What to eat for breakfast if you only have ten minutes?

[Joshua Naterman]

Patrick Smith,

I hope Typhoon doesn’t mind me having a go at responding to this, but – I think his main point wasn’t that these 10% things can’t make a difference, it’s just that there’s really a hierarchy of importance in regards to nutrition. Fundamentals need to be sorted before worrying about the details.

Eg, the person worrying about the specific timing of nutrients without having a clue about overall energy intake is going to be worse off than someone in the reverse situation.

That's actually not true. If anything, getting the "correct" number of calories with improper timing causes more problems than getting the nutrient timing down properly and being off one way OR the other with total calories.

When you get things out of whack you get a huge waste of energy, which ends up as fat storage and also tends to cause protein intake to be insufficient, leading to stalled progress and often small losses of muscle. There is a long and complicated chain of events that follows this, but the basics are that you get decreased effective protein intake, increased in vitro tissue catabolism, probable absorption issues with vitamins and minerals (which lead to digestion issues and protein synthesis issues), and if you are really lucky metabolic syndrome as well (over a prolonged period of time).

This is actually the main problem with current "common" nutrition: Nutrient timing has taken a second place to caloric intake.

[Scott Fischer]

@ slizzardman

I'm glad that you responded to my post because I'm happy to admit I've still got a lot to learn in this area Alan Aragon discusses this topic at length in his Research Review, and raises a bunch of interested points.

- much of the research on nutrient timing has been done on fasted subjects, which means the results cannot be validly applied to situations where training is done in a fed state (ie someone who ate earlier in the day).

- other research showing positive effects of 'best practice' nutrient timing have not controlled macronutrient intake between research groups - ie the 'nutrient timing group' received greater overall protein for the day

- nutrient timing is particularly important in a couple of situations - when training bouts go for longer than two hours and when multiple bouts of training are completed on the same day. I realise that this may apply to some on this forum, but I'm assuming its not the norm.

You made a few claims about the consequences of not timing nutrient timing carefully, I'd be keen to go over the evidence for those if you could provide it (again - my goal is to learn, not to be right). If possible, please provide evidence of actual measurable performance outcomes (strength/muscle gain, fat loss) from long term studies, not ones that measure molecular markers or whatnot, for reasons I've explained here viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8289

In the mean time, here's some evidence in that timing isn't crucial:

Time-divided ingestion pattern of casein-based protein supplement stimulates an increase in fat-free body mass during resistance training in young untrained men.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1962 ... d_RVDocSum

Effect of protein-supplement timing on strength, power, and body-composition changes in resistance-trained men.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19478342

Timing of protein ingestion relative to resistance exercise training does not influence body composition, energy expenditure, glycaemic control or cardiometabolic risk factors in a hypocaloric, high protein diet in patients with type 2 diabetes.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20977582

Those here who happen to subscribe to the Alan Aragon Research Review will note that I've blatantly taken these studies from work he has cited, I haven't had the time (due to 'real' study and work commitments) to stay completely up to date for myself.

Looking forward to your response

[Joshua Naterman]

It will take some time for me to find and post the links you have asked for but I will do my best.

The issues with some of the studies you have posted are similar, they are in untrained subjects (which is stupid, in my opinion... the newbie effect is well-established) and supplementary protein is being observed (not total intake or timing).

The hard part about this kind of research is that to get truly meaningful results you have to get someone to live in a lab for 10 weeks so that you can completely control what they eat and when. Real food is basically just as effective as protein supplements, so if you have amino acids circulating during exercise it doesn't matter if they are from a shake or a steak (or veggieburger, assuming the right mix of veggies).

Total caloric intake also has a powerful effect on protein utilization and directly affects how the protein is used (for energy requirements vs just for anabolic processes) so caloric status is going to play a role as well. As long as everyone is eating enough, they should be fine. Not optimal, perhaps, but fine.

Nutritional research in this area is difficult to get meaningful results, because one single factor is usually what is studied and as you get more familiar with nutrition (which I think you are, by the way... just saying that for the general public) you will find that multiple factors are required to be manipulated for you to really get the results you want. Glycemic index and load, cofactors and coenzymes being present, enzyme activity, hormonal state (chronic stress-induced as well as the general levels of anabolic hormones present), complete proteins being present pretty much all the time, total calorie intake, exercise routine (though this really is the least influential when it comes to details, almost any exercise routine with appropriately progressive resistance leads to muscle growth when the other factors are present and optimized, at least in my experience).

[Scott Fischer]

Good point about the untrained subjects, although that only applies to two of the studies, the middle one used trained subjects. I'll focus on that study then, I should note that total protein intake was not significantly different between supplementary groups. (But if it was, wouldn't that support my argument, that total amount is more important?)

Total caloric intake also has a powerful effect on protein utilization and directly affects how the protein is used (for energy requirements vs just for anabolic processes) so caloric status is going to play a role as well. As long as everyone is eating enough, they should be fine. Not optimal, perhaps, but fine.

Just to make sure we don't go off debating about slightly different issues, I'm not saying that forgetting about timing is optimal, just that timing takes a lower priority to total macronutrient and caloric intake.

Absolutely, nutritional research (and training research too I assume, less familiar here!) can be a nightmare due to lack of control.

ps if you're having any trouble getting the fulltext of the paper and want to examine it, I'm happy to email it to you

[Nic Branson]

It will take some time for me to find and post the links you have asked for but I will do my best.

The issues with some of the studies you have posted are similar, they are in untrained subjects (which is stupid, in my opinion... the newbie effect is well-established) and supplementary protein is being observed (not total intake or timing).

The hard part about this kind of research is that to get truly meaningful results you have to get someone to live in a lab for 10 weeks so that you can completely control what they eat and when. Real food is basically just as effective as protein supplements, so if you have amino acids circulating during exercise it doesn't matter if they are from a shake or a steak (or veggieburger, assuming the right mix of veggies).

Total caloric intake also has a powerful effect on protein utilization and directly affects how the protein is used (for energy requirements vs just for anabolic processes) so caloric status is going to play a role as well. As long as everyone is eating enough, they should be fine. Not optimal, perhaps, but fine.

Nutritional research in this area is difficult to get meaningful results, because one single factor is usually what is studied and as you get more familiar with nutrition (which I think you are, by the way... just saying that for the general public) you will find that multiple factors are required to be manipulated for you to really get the results you want. Glycemic index and load, cofactors and coenzymes being present, enzyme activity, hormonal state (chronic stress-induced as well as the general levels of anabolic hormones present), complete proteins being present pretty much all the time, total calorie intake, exercise routine (though this really is the least influential when it comes to details, almost any exercise routine with appropriately progressive resistance leads to muscle growth when the other factors are present and optimized, at least in my experience).

Let me tell you that lab has consequences. One Professor did a calorie intake study and during the reduced caloric phase the subject ended up punching her it had such an impact. I won't go into details but it is enormously hard to set up as Slizz said. Lab setting fully activity monitored etc...

[Larry Roseman]

Personally in a pinch I like

*bananas with nut butter

*pickled herring with cottege cheese

*microwaved oats

*egg beaters & frozen veggie omlet

*cereal, fruit milk with some whey

Actually these are my normal breakfasts for the most part!

Regarding nutrient timing - why is this an issue during breakfast? :-)

Seriously, when you look at someone as well developed muscuarly (and intellectually) as Josh/Slizz who says it's the timing,

you have to give is some consideration. Personally, I would never give up normal meals for their taste and variety.

But there is an art to sports nutrition as well as a science behind it. The science isn't always the full story.

That said my understanding of the science is that the intestine does an excellent job extracting all the protein

that is eaten. It does not only work for 4.5 hours and then give up. It slows down dring digestion of a larger meal, which breakfast probably should be but tends not to be.

Our bodies do store amino acids that are not needed immediately in a pool that is inside and around the cells.

There may be some benefit in refreshing them reguarly and keeping BCAA high, espec around workouts, but in general

our body will treat 40g every 4 hours the same as 10g every hour. Protein eaten during breakfast that isn't used

immediately or oxidised will be available later during the day. Incomplete proteins can be combined

over the course of a day to create a complete protein.

Here is a reference for the AA pool. Page 160.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=oivgi2Q ... ol&f=false

Also ... from Bill Misner Ph.D.

Cereal grains combined with vegetables, legumes, nuts, or seeds provide a complete 1.0 PDCAAS if ingested within a 24-hour window. There are ways to combine protein sources of less than perfect 1.0 PDCAAS proteins to tally a 1.0 PDCAAS score, IF the dietary proteins are ingested within a 24-hour period.

[Joshua Naterman]

That is interesting, and bears further reading.

I didn't mean to make it sound like the body just stops after a given period of time but rather that absorption times are what they are because A) meal transit times to the large intestine with normal peristalsis are something like 4-6 hours. It is certainly possible to get protein release for that full period of time, but it's all about surface area exposed to the enzymes. As the same number of food chunks get smaller there is less surface area, fewer exposed places for the enzymes to attach and digest proteins. That's why there is a curve associated with digestion/absorption and why that curve is nowhere close to symmetrical and does not really have a flatline, even with something as slow as casein (which creates a bit of a different situation since it forms a single bolus).

The intestines are certainly capable of absorbing quite a lot of protein, but that has nothing to do with the fate of protein once it is in the body.

The 30 minute circulation period, to my current understanding, is an ongoing thing. As each amino acid is released into the blood it will circulate for something like 30 minutes. Because we are constantly using protein, there are new amino acids constantly entering circulation as the currently circulating AAs are being consumed for one purpose or another. This makes it so there is not a big issue of protein not being consumed primarily for anabolic purposes unless there is somehow a large and acute over-consumption, like having 70g at once. It should make sense that if we had amino acids circulating for longer than that (which happens to be a very similar circulation schedule to glucose, unsurprisingly since both have osmotic effects) there would be some very serious fluid balance issues going on as well as some serious pH imbalances. This is also why there is a curve and not a block of shaded area on graphs that visually display what is happening to protein synthesis. The pool is around, and will stay around for as long as you are able to continually provide fresh amino acids. That's part of why whole foods are really neat, they do a very good job of that and the quality of protein is very high.

The 40g per 4 hours won't be treated the same way as 10 per hour in terms of protein synthesis. You will have more area under the curve with the four 10g doses. There is very nearly the same area under the curve of a single 15g does vs a 30g dose in terms of tracking the rate of protein synthesis. This isn't the only chemical that works this way, there are people who have done similar things with Dianabol by breaking it up into 10 small doses evenly across the day and they get dramatically superior results because they while they have a lower PEAK testosterone rate it is sustained fairly evenly throughout the day.

If this wasn't the case, burn units wouldn't use amino acid IV drips... they would just feed people proteins a few times a day. This isn't about constantly keeping the highest peak, because that's not possible (at least not safely). This IS (at least what I am talking about is) about getting as much total positive nitrogen balance as possible in a day and that, in turn, is 100% about getting a steady influx of amino acids.

You can try both ways yourself and you will literally feel the difference and see the difference. Try each for a month, I'm not saying that larger servings spread around the day in fewer doses won't work but with the exact same amount of protein broken up into 9-10 smaller doses you will get a much, much better result. Just keep the protein the same, change how you distribute it, and watch what happens. This is reflected in plenty of research, but much more importantly you can watch it happen to your body, personally. In the end, though the scientific community will frown forever upon this sentence, what actually happens to YOUR body is what matters the most.

[MH87]

I have to say the bro-science is strong in this thread.

[Joshua Naterman]

I have to say the bro-science is strong in this thread.

Lol, is it?

[Rower]

Typhoon, you are correct that the best routine is the one you follow, however, within the ones you are able to follow, there are definitely good ones and better ones. I am currently doing exactly as Sliz suggests and am seeing huge changes in my musculature and general fitness. I will post results including pics, what my routine was, what I ate, etc. in a few weeks. It will be a good example of something that can be done with a great plan rather than just a good one.

The best routine for you is the one you will do. The better routine you are able to do the better off you are. Naturally what is the best does rely on the individual and what they can do/fit in.

Looking forward to that! Also, would you care to give me a (very rough) outline of what you are doing?

I am currently in the progress of figuring out my nutrition as well. I had pretty good results with Leangains, but i feel this way of eating/training is too restrictive and unnatural for me.

[Typhoon]

Patrick Smith,

I hope Typhoon doesn’t mind me having a go at responding to this, but – I think his main point wasn’t that these 10% things can’t make a difference, it’s just that there’s really a hierarchy of importance in regards to nutrition. Fundamentals need to be sorted before worrying about the details.

Eg, the person worrying about the specific timing of nutrients without having a clue about overall energy intake is going to be worse off than someone in the reverse situation.

That's actually not true. If anything, getting the "correct" number of calories with improper timing causes more problems than getting the nutrient timing down properly and being off one way OR the other with total calories.

When you get things out of whack you get a huge waste of energy, which ends up as fat storage and also tends to cause protein intake to be insufficient, leading to stalled progress and often small losses of muscle. There is a long and complicated chain of events that follows this, but the basics are that you get decreased effective protein intake, increased in vitro tissue catabolism, probable absorption issues with vitamins and minerals (which lead to digestion issues and protein synthesis issues), and if you are really lucky metabolic syndrome as well (over a prolonged period of time).

This is actually the main problem with current "common" nutrition: Nutrient timing has taken a second place to caloric intake.

I never said anything about counting calories, my point was that a simple plan that focuses on a few key points that everyone agrees on is usually a better one for the average athlete/trainee rather than a complicated one where you are counting everything. Most people just don't stick to such a plan, in my experience, and end up cheating here or there which yields worse results rather than just sticking to a simple approach.

Another problem with precise plans is that when you start giving very specific recommendations you aren't taking into account individual differences. One size fits all is just not the way to go. People with very specific and precise plans usually have some very smart sports nutritionist with them that know to take individual differences into account. There is a lot of evidence on differences in diet requirements from sport to sport (endurance vs strength and power sports) as well as individual differences.

[Larry Roseman]

I did find some support for your position Slizz in Advanced Sport Nutrition 2nd Ed (2012) by Dr. Dan Benardot. He's an RD,

PHD and Fellow at the Acedemy of Sports Medicine, out of UoG. So no slouch. He does emphasies frequent meals,

6 or more, for most athletes and the importance of nutrition timing for many of the same reasons you do.

So perhaps the more meals the merrier

http://books.google.ca/books?id=w0Zel_b ... on&f=false

Some exerpts:

However, he doesn't go so far as to suggest every hour feedings.

He also recommends a majority of calories from carbs around 55-65%, even for bodybuilders.

ANyway Here's my take on your take of this issue ...

The 30 minute circulation period, to my current understanding, is an ongoing thing. As each amino acid is released into the blood it will circulate for something like 30 minutes. Because we are constantly using protein, there are new amino acids constantly entering circulation as the currently circulating AAs are being consumed for one purpose or another. This makes it so there is not a big issue of protein not being consumed primarily for anabolic purposes unless there is somehow a large and acute over-consumption, like having 70g at once.

It should make sense that if we had amino acids circulating for longer than that (which happens to be a very similar circulation schedule to glucose, unsurprisingly since both have osmotic effects) there would be some very serious fluid balance issues going on as well as some serious pH imbalances. This is also why there is a curve and not a block of shaded area on graphs that visually display what is happening to protein synthesis. The pool is around, and will stay around for as long as you are able to continually provide fresh amino acids. That's part of why whole foods are really neat, they do a very good job of that and the quality of protein is very high.

The aspect of the pool that I think is being lost is that the amino acids that are being stored in the intra and inter cellular

fluid, not just the blood. These are fed by protein breakdown as well as feedings. Over 90% of the protein that breaks down is reused, so the pool is always in flux. It makes sense that amino acids would circulate in the bloodstream for 30 minutes, be used for protein synthesis, fuel or to replenish this pool, before being potentially stored as fat or excreted in certain situations. Where we differ is how contininually amino acids need to be refreshed. But I agree that doing it hourly is going to maximise the potential benefit and minimize the risk of wasting any. How much actual difference this results in compared to actual meals every 4 hours, snacks and good workout nutrition would need to be studied (good luck). Most of the studies contrasting different proteins for example, found differences at muscular synthesis level, that made no actual difference in strength.

The 40g per 4 hours won't be treated the same way as 10 per hour in terms of protein synthesis. You will have more area under the curve with the four 10g doses. There is very nearly the same area under the curve of a single 15g does vs a 30g dose in terms of tracking the rate of protein synthesis. This isn't the only chemical that works this way, there are people who have done similar things with Dianabol by breaking it up into 10 small doses evenly across the day and they get dramatically superior results because they while they have a lower PEAK testosterone rate it is sustained fairly evenly throughout the day.

I agree it won't be treated 100% identically however one of the tenents of pharmacology is to create a steady state blood concentration based on a balance between drug being absorbed and the drug being metabolized and excreted. This is why it's not neccessary to take antibiotics and most drugs every hour, even bsides the advent of slow release. Every 4-6 hours or 12 hours works, as long as the intake balances the breakdown. It will take a day or so for a pool to be built up but once it is, bob is your uncle. The pool in the case of drugs is often in the blood bound to albumin.

A drug having a short half-life and/or high toxicity will be harder to manage this way. It is likely unadviseable to take

high dosage of T at once, risking cardiac or other adverse side effects.

Protein isn't a drug (though I wonder sometimes). Its metabolism and breakdown will vary more depending on circumstances.

Still, it seems to be fact that there a pool that meets needs between feedings. It won't prevent nitrogen balance from going negative during fasting, however there are other sources of protein being broken down besides muscle, such as liver, blood, skin and intestine lining. We can't assume it's all muscle. It isn't. If muscle synthesis lags for a time, it should catch up when any missing nutrients become available providing the stimulus still is present.

If this wasn't the case, burn units wouldn't use amino acid IV drips... they would just feed people proteins a few times a day. This isn't about constantly keeping the highest peak, because that's not possible (at least not safely). This IS (at least what I am talking about is) about getting as much total positive nitrogen balance as possible in a day and that, in turn, is 100% about getting a steady influx of amino acids.

This isn't a fair analogy. Severe burn victims highly comprimised mentally, physically and immunologically.

They are in an extreme energy imbalance, and their skin and muscles are literally falling off. Eating is an undue

burden, and likely blood flow to the GI is reduced, so they receive glucose, FFA and protein through IV. Even despite this their protein degrades faster than it can be built. On the other hand, athletes exercise and protein feed both of which promote muscle synthesis, especially when done in the vicinity of each other.

You can try both ways yourself and you will literally feel the difference and see the difference. Try each for a month, I'm not saying that larger servings spread around the day in fewer doses won't work but with the exact same amount of protein broken up into 9-10 smaller doses you will get a much, much better result. Just keep the protein the same, change how you distribute it, and watch what happens. This is reflected in plenty of research, but much more importantly you can watch it happen to your body, personally. In the end, though the scientific community will frown forever upon this sentence, what actually happens to YOUR body is what matters the most.

Well I may at some point! I am a big snacker as it is. My wife would enjoy the break from cooking - that's for sure.

Appreciate your contribution and leadership on this board and don't mean to diminish it. Agree or disagee it's thought provoking.

[Nic Branson]

I don't have time at the moment to look up the research papers and a couple are unpublished still but hourly whey feeding does have some research regarding nitrogen balance and protein availability. Can also reference Amino acid availability and ECF concentrations.

[Joshua Naterman]

You're right, the burn victims aren't a fair analogy but the rates of protein synthesis are quite interesting to look at with the IV. A much larger percentage difference than you would initially expect, certainly far beyond anything I expected to see.

The issue with the labile protein stores is that this protein comes from sacrificial tissues, not from a battery of amino acids. This tissue, while sacrificial in nature, still has to be re-synthesized because it is a certain percentage of the visceral organs. Andrew Doyle is one of my professors, and Dan Benardot is another. They have done some research together and have talked about this at some length. It is true that there are labile stores, but they have to be replenished. What the labile stores do is act as a short term barrier to unnecessary muscle loss, not as a replacement for dietary protein. They will absolutely help maintain a neutral or somewhat positive nitrogen balance in the muscle tissue, but as you start taking in dietary protein the labile stores have to be replaced. New sacrificial tissues have to be synthesized. This uses up resources that would otherwise be used for other tissue-building purposes, assuming of course that we are still within the limits of the un-drugged body. Because the rate of absorption from the intestines is limited per unit of time based on the type of food consumed, you artificially limit the peak of protein synthesis in muscle tissue to whatever is not used for replenishing labile stores.

This is not to be confused with gross peak protein synthesis, which will be the same. The key difference is that a fair portion of protein synthesis will represent the synthesis of new labile stores and not new muscle tissue. I have absolutely no idea how our bodies portion that out, I wouldn't be surprised if it was similar to glucose distribution in that only about 20% of ingested glucose actually gets processed through the liver... the other 80-ish % is used by all our other body tissues, which makes sense. There would be no purpose to starving everything else just so the liver can get all the attention! even at a 50/50 split it would take around 16 hours to replenish 80g of labile protein. Remember, labile protein is functional tissue that is simply not needed for vital functions to continue at normal rates. It is not equivalent to the protein version of glycogen.

The vast, vast majority of the labile protein in the body comes directly from visceral tissue. That means your internal organs. This has to be replaced, and will happen at the expense of muscle protein synthesis to a fair degree that will be equal (or perhaps slightly more than equal as there will always be some nitrogenous waste) to the skeletal muscle catabolism that was prevented by using labile protein stores. In the end, you still lose out when comparing to optimized nutrient partitioning.

I hope that makes some sense!

I happen to be rather proud of the fact that I came up with all of this on my own, about a month or two before I started taking Benardot's class and before the publishing of his book, which I own and have yet to read cover to cover lol! That much I have no trouble saying in public. Once I realized what the basic physical parameters for the human body were, it was actually really simple to construct this method of nutrient partitioning. It is extremely gratifying to hear the exact same things being taught in class. Makes me feel smart

Benardot is one of the top tier of RDs around, there's a reason that he has worked with Olympic athletes for many years and it's not an accident. He does take some positions in class that just don't make sense, like saying that there is no real benefit to taking in 10g of whey every hour vs 20-30g every 2-3 hours, even though there are documented absorption curves that can be graphed and overlapped to show what the effect would be and you simply end up with a much higher amount of area under the curve with smaller more frequent doses. The ideal would be a steady drip IV, but hey... we do what we can. I think the real physiological ideal is taking whey every 30 minutes, because that lets you keep protein synthesis within 15% or so of peak rates at all time. That is also extremely tedious, but for those who are willing to pay that much attention it does make a noticeable difference. But hey, that will probably change when there is specific research that shows what I am saying. Until then it is just a math-based opinion that I have seen work on several people of different ethnicities and phenotypes.

But you ARE right, as long as you create an absorption curve that lasts for a few hours you will be fine. There's nothing wrong with that, and this approach IS going to be easier for most people and will get them to a very, very good place! I don't mean to suggest otherwise, which I suppose it sounds like I am. It just does not represent the maximum possible results.

According to the FDA definition of "drug" almost everything is a drug. The only reason food is not considered a drug is because it would be far too inconvenient to try and make so many hoops to jump through, wouldn't be practical. A drug is anything that is "...© articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals..." and actually works. Just a claim is not enough, but if it ACTUALLY works then it is a drug. So, non-food protein sources could technically be considered drugs. I think the only current protection against that is that most protein supplements are essentially expensive dried milk. Not trying to be derisive towards the supplements but hey... it is what it is

[Joshua Naterman]

It should be noted that skin and muscle are also labile protein reserves, but it seems that in the extreme short term the viscera contribute quite a bit of the labile protein.

[Scott Fischer]

haha this thread has gone from what's good for breakfast, to fundamentals vs details, to meal frequency, to protein absorption and turnover. Maybe can we go back the first diversion, being "fundamentals vs details"?

The funny thing is that it's prompted me to rethink some of the details in my diet.

[Joshua Naterman]

Hahaha, that tends to happen here! But it leads to some really awesome conversations!

[Larry Roseman]

Wow, talk about a small world and going from 6 degrees of seperation to 1! Send my regards to your prof!

Tell him I hope to read the missing pages in his book one day

I do get what you're saying about labile protein stores - it's a new word for me but I'm familar with the concept and agree 100% with your conclusion. What I was referring to is related to labile protein but not identical.

It doesn't matter as the concept of replenishment still applies but for the sake of clarity ...

Considering that this pool does not have a predominance of EAA, I would imagine that it can't be relied upon for MPS to a large degree..

In any event I do agree you're maximizing MPS possiblities as much as possible, short of being hooked up to an IV drip

Although it's not a controlled test, you are realising improvements which is the main thing. From the quotes, the

benefit of lowered fat mass may be a part of it as well, which is also another fantastic thing of course.

Although I was taken aback by the lack of variety in your diet, it's probably more of the rule in nature

that animals eat a few selected foods. They know what's good for them, whereas humans

don't instinctively know this it seems. So as long as you're healthy and feeling well and non-deficient (any more than anyone else) I can admit it is a perfectly valid approach with potential performance benefits.

Good on ya mate!

Now,what's for breakfast :wink:

[energy223]

Post moderated.

Don't come in here trying to sell something and couch it as "facts." That entire website was a sales page.

I thought about leaving the link, but this post rubbed me wrong. I don't like people peddling their wares on the first post. That's not what this forum is for.

[Quick Start Test Smith]

FIN - What's for breakfast? I don't know about you, but I'm having pancakes

[Longshanks]

I recently started using a scoop of why power with 300ml milk and use that to make my porridge in the microwave. Takes 3mins and if you used skimmed milk very healthy. The flavouring of the protein power (strawberry for me) gives it a bit of flavour as well. Decent protein source and a few carbs. Don't waste your money on expensive brands either. Porridge oats are porridge oats in my opinion.

[Nathan Sirocka]

i had a question about fruit. Is it good or bad? A lot of things i read now say to eat it in moderation. Is there a good reason for this? and how much fruit should one eat? Thanks.

[Joshua Naterman]

i had a question about fruit. Is it good or bad? A lot of things i read now say to eat it in moderation. Is there a good reason for this? and how much fruit should one eat? Thanks.

A good question, and there is no single answer.

If you are on a typical American diet and are looking to sort of reboot your body into a healthier hormonal status then you will probably benefit from 2-3 months of a somewhat high protein, higher slow fat diet (milk and meat fats, olive oil, etc) and non-starchy vegetable diet. After that you'll probably want to take 2 months to slowly integrate starchy veggies and whole grains (preferably rice, oats and buckwheat but realistically whatever you like that doesn't bother you), reduce protein intake to 1.5-1.8g per kg of body weight, and dial down the fat to just fill in the caloric gaps after you are getting the carbs and protein your body needs.

During the first 3 months you'd want absolutely no fruit, just to get your body completely away from sugars. After that, during the shift to a truly healthy diet that has the right amount of carbs it would be ok to have 1 serving a few times a week, but also ok to continue a zero fruit policy.

Once you're done with that whole transition process and have gotten used to having a truly proper diet having a few pieces of fruit on most days shouldn't be a problem.

Having said that, there really isn't a bad amount of fruit if you are limiting yourself to 1-2 medium sized fruits per meal. 1 per meal or snack would really be more appropriate. Having TOO much fruit at one time can present similar problems to having too much added sugar, moderation is the key. Moderation is really about controlling how much you have at one time, and making sure you have the fruit at the beginning of the meal or snack.

Hope that helps! The last paragraph is probably what you're looking for.

[Larry Roseman]

In the vein of the last part of S-man's reply I wouldn't worry about having some in the morning or in between meals as a snack as mentioned. Or after sports (or perhaps during if you are hungry). In the past S-man also referred to some fruits that have less fructose, such as pitted fruits, berries and bananas.

Also fruit may be the only decent thing you're eating for all we know, if you're otherwise eating a junk-food and fast-food diet for example Sugar sodas, fruit juices/drinks, sugary pastries and excessive chemicals, would be more of an urgent concern in this case. Fruit does have many positive attributes besides sweetiness: phytonutrients, enzymes, minerals, anti-oxidents, low-caloric density, high fiber, reasonable GI and great all-natural satisfying taste so I personally like keep some in my diet.

Although, I've recently pretty much gotten off the fruit juice after a love affair that has lasted decades. If nothing else it's

a few hundred extra calories a day that I could be doing something better with :shock:

[Blairbob]

Uhh, bananas are loaded with sugars and fructose. It's the berries that tend to be relatively low on sugar content.