21.06.08

Zone Diet Update and Weightlifting Prep

Posted in Crossfit, General, The Zone Diet at 7:55 am by Colin McNulty

I am remaining steadily under 13st (182 lbs / 82kg) but need that final push to lose that last 1/2 stone.  Since starting back at Crossfit for the last few weeks, I’ve noticed the jeans are a little loser again, and indeed my waist has dropped 1/2″ in the last month. I still feel I’m not quite putting in 100% effort to getting that last bit of fat off to drop the last few body fat percentage points.  Note to self, must try harder.

I’m looking forward to the weight lifting mini competiton tomorrow. Had a Personal Training session yesterday and think I’ve worked out what I aim to do:

Snatch: 45 - 50 - 55kg
Clean & Jerk:  60 - 70 - 75kg

These lifts are a way off my Personal Bests last year of 65kg and 90kg respectively, but I’m happy to still be taking things easy and build back up slowly.  As it is, these weights will be the most I’ve lifted this year.  Hopefully there will be people taking videos there and I’ll get some uploaded.

Friday Funs -  Sorry I keep missing the Friday fun posts!  Just been too busy with work, normal schedule will resume next week.

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05.06.08

Zone Diet Weightloss Update

Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 5:07 am by Colin McNulty

I’ve not done an update on how my diets going for some time. I figured to be honest that with not going down the gym, it would probably all go wrong. I’m pleased to report then, that it hasn’t. I should say however, that I don’t really consider myself “on a diet” but rather when I talk about my diet, I’m talking about the sum total of the food that I normally eat.

In the last 4 months my weight has remained relatively constant at 13 stone (182 pounds / 83kg). Some days a little under, some days a little over. The total fluctuation has been a swing of 7 lbs / 3 kg. Considering I’ve done very little exercise in the last 4 months, this is quite pleasing.

It’s fair to say that my waist has increased marginally, by just 1/2 an inch to 36.5 at the widest point, I’m still just about in my 34″ waist trousers and 36″ trousers drown me now. This gives me a percentage body fat calculation of 18%, which is perfectly acceptable, but still not where I’d like to be.

I achieved the above by cutting back on my daily blocks to 12. My routine looked like this:

• Breakfast - 3 blocks
• Lunch - 3 blocks
• Afternoon snack - 1 block
• Evening meal - 4 blocks
• Last thing snack - 1 block

My target is still to get down to 15% body fat. I also potentially have a weight target too: 77 kg, which is the next weight category down in the British Weight Lifiting Championships that I intend on entering in Feb 2009.  Fortunately, these targets all converge nicely at a maximum waist size of 35″.  If I weight 170 lbs, I’ll be 12st1 and 72 kg, and with a waist of 35″ I will be exactly 15% body fat.  So 1.5″ off my waist from a continued reduction in body fat is my achievable target for 2008.  After all, if I went from 30% to 18% in 2007, another 3% shouldn’t be a problem.

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31.05.08

The Cure for Golfers Elbow (Medial Epicondylitis)

Posted in Crossfit, General, The Zone Diet at 6:32 am by Colin McNulty

Oops, I missed my regular Friday Fun post, sorry. In my defence I was busy with work and down the gym for the 2nd time this week. Yep, my Golfers Elbow is holding up nicely in the face of many exercises! So I thought a round up of my treatment for Golfers Elbow was in order, including the exercises I’ve been doing etc. Sorry this is a monster post, but it’s the culmination of 6 months of my life.

A quick recap first: I have been suffering with Golfers Elbow (or Medial Epicondylitis if you prefer) ever since I banged my elbow at my brothers stag do back in September 2007. It got progressively worse over the latter quarter of 2007, culminating in me stopping attendance at my local Crossfit Gym at the end of Jan 2008. The reason was that I wanted to concentrate solely the cure for Golfers Elbow and getting better as fast as possible, as it was just getting worse. Now 4 months on, I’m well enough to go back, woot!

So, how did I do it?

The first point to note is that I tried many different Golfers Elbow treatments (pretty much all of them in fact), so I can’t say if any one was the definitive “cure” or not. All I can do is take you through the list and explain the effects, the following is in roughly chronological order.

1) Complete Rest

The first thing I did was totally stop doing anything that hurt. None of this “work through it” lark which I had been doing for 3 months. To my annoyance, that meant no more Crossfit. I did try for a bit, but soon got bored with just doing sit ups, box jumps and squats (I couldn’t even do weighted squats, just holding the bar on my shoulders hurt!).

2) Physiotherapy - Ultrasound

In the end I’ve been to 3 different physios and had 3 different sets of treatment. The first made the interesting comment that most cases of Golfers Elbow she saw, didn’t actually occur in golfers! (She also noted the same thing about Tennis Elbow.) The first trick up her sleave was an ultrasound machine, designed to promote healing somehow. I think the thing could have been turned off for all I know, didn’t really notice much apart from possibly my elbow getting hot, but that could have been from the constant manipulation of the ultrasound probe on my elbow. I had 5 x 10 min treatments of this over 5 weeks.

3) Physiotherapy - Interferon

I’m not sure this is the scientific name for it, it’s what the physio called it. This one requires pads stuck to your arm and the frequency sweep artificially activates your muscles, this one you definitely notice! Lot’s of tingling and making my whole arm twitch and move, it was quite uncomfortable at points. Very odd and very strange, there was definite movement of the elbow components, once can only hope that was a good thing. I had 5 x 10 min treatments of this over 5 weeks, at the same sessions as the Ultrasound.

4) Physiotherapy - 10 min Massage

At the same time as the Ultrasound and Interferon treatment, I had a short 10 minute elbow and arm massage. Now like the next man, I normally like getting a massage, not this one! I was poked and prodded and many many painful ways. It certainly hurt and manipulated things. 5 x 10 mins over 5 weeks again.

The argument for all these physio treatments, was to get blood into the epicondyle tendons. Apparently the blood supply to tendons is generally poor and so helping to get new blood in, aids the healing process… To be honest, that sounds like bolox to me, I’m not convinced that blood effectively sits stagnating in any blood vessel, and requires manipulation to replace it, would love for someone to tell me otherwise?

5) First Stretching Exercise

Here was the first exercise I tried, designed to stretch the epicondyle tendons: place your hands flat on a table, twisted 180 degrees to the outside so that your fingers are pointing at your body. (So twist your right hand clockwise, and your left hand anti-clockwise.) Make sure your whole hand is flat on the table, from fingers to the heel of your palm. Now by leaning back away from the table, you will feel your whole forearm muscles and tendons stretch. Stretch them as much as you can comfortably do and hold for 30 seconds. I did this 5 times a day for several months (both arms for consistency and a control test).

6) CT Cream off the internet

Around this time I was casting about the net looking for alleged Golfers Elbow cures, and stumbled on something called CT Cream, which is a herbal cream full of the right vitamins etc that promote healing. I found lots of nice testimonials from people who claimed it had cured them. At about £15 I figured it was worth a shot and bought some off eBay. I dutifully applied this stuff twice a day for about 6 weeks… and noticed nothing. There was not miraculous cure, nor even much improvement over the time period.

It occurred to me afterwards (duh!) that there is of course no regulation to buying “medicine” off eBay, and it could have been repackaged Nivea skin cream for all I knew. Either way, I don’t recommend it and I’ve subsequently spoken to other epicondylitis suffers who tried it, with similar non-existent results.

7) Band-It forearm Band

This was recommended to me by several people on a Crossfit forum in the States, it looks like this:

and the cheapest place I found it in the UK was Sweat Band Tennis for £20 including p&p. At first I wore it during the day all day, and didn’t notice a huge amount of difference. Getting the tension right is tricky: just tight enough so that it doesn’t fall off, but not so tight that it pinches. The issue of course is that the cross section of your forearm changes, depending on what you’re doing with it.

I wore it list this for several weeks, then back on the forum, the guy who’d recommended it said it only started to make a difference for him when he started wearing it 24/7. So I started wearing it at night too. That took a LOT of getting used to, but I did wear it day and night for about 2 months in total. One of the physios I saw pointed out that wrapping something around an appendage and going to sleep was not a good idea! To be fair, I nearly lost a finger like that one Christmas, but that’s another story!

How the BandIt band is meant to work is still out for debate, I’ve heard 2 explanations: A) It relives the pressure on your tendons, allowing it to heal. B) It constantly stretches your tendons (seeming the polar opposite to (A)) which means that normal use is easier. All I can say is, it was around the time that I started wearing it day and night, that I first started to notice an improvement in my elbow. Not much, but some. Each week didn’t seem to hurt quite as much as the last.

It was late March I think and I had started to turn the corner.

8 ) Acupuncture

Around the same time, my first physio recommended that I try acupuncture. Clearly things were not improving very fast and acupuncture does seem to work for many people. I’ve always shied away from it in the past, chi and energy lines and stuff, just doesn’t fit too well with my western scientific mind. However I was prepared to give anything a try (see CT Cream above for example) so had 2 acupuncture sessions in the end.

If you read my posts at the time, you’ll know that acupuncture hurts! Well it did for me. Maybe it was because it was in the arm, wrist and elbow and I had to look at it, I don’t know. I do know that I soon learnt that when the (now 2nd) physio said “Does it hurt?” I had better reply “Yes, that’s a sharp pain.” or she’d come and grind those needles in further until she was sure they did! When the 2nd session left me with debilitating pain for the rest of the day, I called it quits on the acupuncture front, and was glad of it. My verdict: Acupuncture is an exercise in pain only and a waste of time for treating golfers elbow.

9) Physiotherapy - Remedial Massage

Now on to my 3rd physio, I started going for weekly remedial massage. These were 30 min sessions of massage (3x what I was doing with the first physio) and didn’t hurt quite as much. Whereas the first physio enjoyed really shoving her fingers into areas of pain, this remedial massage was of a slightly more therapeutic nature. Did they help? I have no idea, but I did enjoy them. Certainly the most enjoyable of all the physios I visited. I went 4 times over a 3 week period and (in combination with the exercises below) each week felt better than that last.

10) Golfers Elbow Exercises

Along with keeping up with the stretching, the 3rd physio gave me a list of exercises to do twice a day. The regime was this:

• Heat the elbow with a wheat bag for 10 minutes
• With an empty dumbbell bar (weights 1.5kg) do 10 palm up wrist curls, with back of forearm resting on your leg and hand jutting out past your knee.
• Reverse the hand so palm is down, and do 10 reverse wrist curls i.e. back of hand is raised, again forearm rests on leg.
• Keep the arm resting on your lef, grasp the dumbbell bar at one end, and tilt the bar back and forth from the horizontal on the left, through 180 degrees, to the horizontal on the right, and return. Do that 10 times.
• Setting the dumbbell bar aside, form a circle with the tips of your fingers (make your hand like a claw) and wrap an elastic band around the outside of your finger tips. Now try to stretch the elastic band by spreading your fingers out wide, maintaining the circular shape. Do this 10 times.
• End by cooling the elbow with an ice cube.

These exercises were tough to start with, but I soon moved up from 2 rounds of 10 of each exercise, to 3 rounds of 10, then 3 rounds of 15, all twice a day still. I also did all this with my good left arm too, partly as a control test and partly so that I was exercising my body evenly. I actually soon ditched the final icing of the elbow, which was far too uncomfortable, with a 2nd heating with the wheat bag.

These exercises were done twice a day all through April and May. I also added another once I had worked up to 3 x 15 of each:

• Tie some string round the middle of the dumbbell bar and wind up about a meter of it, like a yo-yo. At the other end, tie a weight. I used a 1.25 kg weight and that was more than enough!
• Grab the dumbbell bar at each end with both hands, and just by moving your wrists, unwind the weight (you may need to stand for this) until all the string is paid out and the weight is at the bottom.
• Now keep winding with your wrists in the same direction so that the string winds on the other way and the weight rises up from the floor to your hands. This is surprisingly hard!
• Finally reverse the process completely.
• Do this for every round of the above set of exercises, so 3x in total, twice a day.

11) The Zone Diet

Throughout all this I’ve been on the Zone Diet, which if you believe the hype is a naturally anti-inflamatory diet. I can’t tell you that it made a difference but I can provide 1 bit of evidence: at Easter, I basically threw the diet out of the window for 2 weeks (hey, it was Easter!) due mostly to the consumption of large quantities of chocolate. And yes, it DID make a difference, I definitely noticed that my elbow felt worse during those 2 weeks, until I went back on the diet. Coincidence? Maybe, but I’m a Zone Diet convert, so I’m not so sure.

12) Fish Oil Supplements

I also take a high dose of fish oil regularly. That’s 2.5g of high grade, super refined, EPA/DHA per day. Note not 2.5g of gross Fish Oil, but 2.5g of the good stuff in it, the EPA and DHA. For most high street off the shelf fish oil, that would be about 10 capsules a day, because it’s such poor quality. In fact, I can’t find anywhere in England that sells stuff I’m happy to take, so I import mine from America. And the funny thing is, it’s actually cheaper that off the shelf stuff here!

Anyway I can’t say that it made a difference or not. I did try upping the dose to 5g per day for 2 weeks but didn’t notice any change. I include it here for the sake of completeness. I personally believe that fish oil is an important part of our diet, fundamental to our evolution into homo sapians and vital to long term health, but that’s the subject of another post some time.

Finally Getting Better

Throughout April and May, I was definitely getting better. Each week I noticed my elbow hurting less and less just in normal use, and when doing the movements that would always bring me pain (making a fist was a good typical one) it took more effort to induce pain in the elbow than before. But what was the Cure for Golfers Elbow?

If you speak to people who’ve had medial epicondylitis, or read up about it on the web, you’ll find 2 interesting facts:

• Everyone eventually gets better, whether that be 6 months or 18 months later.
• There is no consensus on a golfers elbow cure.

So here’s my take on it: If you have golfers elbow, providing you don’t continue to aggravate it, you will get better… eventually. There are several things you can do to help the healing process. It’s likely, that when you do decided you’re fixed and the treatment has worked, whatever you were doing last, will be what you reckon cured you. For me, I saw no benefit to the main stream physio, CT Cream or acupuncture. But I did see improvements begin around the time I was wearing the BandIt band 24 hours a day, and saw weekly gains whilst getting remedial massage and doing twice daily sets of exercises at home.

One potentially interesting point, is that I’ve got better pretty quickly. Most people say 6 - 18 months, and I’ve heard as much as 24 months to heal. Whilst it’s been 8 for me, I only started doing anything about it in Jan, so only 5 months since the start of treatment really. In the scheme of things that’s a fast cure for Golfers Eblow.

Where am I now?

Now at the end of May, 8 months after I initially hurt my elbow and 5 months since ceasing all elbow related exercise, I feel able to go back down the gym and restart Crossfit again. I’ve possible left it later than the earliest possible moment I could go back, but then I’m not yet 100% better either. I’d say currently I am 95% cured. I say this because I still feel slight twinges occasionally.

For example 5 x 30Kg Shoulder Presses on Tuesday I could definitely feel in my elbow and so didn’t go heavier. But I can row and knock out pull ups, wall balls, kettle bell swings, dumbbell push presses, all without any pain, albeit currently with much lower weights than I have been used to. That’s ok though, I’ve been patient enough for the last 4 months and will continue to be. I’ll take it easy and build back up slowly. I expect to be 100% back to normal and going for new Personal Bests in about 2-3 months time. Hopefully just in time for the Crossfit Certification at Manchester in September.

I also hope to improve my Clean & Jerk and Snatch enough to compete in the Northern Masters Olympic Weightlifting competition in Feb 2008 and fingers crossed, qualify for the British Masters a few months later. But I’m getting ahead of myself a bit. To be honest, I’m just glad to be back down the gym.

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13.05.08

Crossfit - One Year On & Astronaut Training

Posted in Crossfit, General, The Zone Diet at 6:09 am by Colin McNulty

I started writing this post 6 months ago, but never got round to finishing it due to my golfers elbow injury. I have basically taken the last 5 months off Crossfit to give my elbow time to heal but as I’m expecting to get back to the gym by the end of May, I thought I’d post this up now anyway.

In a nutshell, 1 year after starting Crossfit and the Zone Diet:

• I’ve lost nearly 2st (28 lbs).
• My waist has shrunk from 43″ (at the belly button) to 36″.
• Body fat percentage calculation has dropped from 30% to about 16%
• For the first time I ran 1 mile, then 2 miles.
• I’m much stronger than I ever have been, e.g. a 145kg /320lb back squat.
• For the first time in 20 years, I’ve got no knee pain and don’t worry my knees will give way.

But more importantly, Crossfit and the Zone have given me back a functional level of fitness, to the point where I no longer see my body as a limiting factor. For example, here are my current plans, all things I never would have even considered possible for me a year ago:

• Take up rock climbing.
• Take up Krav Maga (Israeli martial art).
• Enter next years British Masters Weightlifting Competition
• Apply to be an ESA astronaut - oh yes baby! (see below)

Not a bad change in outlook from a 15 year couch potato huh?

On the subject of my elbow injury and returning to the gym, things are progressing nicely. I have the least pain now of at any time in the last 6 months and am able to do some exercises on it. I’ve been working backup to doing a full warm up, by that I mean:

• Short jog (I run on the spot for 2 minutes)
• Then 3 rounds of:
  • 10 sit ups
  • 10 press ups (push ups for you Americans)
  • 10 air squats
  • 10 pull ups

I’m not quite there, I can do everything except the pull ups. I have a low pull up bar at home (put up for the kid) which is only 5′ off the ground so I hand with my legs out in front with heels on the floor. However the first time I tried to do 3 x 10 pull ups my elbow was sore for 2 days after, so I’ve reverted to 3 x 5 pull ups for the moment.

The plan is to get to a full warm up by the end of May and then get back down the gym. This morning I did the warm up above (with 3 x 5 pull ups) and then went for a mile run, which I did in 11:05. Slow I know, meh.

And on the subject of astronaut training - I went for my Private Pilots License medical (AR-FCL 3 Class 2) at the weekend. It was a 2 hour thorough poking and proding. I passed everything, but the Doctor wanted a report from my Doc on my old asthma, before he’d issue the certificate, so that’s been a bit delayed. But I’m not anticipating any problems there. Tee hee.

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30.04.08

My Recommended Fish Oil Supplement

Posted in Crossfit, General, The Zone Diet at 8:14 am by Colin McNulty

Fish Oil Supplements are highly recommended not only on the Zone Diet, but also by Crossfit. I’m finally prepared to make a recommendation for a supplier that meets my own exacting standards.

Despite spending many hours searching and contacting suppliers in the UK, I eventually gave up trying to find a reliable UK supplier of properly and verifiably refined Fish Oil (Pharmaceutical Grade if you care for that term) to the proportions and quality levels as define in The Zone Diet. I didn’t want to go to the States as I expected shipping to be prohibitive and didn’t trust them to arrive basically.

However I’ve found a US Fish Oil supplier that has the right product, publishes the quality reports, delivers within 10 days to the UK and most importantly, is cheap by most standards. I ordered 2 bottles of 120 capsules, at a strength which requires only 2 caps per day (2.5g of EPA/DHA per day) which is 4 months supply, for less than £24 including delivery, which works at a bargain £1.40 for a weeks supply, or 20p a day if you prefer.

Compare this to the Holland & Barrett Fish Oil at £32 inc p&p for 55 days worth (at 9 caps per day for a matching EPA/DHA dose) which is a vastly inferior product and works out 3x more expensive at £4.07 per week. This is the Fish Oil I’m taking:

• Product: - Ascenta, Nutra Sea Fish Oil, EPA DHA, Original Formula, Lemon Zest, 120 Softgels
• Price: $15.39 per 120 cap bottle (2 month supply)
• Quality Report: http://ascentahealth.com/reports/report.cfm?batch=2137501 (for current batch)
• Supplier: www.iHerb.com
• Product Page: http://www.iherb.com/ProductDetails.aspx?c=1&pid=5843775620790248000&at=0
• Discount Coupon: COM635 - Gives $5 off first order

The more you order, the cheaper shipping becomes. However here’s the rub: if you order more than $35 worth of product (excluding shipping price) your package may get stopped by UK customs and you’ll have to pay VAT on the import. Despite this, if you order a years supply it is slightly cheaper (about 50p per month cheaper). However I went for the less risky option and ordered 2 bottles @ $30 ish and avoided all that nonsense. Seemed like the most sensible option to me.

So there you have it, a top quality fish oil with very low levels of those nasty PCB’s and Dioxins etc, at a high purity level (about 70%), all at a price cheaper than the high street.

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15.04.08

Top Zone Tips

Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 7:08 pm by Colin McNulty

1. Always eat within one hour of waking.
2. Never let more than five hours go by without having a Zone meal or snack and don’t forget your bedtime snack.
3. Keep a food diary and note how you feel after a meal. Make a list of which meals keep you in the Zone.
4. When you go to the store, make sure to have a list in hand with ingredients for at least two or three Zone meals. Then you won’t be tempted to buy everything in sight while trying to create Zone meals on the spot.
5. Never leave the house hungry, or you’ll be tempted by all the food waved in your face everywhere you go.
6. In dips, replace part or all of the sour cream with cottage cheese. Place the cottage cheese in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Add seasonings and blend again.
7. Instead of skimping with a small amount of mayo and having dry tuna, try using strained yogurt instead. Spice it up if you want.
8. When making guacamole in the Zone, use cut up red, green and orange bell peppers instead of tortilla chips.
9. Take any type of fruit you like, (lemons, limes, oranges, strawberries, or any combination of fruits), slice, place in a pitcher, fill with ice and water, and place in the fridge overnight. Stir just before serving.
10. Miss mashed potatoes? Try mashed cauliflower instead.
11. Slice zucchini (length wise), brush lightly with olive oil and broil until crisp/tender (about 5 minutes). Then use the zucchini like you would lasagna noodles.

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01.04.08

What Kind of Omega 3 is Found in Egg Yolks?

Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 9:03 am by Colin McNulty

This question is important as Dr Sear’s Zone Diet lists egg yolks as one of the few foods that are not recommended. The reason is their high concentration of Arachidonic Acid (AA) and much of the Zone Diet is geared to reducing your levels of AA whilst increasing your levels of the long chain Omega 3 fatty acid: EPA.

It turns out however that this is a hard question to answer, as much of the information available is contradictory. A few key terms here: EPA has 20-carbon chains and DHA has 22-carbon chains and are known collectively as “Long Chain Omega 3“, whereas ALA has 18-carbon chains and is known as “Short Chain Omega 3“. EPA and DHA are mostly derived from oily fish and ALA is mostly derived from plant sources, typically flaxseed oil. Whilst our body is capable of making EPA and DHA from ALA, it’s a very inefficient process, so generally the Zone Diet considers ALA as a poor substitute for EPA & DHA. On the flip side, Arachidonic Acid (AA) is a long chain Omega 6 fatty acid.

On to my search for answers:

This article shows the breakdown of Omega 3’s on many foods, and shows no EPA or DHA in egg yolks, only the poor mans Omega 3, short chain ALA: http://www.commonvoice.com/article.asp?colid=5978

This article discusses how Omega 3 is added to egg yolks via adding flax seed to the hens diet: http://www.flaxcouncil.ca/english/index.php?p=food5&mp=food again this is poor ALA Omega 3.

This article only mentions egg yolks as a source of DHA, not EPA: http://www.naturalnews.com/016353.html

This article does mention that egg yolks can contain long chain EPA and DHA, however it lists DHA first over EPA, and also points out that they are in the minority to ALA: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-169636932.html

This article on a new high omega 3 egg yolk, again lists eggs as having EPA and DHA, but again they are in the minority to ALA: http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng.asp?n=81244-omega-dha-frost-sullivan

Dr Sears bases most of his advice on the AA/EPA ratio of your blood. Read Chapter 9 “Your Blood Will Tell Your Future” in the OmegaRX Zone book. So he has a 2 fold approach: increase your EPA and decrease your AA to change the ratio.

This is all important because as some studies suggest that organic / free range eggs have a significantly different proportion of Omega 6 (AA) to Omega 3 (1:1 compared with battery eggs which can be 10:1), and if the Omega 3 side contains EPA in reasonable proportions, then the AA/EPA ratio could be within reasonable bounds. If you’ve read the books, you’ll recall that the target AA/EPA ratio in your blood is 1.5. So if an organic egg is rich in Omega 3 and low in Omega 6, and has a high EPA component, then the AA/EPA ratio could be in within acceptable Zone bounds.

However I don’t think my research backs up this theory. Some of the sources don’t list EPA at all as occurring in egg yolks. Some sources only list DHA as occurring in egg yolks, and those that do list EPA, show it as the minority Omega 3 component, behind DHA which is behind ALA. Worse it appears that there is a growing tend to supplement hen feed with flaxseed in order to artificially boost the levels and jump on the “High in Omega 3″ band wagon.

In conclusion then, I am happy that even organic / free range egg yolks are a poor source of Omega 3, don’t support the correct EPA/AA ratios we should be aiming for, and therefore (strictly speaking) should be avoided due to their high Omega 6 / AA content.

As it happens, I don’t take the egg yolks out when I have an omelette, but that’s because my average egg intake is probably less than 1 per week. If I was having omelettes every other day say, then I would be concerned about the yolks.

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10.03.08

General Life Update

Posted in Crossfit, General, The Zone Diet at 10:02 am by Colin McNulty

I’m painfully aware that I haven’t done much in the way of actual “blogging” recently about what I’m upto (not that anyone seems to have noticed, lol). So here’s a whistle stop run down:

Work: busy, busy, busy! I’ve been pitching to some new clients over the last few weeks, and have won one new contract, which is nice. But it has taken up a load of my time. I’m also launching a new website of my own shortly, and am actively working on 2 other potential new lines of business, which I can’t currently talk about.

All in all I am working 10-12 hours a day at the moment, generally from 8am to 9-10pm, only stopping to eat and spend time with the family when the kid gets home from school.

Crossfit: has come to a complete halt. My golfers elbow has put a halt to almost all exercise and I’ve spoken to Mark at Crossfit Manchester and explained that I won’t be going down again for a while. The simple reason is that I can do virtually none of the crossfit exercises and so it becomes rather depressing going to the gym and seeing everyone else do what I can’t. If you take away the exercises that make Crossfit what it is, it’s also rather dull to be honest.

Still I am actively seeking the cure for Medial Epicondylitis and have so far tried / am trying:

• Complete rest
• Remedial Massage
• Ultra-sound
• Interferon
• CT Cream
• a Band-it Forearm Band
• and these week starts Acupuncture, which will be my first time ever and I’m rather nervous about it to be honest.

I am however doing some runs. I’ve got route round the block, which is just over a mile, and am running that 2-3 times a week, depending on when I wake in the morning. I’m hoping that this will improve my running performance when I do return to Crossfit.

The Zone Diet: My current weight is 12 st 12 (180 lbs / 82 kg) and I am currently wearing jeans that were too small for me the day I bought them from Ford market in West Sussex some 8 years ago! Yes I kept a pair of too small jeans (2 actually) for 8 years, that if nothing else, is evidence that I’m an optimist at heart! I continue to either maintain weight or lose the odd pound here and there, on the following formula: Strict zone for breakfast, lunch and pm snack. A roughly zone diet / lower than “normal” carb tea. Then at least half the week, all bets are off in the evening and the wine and/or chocolate is broken out. Bad I know, but I’m working on it.

Mostly that’s it, my life at the moment is consumed by work and injury recovery.

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06.02.08

Is This TV Doctor a Killer?

Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 3:45 pm by Colin McNulty

This is a picture of Dr Chris Steele, the TV Doctor from the program This Morning on ITV.

Dr Steele has been in the news this week, as unfortunatley the poor man has advanced heart disease, it’s so bad in fact, he’s in the 98th percentile for risk of sudden death through heart attack, and as such is in the extreme high risk group. He volunteered to take part in a feature for the show and so had a 3D image of his heart taken. Only the results showed that his main artery into his heart is 50% blocked with fatty cholesterol deposits. The revelation of his arteriosclerosis has come as a complete shock to him.

But hold on, this Doctor has been advising the public for 20 years on all sorts of health issues, including giving the nation dietary advice. How is it, that a self confessed dietary expert and TV personality can accidentally find themselves in the extreme high risk group for heart attack?

What’s more concerning, is that Doctor Chris Steele has advised thousands of over weight people on their own diets and weightloss issues. In fact his own website boasts that 150,000 people have downloaded his dietary advice. The same diet that has led to his possible imminent and sudden death!

So what is this clearly dangerous and deadly diet the good Doctor has been peddling for his own financial gain for the last 20 years? You guessed it, it’s our old friend the low fat, high carb diet. Whilst I am saddened that Chris Steele is suffering from heart disease, he unfortunatley only has himself to blame. I think it’s fairly obvious these days to anyone who cares to actually look that a…

Low Fat, High Carb Diet = Early Death

If you look at the dietary weighhtloss advice on Dr Steeles “Family GP” website it’s the classic case of: eat as much fruit and veg as you like, cut back on fat where ever possible, protein is almost an accidental after thought. I hope that Dr Steele now wakes up and realises that this low fat, high carb diet is what has lead to his heart disease. If you’re reading this and are a little confused as to why I’m saying this, here’s the elevator pitch:

• Insulin converts sugar in your blood into fat, that’s it’s job and it does this to keep your blood sugar level down to safe levels for the brain and to store excess energy for later use (that’s what fat is).
• Carbohydrates (and yes that does include almost all fruit and veg) are sources of sugar.
• Eating a high carb meal spikes your blood sugar so insulin converts it to fat.
• Doing this every meal, every day, causes fat to be deposited throughout the day which is how you get fat furred arteries.
• 2 hours after your high carb induced sugar rush, you’ll be hungry again.
• And as a kicker, eventually your over worked insulin producing Pancreas will give up and here comes diabetes.

Of course all this is explained far better in Dr Sears Zone Diet, I suggest you read one (or all) of his books if you want to understand it better. Or post a comment, I’ll answer all questions.

So how is it, that the main stream dietary advice is to eat a diet that will lead to your early death, through a combination of heart disease, obesity, diabetes etc? And how is it, that this bad dietary advice has been perpetuated by Dr Chris Steele for the last 20 years? How many of the 150,000 people who have downloaded “Dr Steele’s Fat Farewell Diet Plan” will also suffer the same early death as it looks like Dr Steele will? How many of those 150,000 people has Dr Steele killed though his bad advice?

I’m being a bit harsh here aren’t I? I mean, it’s not Dr Steele’s fault is it? He’s dutifully trotting out the “fat bad, carb good” official medical line. He’s just following orders as it were isn’t he? He can’t be blamed for giving 150,000 people bad advice, can he?

Well I think he can, and so can anyone else who blindly trots out the low fat, high carb dietary advice. You see these people are either:

1. Too lazy to bother checking their facts.
2. Too stupid to be able to sift the wheat from the chaff of dietary data.
3. Too interested in lining their own pockets to care.
4. All of the above!

I’ve rambled on enough, but I intend on future posts going through some of the simple research and demonstrating exactly why a low fat, high carb diet is stacking the odds against you right from the start. In the mean time, I do sincerely hope Dr Steel makes a miraculous recovery.

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04.02.08

Monthly Zone Diet and Fat Loss Update

Posted in General, The Zone Diet at 9:42 am by Colin McNulty

Considering the debacle of putting on half a stone over Christmas, and not being able to go to Crossfit much, January has gone remarkably well on the weightloss front, thanks to the Zone Diet of course.

You may recall I was 13st 7 (189 lbs) up from 183 in December. Well it took about 2 weeks to lose what I’d gained, and now on 1st February I am officially the lightest I’ve been since leaving University some 13 odd years ago. Yep, finally the scales consistently start with that magic number: 12 ! Ok, it’s 12 st 13 and some loose change, but I’ll take it…. I’m 12 stone something again, woot !

12 st 13 is 181 lbs or 82kg, however my waist stubbornly remains at 36″ which makes my body fat calculation come out at 17%. Whilst I’m happy with a reduction in body fat percentage from 30% to 17% in a year, it’s not quite the 15% target I had set myself. Just 1 more inch off the waist and I’ll be there.

Still I can’t complain, the Zone Diet has been the most effective eating regime I’ve ever been on, I generally feel great on it, and I am rarely hungry. The only time hunger sets in is when it’s been over 5 hours since I last ate, which is what you’d expect anyway. Certainly I feel the need for neither mid morning snacks, nor mid afternoon snacks. I also feel I know far more about diet and weightloss than the vast majority of people out there today.

In fact, in a few days time I’m going to post a response to this news item:

TV Dr Chris Steele, has been shocked on his discovery that he has advanced heart disease. Dr Chris Steele is the resident expert on ITVs show “This Morning” for 20 years, and he took part in 3D heart imaging tests for a feature for the show.

Worse than that, he found out his heart condition was worse than 98% of the UK population! Which puts him in the extremely high risk group.

I don’t intend on pulling any punches!

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