” becomes a chore. After a month, getting your Nanos on is like pulling teeth. Don’t let that happen. Come to your usual class, hang out with your friends, and get work in. Set some new PRs in single-arm snatch, single-leg deadlift, seated press, etc.

No one wants to get injured. By focusing on mechanics, technique, and mobility, you can minimize your chance of injury. However, if that day comes, realize that your injury is not an excuse—it is an opportunity. You have the chance to focus on the holes in your game that most people ignore. Don’t let that opportunity pass you by.

Milk – Do You Dairy?

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If you want to grow up big and strong, you have to drink your milk, right? That’s what we have been told for decades by the trustworthy government nutrition experts and, of course, the dairy industry. They have definitely won my trust over the years, so why question them? Can you tell I’m being sardonic? Do you need to look up “sardonic”? It’s good to learn new words, so go ahead.

Anyway, some people are milk-drinking fiends while others couldn’t care less. My friend’s family of four would go through a gallon at dinner every night, while our family of six had to throw out spoiled gallons. Is my family all going to have osteoporosis? Will my friend’s family all get cancer? Let’s examine the facts.

Milk Is for Babies!

No, this isn’t a childish insult—it is a fact. Mammalian mothers produce milk to feed to their babies. And what do babies do (beside eat, sleep, cry, and poop)? They grow! They grow fast! Milk is nutrient- and calorie-dense so that babies can grow a ridiculous amount in their first years. Interestingly (and not surprisingly), different mammals’ milk has different nutrient content appropriate to their babies’ needs. Do you have the needs of a baby cow? Do you plan to gain one to two pounds a day? No? Then maybe you should eat grown-up food and drink grown-up drinks, like whiskey. Wait, no, I mean water. Drink lots of water. But whiskey too.

Lactose, Lactase, and Lactaid

You probably know if you can’t digest dairy. Lactose intolerant folks do not make the enzyme necessary to break down lactose. Here’s how it works. Lactose is the sugar in milk. You can tell it’s a sugar because it ends with “ose.” Babies’ bodies produce the enzyme needed to break lactose. This enzyme is Lactase. You can tell it is an enzyme because it ends with “ase.” See, all those fancy science names actually make a little sense. As we get older, our genes get expressed differently; we stop producing lactase and stop digesting lactose. (Unless, of course, you take Lactaid, which is just a lactase supplement. This all makes sense, since you probably aren’t going to be drinking your mother’s milk for the rest of your life. That would be weird. But drinking a random cow mother’s milk is totally normal. . .) This means the lactose-intolerant are actually the normal ones. We aren’t supposed to be able to digest lactose our whole lives. If you can, congrats. You’re a weirdo.

 

The “C” Word

Dairy has been linked to several types of cancer, most notably prostate, but breast and ovarian as well. To see the links between dairy and cancer, we need to know a little about cancer. Cancer begins with free radicals. These are cells that have had a molecule stolen from them by oxygen (known as oxidation). Free radicals now go on a rampage to get that molecule back at all costs. They attack other cells and rip the molecule away, damaging the other cell and its DNA. This mutated cell now grows and reproduces at an accelerated rate. Thus is born a tumor. Now, this whole oxidation thing happens all the time; it’s totally normal. The problem is that environmental toxins accelerate the oxidation process, creating more free radicals. Now imagine more mutated cells that are growing really fast getting a dose of chemicals telling them grow faster! That’s what Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) does. While IGF-1 in cow’s milk is identical to human IGF-1, not a ton of it seems to get into your system. What does happen, is milk stimulates increased production of your own IGF-1. This is good for babies who need to grow, but bad for tumors that want to kill you.

 

But My Calcium!

Is this seriously still an issue? First of all, if you are worried about osteoporosis, there are better ways to avoid it. Number one is weight training! Your muscles get stronger when you stress them, and the same goes for your bones. By placing your bones under load, you stimulate mineralization and hardening. Just drinking more milk isn’t going to do it. In fact, drinking more than three glasses a day could be leaching calcium from your bones! All the milk can cause your body to become acidic. To neutralize the acidity, your body pulls minerals from your bones to bond with the acids.

Do you know what has crazy amounts of calcium? Broccoli! Do you know what you need to absorb that calcium? Vitamin D! Start lifting weights, eating more broccoli, and getting some sun (or get a vitamin D supplement, starting around 1,000-2,000 IUs a day). That is how you fight osteoporosis.

 

Is There Any Good News?

Despite the potential pitfalls, drinking reasonable amounts of milk (you can throw cheese in there too) probably isn’t the end of the world. If it doesn’t make you sick, a glass won’t kill you. If you are totally freaked out about the amount of free radicals in your body, there are measures you can take. Remember how that whole process started with oxidation? There are these crazy little things that fight oxidation, called antioxidants. You know, that stuff in blueberries that’s good for you, but you don’t know why. This is why. And suddenly the name makes sense! Antioxidants are like Rustoleum for your cells. The easiest way to get them is to grab a handful of berries each day. You can eat them plain or in a smoothie. I like to pour some coconut oil over cold berries so the oil hardens on them. It’s a delicious and nutritious dessert. Would a scoop of vanilla ice cream be amazing with those berries? Heck, yes! But dosage is key. Too much dairy too often, and your free radicals might radicalize.

 

P.S.—Casein

I know some of you trying to get swole are wondering about casein. Casein is the primary protein in milk and is used in many protein supplements. If you can handle it, go for it. But, be aware that casein is known to have similar effects as another protein, gluten. If you are unaware of the issues gluten can cause, check out this article all about my experience with gluten.