KC Craichy’s SuperHealth Podcast: Exercise Medicine – Meet Dr. Greg Wells

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Posted on 16th May 2012 by admin in Uncategorized

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What do a 21-year-old Olympic athlete and an 11-year-old leukemia patient have in common? Both benefit greatly from the research and wisdom of renowned physiologist Dr. Greg Wells. Dr. Wells is an associate professor at the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto. He is a leading researcher in the growing field of “exercise medicine” and author of the forthcoming book Superbodies: Peak Performance Secrets From the World’s Best Athletes. There’s much for us to learn and apply from Dr. Wells on how the body heals, recovers, performs, and adapts. Click on the button below to listen to the Podcast.

Audio Transcript

KC: Welcome to LivingFuel TV. I’m KC Craichy with special guest, Dr. Greg Wells. Greg, awesome having you, brother.

Greg: Thanks for having me on the show.

KC: I’ve known Greg for quite some time. Greg, you endorsed my book, my recent book and I have the honor of endorsing your current book, “SuperBodies,” we’re going to talk about today.

Greg: Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. I loved reading your book, and I obviously try to build off a lot of things that you’ve taught me and some things I’ve learned in my own life, and I think they go great together. So hopefully we’ll have a good chat.

KC: Well, you have a great set of experiences. It’s really helpful to me and everybody out here is that you work at All Children’s Hospital in Toronto, but the thing that you do that is so cool, I mean that’s cool obviously, but the thing that really fits here is that you work with the Olympic athletes and elite athletes in Canada and other places also. I think you were just in Florida doing it.

Greg: Yes. I’m really, really lucky to have the career that I have. I spent a lot of time with children with chronic diseases at the hospital, and then I also get a chance to go and work with some of Canada’s best Olympians. I call it extreme human physiology. I look at how the body works when it’s failing and when it’s really challenged by chronic disease, but then also I’ll explore how the human body works when it’s almost as perfect as you could ever expect it to be with the Olympians. I think that that informs things that you and I, us mere mortals, can do in our daily lives. So I’m really, really lucky to have the career that I do.

KC: That’s a very unique perspective. I used to find, even still, a lot to this day that you’ll hear a lot of things in athletics, here’s what you ought to do in athletics and you’ll hear things from the medical side that are so vastly different. It’s like how often do you hear that the athletes are taking tons of protein and the doctors are saying, “No that’s going to destroy your kidneys.” But when you work with both sides of that and you can meld the literature together, you’ll find that it really goes together beautifully. If you start looking on both sides, you come out with the theories like you come out with in your book.

Greg: And you can validate it because the human body works the way that it does no matter what conditions you’re under. You bought up things that athletes do that affect chronic disease. So one of the things that we’re exploring is how we do fuel the body in high performance sport, but then how do we use those same fuels with children with cancer to get them through chemo and radiation? Or how do we help athletes to recover faster? Okay. Well, then how do we take that back and help a child recover from surgery faster? It goes back and forth, and the information that we get is so fascinating, so interesting. But there are also ways that we can use that information to help us in daily life. For example, we use different nutritional approaches to try to help athletes concentrate for longer and to perform better mentally and physically, but then that can impact how business people get through the course of a day or how someone can prepare themselves for a key presentation during the day and to get psyched up, but then also have the ability to have the mental concentration, the mental energy that they need. We learn all that from high performance sport.

KC: It’s really interesting in that we know that, like in recovery, antioxidants can speed recovery up to 50%, but yet then you have the cancer doctors telling their patients not to take antioxidants during treatment. I did a literature search last week alone on antioxidants in cancer research, and it’s dramatic the lifespan if you take antioxidants during treatment is
dramatically longer and the therapy more effective than if you don’t. So, how is it that doctors get into this mode of “I don’t understand this, I don’t do it”?

Greg: Well, we’re learning so much, and it’s very, very challenging because especially in my world you have to approach things, in the hospital world you have to approach things conservatively, and
doctors will talk about something when there’s a wide body of research available. When we’re working with the high performance sport community, the athletes are always on the cutting edge. So what we’re working with, with the athletes right now around antioxidants and inflammation and recovery is trying to speed the body as quickly as possible through its natural recovery process. We don’t want to cut it off completely. We want to allow the body to get impacted by the stress of training and then help it through the recovery process. We don’t need research to do that. We just get out there and do it. Whereas in the medical community, we really need to, especially because in my world we’re dealing with kids, we have to be careful, we have to approach things a little bit more conservatively, and it just takes time to filter down. But it’s great to be on the cutting edge of that and to be able to read the research, pull together amazing opportunities, and try to impact people. We’re definitely making progress, but it’s going to take some time.

KC: To me it’s sad because, you know, anybody, any doctor who wanted to could go to the same Internet that we go to and do a search regarding antioxidants and whatever the treatment that they’re doing and find that wait, maybe we shouldn’t tell our patients to stay off it because it’s the direct opposite of what the literature would tell them.

Greg: Yeah. I mean, a good example of the some of the progress we’re making in that area right now, especially in cancer, is the use of different combinations of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates in order to fuel children’s metabolism when they’re going through radiation and chemo, specifically in leukemia, and allowing those different combinations of nutrients including all the antioxidants to be used with children in such a way that’s palatable for them because they go through such tremendous changes in the way that they perceive the sensation of food and how they perceive being hungry or full or nauseous. We’re learning a lot about changing different combinations of foods, different combinations of flavors, different combinations of antioxidants and other vitamins, minerals to try to help these kids fuel their recovery during that incredibly challenging time in their physiology. So we’re making progress. Hopefully we can speed it up and go even faster.

KC: You mention fuel, LivingFuel SuperBerry. We have one cancer center telling us that they’re actually making popsicles out of LivingFuel SuperBerry for the patients like you’re talking about because of the mouth sores and they can’t eat. A lot of these guys they die of malnutrition, not necessarily of the therapy
itself. So if they can have the popsicle to cool the mouth sores and get the nutrition, it’s pretty . . .

Greg: I hadn’t heard that yet, but that’s an interesting advance. The more I’m involved in the products and the more that I use them myself and the more that I speak to people that are using them, the more creative ways people are coming up with using them and integrating them into their life. It’s made a tremendous difference for me personally and my ability to maintain a crazy high energy level during my days, specifically my ability to manage stress. I find that when I’m on LivingFuel SuperBerry, which is the product that I use probably the most, I get through my days at a much higher level. I’m able to concentrate at a higher level and not get those afternoon crashes. I believe it’s because of the combination that’s available in that product – protein, high quality fats, high quality carbohydrates, all supported with enzymes and the nutrients that you need in order to be able to function. I think that it’s sort of a distilled version of what your diet should be overall, and it’s an excellent supplement. It’s an excellent super food source for people like myself that live these crazy lives, and when we try to help people understand that overall principle of nutrition and fueling the body across the spectrum of what the human body needs, we can achieve some pretty incredible things.

KC: Absolutely. Well, we covered a lot of ground here and a lot of different areas. We’re going to get into some more detail in future segments, but God bless you man. Thanks for coming.

Greg: Thanks so much for having me on the show, and thanks so much for having me as part of the product.

KC: Terrific. Well, God bless you and have a great day.


Exercise Medicine: Meet Dr. Greg Wells Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

New Recipe! LivingProtein Banana Cream Recovery SuperSmoothie

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Posted on 14th May 2012 by admin in Super Health | Super Recipes

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Bananas!

These bright, beautifully wrapped gifts of the tropics are favorites of babies, high schoolers, world-class athletes, busy moms, and the elderly. Bananas are…

  • rich in potassium, iron, fiber
  • a delicious source of complex carbohydrates

    • li>inexpensive

  • available year round
  • perfectly portable
  • elegantly designed to fit the human hand and mouth
  • ‘preservable’ in the freezer
  • interestingly, only able to be opened or peeled by animals with opposable thumbs

Bananas are a nutritional gold mine and a great choice to help re-fuel after exercise. It’s no wonder that label of Living Fuel’s revolutionary plant protein LivingProtein and a delicious banana share a bright yellow color—they pair harmoniously together!

Here’s a new super simple recovery SuperSmoothie starring LivingProtein and banana, with just four total ingredients. Try it as breakfast for the kids, post-workout fuel, or a healthy snack option anytime. This new recipe fuels you with 175 calories, 33 grams of plant-based complex carbohydrates, 6 grams of fiber and 11 grams of protein (ideal recovery 3:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio).

 

LivingProtein Banana Cream Recovery SuperSmoothie

 

1 medium frozen banana

Dash Celtic Sea Salt

1 cup cold purified water

(adjust water for desired consistency)

Add all ingredients into a blender. Blend for 30 seconds. Enjoy!

For more great SuperSmoothies including the amazing LivingProtein Banana Bread SuperSmoothie and other creative recipes visit the comprehensive LivingFuel Recipes page!
The Fabulous Banana

LivingFuel

LivingProtein®


Exercise Medicine: Live a High Performance Life

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Posted on 10th May 2012 by admin in LivingFuelTV | Super Health

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Today on LivingFuelTV, we wrap up our popular series Exercise Medicine with extreme human physiologist Dr. Greg Wells, author of the highly-recommended new book Superbodies: Peak Performance Secrets from the World’s Best Athletes. Dr. Wells bridges the worlds of sport and medicine, helping elite athletes and critically ill patients alike. How can you incorporate the recovery secrets of Olympic athletes as you or a loved one battle a severe illness? Or perhaps you’d like to recover quicker and stronger for your next workout. These are the subjects of today’s episode.

Join us by clicking on the graphic below to watch.

Audio Transcript

KC: Welcome to Living Fuel TV, I’m KC Craichy, with special guest Dr. Greg Wells. Sports Scientist and author of Super Bodies.

Greg: Thanks for having me on the show.

KC: Great having you Greg. We’ve gotten into some really cool stuff. Based on your experience, you’re kind of a bridge between sport and medicine. I’ve always felt that was so important because they are all teaching so many different things. One of the examples I’ve given is that the medical community will tell someone to not take much protein because it’s going to hurt your kidneys. But the research is completely the opposite of and if you look at athletics. If you ask what’s the most important nutrient in athletic, almost universally get the answer protein. So it’s like somebody is not right there, but there are similarities between people trying to recover in medicine, and people trying to recover in athletics. So we’re going to talk today about nutrition around exercise.

Greg: Yes, I’ve got an interesting world in that I work in the medical community as a scientist as a researcher, but then I also work in the high performance sport community as a physiologist. I’m really lucky that I’m able to bridge these ideas and hopefully inform everybody about what we can learn in both situations to improve health and performance.

KC: That’s fantastic. The average person here is not going to win a gold medal. They’re not going to win a trophy at the moment. They’re already into their lives but they still want to live long healthy lives and some of them have exercise programs. They have completely different understandings of how you fuel yourself around exercise and so you have some ideas about that. How do you go about that?

Greg: One of the things we’re trying to push now is to get as many people as possible involved in physical activity. We’re going to get a few people to win Olympic medals but the vast majority of us mere mortals will simply try to go out and maybe go for a walk, or go for a run. Some people might compete in a Triathlon, some people might get into weight lifting or yoga. It doesn’t matter to me, all I care about is people participate in physical activity, because it revolutionizes the way the body works. It makes us healthier, it makes us stronger. Initially the first couple of weeks you get really tired, but after that everything just sort of takes off and you feel amazing. What I’m interested in is trying to use nutrition to fuel that. Get people exercising more and then get people to use nutrition in order to be able to fuel that activity level so that they super charge their health and be able to participate in physical activity for the rest of their lives, and actually improve their health.

KC: More life to your years and more years to your life.

Greg: What we want people to do is to live as well as they possibly can until the last possible second and then you know what, we’re all going to pass away at some point, but I want to go 15 minutes before and have a great exciting happy life throughout the entire time that I’m allowed to be here. When I’ve done nutrition properly in and around exercise it really makes a huge difference and we’ve done a number of really interesting things with the athletes around trying to expand their concepts about what is great for them to be able exercise well. We’ve tried to really help people to fuel themselves before and during using a combination of high quality carbohydrates and great proteins to provide the body with the energy that it needs. With the amino acids that it needs to fuel muscle contraction, but then also to nerve communication and a number of other things. Then really focusing in on a combination of high quality carbohydrates to really fuel muscle metabolism, but then also really importantly getting those proteins into the body to help repair the muscle tissue. To rebuild the blood cells, to rebuild all those enzymes that we break down. One of the most interesting things we’ve done recently is to up level the amount of omega fats that these athletes are taking. That’s really important for the nervous system, something that really hasn’t been considered up until recently.

KC: The nervous system is something that’s key in elite fitness now. [Retraining] the nervous system which is something that is so much different then in years past, but even recently fish oil’s have been shown to increase strength in workouts. Is that a nervous system thing?

Greg: I believe it probably is a nervous system thing. We have this wonderful communication that happens between the brain and down the spinal, out though the perifferial nervous system, out through to the muscles. Even then you can delve down into the muscle tissue into the protein chains that are the contractile apparatus of the body and then down into the mitochondria. All the way along that path way we need high quality carbohydrates. You need amazing amino acids, you need various different types of fats and specifically omega 3’s in various different locations fueled by hydration and other things. Around that we can really change the way people feel throughout the course of the day. Make their workouts much more effective. Even make their physical activity more enjoyable. A great example of that is after you finish your workout in the morning, refueling with the protein and the carbohydrate and the omega 3’s. A lot of people workout in the morning and then try to go to work. They arrive at work and they’re tired. Maybe that’s just because we have refueled properly after exercise.

KC: That’s funny because so many people don’t get that post exercise window. In fact there was a commercial some time ago where they said, hey you haven’t finished your workout until you drink this. Now what they’re drinking isn’t ideal, but the truth is you really missed a big window. Researchers say that 45 minutes or even shorter post workout, has the best muscle protein synthesis of any time of the day. I even read one study that showed that the worst digesting protein is 80% better digested during that window than the best absorbing protein 2 hours later.

Greg: Not only is the protein absorbed more easily at that time. If you have that protein it actually also improves all the carbohydrate metabolism as well. It’s a multifactorial thing that we’re seeing if we can get those nutrients into the body within that I believe it’s actually a 20 minute window. I just tell that to the athletes to make sure they’re not lazy and they miss it.

KC: I think you’re absolutely right, before it was said to be 2 hours. Clearly it’s not 2 hours, now a lot of guys will say 1 hour. You’re saying don’t wait an hour and take stuff that’s going to take an hour to digest either, so that 20 minutes is really a good time. So in other words you should pre-think that before you even get to the workout.

Greg: Absolutely. You have to have your nutrition really dialed in. It doesn’t take that long. If you have the oportunity to make some food and take it along with you that’s fantastic. Or you can use some of the Living Fuel products. What I do is take a scoop of SuperBerry before I go to the gym, and then when I’m done I make sure I have a shaker bottle ready with two scoops of SuperBerry and two scoops of two scoops of protein. I know that seems like a lot, but that’s what allows me to recover and then go to work and not be tired.

KC: There’s so many things you’re doing that people aren’t getting. Chocolate milk has shown to be shown to be an excellent recovery drink. Why? Because it has some protein, it has sugar, in fact I’ll mention the other piece, it has sugar and it has some antioxidant. So we know that antioxidants can speed recover as much as 50%. So if you can get all of these things like you just did in your post workout recovery you get. You get it before hand so you’re actually helping yourself during your workout. Then you get it post, now you’re getting things you don’t even know about. You’re getting anti-inflammation, anti-glaciation, antioxidant and so on. It’s a tremendous benefit to do that. Now I want to say, you athletes out there that are just going to do chocolate milk, you now have to be careful because research done on chocolate milk with sugar in it. Most chocolate milk now has high fructose corn syrup. You know it doesn’t work the same in recovery, as sugar does. So if you’re drinking chocolate milk for that purpose, you must make sure it’s a sugar chocolate milk. So it’s an interesting little piece there. It’s a fantastic thing is that super food nutrition, what we talk about it is, we mix all the known best forms of the known nutrients, with the super foods, with nutrients we haven’t even discovered yet, and it has all these co-factors. So we’re learning things all the while, but we’re getting it done by mixing it all together to start with.

Greg: I believe in a balanced approach. I think that we are sometimes too isolated in terms of what we think. I’m not a huge fan of chocolate milk, I am a huge fan of chocolate, in many ways, and 90% coco is extremely good for you. I like whole food nutrition, I like super food nutrition, I think if we combine a balanced approach around some of the new knowledge we have on super food, I think we can really help people to live that healthy, high- performance, life that we all hope we can live. We do know now enough to be able to get that done, and to be able to live that kind of a life.

KC: Great stuff, Greg.

Greg: Thanks for having me on the show.

KC: Awesome. Pleasure. If you want some more detailed information about the kinds of things Greg is talking about, you can get his book “Super Bodies” it’s about to be released. I hope that’s helpful to you. God bless you and have a great day.


SuperHealth Challenge Tip!

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Posted on 9th May 2012 by admin in Super Health

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A good rule of thumb is to try to balance the amount of toxins you are exposed to with the amount of antioxidants consumed on a daily basis. Particularly heavy toxic exposures within the environment should be treated with an even higher dosage of antioxidants, because this will help minimize the free radical-mediated disease process within the body.

KC Craichy
Author
The Super Health Diet

Change Your Life in One Week

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Posted on 7th May 2012 by admin in Super Health

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Do you realize that the official start of summer is just six weeks away? Whether you and your family plan to head to the pool, the beach, or the mountains, spend time outside walking, hiking, cycling or just playing, summer is a time we want to look and feel our very best. This makes it the perfect time to re-focus on our nutrition and fitness programs.

Many Living Fuel users have experienced extraordinary benefits with the 7 Day Challenge. Through the power of superfood nutrition, the 7 Day Challenge is the perfect jumpstart program to help achieve a healthy weight, increase energy, aid digestion, and reach peak performance.

Click the graphic below to visit the popular 7 Day Challenge page on our website, where you can learn much more about the program and watch an informative video featuring Living Fuel founders KC and Monica Craichy.

“I took the 7 Day Challenge which was amazing. I continued to use LivingFuel for the month and optimized my weight (not my main goal, but a nice benefit). Thought I would try whole foods only, but I cannot deny how much better I feel with LivingFuel. I’m hooked!” Renia M., Kentucky

Visit our Facebook page and keep us updated with your 7 Day Challenge results. Questions? Post them at Facebook or email us at info@livingfuel.com. Did we mention summer is only six weeks away? Let’s get started! Click on the graphic below.

LivingFuelTV: Exercise Medicine – How to Supercharge Yourself

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Posted on 3rd May 2012 by admin in LivingFuelTV | Super Health

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2:00 p.m.

Your friends march to the vending machine, coffee maker, or chug down a monster-sized “energy” drink to ward off their daily afternoon energy crash. Instead, you power through your day with abundant energy and mental clarity, all without these sugars, stimulants, and the subsequent crashes. How?

Tune into today’s episode of LivingFuelTV’s Exercise Medicine series with extreme human physiologist Dr. Greg Wells. Dr. Wells is an in-demand lecturer, researcher and physiology expert and the author of the outstanding new book Superbodies: Peak Performance Secrets from the World’s Best Athletes. Learn the importance of protein and amino acids, the three major areas of nutrition, and practical strategies to help you consume the “right nutrients at the right time.”

Enjoy a “high performance, high health life!”

Audio Transcript

KC: Welcome to Living Fuel TV, I’m KC Craichy, with special guest, Dr. Greg Wells. Welcome back Greg.

Greg: Thanks so much for having me again.

KC: We were just having a discussioln and two minutes ago you had a blast of SuperEssentials Aminos, and I was telling you that within a minute or two you’re going to see things in terms of mental clarity, and color that you’re not going to believe. Tell us what just happened when you had some.

Greg: Let me give you a sense of my day so far. I woke up and went into a two and a half hour practice as a coach/physiologist with a national team, and I had fruit all morningm just becasue that’s just what was around. Berries and a banana. When I arrived here, we’ve been talking for a little while now. I was definitely feeling a little bit tired, so I pounded those amino’s and within about 45 seconds. I’m speaking as a scientist now so I’m a little bit unnerved by the fact that I can see colors like crazy. My concentration level has shot through the roof. I’m no longer tired it’s really a little bit unnerving, I’m not going to lie to you, it’s pretty crazy.

KC: I wrote chapter 11 in my book, The Super Health Diet, about protein metabolism and amino acid metabolism and presented all the research behind that SuperEssentials Aminos. But you really can’t understand it until you do it. I have pro athletes that say that they’re in the middle of their sport and they’re so hyper-concentrated. Every little detail matters when they’re hitting a baseball or golfball or whatever the case may be. I can’t explain to you the mental aspect of this and the concentration aspect of it, but I can tell you what is going on in the body is really good. You just had 15 grams, 15 grams is going to be in your bloodstream within 20 minutes, but obviously it was in your bloodstream within 45 seconds. Somethings going on here that’s pretty fantastic.

Greg: I’m going to have to think about it a lot more, about if we think about what amino acids and proteins do for the human body. All the enzymes deal with all the chemical processes in our body, those are proteins. Our neurotransmitters which communicate between nerves in our brain, and also between nerves and muscles. Those are based upon amino acids and proteins. In my book, which you wrote a wonderful supportive statement for. I deal with a lot of issues around how people can concentrate in the middle of the day, and trying to deal with that 2 p.m. crash that most people experince.

KC: 10 a.m. and 2p.m. in our body.

Greg: Yes, 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Sorry, I’m so overwhelmed by all these colors, and my ability to think, I’m making all sorts of mistakes. Because I’m excited all of the sudden. That involves trying to help people to take the right nutrients at the right times. Increasing the amount of protein that people are taking, and decreasing the amount of carbohydrate in our diets. Not to say that we don’t need any, because it does fuel the body. Although certainly increasing the amount of protein. What that does is changes the neurotransmitter levels in your brain and alters the relationship between two neurotransmitters, triptafan and terracyine. If we can do that properly that will supercharge peoples ability to concentrate during the day.

KC: Difference in test scores, difference in the concentration during work.

Greg: Clarity of concentration, mental ability to do problem solving. All of the things that we need in the middle of the day to be able to perform our jobs really, really well.

KC: How about these mid morning and later afternoon super coffee blast, sugar blasts, and the little energy drinks people by in the little bottles that people drink. How bad is that for the body?

Greg: When I’m a work and you go down at 10:00, or you go for a walk at 10:00 you see the massive line up for coffee and for simple sugars, and that will help people for a very short period of time. However it will then lead to another crash and another viscious cycle where we’re dumping sugars caffenine into the body, to try to deal with the pressures and stress of daily life.

KC: How has that increased the stress on the body?

Greg: Well it instaneoulsy will cause an inflamatory response and decrease the ability of the immune system to fight off disease. Our diet is unquestionably one of the reason why we’re seeing increases in the rate depression and anxiety and all these other problems in our society. I think if we can help people to use nutrition to super charger their concentration. To super charger their energy levels throughout thye course of their day, people will be better able to make the right kind of decisions. Use a balanced approach to nutrition, using all the different fruits and vegetables that are available to us. Using super foods to improve our immune system and our health. We really need to be able to support people do be able to do that through great education, through great information. Through in some cases, products in order to help people do it in the crazy busyness of their lives.

KC: I’ve been having a super smoothie for breakfast for more than ten years now. Never am I hungry between breakfast and lunch. I don’t think about food. I don’t want food. If I see food, I don’t grab it. It’s about getting the right meal at the right time. I always tell people to learn to fuel yourself for five to six hours. Instead of giving yourself a high carbohydrate meal like oatmeal with juice for breakfast. Or just fruit and you go up and crash like you said in the mid morning. Which puts some demand on you for some more stimulant or carbohydrate or something like that.

Greg: We never want to allow the body to run out of energy. There’s some interesting new information out that suggests that we may be actually to run out of fuel for our brains at certain times of the day if we’re doing lots of concentration, lots of work. There’s no stored energy in the brain, it’s all supplied by our blood. We really depend upon the nutrition that we take in every few hours, in order to maintain that level of concentration and focus we need throughout the course of the day. I know personally, if I eat well in the morning and support that with the right type of things throughout the course of the day, that I’m a completely different person in terms of my performance and on my job. In terms of my health, and specifically probably most importantly in terms of my ability to have a great relationships with the people I’m involved with. Both at work and at home.

KC: What’s the difference in a young person’s test score, even a college kid’s test score when they stay up late doing homework and then they play their video games and they go to sleep late, they have to wake up early to go to school. They skip breakfast or eat a Pop Tart or some kind of normal American breakfast and then go to school. What’s the difference in test scores of the person who slept through the night and had a super food smoothie for breakfast?

Greg: I don’t know the exact number on test scores, but I will tell you about the Canadian Ski team. They had a number of athletes who were at training camps, and in between morning and evening workouts they would play video games. And these athletes just simply couldn’t recover. Because they didn’t realise that when you’re playing video games, when you’re pumping information into your brain, that you’re actually activating all the neurons through your entire body and wiping out your neurotransmiter levels. As soon as the athletes played less video games, and it’s not like we have to eliminate them out, but we have to do it in a way in which the body can recover. Everyone’s performance went up, as soon as athletes started focusing on their recovery through sleep, their performance improved. As soon as all the athletes that we’re working with start using all three major areas of nutrition, proteins, high quality carbohydrate, high quality fats, everyone’s performance, their health improves. I think that’s one of the main reasons why, the last Olympics in Vancouver, there were no positive drug tests. It was the first time in probably 30 years where there hasn’t been a positive drug test. Because people are learning how to use nutrition, they don’t have to rely on the pharmaceutical interventions anymore. The information is out there now, to live a high-performance, high-quality, high-health life, and we just have to make the tough decision in the moment. In the middle of the morning, when you’re tired and stressed and that coffee and scone look so good, can you actually make the right decision, and have the things that your body needs. 5 seconds after you do it, as I just experienced this morning, your mind and your body thank you and you end up having a high-productivity, high-performance, high-health life.

KC: Fantastic. Great stuff Greg. Thanks for saying this, and thanks for being with us. Greg: Thanks very much. I hope you can use this in your own life. God Bless you and have a great day.


Berry Good!

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Posted on 30th April 2012 by admin in Super Health

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A new study indicates that eating berries, specifically strawberries and blueberries, may reduce cognitive decline in elderly women. Strawberries and blueberries contain high levels of flavonoids, compounds that have powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

The Harvard Medical School study, published in the latest issue of the journal Annals of Neurology, supports similar findings from smaller studies on the benefits of flavonoids.

Living Fuel has long-recognized the amazing health benefits of berries, including strawberries and blueberries. That is why our LivingFuel SuperBerry® Ultimate and LivingFuel SuperBerry® Original functional superfoods contain a unique SuperBerry complex of organic, freeze-dried strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and cranberries.

Unlike other brands, which may contain only a small amount of berries or simply berry flavoring, each serving of SuperBerry® Original and SuperBerry® Ultimate contain approximately 14,000 milligrams (14 full grams!) of organic berries. Along with organic berries SuperBerry Ultimate and Original also contain:

  • live digestive enzymes to ensure maximum availability of nutrients,
  • probiotics and probiotics for healthy intestinal function,
  • protective antioxidants to protect against free radical damage,
  • an array of beneficial herbs to enhance major body systems,
  • optimal levels of essential vitamins & minerals, delivered in their most bioavailable forms, and
  • 26 grams per serving of clean, non-GMO brown rice and yellow pea protein.
To learn more, watch the video below featuring Living Fuel Founders KC and Monica Craichy. In the video, KC and Monica explain the amazing benefits of Living Fuel SuperBerry® and SuperBerry® Ultimate and how they enjoy Living Fuel as part of their personal nutrition regimen. Click on the graphic below.

 


SuperHealth Challenge Tip!

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Posted on 30th April 2012 by admin in Super Health

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A large and growing body of research suggests that the United States government’s proposed levels of protein intake are far below what is optimal for Super Health, for weight optimization, not to mention athletic performance. Most people could benefit from increasing their protein intake and decreasing carbohydrate consumption.

As recommended by the Food and Nutrition Board of the United States National Academy of Science, the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 grams protein per kilo (2.2 pounds) of body weight per day for adults, regardless of age. However, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, “When caloric ranges appropriate for normal healthy adults are considered, the recommended protein intake ranges from 1.4 to 2.0 grams of protein per kilo (2.2 pounds) of body weight per day.”

“The apparent discrepancy between the RDA and the recommendations of the USDA expert committees on actual dietary intake of protein can be resolved by considering the RDA as the minimal acceptable intake and the dietary recommendations as reflecting the optimal protein intake. When viewed in this light, it is clear that, contrary to popular belief, expert recommendations for protein intake range from as low as 1.2 to 2.0 grams of protein per kilo (2.2 pounds) of body weight per day.”

In fact, in a 2005 Dietary Reference Intake report, the Food and Nutrition Board reported no known upper limit of safety for protein intake as there is for carbohydrates and fats. “More importantly, most studies that set out to evaluate the potential adverse effects of higher protein intake actually documented the reverse—namely that higher protein intakes were beneficial on the system being studied. Thus the primary metabolic benefit of increased protein intake in the elderly is related to the stimulation of muscle protein synthesis, positive effects on virtually all body systems may be expected in the absence of deleterious effects.”


SuperHealth Challenge Tip!

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Posted on 27th April 2012 by admin in Super Health

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I strongly believe in the power of a plant-based diet and understand why some people want to be vegetarians. Just about everyone could benefit from eating more fresh vegetables and fruits (in moderation). Most people today who call themselves vegetarians are not true vegetarians, because they also eat some kinds of animal protein, such as eggs or fish. There is a lot of evidence that suggests a modified vegetarian diet that includes clean animal sources of protein is extremely healthy. Combining the Bible’s Old Testament vegetarian guidelines in Genesis 1:29 with the clean meats (a.k.a. Kosher guidelines in Leviticus 11) may well be the long-sought-after fountain of youth.

Most vegetarians have multiple nutrient deficiencies, including protein. They often rely on low protein sources that do not provide enough of the right combinations of essential amino acids to allow them to thrive. Many vegetarians end up eating grains instead of meats, which further exacerbates the problems. Educated vegetarian food combining can provide a good mix of EAAs but generally necessitates far too many carbohydrates into their diet. Blindly mixing various foods is not ideal. Most vegetarians are not strict and also eat eggs, dairy, and/or fish, which can go a long way toward supplying much needed protein, EAAs, and other vital nutrients, such as fish oil EPA/DHA.

However, for just about everyone, especially strict vegetarians, to obtain Super Health, it is my belief that functional superfoods, such as optimized plant protein powders and essential amino acids, are critical to health and longevity. A word of caution: Infants, children, and young adults should not consume strict vegetarian diets or be on long-term calorie-restricted diets because it can stunt their growth and cause long-term health problems. Neither should pregnant and nursing mothers.

Food is a double-edged sword. The combining of various plant foods from different categories (vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds) can still result in a suboptimal amount of protein, varied amounts of EAAs, and unhealthy levels of carbohydrates. Mindlessly or methodically combining of various plant foods generally does not ensure optimal amounts of EAAs. It is critical for strict vegetarians to supplement with optimized plant protein powders and EAAs.


Exercise Medicine: Stress, Recover, Repeat

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Posted on 26th April 2012 by admin in LivingFuelTV | Super Health

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Today on LivingFuelTV, we continue our important series Exercise Medicine with extreme human physiologist Dr. Greg Wells from the University of Toronto. Dr. Wells is the author of the new book Superbodies: Peak Performance Secrets from the World’s Best Athletes. In today’s episode, we dive into stress and recovery. We explore how physical exercise, emotional stress, and physical health challenges similarly tax the body, and in turn, how our body recovers and adapts. Whether you perform on the field, at the office, on the sidelines, or at home, there’s much to learn from KC and Dr. Wells, including the single most important element of recovery that costs absolutely nothing!

Click on the graphic below to watch.

Audio Transcript

KC: Welcome to Living Fuel TV, I’m KC Craichy with special guest Dr. Greg Wells. Greg, great to have you back.

Greg: Yeah! Thanks! Good to be here again.

KC: Greg is a sports scientist to elite athletes in Canada, and a doctor at All Children’s Hospital in Toronto. Now we talked in a previous show about how relevant those two things are. Explain briefly how that crossover works.

Greg: So, I work as an extreme human physiologist. I’m a scientist, I study how the body works in extreme conditions, either in chronic diseases like we see at Sick Kids’ Hospital in Toronto or with the Olympic athletes trying to win medals at games like the Olympics.

KC: So, we deal with things in regular life in the middle, right?

Greg: That’s right.

KC: You got the extremes on both sides, and most of us fall in the middle there somewhere.

Greg: Yeah the vast majority of us mere mortals will fall in the middle zone, but we can still learn from what happens at the extremes. We can learn how to live healthier lives, we can learn from the elite athletes how to perform better and out of all of that have greater, better, more exciting, more healthy lives.

KC: So the elite athlete is on the edge, gets to the edge of unhealthiness, literally, when they push themselves out there, and the kid in extreme surgeries or treatment situations, say like cancer, gets to the very edge also.

Greg: Yeah we push the body as far as we possibly can in high performance sports, we literally put as much stress on them as we possibly can and then allow them to recover and then do it again, and then allow them to recover and that stimulates the body to adapt positively. And the benefit of that ultimately is that we end up stronger, healthier, faster, fitter. What we try to do on the opposite end of the spectrum in children’s chronic disease is to sort of use the information we have about how the body works, physiologically, from my perspective, and to help treat that ultimate stress of disease and lack of immune function or whatever is supporting it, in order to bring it back into the healthy zone as quickly as possible. I try to do both through a knowledge and application of exercise science and also through, supported by incredible nutrition as well.

KC: So, the people in the middle, they deal with stress in a different way. There’s different kinds of stress but the result is similar in how you might handle it could be similar.

Greg: Exactly, the physiological response to stress is pretty universal, and there’s a great story that I love telling from the last Olympics in Vancouver and being Canadian we love our Winter Olympics. So there was a figure skater, Joannie Rochette, and she went out at the Olympic games ranked sixth in the world and right before the Olympics, actually at the beginning of the Olympic games her mother passed away. And so you can imagine what it would be like trying to go out and compete at the highest level possible and having just lost the most important person in your life. The person that took you to practice for ten years, the person who was your confidant and as you went out onto the ice to skate, 20,000 people in the stadium went crazy to support her now what else could you possibly do? But she became emotional, she began to lose control, she became tense and tight and you could see that happen to her. To her credit, as a young athlete, she went back to her coach, stopped for a moment, took a drink of water, took three deep relaxing breaths, her coach smiled at her, which was an incredible response. Because her coach is feeling just as much stress as she is, having probably been very good friends with her mom. So there was this physical calming of the athlete and this positive support of the mentor in this case which allowed her then to go back out and perform the skate of her life to win the bronze medal. It’s a perfect example of what we can do, imagine if you’ve had a tough day at work and right before you walk into your home you can stop and take three deep calming breaths, before you arrive and try to deal with your family or there’s a crazy situation at the office and instead of rapidly reacting to the situation you take a moment, twenty seconds really to compose yourself before you walk in. You know that’s a perfect example of how we can learn from elite athletes to positively benefit our own lives.

KC: That is a fantastic story.

Greg: Yeah, it’s pretty powerful.

KC: So what about, there’s a difference in repetitive stress versus what you just talked about, you know, tragedy, those sort of things, but most people get into repetitive stress like, you know, unending deadlines or financial issues, that sort of thing. How might what you teach help someone in that sort of situation?

Greg: Well, unfortunately in the world that we live in, I doubt we’re ever going to get rid of those stressers I think, it’s a time of constant change, it’s a time of financial upheavals we’ve seen are going to continue and the pressures on all of us to perform our best are going to increase. So I really don’t focus so much on getting rid of stress. I think we’re going to be faced with that in our lives, that’s just the nature of the game. What I focus on is helping people to recover faster. Can we get people back to 100% by the time they arrive at home? Maybe even by the time they get back to work the next morning. Can we help people to eat better? Can we help people get massages every once in awhile? Can we help people sleep better? Can we help people to speed that recovery from the negative pressures of stress, in order to get people ideally back to at least level, maybe even better the next day. So we can improve performance, improve health despite the fact that we live in a crazy, stressful, high-pressure environment.

KC: All right, so, the example you just gave is similar to an athlete, you stress them to the max and then you can recover them.

Greg: That’s right.

KC: How might that work in the situation we just talked about?

Greg: We have a protocol that we try to use as much as possible with our athletes, we put them under a tremendous amount of stress. The first thing that we try to do is to help them to eat immediately after exercise. Within 20 minutes of finishing a workout they’re eating carbohydrates and protein, high-quality carbohydrates to fuel the muscles, proteins to help repair the muscles within two hours. We like them having high quality fats to fix the nervous system and to provide long-term fuels. We concentrate a lot on getting people rehydrated as quickly as possible because water would be one of the most important things that we need during exercise to stay alive. Then we’ll work on longer-term recovery things like hot-cold contrast baths, making sure that once a week athletes have a great massage to get rid of inflammation out of the body and then as much as possible making sure that people have eight great hours of sleep every night. Not everyone needs eight hours, but ideally that’s what we try to get for people.

KC: How important is that?

Greg: It is one of the most important things. When we sleep a number of hormones get released into the body and one of key ones is growth hormone and when growth hormone is released into the system all of the muscles get repaired, the nervous system gets repaired, skin actually improves. So allowing athletes the opportunity to get into those deep levels of sleep as quickly as possible for a consistent period of time is really important to keep the bodies recovering and regenerating and their minds recovering and regenerating and let’s face it, we all need, how great do you feel on a night of sleep. On a consistent basis that makes a huge difference for all of us.

KC: That’s even an energetic component. It’s energy-enhancing to sleep and energy-robbing to not sleep, so it’s really a fascinating thing. We talked about to stress, Monica talks about stress being if you don’t have pressure you’re dead. So you need a certain amount of stress.

Greg: Right.

KC: So it’s really about like you talked about and stress can be good like athletics and doing things that are challenging and competitive. That actually can extend your life is the stuff that people focus on is the negative stuff that tears them down. How is the stressful is the American diet? They’re eating french fries and I saw somebody the other day they got a burger, they got rid of the vegetables and then they had a huge pile of fries. How stressful is that to the body?

Greg: Well our diet is killing us, there’s no question, North American and certainly Canadian diet is absolutely toxic, it’s really really bad for us. The sad thing is that I just got back from a trip to India and you see that spreading now around the world, doesn’t matter where you go, this is a growing problem internationally. The World Health Organization has designated obesity and type 2 diabetes as the number one concern worldwide for our health. And we talked a little bit about stress and sleep and there’s some great new research coming out about how stress can predispose people to increased obesity and how lack of sleep predisposes people to increased obesity. It is a vicious cycle which I believe, my approach is to try to prevent it in the first place through exercise and nutrition and there’s a lot of good research that says great nutrition improves obesity and Type 2 diabetes, but if you add exercise to it, it’s an amplifier effect.

KC: Sleep and so on.

Greg: You just get back the positive effects then build upon each other and we hopefully repairing this problem that we have and the key thing being prevention. You know if we can educate people and get people to buy into the exercise nutrition principle we’re going to be able to change the world.

KC: Awesome information, I look forward to the next segment. Guys his book is “Super Bodies” Dr. Greg Wells. I hope it’s helpful to you, God bless you and have a great day.

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