Is Red Meat Good For You?

Posted on June 21, 2020June 27, 2024 by Travis Wade

21
Jun

What’s With Red Meat?

Is red meat good or bad for you? These are the secrets meat producers keep!

By Travis Wade

Red meat is flesh from a mammal that is red when it is raw. Examples include beef, lamb, venison, moose, elk, goat, and buffalo.

White meat, which contains less myoglobin (a red protein which binds to iron and stores oxygen in the blood), turns a lighter colour as you cook it. The most well-known examples of white meat are poultry and fish.

Four groups determine the classification of meats as white or red: the USDA, gastronomists, chefs, and nutritionists. It’s not surprising that these groups don’t always agree whether a type of meat fits into the red or white category. That’s why some meats – like pork, veal, duck, goose, rabbit, tuna, and salmon – are known as “pink.”

Is Red Meat Bad For You?

Vegans and vegetarians… Vegans do not eat meat or animal products. In contrast, vegetarians won’t eat animals, but they will eat products from animals like eggs or milk. Paleo dieters like meat, and obviously, the carnivore dieters love it. So, is red meat good or bad for you?

I don’t know what your local meat producers are up to because I have only interviewed a couple who qualify for that definition. Therefore, most of the information in this article has been gathered from articles written by research scientists. I would just say, be skeptical of all producers because, in big business or small, everyone wants to cut costs.

There are many reasons why red meat is unhealthy. Let me rephrase that. There are many reasons why commercially raised red meat is unhealthy.

According to Dr. Mark Hyman, every study indicating that red meat is bad for you has used commercially raised red meat. Let me tell you some of the main reasons why commercially raised meat is causing North Americans’ problems.

Glyphosate

I’ll start with glyphosate because it has given me nightmares since I first learned about it, and I still believe it is the world’s greatest problem. Glyphosate was originally patented as an antibiotic. I will get back to antibiotics a little later, but keep in mind that glyphosate is an antibiotic. It actually kills everything not just bacteria.

Glyphosate is also an excellent chelator, which means it binds to minerals. If you sprayed glyphosate on something, it would bind to the minerals, and you could wipe them right off. Glyphosate does the same thing inside your body: it binds to your minerals, depleting your body of its much-needed nutrients.

Glyphosate breaks down the lining of your gut, allowing molecules much larger than usual to leak into the bloodstream. This is referred to as Leaky Gut Syndrome. While in the blood, it is your body’s natural defence to attack these larger molecules, which ultimately creates system-wide chronic inflammation.

When your body is chronically inflamed, and antigens are always floating around, the antigens and inflammation will damage your body. Antigens and inflammation are our body’s defence mechanism in emergency situations only. Our bodies can only handle inflammation in short bursts.

Antigens and inflammation attacking our own body is known as an autoimmune disease. A few common examples are Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Restless Leg Syndrome, and psoriasis, but there are many others. Glyphosate has also been linked to many other diseases, evidenced by the numerous lawsuits against Monsanto.

Glyphosate is found in the product called Round-Up. Genetically modified grains sprayed with Round-Up are fed to commercially raised animals; therefore, glyphosate would be found in the commercially raised red meat you ingest.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

That brings me to GMOs. Glyphosate and GMOs cause all kinds of diseases and present a massive problem for anyone looking to improve health and fitness. A complete discussion of GMOs is too extensive to add to this blog. I will be posting an article on the topic very soon, so check back shortly. However, to summarize, you don’t want your red meat to eat it!

Do the Red Meats You Consume Eat Grains?

I also mentioned grains. The grains animals are fed are GMO because they are cheaper. GMO grains will have glyphosate and mycotoxins. Even non-GMO grains often get sprayed with glyphosate because it ripens/kills them quicker. Mycotoxins are neurotoxins and the most potent carcinogens we know of.

Grains are fed to animals because it causes them to gain weight quickly. However, grains provide little or no nutrients and wash nutrients out of the animal. Grain fed animals will be low in nutrients and high in toxins.

Antibiotics

At one time, meat producers had no understanding of why antibiotics fattened up their animals; they just knew it worked. Today, we know how it works. The two main types of bacteria in the gut are called firmicutes and bacteriodetes. Firmicutes create fat storage, and bacteriodetes make animals skinny.

Bacteroidetes survive on antioxidants from healthy foods. Conversely, firmicutes survive on things like sugar and flour. When antibiotics are ingested, they kill off bacteriodetes allowing the firmicutes to take over. Remarkably, 80% of the antibiotics that get used are used on animals.

Estrogen

Another little trick meat producers use is a fugal estrogen called zeranol. Meat producers place zeranol in the ear of the animal. Estrogen causes the animal to retain fat. Studies show it takes 30% less feed to fatten up an animal on estrogen. It is important to note, zeranol is also a mycotoxin and is banned in Europe. North American meat is also banned in Europe.

On a side note, xenoestrogen is found in plastic, soy, and most lotions, paint, and beauty products. Xenoestrogens aren’t real estrogens, they just mimic estrogen in the body. Similarly, the estrogen in plants isn’t real estrogen either. Phytoestrogen is a plant estrogen, and it just acts like estrogen as well. It’s a plant’s protective mechanism in the same way some plants are poisonous.

Is Red Meat Good For You?

So, why bother eating red meat at all? Do vegans have it right? They are most definitely right about commercially raised red meat. It’s not a good idea to eat it due to all the above reasons not to mention the problems it causes the environment.

Also, we most likely need to get most of our food from plants (everyone is different). However, like I said before, the number one thing you are trying to accomplish with food is to get as much nutrients as possible. High-quality, grass-fed, grass-finished meat is loaded with nutrients. Wild meat is the best source.

Iron, zinc, ubiquinol, collagen, specific amino acids, creatine, carnosine, and Vitamin B12 are tough for vegans to get from their diet. A lack of these nutrients causes very significant consequences.

Iron

I always ask my clients a little trivia question: “Do you know what is in red meat that makes it red?”

They say, “Blood?”

“Yes, that’s correct. What’s in the blood that makes it red?” They say, “Hemoglobin?”

I say, “Yes, that’s correct. What’s in the hemoglobin that makes it red?”

They say, “I don’t know.”

The answer is iron. Iron is one of the top nutrient deficiencies in North America. Without iron, you don’t produce red blood cells. Red blood cells control your oxygen-carrying capacity, and when that goes down, the energy goes down. This causes many problems because all your systems use oxygen. I hope it’s obvious how important iron is.

Red Meat Is Also High in Zinc

Got dry skin or dandruff? Do you know what the active ingredient is in dandruff shampoo? The answer is zinc – or zinc should be the answer. Without zinc, you will have dry skin and won’t build up your connective tissue. Your skin, bones, muscles, blood vessels, and gut lining are all connective tissues, to name a few. Red meat is one of the best sources of zinc.

Ubiquinol

Ubiquinol is the active ingredient in coenzyme-q-10. One of the main purposes of ubiquinol is to help with energy production in mitochondria and to clean up the by-products of energy production. Without ubiquinol, you will have less energy, and the by-products of energy production will damage cells. Red meat is an excellent source of ubiquinol.

Red Meat and Collagen

Collagen is a major concern these days, and animal products are the only source. Your connective tissue (skin, blood vessels, facia of the muscles, bones, and gut lining) are made up of collagen. How are you adding collagen to your diet?

Bone broth and red meat are full of collagen. Not only that, but zinc, magnesium, calcium, L-glutamine, proline, and glycine, required to heal and grow connective tissue, are all found in bone broth and red meat. Regretfully, Leaky Gut Syndrome is something we all must combat these days; and if you are not using bone broth, you will be losing the battle. Poultry bone broth in particular for the gut.

Your body will produce some collagen on its own but you’re helping your body out a ton if you add some. The L.A. Lakers basketball team uses bone broth as part of their regiment, and they have the least amount of injuries in the NBA. Inasmuch, Dr. Natsha Campbell McBride is a world leader in matters of the gut. She says meat and bone broth are not optional for gut health.

Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is the fifth leading nutrient deficiency in North America, and it is required for every system of the body. For example, vitamin B12 is necessary for energy production, blood formation, DNA synthesis, and support for your nervous and immune systems.

To keep it short, the following are symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency: weakness, decreased energy, tingling in extremities, brain fog, memory problems, sleep problems, mood swings, and lack of motivation. Likewise, some of the diseases associated with vitamin B12 deficiency are depression, dementia, Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, anemia, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and brain damage. Eat red meat to get vitamin B12.

High-Quality Grass-Finished Red Meat

Some of the above nutrients are found in plants but at a much lower concentration than you would find in grass-finished red meat. It would take a lot of food to get all the nutrients you could get from a small piece of meat, and some of those plant products are much more harmful than beneficial. Bread comes to mind.

In conclusion, high-quality grass-finished meat is a staple to a healthy diet, which will provide the proper levels of the above nutrients in a reasonable portion of food. Conversely, a lack of high-quality grass-finished meat will lead to all kinds of health issues.

I have personally seen some of my own clients that suffered from issues get better. One had allergy-like symptoms and syncope (fainting). She had been a vegetarian her whole life and, after addressing nutrient deficiencies and introducing goat meat to her diet, her symptoms went away. She’s doing great now! This is a prevalent story that I have heard from many health care practitioners.

The following are a few good sources for grass-fed, hormone-, antibiotic-, glyphosate-free, and non-grain-fed meats:

These are all grass-fed beef farms located in Alberta. If you aren’t from Alberta, you can go to eatwild.com to find a Canadian farmer close to you who provides quality grass-fed red meat with none of the hormones, antibiotics, or grains.

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Fitness Nutrition

Why Vitamin D is Low? Facts About Vitamin D

Posted on May 11, 2020June 27, 2024 by Travis Wade

11
May

Why Vitamin D is Low

Why it might not actually be your vitamin D.

By Travis Wade

Nutrition is complicated. People want to know why vitamin D is low. You would think that getting vitamin D would be easy peasy. You get some sun when you can, and when you can’t, just take vitamin D supplements making sure to get lots, and you’ll be fine. I wish it was that easy.

I will try to cover as much as I can about vitamin D in this article, but there’s a lot to it. First, if you haven’t consulted a nutritionist and you are taking supplemental vitamin D, you are likely doing more harm than good. My recommendation is to stop taking it immediately. Here is why.

What is Vitamin D

Vitamin D is a hormone our bodies create. Like other hormones, cholesterol is the precursor to vitamin D. Also, there’s a storage and active form of the hormone. Cholesterol under our skin turns to cholecalciferol with sunlight. Our liver will convert cholecalciferol to calcidiol (or 25-hydroxyvitamin D). Calcidiol is the storage form of the hormone, and the one doctors will test for. Calcidiol gets converted to calcitriol (1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D) in our kidneys, which is the active form of the hormone. Keep in mind that each one of these conversions uses up magnesium.

High Vitamin D Causes Low Magnesium

Magnesium is the top mineral deficiency and the fourth leading deficiency overall. It’s the first mineral to get used up when we are stressed. Also, magnesium has a lot of competition to be absorbed and used by the body from other minerals, and from a ridiculous amount of toxins. You are very likely already deficient in magnesium.

Our adrenalin glands rely on the ratio of sodium to magnesium. When too much vitamin D depletes your magnesium, your adrenal glands will not be able to function correctly.

High Vitamin D Causes Low Potassium

Vitamin D excretes our potassium. It’s called renal potassium wasting. Potassium also has a lot of competition for receptor sites. Its biggest competitor for receptor sites is thallium, which is in car exhaust. It’s also extremely challenging to get enough potassium in your diet.

Inasmuch, the thyroid gland relies on the ratio of calcium to potassium. When too much vitamin D increases your calcium and decreases your potassium, it slows the thyroid causing hypothyroidism. A few symptoms of low-potassium are constipation, heart dysrhythmias, slow metabolism, and anxiety.

High Vitamin D Causes High Calcium

Vitamin D affects over 200 genes, which means it has many jobs. The number one job vitamin D does is it allows for the absorption of calcium. There are two types of people: those that don’t care about their health, they are lacking vitamin D, and, therefore, lacking calcium. Those that care about their health are taking vitamin D and most likely have low potassium, low magnesium, and high calcium—none of the above works.

Too much vitamin D turns us into a calcified mess. We get stiff muscles, anxiety, arrhythmias, high blood pressure, kidney/gallbladder stones, increased stress, and slow metabolism. Instead of preventing the most common diseases in our society, too much vitamin D will increase cardiovascular disease and the chances of a heart attack or stroke.

Food Sources Of Vitamin D

I did an analysis test, and I got my results back. The person helping me with my analysis is a toxin expert but also a nutritionist. Her recommendation was not to take vitamin D and get vitamin D from the sun and from the food we eat like the SMASH diet: sardines, mackerel, anchovies, salmon, and Herring.

Just as vitamin D allows for the absorption of calcium, vitamin A provides for the intake of potassium. I asked my nutritionist about the ratio of vitamin A to vitamin D we need, and the answer is unknown. When I think about it, it will be different for everyone and different at different times for everyone. My nutritionist’s advice was to get the amount/ratio that is in food.

While I am at it, vitamin E allows for the absorption of magnesium and vitamin K provides for the intake of sodium.

Get Vitamin D From the Sun

Sunlight is perfect because the UVB light gives us vitamin D, and if we get too much, the UVA will destroy the excess vitamin D. Scientists looked at fair-skinned people in Hawaii to see how high they could get vitamin D levels with sunlight. People tend to top out at about 150 mmol/ml or 60 ng/L. You don’t ever want to drop below 20 ng/L.

Sunlight is also great because it detoxifies the body. One way is the sulphur it creates eliminates toxins, and another way is infrared light helps to eliminate toxins. Fewer toxins also reduces inflammation in the body and reduces your risk of any disease.

Sunlight also prevents cardiovascular disease by providing nitrous oxide (NO). NO is a vasodilator, and it gets stored in the wall of our vasculature. We can release it with a little exercise. If you are sitting for a while, get up and do a bit of a full-body workout.

Sunscreen

As an EMT, I have dealt with adverse reactions to sunscreen. One of the problems with sunscreens is they are full of toxic chemicals that get absorbed into our skin. Another problem is that they aren’t regulated. A patient I was dealing with had used the same sunscreen before, but one bottle isn’t the same as the next, so he reacted and didn’t know why. The SPF on the label is not regulated either, so that’s inaccurate as well.

Most sunscreens are carcinogenic because of the chemicals and because they are unreliable. Getting a sunburn is also carcinogenic. The best way to avoid getting a sunburn is to get sunlight consistently, and the earlier in the day, the better. This will give us a good base tan and decreases our chances of burning. The darker the skin, the less UVB/UVA rays we absorb.

At around two till four in the afternoon, it’s siesta time. The sun will be the hottest and breaking the atmosphere more directly at that time, and that’s when people will burn. If you can’t get out of the sun at this time and you need a sunscreen, then you can use zinc oxide. Don’t take zinc oxide orally as a supplement. It’s not bioavailable, which means the gut won’t absorb it into the body. Neither will our skin; the molecule is too large. It works as a sunscreen though, and it’s not toxic.

Vitamin D From Light Therapy

I was looking into how to get vitamin D from light instead of a supplement a couple of years ago. One article that I read talked about Edmonton, AB, Canada in particular because we are so far north. It said we don’t get UVB rays in Edmonton from October to April. The UVB rays get deflected off the atmosphere during those months, and we won’t get vitamin D.

When I looked into light therapy, I found lamps that give us UVB rays, but they were $1200. You buy a bunch of them and set them around you and have them shining on you from all sides. That’s way too expensive! I thought I would just get a turtle lamp. One of those lamps that lizards or turtles have shining on them to provide UVB rays, and they are only $50. The problem was how much UVB light do I need?

To this day I am undecided about UVB light therapy. I have talked to many experts that say to avoid UV light therapy due to the carcinogen effects and I have heard many say to use it. If I ever find a UVB light therapy lamp that comes with instructions on proper use to avoid cancer, and it doesn’t cost $1200, I will use it. In the mean time, in the winter months I use supplemental vitamin D twice a week and try to get as much vitamin D as I can from my diet.

One of the only supplements I recommend is fermented cod liver oil. Fermented cod liver oil will have probiotics, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K2, and Omega 3s. The amount in each capsule is unknown as this is a whole food and not made in a lab with specific amounts of each.

Sulphated Vitamin D

When literature talks about vitamin D, they might be talking about the cholesterol form (cholecalciferol), the storage form (calcidiol), or the active form (calcitriol). So an article might say here are the benefits of vitamin D… they might be talking about the kind that comes from the sun; the sulphated form. A vitamin D supplement is not sulphated and doesn’t have many of the health benefits the sun offers.

One of the cool things about sulphated cholesterol is that it is water-soluble and doesn’t need to be packaged up by LDL to be transported around. Usually, the liver will produce LDL, which facilitates the movement of fats and cholesterol around the blood. When the sun sulphates cholesterol, it lowers LDL levels.

Dr. Stephanie Seneff found evidence that LDL or “bad cholesterol” was our body’s protective mechanism to avoid a heart attack. Doctors always saw LDL go up before a heart attack, so they concluded it was a cause. Dr. Stephanie Seneff claims that sugar will gum up LDL, and sugar is a problem.

I have mentioned it before, and Dr. Stephanie says it too, but cholesterol is a vital nutrient. It is one of the building blocks of our bodies. Our body can create some cholesterol in the liver with the right raw materials, but it’s a challenging process. Therefore, help from food sources is critical. Eggs, fatty cuts of meat, coconut oil, and grass-fed butter are excellent sources.

Dr. Stephanie Seneff

Here is a transcript of Dr. Mercola’s interview with Dr. Stephanie Seneff.

Dr. Stephanie Seneff is a senior scientist at MIT, and she did thirty years of research on sulphur. I have to talk about sulphur because the benefits may be confused with vitamin D. Dr. Seneff says that it might be the sulphur that has a lot of the health benefits that vitamin D is credited for. Then again, one form of vitamin D is sulphated cholesterol or cholecalciferol.

The problem Dr. Seneff has, which is our problem as well, is sulphur isn’t on anyone’s radar as a nutrient we need. You can’t find daily requirements because it’s never been studied or looked at as a nutrient. Thank you, Dr. Stephanie, for putting in all that time researching sulphur because here are the possible health benefits.

I want to start with this study about us Canadians. Some awesome people discovered that if Canadians increased their vitamin D to a healthy amount, we would have approximately 37,000 fewer deaths per year. That’s 16.1% of annual deaths in Canada. Death prevention is a pretty awesome benefit, I’d say.

Another advantage is disease prevention. Cancer is one of those diseases. Sulphur (or vitamin D) also strengthens your immune system and protects you from cardiovascular disease. Sulphur is also in your neurons and protects you from depression.

I think it’s important to reiterate that sulphur may prevent the most common diseases in our society. These diseases being cancer, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke. Dr. Seneff says the correlation between sunlight and cardiovascular disease is a straight line.

Dr. Seneff mentions the Mediterranean diet and how it has gained popularity. She says a Mediterranean diet only works in the Mediterranean because of the soil. She says there is a lot of sulphur there. Now might be a good time to mention she is not a fan of a vegetarian diet because there isn’t enough sulphur in it.

The Greek Islands Example

The photo was taken from https://www.greecetravel.com/crete/

The photo was taken from https://www.greektravel.com/greekislands/skopelos/

There are two islands not far from each other in Greece. One is called Skopelos, and the other is called Crete. Crete is the largest island in Greece and is made from basalt. Basalt is a volcanic rock and full of sulphur. Skopelos, on the other hand, is made of limestone. Can you guess which one has less heart disease? They have similar people, climate, and diet. Skopelos has five times the risk of heart disease compared to Crete.

A couple more diseases that may be prevented with adequate sulphur might be multiple sclerosis and arthritis. Dr. Seneff says people with a sulphur deficiency may steal sulphur where their genetics say to. Sometimes it might be from cartilage, and maybe it’ll be from the myelin sheath of neurons.

Dr. Seneff says she was talking to a scientist doing a study on multiple sclerosis. The doctor had interviewed those with multiple sclerosis and found that everyone he spoke to was not breastfed. Guess what’s in breast milk. Raw milk (non-pasteurization) is the only food source known that has sulphated vitamin D in it.

Sources of Sulphur

Sunlight! Meat, eggs, seafood, and Epsom salt bath. Dr. Seneff and I both do an Epsom salt bath at least twice a week. I was doing it for the increased magnesium. Dr. Seneff was doing it for the increased sulphur. I am now doing it for both. Epsom salt is magnesium sulphate. Both are easily absorbed through the skin, and both are very much needed.

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Fitness Nutrition, Weight Loss

The Ketogenic Diet: My Favourite Weight Loss Diet

Posted on April 2, 2020June 28, 2024 by Travis Wade

02
Apr

The Ketogenic Diet: My Favourite Weight Loss Diet

Learn the secrets of weight loss, building muscle, and reaching your fitness goals!

By Travis Wade

Diets!

There’s the counting-calories method,

the cutting-out-allergens method,

all kinds of gimmicky brand-name methods,

the detox method,

the intermittent-fasting/fasting method,

the graze-all-day (small meals many times a day) method.

Geez!! There’s a lot of methods!

My favourite?

The Keto or Ketogenic Diet

At forty-nine years old, my metabolism has slowed down several times. As a child, you could count my ribs up to my pecs. (I always had big pecs.) Also, I had nice abs my whole life. I can’t go without them now!

There was a time I lived off of pasta and burgers. I had skin issues but didn’t know why at the time. Those days are long gone! The more I got into exercising, the more I got into eating right as well. At first, I could eat what I wanted as long as I exercised enough and I had a great body. I don’t know when that changed??

Now I eat a very stringent diet, which led me to stumble onto magic! I never knew how good I could feel! I always lived a life just like every other day and didn’t feel great but assumed chronic fatigue and brain fog were normal. The other thing is I was clueless I had chronic fatigue and brain fog. It wasn’t until I got the nutrients and ketosis I needed before I realized how crappy I felt before.

I started tracking everything I ate, and I will show you how I did it. Now that I know what the other side is like, I could never go back! This diet is like the movie “Limitless” but for the mind and body! Here’s what a ketogenic diet can do for you and how to do it properly, but first…

These are two of my clients that did a ketogenic diet and Kyle lost 100 pounds in 7 months!

WHAT IS KETOSIS?

Ketosis is a metabolic process where your body uses ketones from fat as its primary energy source. Anytime you are burning fat off your body you are in ketosis.

THE BENEFITS OF A KETOGENIC DIET

Many doctors and nutritionists agree that fat is our preferred energy source and a ketogenic diet offers many benefits, including:

disease prevention
weight loss
increased energy
decreased brain fog (increased alertness)
a decrease in muscle wasting
increased hormone production

DISEASE PREVENTION

When I mention disease prevention, I’m referring to some diseases that experts once believed were caused by a ketogenic diet. The latest research shows eating fat does not increase “bad cholesterol,” leading to heart disease or elevated blood pressure. In reality, it’s allowing yourself to indulge in sugars and fast-acting carbohydrates like flour or grains that lead to these diseases. A proper ketogenic diet can help prevent these diseases (and others).

Research is also showing excellent results in controlling, and in some cases, curing epilepsy and some forms of cancer with a keto diet. As a result, research studies evaluating the benefits of a ketogenic diet have expanded to other diseases, like Parkinson’s.

I am sure a big part of this disease prevention is because ketones burn much cleaner than carbohydrates. If you are eating a high-carb diet, there will be a higher disease-causing environment. There will be increased inflammation, thyroid problems (which regulates your metabolism), and increased insulin. If you’re in a calorie deficit, it magnifies the problem.

WEIGHT LOSS ON THE KETOGENIC DIET

Not all ketogenic diets cause weight loss. For weight loss to occur, you must have a calorie deficit. Because you consume low quantities of carbohydrates on a keto diet, your blood glucose level and insulin will remain low. Low insulin leads to storing a lot less visceral adipose tissue (the fat around your belly) and producing more growth hormone, which burns fat.

As carbohydrates are more accessible for the body to metabolize, the body does not breakdown much fat to produce ketones when you eat lots of carbs. It’s well established that it’s not the high fat but the absence of carbs that stimulates the process of fat burning or “ketosis”.

In the absence of carbs, you will burn fat from your body and your meals at the same rate until you run out of the fat from food. At that point, you will continue to burn fat off your body to produce ketones to meet the body’s fuel requirement. Consequently, weight loss will occur as long as you don’t take in too many calories.

INCREASED ENERGY

Inevitably, you will have to go through a phase called “the keto-flu” before you get into full ketosis (it’s wonderful!). You will have low energy and might even feel a bit lightheaded due to a reduced blood sugar level. During this time, your body is getting fat-adapted. However, after you get past this phase, you’ll be shocked at your increased energy levels.

While you have the keto-flu and you’re getting fat-adapted, your body is going through what is called autophagy. Autophagy is the natural cell death of old cells and the replacement of them by new cells. The cells that die are the ones that can’t burn fat for fuel. It’s all the low-lifes, the losers, the ones you don’t want, and they can just die! Cancer cells, for example. Basal cells get activated, and new cells get generated.

During this time, you’ll have low energy and be starving for carbs. You’ll see just how addictive sugar can be!! Stay strong because you are literally days away from never having those cravings again and feeling better than you’ve ever felt in your life! There are ways to speed up this process, including intermittent fasting and fasting, but they need to be done correctly. Please don’t mess with fasting if you don’t know what you are doing.

DECREASED BRAIN FOG

The first thing you will notice when you shift into full ketosis is mental clarity like you never thought possible! That’s because there are ten times more mitochondria in a brain cell than other cells of the body. Mitochondria are the energy factories of cells and ketones are a much cleaner burning fuel than sugar. When your mitochondria get good at burning ketones for energy, your mental clarity goes way up. I was shocked the first time I felt it.

DECREASED MUSCLE WASTING

If you reach a calorie shortage while on a high-carb diet, there will be more muscle wasting than being in ketosis. Carbs and proteins metabolize through the same process called the “Krebs Cycle.” When you’re using a high carb and have a lack of fuel, your body is inclined to burn muscle for energy. Conversely, on a ketogenic diet, your body will burn your love handles, with less muscle wasting or health issues that occur due to a caloric deficit.

Also, you never want to have weight loss at the cost of muscle. The more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism.

INCREASED HORMONE PRODUCTION

My most significant source of calories comes from grass-fed butter. As mentioned, dietary cholesterol or the cholesterol we eat is not harmful. In fact, we need it. It is the precursor to hormones. We will create muscle building and fat burning hormones if we get sufficient cholesterol. Do you know what inhibits the production of hormones? Again, it’s the sugar and fast-acting carbs like grains, rice, corn, and potatoes.

Grass-fed butter isn’t just a source of good cholesterol, it’s also a source of Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) and butyrate or butyric acid. CLA is a mild weight loss supplement. Butyrate feeds the good bacteria of the gut (bacteriodetes) which leads to fat loss and increased nutrient absorption.

HOW TO FOLLOW A KETOGENIC DIET

To be in ketosis, you must avoid grains and sugar and eat more fat. It takes about 10 days to reach full ketosis and about the same amount of time to lose your addictions to grains and sugars. The bonus is, a ketogenic diet reduces hunger.

Here’s What A Keto Diet Looks Like

It’s mostly fat: At first, 75 percent of your calories are from fat, 20 percent of your calories are from protein, and no more than 50 grams of carbs per day. Cruciferous vegetables are your carbs at first. You can calculate your macros here.

After two weeks, you should be in full ketosis. However, it can take up to two months in rare cases. Once you’re in full ketosis, you might be able to add more nutrient-filled carbs a little at a time.

HOW TO TEST YOUR KETONES

You can test your ketones using urine test strips, but they only change colour when you are going into ketosis. Once in full ketosis, your body is burning ketones, and you no longer urinate them out. Your test strips will no longer change colour when you are in ketosis.

You can use chem test strips and poke your finger like blood glucose testing, but the chem strips are $4 a pop. Those are the cheapest ones I found. It’s the most accurate way to test your ketones but also the most expensive.

Many doctors and I use Ketonix, which tests for the amount of acetone in your breath. The higher the ketones in your blood, the higher the acetone. There are other cheaper breath testers, but if you look at their reviews, they aren’t very accurate. Ketonix is reliable, and you only need the initial cost of the unit. It’s more expensive, but I think it’s worth it.

Unfortunately, they don’t ship batteries to Canada, but their partners in the USA do. However, you don’t need a battery because it plugs right into your computer. Plus, you can download the app, which has a meter that shows you exactly how many ketones you’re burning. Additionally, it has a handy feature that keeps track of your tests so that you can analyze them later.

KETOGENIC DIET MISTAKES

Unfortunately, since the “Atkins Diet,” people have made massive mistakes with the ketogenic diet making it look like Chernobyl. Consequently, it has received a bad reputation. You have to follow a keto diet precisely, or you may do more harm than good. For best results, kindly avoid the following mistakes:

1. Not tracking your macro-nutrients – carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and alcohol. Carbs and proteins have four calories per gram, alcohol has seven, and fat has nine. For a quick calculation of your macros you can use my keto macro calculator.

You can also use an app called “Chronometer“ to track your macros, which I recommend because it tracks your micro-nutrients as well. Micro-nutrients include vitamins, minerals, and other essential nutrients. You’ll need a food scale to weigh your food before entering the numbers in Chronometer. I have a twenty-one dollar food-scale from Amazon.

2. Consuming too much protein. Dr. Mercola has a whole chapter in his book called “Fat for Fuel,” dedicated to the adverse effects of too much protein. Excess protein increases growth pathways, which is great for bodybuilders but terrible for avoiding cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and weight gain. Plus, too much protein often pulls people out of ketosis. As a result, the right amount is crucial; you need approximately 0.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass or twenty percent of your calories.

3. Staying in ketosis for too long. Having chronically low insulin can be worse than chronically high insulin. So once a week, you must eat a carbohydrate-rich meal to increase your insulin. I do this right after my workout, as increasing insulin and protein activates growth pathways. Generally, a great time to boost growth would be right after a workout to get the desired anabolic (muscle-building) effect.

4. Dirty keto. Many people eat keto for the weight loss benefits but still eat processed food and trans fat. Basically, everything that will kill you fast and when health goes terrible, it’s the keto diet to blame. Bad sweeteners (non-organic) and bad fat mixed together kill people more quickly than anything. Don’t blame keto; blame dirty keto.

WHY IS THIS MY FAVOURITE WEIGHT LOSS DIET?

Mostly, for its health benefits. (Ok, I love bacon!) Does it work? I have had many clients that have tried it; there are photos of a couple at the top. Also, at forty-nine, I still have my abs! I’ll show you proof that it works! Of course, I don’t get abs through diet alone. I exercise regularly and recommend everyone engages in some sort of fun, physical activity. If you’d like to inject some fun back into your workouts, while boosting your metabolism, then get in touch.

And here’s my proof.

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton

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Body Building, Fitness Nutrition

The Best Pre Workout Meal and Post Workout Meal

Posted on June 28, 2019March 5, 2023 by Travis Wade

28
Jun

The Best Pre Workout Meal and Post Workout Meal

These are the secrets behind getting the most out of your workouts!

By Travis Wade

Back in the day, the best pre-workout meal and post-workout meal were pretty straight forward. We used carbohydrates for energy and would bring fast acting carbs in the form of sugar to the gym to get us through the workout. Now the best pre-workout meal and the best post-workout meal are a little more complicated.

There are ways to improve our metabolism, including a ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting, and fasting. Those strategies are beneficial but complicated to incorporate into pre-workout and post-workout. I will talk a little about those strategies but please read my articles on these subjects before attempting them.

In this article, I will focus on the best pre-workout meal and supplements, how to supplement during a workout, and the best post-workout meal. We have different options for bulking up, cutting weight, or for elite high-intensity athletes.

The Best Pre-Workout Meal and Supplements

Carb Load

If you need to perform like Mike Tyson’s opponent, then you will need a carb-load. High-intensity professional athletes will have a hard time getting enough carbohydrates to keep their performance levels high. Having a carb-load before, and after intense exercise is crucial for elite high-intensity athletes.

Carbohydrates are said to be the second most effective legal ergogenic aid (performance enhancer). Carbs are remarkable for bulking up as well. Eat healthy carbs about 2-3 hours before a workout depending on how fast your metabolism is. The carbs have to leave the stomach, get absorbed by the body and deposited into the muscles for optimum performance. I recommend using nutrient-rich sources of carbs like sweet potato, squash, peas, green beans, or zucchini.

Ketones

Adversely, if you are doing low-intensity exercise for a long time, then a ketogenic diet will be your best bet. Marathon runners will use this strategy if they are on top of the trade secrets. When a person’s body runs out of energy from the fat they have consumed, they will burn fat from their body. Also, long-distance athletes use exogenous ketones to get them through—exogenous means external from the body, usually taken orally.

When you are cutting weight, a pre-workout meal could include C8 oil or Dave Asprey’s Brain Octane Oil. C8 oil metabolizes quickly to have ketones in the blood, and full ketosis will emerge in about a half-hour after two tablespoons. It’s like taking exogenous ketones. If you haven’t tried it before, then lower the dosage quite a bit the first couple of times, or you will get a toilet destroyer. Mixing C8 oil with other fats seems to help with this issue.

Whey and BCAAs

It is also essential to get protein. I recommend using homemade kefir or yogurt to get whey protein. Whey protein is important because it gets broken down into amino acids and gets absorbed into the blood in about 15 minutes. Whey protein also has all the essential amino acids we need. If you use homemade yogurt or kefir you will be getting very powerful essential bacteria in your gut as well.

Add about a half of a scoop of BCAAs (branch chain amino acids) during bulk up about ten minutes before a body building style of workout. Only use BCAAs for a few months at a time as it can be carcinogenic if used long term.

The most effective legal ergogenic aid is water. Be fully hydrated by the time you get to the gym. It’s tough to re-hydrate during a workout. When I am training I might train slightly dehydrated which is a stress on my body that demands more red blood cells to be produced and red blood cell count will increase in a matter of days.

If I want to perform well then I drink water mixed with salt before I have a big game. Our bodies have salt water in them. If we just add the water we don’t retain that water. It draws minerals out of cells to keep the PH of the water at our body’s PH. We need salt. It is the most abundant mineral in our body and it retains water keeping us hydrated.

According to Dr. James Dinicolantonio author of the book “Win”, sports performance goes up with one litre of water and 2 teaspoons of sodium chloride starting 90 minutes before the big game has best results. Sip the salt water over 30 minutes finishing it an hour before the game.

The Workout

Studies show that adding a source of carbs during a workout improves gains and prevents fatigue. This is why sports drinks were invented. The water, sodium, and potassium allow for easy gastric emptying and quick absorption, which prevents blood flow to shunt from the muscles to the digestive system. 7% of sugar in water is optimum for gastric emptying and absorption to the body. This is approximately ¼ sports drink and ¾ water. You need to replace water during your workout anyway.

One other notable benefit you get from adding carbs during a workout is it prevents your body from breaking down muscle tissue to use as energy. Indeed, your body will break down fats at this point, but you never want to lose fat at the expense of muscle. You can massively increase your fat loss by increasing muscle mass, and increasing muscle mass is the first goal in a weight loss program.

Another supplement you can add to your workout to enhance gains is BCAAs. Studies have shown carbs to be more beneficial, but adding BCAAs shows less muscle wasting as well. Try to use as clean as possible BCAAs, so you don’t add harmful toxins to your body.

Dr. Mercola’s Warning

“Isolated amino acid supplements and branched-chain amino acid isolates (such as leucine and glutamine) are dangerous and potentially damaging to your health — so stay away from them. Many contain “putrid proteins,” as well as the proteins in the wrong form (isomers) so they cannot be properly used by your body.

They also tend to be acid-processed and contain surfactants, artificial sweeteners, heavy metal contaminants (arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury), and a long list of chemical additives. Instead, look for a high-quality whole food whey supplement that is minimally processed, comes from organic, grass fed, non-hormone treated cows and is independently tested and verified for purity.

An excellent source of convenient, quick-to-prepare high-quality protein is whey protein. Whey protein is an excellent ‘fitness food’ because it contains not only high-quality protein, but also extremely high amounts of leucine, which is particularly important for muscle growth and repair.

One of the reasons whey protein is so effective for exercise recovery is that it assimilates very quickly — it gets into your muscles within 10 to 15 minutes of swallowing it, just when they need it most. Whey is also excellent for your immune system, as it is rich in immunoglobulins, lactoferrin and other precursors for glutathione.”

Using C8 Oil

If you are in full ketosis and use C8 oil before the workout, you should be fine for energy during your exercise. When you put yourself in ketosis, you will burn fats off your body when you run out of the ketones from the C8 oil. It also takes longer to burn off the energy from ketones.

I have used C8 oil with whey protein (kefir or yogurt) as my pre-workout, and I still do half the time. I can work out and still have plenty of energy after. C8 with a little bit of whey is the best pre-workout while cutting weight. (Half the time, I intermittent fast before my workout. I might skip eating before my workout for a week or two at a time but I never skip a meal after a workout!)

The Anabolic Window

It was believed that it was crucial to get a meal as soon as possible after a workout. Experts claimed there was an anabolic window after exercise in which the body would use protein to rebuild muscle. Experts are now saying this isn’t true. Your body will use protein as needed for building muscle for days after a workout.

Your body will be in fight or flight mode right after a workout, and you won’t be able to produce enzymes to absorb nutrients right away. You can meditate to activate the rest and digest mode for better digestion. It’s a good idea to relax and make every meal a ritual for better nutrient absorption.

The Best Post-Workout Meal

The body produces many enzymes to store energy in the muscles and build muscle shortly after a workout. Take advantage of the environment in the body and eat protein and healthy fats and carbs. Every time you eat, you activate the growth pathways of the body and post-workout is the best time to enable growth. Always!

The combination of fat, protein, and carbs activate growth the most but the combination of fat and carbs isn’t far behind. If you are looking to cut weight you never want to eat things like ice cream, french fries, or popcorn with butter. Instead, choose fat or carbs at each meal. Follow a keto-diet most of the time, and once a week before and after leg day, use carbs without fat, (if you’re cutting weight) to increase your insulin and level off hunger hormones.

What The Post Workout Meal Looks Like

A post-workout meal would look something like this: soup with homemade bone broth and organic vegetables. This meal would be very high nutrient, and the amino acids in the bone broth are perfect for improving the amino acid ratio needed for the human body. In other words, bone broth is high in the right amino acids that the body needs for growth and repair.

The number one objective with eating is to get the nutrients our bodies need. I use coconut milk as my source of energy, and spices like curry are excellent antioxidants. I would add another source of protein to this meal like grass-finished beef, or seafood. Whey in the form of Kefir or yogurt is part of every post workout meal to get all the fast acting essential amino acids.

You can add juiced vegetables to this for more essential nutrients but you’ll have to chew when you drink it because it’s the chewing that triggers the enzymes to digest the nutrients in the veggie drink.

I like to add raw egg yolks when I can as well because they are so loaded full of nutrients. Raw egg yolks are easily absorbed and used by the body and they are like a multivitamin if you look at their nutrient profile. They have every nutrient minus vitamin C and vitamin K.

If you are a high-intensity athlete like a professional hockey player, you will have a hard time replenishing carbohydrates to maintain a high level of performance day after day. Experts recommend eating about a cup full of easy-to-absorb, high-carb foods, like pasta, rice, or potatoes, every half hour after intense exercise for the next four hours.

High intensity athletes will also have a hard time rehydrating. The problem isn’t the water it will be the minerals that we lose when we sweat. Sweating is the number one way we detoxify so we want to sweat but we will also lose minerals at the same time. I use a multivitamin, trace minerals, and sea salt after high intensity exercise where I sweat a lot.

Post-Workout Supplements

The supplement industry is a hundred billion dollar industry. Unfortunately, some of these supplement companies may be more interested in money than in your health. Also, most supplements will have toxins in them. Supplements do not have to be effective and they only have to be harmless enough to a standard set by the FDA. Don’t waste your money and how much toxin is ok for you to take?

Inasmuch, most supplements are doing more harm than good. For example, if you are not deficient in vitamin D, (or anything) then don’t take it. Too much of anything is just as harmful as not enough.

Because most supplements are doing more harm than good I recommend not taking them unless you really know what you are doing. The only supplements I will talk about here are the ones that have been proven to be beneficial.

I take a high quality multivitamin twice a week from a source I trust and I take fermented cod liver oil. Fermenting it will preserve the oil and it has a probiotic. It will have vitamin K2, vitamin D, Vitamin A, and Omega 3s. The amount in each pill is unknown because it is a whole food not processed in a lab.

Glutamine has been proven to increase recovery significantly as seen in this study. Putting a scoop in a post-workout drink is a great way to ensure you get it in your diet. Creatine-monohydrate shows fabulous results for bulking up. Only use these products short term or they can be carcinogenic as well.

Using mocha green tea can be excellent for bulking up or cutting also. The epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG in green tea diverts calories away from fat cells and into muscle cells. Use green tea with your meals, especially on cheat meal day.

Commercial Pre-Workout Supplements

I do not recommend using a commercial pre-workout supplement to increase energy for your workout. During the workout, we break down the body and the rest and recovery part is where we get the gains. Recovery is the most important part and often foolishly underrated.

Pre-workouts always have caffeine or a combination of stimulants. Taking a pre-workout might give a person more energy and mental clarity for the moment, but a person will not rest and recover as well. Notably, you won’t sleep as well.

Sleep is crucial for gains, but not only that; the next day will be stressful. When a person takes pre-workout supplements, they are essentially stealing energy from tomorrow, and they will not recover as well. Keep in mind the recovery is the most critical part.

If you are about to do high-intensity exercise like playing hockey, one of your objectives is to keep your heart rate as low as possible. If you can keep your heart rate down, you will have more endurance and power. Stimulants increase your heart rate and max out your performance quickly. Never take stimulants if you have to perform for more than a short burst like a javelin, shotput, or catapult athlete.

On the flip-side, if you have an exam, a cup of coffee will increase mental clarity. Don’t overdo it or your exam jitters will break the desk.

Summary

To summarize, eat about 2-3 hours before a workout. Have carbs, protein and fat in accordance to the diet you follow; fat for a ketogenic diet or cutting weight and use carbs with fat for bulking up.

If you want a pre-workout drink, I recommend C8 oil with homemade kefir if you are cutting weight. If you are bulking up, then fast-acting carbs, C8 oil, with BCAAs and whey protein in the form of homemade kefir or yogurt is the best pre-workout.

You should be fine during the workout if you drank the C8 oil mixed with kefir or yogurt before the workout. If you want extra energy during the workout or are looking to bulk up, mix 1/4 sports drink with 3/4 water and drink that during your workout.

After the workout, do some meditation to activate the rest and digest mode. Have healthy fats, carbs, kefir, bone broth, and a good source of protein like grass-finished beef. You can add juiced vegetables and raw egg yolks for added nutrients.

Post-workout is your most important meal, and you should never cheap out on nutrients whether you are looking to bulk up or cut weight.

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton

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Is Dairy Good For You?

Posted on June 28, 2019January 23, 2024 by Travis Wade

28
Jun

Are Dairy Products Good For You?

These are the secrets of dairy products!

By TRAVIS WADE

I was talking to a nutritionist as I like to do because I will see eye to eye with them if they keep up to date with their information. Anyway, this nutritionist I was chatting with told me she was able to get rid of her asthma through diet. I thought that was awesome so I asked her how exactly she did it. Not shockingly, she explained that she eliminated dairy products and her asthma went away.

Dairy is a very common allergen that causes a lot of people various issues. Therefore, here are my top 10 reasons why dairy products cause issues for us. Afterward, feel free to contact me with any questions and comments below.

1. THE PROCESSING OF DAIRY PRODUCTS

Like all processed foods there is very little nutrition in dairy products. Unfortunately, almost all dairy is processed in some way unless you’re getting it straight from the animal. I am talking about homogenization… pasteurization… whatever the process might be.

For instance, pasteurization involves heating the product to a high enough temperature to kill the bacteria in the product. Regrettably, this also kills the enzymes including lactase and phosphatase. Firstly, lactase is the enzyme that metabolizes lactose which is the sugar in milk.

Secondly, phosphatase is the enzyme needed to absorb calcium. Sadly, processing dairy makes the calcium in dairy useless. Even worse, some dairy products will actually make you more deficient in calcium.

2. LACTOSE

This brings me to lactose. As mentioned, lactose is the sugar in dairy products. When you are a baby you produce plenty of lactase to digest the lactose but as you get older you produce less and less lactase; thus, making you more and more lactose intolerant. Do you know how intolerant you are to lactose?

3. CASEIN

Casein is a protein in dairy products. Unfavorably, about 20% of the population has some degree of intolerance to casein. When you ingest casein, you might not break out in a rash or hives but you likely will have inflammation and subsequent water retention with slowed metabolism that goes unnoticed. This inflammation is a burden on your body; so, maybe you will notice…

4. WHEY

Whey is the other protein in dairy products and it is usually a liquid but gets dehydrated and sold as a powdered protein supplement. A lot of people have some degree of food sensitivity to whey as well which also causes inflammation and an increase in disease and weight gain.

5. TOXINS

Lectin is a naturally occurring toxin found in plants. Unfortunately, this toxin breaks down the lining of the gut causing Leaky Gut Syndrome. A mycotoxin is a metabolite of mold and more specifically, it is the most powerful carcinogen we know of. The way it gets in dairy is the animal eats grains that have this toxin in it. Notably, the mycotoxin also gets in human breast milk this same way or by consuming other products that have mycotoxins such as dairy, coffee, commercially raised meat, or grains.

Some other harmful products found in dairy are preservatives, anti-inflammatories, natural hormones, anti-malaria drugs, steroid hormones, anti-fungal drugs, pesticides, and other things to enhance flavor like sweeteners. All of the issues I am mentioning increase the burden on the body.

6. HORMONE IMBALANCE

One of the hormones dairy products will offset is insulin. Unfortunately, dairy products increase insulin for an extended period. It is unfortunate because insulin stores energy in cells and in a lot of cases it will be storing the energy as fat in fat cells. Subsequently, this makes dairy a great weight gainer; not just because of all the inflammation dairy causes but also because of the hormone imbalance.

7. SKIN ISSUES

People that have skin issues also have gut issues. When people see a doctor about acne or other skin issues, the first thing a doctor might ask you to try is to give up dairy and other foods that cause gut problems and inflammation.

8. GLYPHOSATE

Most commercially raised animals will eat genetically modified products. Unfortunately, genetically modified grains are sprayed with Roundup and the active ingredient in Roundup is called glyphosate. This glyphosate is a great chelator which means it binds to minerals, therefore, it will also bind to your minerals and deplete you of minerals. If a cow eats glyphosate then it will be in the milk.

Inasmuch, glyphosate was originally trademarked as an antibiotic. Antibiotics kill the good bacteria of our gut and allow yeast and opportunistic bacteria to take over. The good bacteria of our gut is the most important part of our immune system. Glyphosate is a very powerful antibiotic which also breaks down our gut lining which leads to an exponential amount of issues.

9. ANIBIOTICS

Antibiotics and estrogen are normally given to cattle to fatten them up. In contrast, the reason dairy cows are given antibiotics is to treat mastitis. Mastitis is an inflammation of the mammary glands or udder and is usually caused by an infection. Infections are common and spread quickly when an animal is raised in a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) so cows are often given antibiotics regularly to prevent infections.

10. CONCENTRATED ANIMAL FEEDING OPERATIONS

Unfortunately, a lot of dairy cows are now raised in CAFOs. Indeed, this isn’t just bad for the animal but bad for human consumption as well. Among other issues, CAFOs produce low nutrient animals with high toxin levels. See doctor Mercola’s infographic on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

ARE THERE ANY DAIRY PRODUCTS THAT ARE GOOD FOR YOU?

If you got milk straight from the cow with nothing added to it and no processing and the cow wasn’t fed GMOs, antibiotics, hormones, or any other drugs then maybe the milk might not be harmful to some. For instance, if the cow was grass-fed with a clean diet and your body doesn’t react to casein, whey, or lactose you might be in luck. You would have to try it for yourself by eliminating all dairy for a month and see how you feel when you reintroduce it.

Fortunately for some people, yogurt and cheese don’t have lactose. Personally, I will sometimes get cheese if the ingredients list says “Unpasteurized milk, bacterial culture, salt.” In other words, the kind of cheese that I get is imported from Switzerland because I have seen what the cows eat in Switzerland and they eat lush grass on the side of a mountain.

Unpasteurized means it is made with raw milk. The bacterial culture eats all the lactose and the salt is for flavor. Luckily, my body doesn’t react to cheese.

I also make my own kefir and yogurt using an organic milk that is pasteurized at the lowest temperature allowed. I believe homemade yogurt and kefir are a staple to every diet due to the beneficial bacteria our gut will get from it.

The only other dairy product I use is grass-fed butter. If the butter is grass-fed it has CLA which is a weight loss supplement. It will also contain butyrate which feeds good gut bacteria and butter is a great source of healthy saturated fat you can use to cook with on high temperatures.

MY RECOMMENDATION

I recommend stopping all dairy products for a month and then reintroducing homemade kefir, homemade yogurt, and imported cheese that only has unpasteurized milk, salt, and bacterial culture for ingredients. You could also use grass-fed butter from New Zealand. Reintroduce one at a time.

If you react to kefir, yogurt, cheese, or butter it could be the whey or casein. In which case you may try ghee which is butter with the proteins and water removed. Essentially, just the saturated fat is left which is great for cooking at high temperatures. As long as it’s grass-fed it will have the CLA and butyrate.

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Omega 3s – Top 5 Benefits and Best Supplements

Posted on September 6, 2018March 5, 2023 by Travis Wade

06
Sep

By TRAVIS WADE

What Are Omega 3s?

Omega 3s are polyunsaturated fatty acids. Polyunsaturated means there are at least 2 spots where the molecule isn’t saturated with hydrogen. Omega 3 means the first hydrogen atom that is “missing” is between the third and fourth carbon atom at the end of the carbon tail of the molecule.

The three omega 3 fatty acids that humans use are alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). ALA is found mainly in plant oils such as flaxseed and chia seeds. DHA and EPA are found mostly in seafood.

The single easiest and most effective thing I can get my clients to do for any health or fitness goal is to take a high quality multivitamin and get omega 3 fatty acids. I ask clients to look up the benefits of omega 3 fatty acids for motivation to eat them and they usually come back with a huge list of diseases that are prevented by omega 3 fats. They definitely prevent diseases but here are some other really important reasons to get them in your diet.

Top 5 Benefits of Omega 3 Fatty Acids

1. Omega 3s are anti-inflammatory. This is important because so is cortisol which is the stress hormone and cortisol retains fat around the belly. When we take omega 3s it reduces our cortisol. The number one thing I do as a personal trainer is I reduce stress and cortisol.

Stress is now the number one cause of health issues in our society and the number one obstacle people deal with in their fitness goals. There are many ways to reduce cortisol or stress and they should be implemented, but consuming omega 3s is the easiest and one of the most effective ways.

2. Omega 3 fatty acids are building blocks of the body and enable our bodies to use fats as energy. Omega 3s are in the membrane of our cells and are most abundant in cells of the retina, sperm, and brain. Also, without omega 3s our bodies will just store fat or excrete it (if we’re lucky) instead of using it for energy.

3. Omega 3s are the third highest-ranking legal ergogenic aid (performance enhancer). In other words, we perform terribly without them. The number one legal ergogenic aid is water, the number two is carbohydrates. Just like water, our bodies need omega 3s. Without any water, our bodies will go on a fast and steady decline and same with omega 3s. The term “essential” means they are necessary to ingest because our bodies will not produce them.

4. Omega 3 fatty acids are a natural anti-inflammatory. The reason this is so important is due to the high amounts of inflammation our food and water typically causes along with all the toxins in the environment. Anybody want to reduce pain in their joints, muscles, or back? Eat omega 3s.

5. If you need another reason to take omega 3s, then yes, they help prevent pretty much every disease there is known to man and help with whatever ails us. Here is a list of diseases prevented by omega-3s put together for you by Sayer Gi and the last time I checked the list was at 322 diseases. In conclusion, asking for the benefits of omega 3s is similar to asking what the benefits of water are. It’s a tragedy that omega 3 fatty acids are the second leading nutrient deficiency in North America, the first is vitamin D.

Dosage

There is no upper limit of omega 3s. That’s like saying there’s an upper limit of how much saturated fat (meat fat) you can eat. You can eat as much as you want; you’ll never overdose. You might gain weight and be unhealthy, but you won’t overdose. With omega 3s you want a healthy balance of omega 3s and omega 6s. We already get way too much omega 6s in our diet which makes omega 3s even more important. I have seen doctors recommend 2000-3000 mg per day, however, the lowest recommended dose is 1.6 grams per day. You don’t have to eat fish every day, however. Try to get at least 5 grams of omega 3s in every 3 day period.

The best way to get omega 3s is in food, however, the problem is all the toxins found in fish these days and the shadiness in the seafood industry. According to Dr. Mercola as much as 80% of fish that says “Wild” is actually farmed. Farmed fish when tested was significantly higher in toxins than wild so we want the wild but it’s hard to get. Even if we are actually getting wild fish it can still be high in toxins. The exception is small fish like mackerel, herring, sardines or oyster.

When it comes to salmon, I avoid it completely because of the shadiness of the salmon industry. I was told the brand name would be wild salmon but it would still be farmed fish. I thought there was a law against this shady behaviour so I didn’t believe it, until… I went to Superstore and found frozen salmon in a bag and it said “Wild” on the front of the bag. When I flipped the bag over to see where it was from, in very small print it said “Farmed in China”. I was shocked but look for yourself.

The Best Omega 3s Supplements

The only supplement I will use is a fermented cod liver oil. If you buy an omega 3 supplement off the shelf you are buying rotten fish oil. Rancid fish oil is a toxin that causes all the issues you are trying to prevent by taking fish oil. If its kept in the fridge it will take longer to go rancid but we don’t know how long it will be ok for.

If you take fermented cod liver oil the fermentation prevents it from going rancid. It’s a whole food so we don’t know how much omega 3s you are getting but I can assure you it won’t be enough. There was a time in my life when I was taking four krill oil capsules a day thinking I was getting plenty. I found out I would need around sixteen pills a day to get enough. I can’t afford that.

The bonus with fermented cod liver oil is vitamin A, vitamin D, an awesome probiotic, and vitamin K2 which is the third leading deficiency in North America and almost nobody has even heard of it. Vitamin D is the first leading deficiency in North America and it allows calcium into the body. Vitamin K2 directs calcium to where it is needed. Fermented cod liver oil helps in a huge way to prevent a heart attack and other deadly diseases.

Omega 3s is the second leading deficiency. With this supplement you will be getting the top 3 nutrient deficiencies and arguable the top 4 with the probiotic which is so beneficial. Including vitamin A, all 5 of these nutrients are in the top 10 deficiencies in North America. The problem is we don’t know how much of each is in the supplement because it is a whole food. It’s just cod liver oil in a gel cap.

Some people are vegan and rely on chia seeds and flax seeds for their omega 3s but plant foods only have ALA in them. Unfortunately, our bodies will only convert very small amounts of ALA into EPA and then to DHA. Getting EPA and DHA straight from foods is the only way to get enough omega 3 fatty acids.

Alternatively, an option for vegans would be the supplement that comes from algae. I have personally not gone this route but omega 3s from algae do have EPA and DHA making it the best supplement for vegans. However, omega 3s are a poly-unsaturated fat making it easily oxidized. In other words it goes rancid very quickly and becomes toxic!

On a side note, algae is actually where omega 3s originate and the small animals eat the algae and the bigger animals eat the smaller ones, then we eat those animals.

How To Get Omega 3s

I used to take 4 krill oil pills a day thinking I was getting plenty of omega 3s in my diet. When I found out that I wasn’t getting anywhere near what I needed I didn’t bother. Then I found out that they go rancid so quickly and cause all the problems we are trying to prevent by taking omega 3s. My clients always complained about burping up what smelled like rotten fish. I now make sure I get these five foods in my diet on a regular basis; mackerel, herring, sardines, cod, and oysters.

If some of these 5 foods are not in your diet you will have an extremely hard time getting the omega 3s your mind and body need to function well. You don’t need to eat these kinds of seafood every day. Try to get at least 5 grams of omega 3s in every 3 day period. The only supplement I take with omega 3 fatty acids is the fermented cod liver oil but I take that for the many reasons listed above.

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton.

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How to Manipulate Your Hormones for Fitness and Health

Posted on December 20, 2016March 5, 2023 by Travis Wade

20
Dec

How To Manipulate Your Hormones For Fitness and Health

By Travis Wade

I hate to say it but your doctor isn’t going to take good care of you. They will do their job to keep you alive and pain free and some of them will put in the extra effort to do a good job. That’s all free health care will get you and do not expect any more. They will not keep you at optimum health. It’s not a concern to our health care system if you are overweight. Your doctor isn’t going to tell you what I’m about to tell you here.

Personal Training 101

I love fitness and I love seeing people achieving their goals in the gym. Here’s a stat for you; 20% of people in the gym are getting their goal. Over 90% of the people getting their goal in the gym have training.

Lots of people will plateau at some point. It’s very common and there are ways to get around that. Some methods are undulating your program, changing your program once a month, periodizing your program, and working on the weak link or sticking points of your lifts with your accessory exercises.

This is personal training 101. Not every trainer knows how to do all this effectively because 79% of trainers will quit within one year. The industry is saturated with beginners. Learning a lot of these skills takes experience.

The thing I really want to talk about is how a holistic personal trainer can manipulate hormones to achieve goals. Most personal trainers may not know it but it’s one of the main things we do. Heavy lifting with compound movements will boost testosterone and human growth hormone; proper nutrition avoids insulin spikes and gets the nutrients your body needs to function well.

Your Allostatic Load

This is where most good personal trainers stop. If they don’t get you past your plateau with diet and exercise, they will likely be stumped. There is much more that can be done. What I want to talk about is called your allostatic load. This means the total stress on your body.

Oxidative stress from the types of foods you eat, the mental stress (from your job, family and life in general), your toxic load, and dysbiosis which is the imbalance of good and bad bacteria of the gut. These are the main components of your allostatic load.

Your allostatic load has a major impact on your adrenal glands. A high allostatic load increases cortisol. Cortisol is a really good antiinflammatory. The side effects are weight gain around the belly, lack of sleep, frustration, reduced performance, and increased health problems. This can lead to depression, adrenal fatigue, and Addison’s Disease.

Another thing is when cortisol is high, thyroid hormone is low and so is melatonin. High cortisol and low melatonin will make sleeping difficult which in turn increases your stress. Low thyroid hormone will cause low metabolism creating weight gain.

One last thing is, a high allostatic load fills your bucket. There is no room for added stress like working out or getting a project done. If you do workout, it will take much longer for recovery and you won’t fully recover before your working out again. If you have low allostatic load then there is plenty of room for added stress and recovery from that stress.

Meditation

The first component of allostatic load I want to talk about is mental stress. It’s the one that most people are familiar with. One thing I try to get my clients to do is meditation. I don’t mean once a day for a half hour; I mean for 5 minutes about 5 times a day. We get distracted in our minds too easy. The more times a day you practise the better you’ll get at it. One of the things over achievers have in common is meditation. They say they can over achieve because they take the time to do their daily meditation.

Another thing I’d like to talk about is telomeres; they depict your age. They are the ends of your DNA strands and the older you get physically the shorter your telomeres get. Scientists have only discovered one thing that makes telomeres longer; meditation. If you don’t do meditation you will likely have a high allostatic load, age faster, never be able to overachieve, and live a stressed life.

Sleep well!!

Your Toxic Load

Your doctor will tell you that your liver takes care of toxins and that’s what they are told in med school. The truth is your liver can’t keep up anymore. There are 3000 toxins being created every year, you’re exposed to over 200 before you are born, you have approximately 700 in your body at any given time. It’s called your toxic load and it has an extremely profound effect on us. If your liver was taking care of it you wouldn’t have 700 toxins in you at any given time. Maybe your liver was keeping up a hundred years ago but not anymore.

Your toxic load increases your chances of disease and inflammation. It causes chronic fatigue and brain fog. It needs to be excreted. The heavy metals bind to mineral receptor sites and need to be unbound from places like our brain and mitochondria which are the energy factories in our cells. For more on heavy metal detox read my article on it here.

The Microbiome

We have 10 times more bacteria cells in and on us than we do human body cells, we have 10 times more viruses than we do bacteria cells, we have fungus, yeast, and all kinds of other tiny creatures. They are on our skin, in our mouths and noses, in our lungs, and mostly in our guts. This ecosystem is called our microbiome. It is involved in virtually every aspect of our physiology.

The microbiome is complicated but one thing I will mention is candida is a very common yeast overgrowth and SIBO is small intestine bacteria overgrowth. These are very common and need to be eliminated along with any other type of bad gut infection.

One other thing I should mention is firmicutes is fat person bacteria and bacteroidetes is skinny person bacteria. You can manipulate these with probiotics, antioxidants, fermented foods, and when the timing is right, resistant starch.

Oxidative stress can be caused from processes in the body like metabolism, exercise, phagocytosis, and inflammation. Sugar metabolism has 16x more oxidative stress than fat metabolism.

People are convinced they need to eat carbohydrates for energy. I hope to change that belief in people and you can read my many articles written on fat and how it should be used for your energy source. Of course, that’s not an easy diet to follow but there are many tricks to make it easier and it gets easier with practise.

All of the above have huge impacts on your hormones. When you have an imbalance, it is very likely that one of the above is the cause or most likely all of them. If these concerns are not addressed there may be a plateau in your future along with other health concerns down the line.

When one hormone is out it affects the other hormones. One will be high the other will be low. Then there will be compensation in another area. A lot of times thyroid hormone will be reduced which depicts your metabolism. Lots of weight gain starts to happen. There is a symphony going on. Manipulating your hormones is not a simple thing to do and a lot of times a specialist may be required.

What To Do

#1. Hire me.

Other Things You Can Do

True Balance is a place in Sherwood Park that offers hormone replacement therapy which is a quick fix but I like them because they educate their clients and offer solutions to the cause of the imbalance and they use bio-identical hormones as opposed to the synthetic crap your doctor will prescribe. They do a full panel and find out your nutrient deficiencies, blood cell counts, hormone levels; it’s a very in depth panel. They do get people fast results while they address their causes.

The causes will still need to be addressed. Eat well to get the nutrients your body needs and avoid oxidative stress. Meditate 5 times a day for 5 minutes at a time. You will never get really good at it but that’s why they call it practise. You will get better at it though; I promise. Detox by getting rid of as many sources as possible and get infrared rays; consider Biosil and Pectasol C. Have your microbiome tested and address major issues then feed your good bacteria.

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton.

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My Global TV Segment With Kent Morrison

Posted on December 12, 2016March 5, 2023 by Travis Wade

12
Dec

My Global TV Segment With Kent Morrison

By Travis Wade

I just wanted to share my 4 minutes of fame with you. I was super nervous but I had my friend Craig helping me stay calm on the set. It was actually a lot of fun to do. My words didn’t come out the way I wanted but that’s to be expected. Kent said it went well and he is sure he will have me back on. Thank you Craig for getting me on the show and I am looking forward to doing it again.

Check out my segment here.

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton.

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Meet Kyle!

Posted on November 21, 2016March 5, 2023 by Travis Wade

21
Nov

Meet Kyle!

Instead of writing an article this week I want you to meet Kyle. I love this guy! He is so easy to work with. He says “Travis, just tell me what to do and I will do it.” When I met Kyle he came in for a consultation and I sent him a pic of me so he knew who to look for. He wrote back, “I’m the gay guy.”

For the entire consultation, I was thinking “This guy just wants to have sex with me.” Kyle let me sweat it for the whole weekend. On Monday, he finally let me in on his little secret. It was a typo. He meant to say “I’m the fat guy.”

We don’t know exactly how much weight Kyle has lost because the scale only went up to 400. We are estimating Kyle has currently lost 50 lbs. He is on a clean ketogenic diet with supplements and a toxin detox. A not so well known fact is a lot of our toxins get stored in our fat cells and when you lose a lot of weight these toxins get released and wreak havoc on your thyroid. Your thyroid is what depicts your metabolism.

Meet my friend Kyle:

I am 33 years old and I am morbidly obese. I was in Mexico with my best friend for his wedding when I had my aha moment. I decided at that point that I needed to change my life. I had found Travis on Kijiji and at the time I didn’t know why but something drew me to him. I went for a consult with Travis and I haven’t looked back since. I have been training with Travis since August and I have currently dropped about 50 lb’s and I feel fantastic. I couldn’t have done this without Travis’ support and direction. I am proud not only to call Travis my trainer, but also my friend.

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton.

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Fitness Nutrition, Health and Wellness

Want Better Mental Clarity With More Energy and Less Stress?

Posted on November 14, 2016March 5, 2023 by Travis Wade

14
Nov

Want Better Mental Clarity With More Energy and Less Stress?

By Travis Wade

Dr. Joseph Mercola

If you haven’t heard of Dr. Mercola yet, then let me introduce you. Dr. Joseph Mercola is highly respected in the functional medicine world. Functional medicine is where they look at the root cause of medical issues and try to fix the root cause of something. One analogy is “Do you have anxiety because you have a lack of Ativan in your body?” Instead of giving you a prescription, which they might do for immediate alleviation of symptoms, they want to find out what is causing the anxiety and then fix that problem.

Dr. Mercola has been around a long time and his website has been around since just after the beginning of the internet. He is highly respected on the functional medicine side of things, (as opposed to the conventional medicine side of things). A lot of famous doctors look up to him and I have learned to trust him over the years. He writes a lot of very informative articles and does a lot of great research.

Krill Oil

What I would like to talk about today is his krill oil. Omega 3s is the second biggest nutrient deficiency in North America right behind vitamin D. The list of reasons why omega 3s are so important is very long. It’s a lot like asking why water is so important. You can’t function without it and the less you have the worse you’ll function. They call it essential because you must get it from an outside source.

The reasons why the krill oil is superior to the fish oil is summed up in this infographic:

Learn why krill oil is a safer and smarter choice than fish oil through the Fish Oil versus Krill Oil: The Cold, Hard Facts infographic. Use the embed code to share it on your website or visit our infographic page for the high-res version.

<img src="http://media.mercola.com/assets/images/infographic/krill-oil-vs-fish-oil.jpg" alt="krill oil vs fish oil infographics" border="0" style="max-width:100%; min-width:300px; margin: 0 auto 20px auto; display:block;"><p style="max-width:800px; min-width:300px; margin:0 auto; text-align:center;">Learn why krill oil is a safer and smarter choice than fish oil through the <a href="http://www.mercola.com/infographics/fish-oil-vs-krill-oil.htm"><strong>Fish Oil versus Krill Oil: The Cold, Hard Facts</strong></a> infographic. Visit our infographic page for the high-res version.</p>

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton

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