Nutrition

Chewing parsley instead of tobacco will soon be the next big thing (but without the spitting).

Feel exhausted from work and clogged by too much coffee? Craving for something…but don't know what it is? Maybe all you need is to chew parsley and notice how your brain is taking off instead of folding down.

Parsley is the world's most popular herb. It has been used traditionally as a natural diuretic, as a detoxifying agent to the kidneys, and as a natural breath freshener. Nonetheless, unknowingly to many, parsley is also a member of the elite superfood group – with pound-for-pound the most dense and bioavailable nutritional content among plant foods. Parsley delivers more Vitamin C than oranges, more iron than spinach, more Vitamin A, folic acid, potassium and calcium than any other green leafy vegetable. Most importantly, parsley is one of the greatest carriers of some of the most potent anti-carcinogenic and antioxidant nutrients, most notable among them are monoterpene glycosides – known as cancer killers; methyl donors that nourish and protect gene integrity; flavonoids, known as antioxidant and hormonal balancing immuno supportive agents; coumarins, which help prevent blood clotting, arterial blockages and strokes; and polyacetylenes, the most efficient bio-electrical conductors believed to potentially support healing and protect against formation of cancer cells.

It's impossible to put a label on parsley. Its unique nutritional composition is so dense and bioavailable that simply said, it will pick up your brain within minutes. The parsley fix routine is simple: Chew a handful of parsley leaves every few hours. Friends who have been using the parsley fix have reported a notable increase in energy levels and overall resilience to fatigue and stress. Parsley will refresh your breath and nourish your brain. Warrior Diet & AEDiet followers can take advantage of the parsley fix during the undereating phase. Once you start it, most likely you won't stop. The more you do this parsley fix, the better it gets. Parsley can be packed in a paper bag or a Ziploc and can be easily carried to work or when on the road. Based on my own experience, parsley sustains itself pretty well for a few days, even in warm outdoor conditions.

Here is a reposting of a question posed after Thursday's Blog on Tactical Nutrition for Intense Prolonged Drills, along with my response. I figured many would benefit from this posting.

Question:

I strength train 4 days a week, on an empty stomach, and follow the recovery meal schedule. I play basketball for about 2 hours, with little rest between games. My pre-workout meal is typically fruit or nuts. I used to drink Gatorade during, but after I read your article about cortisol, I stopped and drink only water. What a difference! I finish with Gatorade (which I probably should not). I noticed within an hour I get woozy and feel like eating anything in site. Why is that?

My response:

If you train your body to shift from carb fuel to fat fuel, over time your body will gain the ability to shift gears without hitting the wall. Saying that, I recommend for those engaged in prolonged drills (over an hour) to have a light pre-exercise meal, either oatmeal or preferably a high quality low glycemic protein shake.

I use the Warrior Diet Meal Replacement 1 hr – 30 min before my training. It nourishes the body without spiking insulin and helps sustain performance for a prolonged period of time.

What you're experiencing now is most likely a hypoglycemic reaction (low blood sugar) because your body is still depending exclusively on carb fuel. This condition should be avoided. Having Gatorade may cause more collateral damage in the long run. When you take away sugar from a "sugar addict", there will be withdrawal symptoms such as a hypoglycemic reaction, with dizziness, fatigue often involving a headache and craving for sweets. Avoid pre-exercise sugar if you can. The size of pre-exercise meals is also important – I take about 4 tbsp. of Warrior Diet Meal Replacement with water and ice until reaching a thick ice cream consistency. It tastes like a real ice cream and gives you a "sugar kick" without having any sugar added. Sometimes I like to mix the Meal Replacement with Warrior Whey in a 2/1 ratio. It tastes slightly less sweet but still creamy and with a higher content of amino acid. Some of my friends like to add a tbsp. of Warrior Rice to the mixture. In any case, 4 -5 tbsp. of this low glycemic meal replacement is highly effective in supporting the body's nutritional demand without spiking blood sugar, and therefore can be the best option for a pre-exercise meal and also as a safe protein snack at any time of the day to help prevent hypoglycemic reaction during exercise or while following prolonged undereating.

I've been asked what is the right nutrition plan in cases of being engaged in prolonged intense drills such as during training camps (boxing or marshal art), long conditioning sessions involving strength and endurance, triathlons, long distance biking, strength conditioning involving split routines as well as military, firemen or law enforcement drills. In all these cases the main goal is to nourish the body in a way that maximizes its capacity to resist fatigue and recuperate. The key for reaching this goal is proper applications of functional meals that keep the body in a fight or flight mode and at the same time supports the neural, hormonal and muscular systems for a long lasting performance.

There are two kinds of functional meals: pre-workout meals and post-workout recovery meals. In order to be effective, each functional meal must be designed to fit the body's specific biological needs before and after physical exercise. Since I've already addressed the topic of recovery meals and how to take advantage of the biological window of opportunity right after exercise to maximize muscular growth and recuperation, there is no need to repeat myself and cover this very topic again. Nonetheless, it's important to note that when it comes down to prolonged physical drills, the size of the meal and its nutritional composition is critically important.

Let's start with pre-workout meals. A pre-workout meal must be fast assimilated and easily digested. It should be also low glycemic to avoid an insulin spike and hypoglycemia later on. For an endurance athlete, a bowl of oatmeal an hour before exercise is fine, but there are better functional meals than oatmeal, for that matter. Ideally a pre-exercise meal should provide the body with all essential amino acids, together with other cofactors including immunosupportive and insulin stabilizing nutrients. Obviously, a pre-exercise meal should be all natural and low glycemic. A high quality chemical-free low glycemic protein shake can do the job. A combination of amino acids, together with hormonal supportive and immunosupportive nutrients, help support the neural, hormonal and muscular systems during the upcoming drill, and thus can be more effective than just carbs coming from oatmeal or other grains.

As for post-exercise recovery meals, the plan is a bit tricky. The first post-exercise meal should provide fast assimilating proteins, cofactors and optimum amounts of slow releasing carbs. Carbs are necessary to immediately inhibit muscle breakdown and also for the finalization of IGF1 and G1+ actions in the working muscle. Now here comes the tricky element: the second and third recovery meals should be low glycemic, if possible sugar free to avoid insulin resistance, hypoglycemia and undesirable fat gain. Therefore, the second and third recovery meals should be made with minimum carbs and should be incorporated after the initial recovery meal, every one to two hours, or during breaks between training sessions.

Following is my personal regime:

Pre-exercise meal: Warrior Diet Meal Replacement – No Sugar Added – 4 tbsp – 1 serving.

Post-exercise recovery meals:
1st recovery: Warrior Milk mixed with Warrior Whey 1/1 – all together 4 heaping tbsp. An hour later:
2nd recovery: Warrior Meal Replacement (No Sugar Added) mixed with Warrior Whey – 3/1 – 4 heaping tbsp all together. An hour later:
3rd recovery: Same as 2nd recovery meal.

Note: If the drill lasts for the whole day, I would increase the gap between the recovery meals from one hour to two hours and if needed, add another recovery meal, i.e. four meals instead of three.

Related article: Recovery Meals - The Key for Maximizing Muscle Gain

Yes, but vegan-predators...

The early human diet wasn't based solely on plant food alone. There is evidence that, like other primates, ancient man gathered and ate eggs; real eggs not sterilized eggs. They also ate things that crawled; bugs, lizards and snakes. I'm not suggesting modern man eat bugs, but I certainly will say that the body is more adept at processing a bug than a Twinkie!

Every time nutritionists will tell you that you need to eat in a balanced way, that you need to limit fats, count carbohydrates and protein grams, take in so much of this and just the right amount of that and above all else - limit calories! This is simply untrue and fallacious, a nutritional myth of the first order. I can show you how a 150-pound man can consume 3,000 calories a day and lose body fat! How? Have him eat the right combination of nutrients. You should never combine nut consumption with grains; you should never combine nuts with sugar - period! If you run into foods that combine and contain these un-combinable combinations, throw them away! Some animal fat is fine while certain animal fat is very bad. Certain vegetable fat is very bad while raw dairy fat is good. As for eating meat, here are the facts: pork is bad for you. Sorry about that. Pork has the highest concentration of naturally occurring estrogen. By way of comparison, milk contains 18 units of female hormone. Male pork can contain upwards of 5,000 units! Bacon is an estrogen drug! This is devastating! And there is more; the farm-raised turkey is a degraded animal. The turkey wouldn't and couldn't survive the evolutionary process were it not for man keeping this degraded species alive. We eat this genetically defective animal all too often. Hell, we celebrate while eating this poor creature! I say: Ban the turkey!

As a species we are not good meat eaters. As predators we stand at the end of the line. Unlike other animals humans lack certain enzymes and these enzymes allow for the conversion of rotten meat protein into live meat protein. When an animal is killed the proteins convert spontaneously from one form into another. They convert into a mirror image, that is, "L" converts into "D," from live to dead, from levo into devo. The human body lacks the enzymes needed to utilize a degraded meat. The rate of meat degradation is extremely high, the Live to Dead degeneration process commences within minutes of the kill. Consequently D-protein will deposit into bodily tissue where the L-protein is supposed to be. The result is a health catastrophe: premature aging, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, tissue deformations. The accumulation of D-protein into the brain and bones has been regarded by researchers as a marker of the onset of accelerated aging. Plant protein is far less degradable. Under proper storage conditions, grains can stay edible for hundreds or even thousands of years. Other sources of animal foods, eggs or dairy, though highly degradable, can be easily checked for rancidity via smell or taste. It is virtually impossible to detect how rancid a stored meat might be. Rancid meat consumption causes massive damage to the human body.

Why is it that not a single, viable protein supplement exists? Apparently it's harder than putting a man on the moon!

Isolated proteins do not fit humans, not even animals

Let's talk for a minute about supplemental protein: isolated proteins, the most popular protein source for commercial protein powder products, should never be consumed by themselves. Let me say this clearly: the human species has never adapted to being able to consume an isolated protein by itself. Proteins should never be consumed alone; particularly isolated proteins from plants. Protein is not a good fuel. We as humans have adapted to "whole foods" and in order for protein to be fully bio-available, protein should always be accompanied by either carbohydrate or fat. Ideally if the protein is pared with a carbohydrate, the carb source should be very low glycemic or fibrous. Unfortunately, the health and fitness industry has promoted a "carb-a-phobic" mentality, witness the Atkins diet disaster, etc. Supplement makers created this monster protein, isolated protein, a protein that is totally unfit for human consumption. They pair this monster isolated protein with no fat and no carbohydrate but rather with chemical additives. When we drink this stuff it is poisonous. When the commercial protein powder is heated and processed during manufacturing, the chemical and heat processing destroys many of the valuable amino acids: methionine, cysteine and taurine. These amino acids play critical roles within the human body. Isolation implies acid and heat and these two factors destroy essential amino acids. Processing also destroys another essential amino acid, lysine, a precursor for the amino acid carnitine, which is critical for all fat metabolisms. There can be no fat metabolism without the carnitine-related enzyme, CPT (carnitine palmitoyl transferase). CPT mobilizes fatty acid and brings it into the mitochondria on the "carnitine shuttle." Once inside the mitochondria, fatty acids can be oxidized for utilization. Entry into the mitochondria is regulated by the activity of the carnitine shuttle. Any impairment in this entry severely compromises the body's capacity to metabolize fat. Any impairment has devastating consequences for energy utilization, sex hormone production, neuron protection, immune system integrity and the overall survival of the organism.

When we pick food we need to go back to the three benchmarks; we need to observe our Rule of Three: Low glycemic, all natural, great taste.

It is very frustrating. We can send a man to the moon yet we cannot create a proper protein product. In my opinion, the bodybuilding and fitness supplementation industry produces products that are below the level of expertise and potency contained in pet food products - I kid you not! Isolated protein and soy protein are inexpensive and appeal to the protein maker. The makers of soy protein advertise lots of pseudo science designed to convince you that soy is a superior protein - when it fact it is vastly inferior! They typically point to the Japanese diet and say it is superior to the western diet on account of soy. They want to convince you that soy is incredibly beneficial; soy is a complete protein, they tell us. If you are to believe the soy proponents, soy possesses almost magical powers. They present soy protein as the supplemental protein solution, one particularly applicable and appealing to the vegetarian. Nothing could be further from the truth. Real research shows that continual soy protein consumption can be extremely dangerous for both humans and animals. Apparently even Japanese people suffer the consequences of over-consumption of soy products. There is some evidence that there is a correlation between soy consumption and retardation of growth in children, loss of virility in men, the suppression of certain sex hormones, loss of cognitive function in elderly people, increased risk of breast cancer in women, when you comb through the research on soy protein, it's a horror show.

Soy protein is enriched with massive amounts of estrogen. Why in the hell would we voluntarily agree to inject a toxic cocktail into our bodies? Yet the soy public relation machine rolls on, and so many people want desperately to believe that soy protein is the answer, particularly the vegetarian who thinks eating meat is toxic or criminal or just plain cruel and awful. If they only knew the truth about their favored alternative: the substance they've chosen in order to avoid eating animal flesh may be worse for them than meat! How pathetically ironic! Again, when we pick food we need to go back to the three benchmarks. We need to observe our Rule of Three: low glycemic, all natural, great taste. Avoid sugar and refined starch; so many health food products are loaded with these high glycemic insulin killer substances. Pick up any diet candy bar replacement and read the ingredients. Most have 15 to 40 grams of sugar! Yet they position themselves as a healthy replacement for sweets. The low carb products aren't better. Virtually all of them are loaded with chemical additives, synthetic sugar alcohol and artificial sweeteners. We've never adapted to these liver-destroying bloat-causing substances. Look for sugar alcohol disguised as a carbohydrate; this is a trick supplement makers use to avoid having to list their sweeteners as a sugar. Look at the incredible number of chemicals used to construct these dietary food products. You can go to the shopping mall health food store and start reading all the labels on all the products, trying to find a single all natural product that is low glycemic and tastes great; you can read the ingredients and taste every single product in the store and not find one single product that satisfies our simple Rule of Three! How simple could it be to construct such a product, much less a series of products that satisfies the Rule of Three? Apparently it is harder than putting a man on the moon!

With that said, I'd like to introduce you to a new Meal Replacement Shake that we've just made available for purchase. It's an all natural, pesticide free, great tasting, low glycemic, high quality protein meal replacement with a fantastic vanilla flavoring. All that - and it didn't even require the use of a space shuttle!