The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith

Review written by Kirsten Gallagher, Core Strength Inc.

“The big fish eat the little fish,” said one Chinese medicine doctor to Lierre Keith, author of the Vegetarian Myth. At the time, Keith had been a vegan for twenty years, and had come to him seeking his services to relieve her crippling back pain and fatigue. After their meeting, she bought and ate a can of tuna and cried every day for three weeks. But she never went back to veganism.

The Vegetarian Myth is a book I personally relate to; I was a vegetarian for seventeen years, eleven of which I was a vegan. Like Keith, I understand and admire the moral impulse that  drives people to choose vegetarianism. And also like Keith, I think choosing to eat that way is without a doubt hazardous to your health.

In this review, which is much, much shorter than it needs to be, I’ll cover some of the information Keith provides in the third chapter “Nutritional Vegetarians” demonstrating that vegetarianism, and veganism in particular, are unhealthy diets. I’ll leave aside the first two chapters “Moral Vegetarians” and “Political Vegetarians” because I want to keep my review brief and relevant to the work we do at Core Strength Inc.

Let’s begin.

“Nutritional Vegetarians” is a dense chapter. I’ve picked out three main reasons from it why vegetarianism is unhealthy that I’ll try to unpack. Those three reasons are:

1. A vegetarian diet is invariably a high-carbohydrate diet.

2. A vegetarian diet lacks essential vitamins and minerals.

3. A vegetarian diet contains anti-nutrients that prevent absorption of vitamins and minerals.

There are three macronutrients: fat, protein and carbohydrate. Animal products in their most basic forms – meat, milk, eggs – contain fat and protein and little to no carbohydrate. When you cut out these foods, the macronutrient ratio shifts in favor of carbohydrate. A vegetarian diet, despite being full of wholesome foods like nuts, fruits and vegetables, is a high-carbohydrate diet, no matter which way you cut it. Most vegetarians don’t think this is a problem so long as those carbohydrates are complex carbohydrates. But it is. Whether they’re eating soy, wheat, rice, potatoes, or what not, it all breaks down into sugar in the body, causing huge spikes followed by equally huge drops in blood sugar levels (if you read my review of Wheat Belly by William Davis last month then you’ll remember that wheat (surprisingly) raises blood sugar more than plain table sugar!).

This is problem because when your body is flooded with sugar, insulin must respond and clear it out of your bloodstream. The more this happens, the more insulin must respond, resulting in chronically high insulin levels (insulinemia). Insulin is firstly the hormone that drives fat storage (want to lose weight? don’t be a vegetarian) and secondly, a growth factor linked to “heart disease, elevated cholesterol, elevated triglycerides, high blood pressure, blood clotting problems, colon cancer (and a number of other cancers), type II diabetes, gout, sleep apnea, obesity, iron-overload disease, gastroesophageal reflux (severe heartburn), peptic ulcer disease [and] polycystic ovary disease” (p. 153). Chronically high insulin levels absolutely wreak havoc on all systems in the body.

That’s number one unpacked, for the most part. I’d love to go into why saturated fat and cholesterol – substances that are absent in a vegetarian diet – are actually both necessary and good for you but that will form the basis for the next book I’ll be reviewing, Gary Taubes’ Why We Get Fat.

Here’s number two again: a vegetarian diet lacks essential vitamins and minerals. Vegan diets contain absolutely no B12; that’s uncontested and vegans are seemingly contented to sprinkle some dry flakes of dried up bacteria cultures on their salads instead (I’ve done it). But it goes beyond B12. The best sources of vitamins A, D, E and K are found within animal fats. Vitamins A is only available in animal fats (the vitamin A vegetarians say is in plant foods is actually a precursor to vitamin A and can’t be properly converted by the majority of people, especially as they get older). Citing the work of biochemist Mary Enig, author of Eat Fat, Lose Fat, Keith writes that vitamin A is necessary for “successful reproduction, normal cell division, vision… functioning of the immune system, bone remodeling, the formation of enamel on teeth during their development in childhood, and skin health” (p. 180). Furthermore, vitamins A, D, E, K and others are fat-soluble and the fats that transport them most efficiently in the body are animal fats.

Ever heard of anti-nutrients like lectins? Most people haven’t. Keith’s exploration of anti-nutrients in a vegetarian diet will be devastating if you’re one of those people that could literally take a bath in hummus you love it so much. Let me preface number three with a bit of background. In nature, every single thing is trying to survive and is equipped with mechanisms that help it do so. Some of these mechanisms are obvious (sharp teeth, claws, etc) and some aren’t. Plants use phytochemicals to ward off pests. Plants actually don’t want us to eat them. (There’s an argument that it’s not the anti-oxidant content of plant foods that make them good for us; it’s the low level of stress imposed by the phytochemicals which prompts an adaptation). Beans, grains and potatoes use enzyme blockers to interfere with digestion. What’s worse, grains contain lectins, which are particularly troublesome in the gut. Lectins can’t be broken down so they travel intact through the body and bond to the walls of the intestines, damaging their permeability and preventing complete absorption of vitamins and minerals. What’s worse, lectins set off the body’s immune response. In Keith’s words, after lectins enter the bloodstream, “they cause tremendous and tragic damage in a process called molecular mimicry. The immune defense system attacks the foreign proteins, and having learned to identify that sequence as an enemy, it goes on to attack the similar sequences in the human body. The lectin in wheat is made of amino acid sequences that mimic both joint cartilage and the myelin sheaths that cover our nerves” (p. 151).

I’ve barely scratched the surface here. There is so much more to “Nutritional Vegetarians” (I could write pages on soy alone). I can really get behind Keith’s work since we’ve had similar experiences with vegetarianism. When I hit my mid-twenties and I started to feel and look not-so-hot for someone so invested in her health I began to question whether veganism was a good diet for me. As I began to reincorporate more and more animal products and shift my macronutrient rations, everything just go better and better. Now I have at least a baseline understanding of the science behind it. What eventually tipped the balance and sat me squarely on the completely opposite end of the spectrum (paleo) was…

…bacon, the gateway meat.

Review written by Kirsten Gallagher.

“It’s the best thing since sliced bread”.

Perhaps it’s time to turn this common expression on its head. “It’s the worst thing since sliced bread” might be more fitting.

At least that’s what William Davis, MD and author of bestseller Wheat Belly would have us say. Wheat Belly was passed along to me by one of my clients after she recently shrunk her own (wheat) belly by about twenty-odd pounds.

Wheat Belly is a all-out attack on Triticum aestivum or, as we call it – wheat. Davis points the finger at this seemingly innocent grain for a whole host of modern-day health issues, with diabetes and obesity taking centre stage among them.

So what’s the problem with wheat? We’ve been advised for decades to consume plenty of whole grains as part of a healthy diet. The problem, as I gleaned from Davis’ book, is two-pronged. Firstly, wheat has a surprisingly powerful ability to rapidly raise blood sugar. Wheat consists primarily of carbohydrate, specifically amylopectin-a, which is easily converted to glucose by the enzyme amylase. Eating a bagel floods your bloodstream with sugar. In fact, whole wheat bread has a higher glycemic index (72) than the table sugar you put in your coffee (59). Davis says that “eating two slices of whole wheat bread is really little different, and often worse, than drinking a can of sugar-sweetened soda or eating a sugary candy bar” (p.33)

Whether you’re trying to shed a few pounds or not, elevated blood sugar is bad, bad, bad. Your body responds to glucose with insulin, the hormone most directly linked to fat storage. Insulin’s job is to get glucose out of your bloodstream (because if it doesn’t, you’ll die) and put it into your cells for later use. Unfortunately, your muscle cells and liver only have so much room for storage. So guess where the glucose goes if your blood sugar is always jacked up? You guessed it – your fat cells. What’s worse is this constant need for insulin desensitizes your body to it, resulting in insulin resistance, a condition that not only makes it an uphill battle to lose fat but is also linked to more serious concerns (more on that another time).

Okay – your morning bagel might as well be a donut – that’s what we’ve got so far. Secondly, wheat contains gluten, a protein that provokes an immune response. Gluten has two main sub-types: gliadin and glutenin. It’s the gliadin that sends people with celiac disease running to the washroom. Celiac disease – inflammation of the small intestine in response to gluten – is at the very far end of the spectrum but along it are other, lower-grade and therefore less detectable, immune responses to gluten like rashes and arthritis.

Davis outlines case after case in which elimination of wheat has helped his patients reverse the early stages of diabetes, lose weight and relieve a multitude of undiagnosed symptoms. It’s all very convincing. I’m convinced. You will be too, if you read his book. You’ll want to shun Dempster’s and Cinnabon forever. But there’s a slight hitch.

The fourth chapter in Wheat Belly is entitled “Hey, Man, Wanna Buy Some Exorphins? The Addictive Properties of Wheat” and I was so shocked reading it that I nearly fell off my chair. Various experiments have shown that when you eat wheat, it’s broken down into a polypeptides that can cross the blood-brain barrier and actually latch onto the morphine receptors in the brain just like opiates. Wheat activates the reward pathway of your brain (ding! ding! ding!) and makes you feel pleasure, driving you to seek out more. Some people are so sensitive to this that they can literally become physiologically addicted to wheat. If you’re one of them, withdrawal from wheat will hurt like a bitch.

And there you have it. There’s a lot more to Wheat Belly that I couldn’t cover here. If you’re someone who wants to draw back the curtain and really understand what’s going on in your body when you eat wheat, read Davis’ book. But you better be prepared to make some changes to your diet after you’re done. Because you’ll never enjoy another chocolate-chip cookie again.

Bastard.

Some of the most striking cultural differences are those that have to do with food. A friend of mine, who has been living abroad in Italy for the past two years, has noted how differently her Italian friends approach food, how they make more time for it, and how attentive they are while eating it. They’re much more mindful when they sit down to eat. This got me thinking about the last time I was out to dinner with friends: conversations stopped and started as many of us alternated between eating and checking our phones; we ate fast; and the meal was over before an hour had gone by.

Could there be a connection between they way we North Americans rush through meals and the poor digestion that many of us suffer from these days? You can probably think of at least a few people who would describe their stomachs as “iffy” and a few more that would own up to having one of the following: constipation, acid reflux, gallstones, ulcers or IBS. Digestive disorders plague us. We could blame it on the quality our food, how large-scale production has made it less nutritious, or, more simply, on how much of it is junk food. That’s certainly part of it. But how we eat is affecting us too.

Let’s consider the digestive system: it’s so complex that it’s been nicknamed our “second brain”. There are millions upon millions of nerve cells lining our guts, sending and receiving information. If you can believe it, the nerve cells in our guts outnumber those in our spinal cord and peripheral nervous system.

It’s amazing how much information is passed back and forth between the brain and digestive system. We might be able to recognize how different states of mind can create sensations in our stomach; for example, nervousness creating “butterflies,” but, on the flip side, it’s harder to imagine how our digestive system can affect our mind. Recent studies demonstrate, however, that the communication goes both ways. The vast majority of the fibers of the vagus nerve, a long nerve running from the brain to abdomen, sends information from our guts to our brain… not the other way around.

Think of the last meal you ate. Was it anything like the scenario described earlier? Did you eat it in less than five minutes? Were you hunched over your desk at work, thinking about looming deadlines? Was your phone next to you, buzzing with message and email alerts that you felt compelled to check right then and there? Did you even take a second to taste your food?

It’s obvious what I’m getting at here. For many of us, it’s a rare occurrence to sit down to eat and only eat. That’s considered a luxury. My expat friend’s Italian boyfriend insists on taking a two hour lunch every single day, no matter how tight his deadlines are at work. Imagine that. By contrast, we’re lucky if we take twenty minutes. Meanwhile, we bombard ourselves with information during mealtime that distracts us from the experience of chewing, smelling and tasting our food. Food is not enjoyed; it’s rushed; it’s scarfed down. Our digestive systems are getting all the wrong information from our brains. Stress. Anxiety. Worry. Exchange of this kind of information can wreak havoc on digestion, and contribute to poor overall health.

Simply taking time to eat a meal can have a huge impact on how food is processed by your body. Regardless of what you’re eating, when you eat fast, you’re going to experience a steeper rise in blood sugar. “The easiest thing you can do to decrease glucose spikes is slow down,” says Tim Ferriss in The 4-Hour Body. Keeping blood sugar stable is essential to losing weight and keeping it off. Sharp spikes in blood sugar cause the body to release greater amounts insulin, an important hormone that can, in the wrong doses, signal the body to go into fat storage mode. Insulin is responsible for regulating glucose but if levels remain too high for too long then the body becomes resistant to its own insulin. In that case, glucose cannot be properly utilized and instead gets stored as fat.

You might ask, “Does this really matter all that much as long as I continue to eat the right foods and exercise?” The fact is, it does matter. “Unhealthy digestion contributes to obesity and is a potential source of troublesome inflammation and hormone disruption,” says Dr. Natasha Turner in The Supercharged Hormone Diet. Healthy digestion helps you absorb nutrients, eliminate toxins and lose fat, something which many of us are currently trying to do (without much success). The digestive system is a major site for hormone production and there are many hormones in addition to insulin that determine whether our bodies store or shed fat. It’s common knowledge, for example, that high levels of cortisol, a hormone released under stress, have been linked to fat around the abdomen. But there are numerous other hormones at play, such as leptin and ghrelin. When leptin is released, we recognize that we’re full. Ghrelin, leptin’s counterpart, stimulates hunger. Serotonin and dopamine, the “feel-good” hormones, indirectly affect appetite because when they’re dipping, we’re more likely to reach for sugary snacks to give us a boost. In fact, as much as 95% of our bodies’ total serotonin is found in the digestive system. Compromised digestion, by negatively impacting hormones, can stand in the way of achieving a healthy body composition.

Next time you sit down to a meal, take some time to enjoy it without any distractions. No phones, no paperwork, no nothing. Eat slowly and experience your food. It’s such a simple thing to do but it’s crucial for good digestion and, as I’ve tried to convey, good digestion has a positive and powerful impact on your overall health and well-being.

References

Faigin, Rob. Natural Hormonal Enhancement. Cedar Mountain: Extique Publishing, 2000

Ferriss, Tim. The 4-Hour Body. New York: Crown Archetype, 2010

Gershon, Michael. The Second Brain. New York: Harper Collins, 1998

Turner, Natasha. The Supercharged Hormone Diet. Toronto: Random House, 2011

Having had the opportunity to learn from this person first hand, I felt like he would be the perfect educator to shed some insight for the next “Ask the Expert” blog post.  If you ask 10 different people what their definition of being “fit” means, you’d probably end up with 10 different answers.  Luckily for us, we get the answer from one of the leading educators in the health and fitness industry (yes, that’s him in the photos below).

With over 20 years in the health and wellness industry, Peter Chiasson is one of the most educated and experienced health professionals in Canada. A Master Certified MAT (Muscle Activation Techniques) Specialist, a Masters designation with the Resistance Training Specialist program and a Rehabilitation Specialist, as well an Instructor for both the MAT and RTS programs. Peter is also a nationally ranked competitive bodybuilder and over many years has made it his personal goal to be at the leading edge of health and fitness education.  In 2003, Peter established Core Strength Inc. where he works with professional athletes, medical professionals from many fields, fitness experts, fitness beginners, seniors, as well as people with numerous traumatic conditions and injuries. Located in Toronto, Core Strength Inc. is the most comprehensive biomechanics based rehabilitation treatment and exercise mechanics training facility in the country.

As a fitness professional and competitive athlete I am frequently confronted with the question, “ can you give me one tip that will help me get (look) more fit?” I have great difficulty not peeling my skin off my own head and restraining the columns of fire that seek to burst from my eye sockets in response, knowing that anything I say at that point in time will probably fall on deaf ears. Not to mention the one thing I tell them is meaningless without context or the other 150 tips that are required to accompany the first one.  It all boils down to the fact that there are two very serious issues the fitness industry has with its perception of fitness;

1) Fitness doesn’t have one particular “look” and in fact most of the people who have that super lean and muscular appearance we are used to seeing on magazine covers and on the competitive stage are far from healthy which most seem to think is synonymous with fit… it’s not.

2) The very notion that if it were as easy as doing one or two things and keeping the rest of your chocolate cake eating, binge weekend drinking, taking your car everywhere you can, lifestyles just the way they’ve always been… is simply ridiculous.

Most people who ask for “that one tip” are simply not prepared to make a serious life change, and dare I say are likely doing it for the wrong reasons anyway! (If you think the previous statement is implying that people wanting to get in shape purely for looking good is wrong in this writers opinion… you are correct).  I have heard that one of the many driving forces for people engaging in fitness programs and boot camps throughout North America has to do with the anthropological concept that adheres to the need to be more attractive to the prospective mates around us, so let’s take this concept alone and examine it’s validity.

Somewhere in the last 30-40 years guerrilla-style marketing has become such a powerful force in the North American existence with countless magazine covers and television commercials of hard bodies selling anything and everything. It has overridden our base instincts as to what we find attractive in a mate, which first and foremost had mostly to do with the ability to procreate for the female of the species, and hunt and protect the brood for the male counterpart.

Example; females with adequate levels of body fat and hips that clearly and visibly facilitate childbirth were prime candidates for selection of a mate. I wonder how the women of today especially the elite of the fitness world would measure up in that scenario?  Super-low levels of body fat making hormone levels dip to the point where often the menstrual cycle ceases altogether, and tiny waists and hips would present extremely poorly in the hopes of childbearing, which would send the male counterpart searching in the other direction.  The male of the species with the ultra lean muscular physique would have incredibly unstable insulin and blood sugar levels with virtually no body fat storage thus unable to protect the brood in the cold climates/seasons and hunt for days at a time without feeding himself. An extremely inefficient existence putting the perpetuation of the species at great risk if one looks at it using the anthropological basis and context.

I think here is where we have to ask ourselves, “What do we really want out of being fit?”.  The popular lean muscular look that seems synonymous with North Americas’ idea of fit, may not be exactly congruent with health and longevity like we think it is. I wonder how widely circulated a magazine article would be if it was titled, “Exercise is found to be leading cause of orthopedic injury and dysfunction.” Or, “ Let’s keep that body fat percentage at higher levels so we can make babies and they can still breast feed!”

Like most articles published nowadays that wouldn’t be the whole story but you get the point. Being fit should be about having more physical tolerance for our activities of daily living (ADL’s), and having a greater ability to handle and perform activities while reducing the risk of injury, period!  It should be about looking forward to playing with your children for as long as possible so we can enjoy our lives with them, making sure that we can take good physical care of ourselves and our loved ones so physical exercise like walks on a beautiful forest trail or a swim at the beach are still things we can do until a very ripe old age.

If all we aspire to is a “look” of fitness, I think we may be missing the point completely. The biggest tragedy I see on a daily basis as a Rehab Specialist is in the quest for fitness with the goal of a “fit looking body” people have forgotten the very basic needs of the human body to have available and maintain the health of their joints.  As a result, through mindless training and compulsive exercise, we as a society are getting knee replacements at 35 years old and hip replacements at 45 years old, and these are people that “look” fit!  The fitness industry needs a serious paradigm shift towards health and wellness and not using these same words to disguise a short road to wearing away our bodies prematurely.

Fitness and health should be one of the most important things to all of us but intelligent and mindful fitness. Getting fit is a process; it’s not a quick fix and cannot be simplified into a “one-tip” mentality either. Fitness is complex, it’s a lifestyle and a way of looking at exercise and our ability to live long and productive lives. I’ll bet a byproduct of that will most likely be healthy looking people… but that will come in good time, not because of some boot camp that we do 2 months before our wedding just to fit into a dress that (hopefully) will only be worn once.

Maybe you can reminisce 15 years later while you are in the hospital recovering from knee surgery looking at the wedding album when you were in such great shape from that awesome trainer that pummeled you for two months but made you do enough squat thrusts to fit you into that little dress.  Bottom line, I have been a competitive physique athlete for 24 years and my four year old loves that daddy has big arms but the funny thing is, when I am 30 pounds heavier in the off season he doesn’t notice at all. What he does notice is when daddy doesn’t hug him right away when he sees him and he always feels how snugly daddy is when he’s being carried into the house half awake. I learned when I had my son, there is no more important reason to have a strong fit body than to care for the ones you love, and to be able to do that for a lifetime without interruption is the greatest gift in the world… to them and yourself.

It’s spring. Resolutions from the new year are barely hanging on and motivation is waning. Going to the gym has lost its appeal and feels monotonous. Now that the weather is getting better why not shake things up and work out outside? Better yet – why not do it with a friend? It’s easy to create a fun and diverse workout with two people. Summer is around the corner and hiding under bulky sweaters won’t be an option in a month or two. So grab a friend and head outside.

Here are some simple ideas to get started.

Get moving

Even if it’s just a walk around the park, keep it brisk. Set a pace and challenge each other to keep it up without lapsing into a stroll. If you’re both fit enough then add some intervals. You could even play a game of “catch-up”: one of you could jog or sprint ahead for one minute while the other continues to walk; once that minute is up, he or she has to catch up to you. Repeat several times.

Run the stairs or an incline

Most parks have a set of stairs or an incline somewhere. After you’ve warmed up, you could walk or jog up, depending on how steep it is. Instead of both going at the same time, one of you could go up and then down while the other does a strength move, such as holding a squat position. Whoever is holding a squat will certainly be encouraging the other to move faster.

Play “statue”

A squat and plank are two typical strength moves. To challenge stability, one of you could be holding your position while the other pushes you (gently) from various angles. Your goal is, of course, to stay as still as you can (like a statue). This will increase the muscular effort it takes to hold the position.

Bring a few bands

Resistance bands are light and portable. Most parks will have benches or fixtures that can act as anchors for bands, allowing you to do a few exercises; for example, a row (back) or a kick-back (triceps). If no anchor can be found then you and your friend can stand across from each other, intertwine the bands and use each other for either of these strength moves.

Push-ups, push-ups, push-ups

Push-ups can be a lot more varied than their typical use. Firstly, there are ways to modify the length (meaning difficulty) of the push-up position by placing your hands on a bench or by choosing between balancing on your knees or feet. Secondly, there are ways to manipulate which muscles are participating. When performing a push-up, you can push your hands into towards each other (without actually moving them) to bring in more chest or you can push your hands away from each other (without actually moving them) to bring in more backs of the shoulders and triceps. Perform these variations slowly, tensing the abdominals the whole time.

After doing a warm-up, any of these ideas can be mixed up. It’s an option to do the incline work and follow it up afterwards with the suggested strength moves or to alternate between the two. Doing the latter will keep your heart rate elevated. Whichever you choose, aim to motivate each other in order to keep up the pace and effort of your workout.

The exercise profession has an abundance of both advantages and irritations. On the plus side, you can’t ask for a job more worth doing. Fitness pros and coaches like myself can enjoy ample autonomy, daily opportunities for critical thinking, and clear reward for effort in the form of healthy, satisfied clients and students. On the other hand, training in gyms and health clubs can be excruciating. Observing the typical gym workout can range from mildly amusing to something that’s just horrifying, like watching people attempt to perform surgical procedures on themselves after taking in a few episodes of Gray’s Anatomy.

The reality is that no one has really stepped up to provide our communities with comprehensive health and fitness education. Not that anyone even could do such a thing. Despite the practiced façade of medical professionals and fitness ‘experts,’ the truth is that much of the human body, especially optimum health and athletic performance, remains a mystery. Though often presented as unassailable truths, most of our ‘exercise rules’ have little to no empirical substantiation; they are purely the product of traditions and bias. There simply is no single right way to work out – but probably lots of wrong ways.

So in the absence of any real understanding we latch on to trends. We find whatever workout gimmick or product is in vogue at the moment and hammer away at it, expecting miracles. I’ve seen a billion incarnations of this: from Ab-Rollers to Pilates Method, then Boot Camp Fitness, then the Perfect Push-Up, the Ab-Rocket and, in the latest show of jaw-dropping absurdity, the ShakeWeight, which has sold millions of units even though it’s completely and quite obviously retarded. There will never be a shortage of entrepreneurship when it comes to exploiting widespread ignorance.

Exercise professionals are, to my continued chagrin, no better. In fact, most trainers effectively learn about exercise in the same consumerist way and tend to demonstrate, if anything, even more susceptibility to marketing and trends. I can think of no clearer example than exercise education. There are degree programs in exercise science, but with only the smallest exceptions they are next to worthless, producing graduates inured more to exercise mythology than science and with zero practical experience. Unlike massage or physical therapy, there is no state licensure for exercise professionals (not that there should be….whole other issue) so we fill the credibility gap with certificates and correspondence courses. You heard right: correspondence courses – for exercise. Can you imagine taking your car to a mechanic who learned their trade via an online course?

Trends develop in this arena as well. First it was a certification through ACSM you just had to have, then the Ecosgue Method was the thing, then NASM became the standard and if you really wanted to get your stripes you’d do a Paul Chek course, then Gary Gray, then Kettlebell training became the thing, and now, the CrossFit ‘methodology’ has entered the fray, becoming the fastest growing brand in group fitness in the US as of the end of 2010 and, commendably at the very least, not a correspondence course.

I find CrossFit both brilliant and terrifying at the same time. It’s brilliant because of its inclusive community structure and that it has managed to effectively brand something that people have already done for years: circuit training. (I can already hear the howls of protest from any Crossfitters reading this about how CrossFit is its own thing and completely different from circuit training. Yeah, you might want to just stop reading now.) It’s terrifying not because as practiced it invites danger, overtraining, and injury. Most training you see in the average gym does that well enough already so CrossFit isn’t really tipping the scales there. No, it’s terrifying in how effective its marketing is. Without infomercials, a well-designed website, or I daresay even a coherent philosophy, CrossFit has become the hot thing in fitness and featured in probably a third of the conversations I’ve has with colleagues in 2010. It’s positively awe-inspiring.

It’s a terrifyingly savvy business model as well. By crafting a Spartan, no-frills aesthetic, CrossFit invites franchising, as the entry and overhead costs are quite low compared to a more manicured gym. Many CrossFit facilities get built in converted garages and other repurposed sites, often using just flooring, a few Olympic platforms with plates, bars hung from the ceilings for chin-ups, rings, kettlebells, plyo boxes, mats, and word of mouth. Training sessions come in the form of small group classes more often than one-on-one and with 10 participants to a ½ hour class at $25 a pop, way more cash finds its way into instructor and facility owner pockets. Unsurprisingly, franchise or affiliate gyms have cropped up all over and they provide regional testing for instructors that sell out the minute they get announced.

Curious yet? I wanted to use the CrossFit website itself to explain what exactly it entails, but this is what you first encounter on the “What is CrossFit?” section:

“CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.”

That the first paragraph manages to tell you absolutely nothing about CrossFit while plugging itself as a method of choice does not bode well. The rest of the section doesn’t offer up much detail either although it does illuminate some of the guiding principles. “The needs of Olympic athletes and our grandparents differ by degree not kind.” CrossFit is “broad, general, and inclusive,” and “we scale load and intensity; we don’t change programs.”  Another blog, “CrossFit and Why Everyone Should Be Doing It” begins by telling readers…that certain people shouldn’t be doing it, namely bodybuilders who are after – I love this – “big, non-functional muscles.”  The author does not go on to explain how muscle might be “non-functional” but does echo the sentiments above, emphasizing safety and effectiveness.

What is CrossFit then? Multiple things, really. Mainly – and this is its greatest draw and in my opinion most appealing feature – CrossFit is a community. Crossfitters design and post workouts, usually some variation on a circuit, to the CrossFit website called workouts of the day (WODs). The WODs usually receive clever names like Helen, Heavy Fran, or Fight Gone Bad and can include accompanying video. Other Crossfitters then perform the WODs on their own or in groups and post their time, number of rounds, reps, max weight, or some combination thereof to compliments and encouragement from the rest of the community. A typical CrossFit training center displays a whiteboard with the assigned WOD and each participants name and time, fostering a uniquely competitive gym atmosphere.

I really can’t express my admiration of this aspect of CrossFit enough. For those who’ve drunk the kool-aid, so to speak, CrossFit is a calling. I’ve never encountered people more consistently enthusiastic about fitness. Given the trends that dominate our culture, this fact deserves explicit praise.

This isn’t all. There are numerous special programs and groups. The organization does a lot of its work with police and emergency responders. CrossFit bills itself as The Sport of Fitness, and since 2003 has held regular tournaments in which competitors complete selected workouts for time. These tournaments are national-level events, with winners pocketing substantial cash and prizes and they can serve as major motivators for CrossFitters to get into the gym and train.

I’ll be charitable and describe the workouts as somewhat distinctive. They are unified in that they are always hard, usually stringing together sprints or cardio intervals with several traditional and not-so-traditional strength training exercises done back-to-back for extraordinarily high numbers of repetitions. Helen, for example, consists of three rounds of 400m runs, 21 kettlebell Swings, and 12 pull-Ups. These workouts are ass-kickers and you’ll taste breakfast if you’re not prepared for them.

So what’s my beef? Why the critical tone where so many have lavished praise? Take a look at this video montage of the WOD Fight Gone Bad. Make sure to watch the entire thing. It’s the end I want to comment on.

Did you like that? Did you see how virtually everyone in the video hunched over or collapsing at the end? For CrossFit enthusiasts I’m sure this is exactly the point. Years of misinformation mixed with some bizarre, masochistic cultural obsession have convinced millions of us that a good workout should always leave you nauseous and completely incapacitated. The CrossFit website is full of conceits about providing the, “the hardest training outside of any military organization.” Clearly, this is the go-hard-or-go-home school of fitness.

The reality is far less severe. For one thing, military recruit training is only marginally aimed at improving fitness levels. Its true, rather explicit objective is to create a psychological state in recruits more conducive to the operant conditioning that is boot camp. Soldiers need to consistently obey orders in chaotic environments. Recruit training is about preparing them to do just that and weed out those unable.

For already well-conditioned individuals and athletes exercise that produces this type of result has some utility, providing it’s done to meet some specific objective (Mixed Martial Arts comes quickly to mind) and performed infrequently (think maybe 1-2x per month). Indeed, many of the people that LOVE CrossFit are already alleged exercise professionals. But training like this every time you work out, or, like most Americans, you’re new to vigorous physical activity altogether is just stupid: a shortcut to adrenal shock, subsequent overtraining, and injury.

Adherents bring this same cavalier attitude to the form and execution of exercise. CrossFit is the latest entrant into a long line of exercise philosophies that are big on rules and programs but short on basic anatomy. The typical WOD includes a smattering of movements that either straight disrespect human joints (like dips) or require expert levels of flexibility and control (behind the neck bar presses, deep squatting, depth jumps). Of course, when it comes to form in exercise it doesn’t help matters that the majority in CrossFit training are prescribed at impossibly high rep schemes and then performed with weights that are way too heavy. Even the most seasoned athlete is just massacring form by rep 30.

CrossFit defenders have told me that their instructors are some of the best in the world at teaching complex exercises like a snatch or clean and jerk. The videos and workouts I’ve witness indicate otherwise, but okay. But why do you need to do a snatch or a clean and jerk? If I don’t regularly include either in my workout, am I somehow at a loss? Listen; there is nothing magical about a kettlebell swing or burpee. Exercise isn’t really about the exercise at all, but the adaptation that it stimulates. We usually apply Olympic lifts like the snatch to stimulate changes in power, starting strength, and explosiveness, but there are an infinite number of ways to encourage these qualities. Competent exercise professionals do not simply memorize exercise rules and programs then apply them to people across the board, but instead create exercises and workouts that match the specific needs and abilities of the person performing them. You make the exercise fit the rules of the person, not the other way around.

Getting back to the workout structure, while nominally “broad and inclusive” CrossFit is actually extraordinarily narrow in terms of its energy demands. As I already mentioned, most CrossFit WODs are done as circuits where one exercise begins immediately after the last one gets finished with no rest at all. And the reps schemes, while subject to some variation, average out at 20-30, with doing more in the specified time usually the goal. Lastly, workouts centrally feature exercises usually applied to develop power and explosivity like box jumps and power cleans.

First of all, exercising for high-reps + using heavy weights + fast, jerking movements + fatigue creates an internal environment ripe for overuse injury. Doing CrossFit a few days a week and not injured yet? Don’t worry. Give it time. The comment boards on the website are filled with enthusiastic questions about how much they love this WOD or the other, but “does anyone know how I can get my knees to stop hurting when I squat?”

Second, that circuit format combined with the high reps biases the imposed demand heavily toward muscular endurance and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Yes, despite the distaste for bodybuilding and ‘non-functional muscles,’ most CrossFit training incorportates training that works to build muscle. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that and it’s worth noting that this form of training is incredibly calorie demanding. But the demands concentrate in the fast glycolytic energy pathway. For the right population of athletes who need to remain constantly active during competitions and move heavy loads over and over this can provide a powerful stimulus, but outside of that group it’s actually problematic, especially if its all you do.

Maximum strength and power, for example, rely on the phosphagen energy system, large diameter motor neurons, and the IIb fast-twitch muscle fibers they innervate. Volumes of research recognizes that adaptations which improve these components are best realized through high-intensity training – low-rep sets of very heavy loads (2-6RM) with ample rest in between sets to allow for the complete replenishment of ATP-CP in active muscle cells. I’m all for training across energy systems. As I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, there’s overlap in human metabolism, and still a lot of uncertainty about the contributions of genetics and intention to performance. But performing 30 reps of something is, by definition, low intensity exercise, regardless of the speed of movement. Training this way can actually make someone slower.

Back on planet earth, one often needs to regress is one area in order to progress in another. The higher metabolic demands inherent to hypertrophy training with its greater overall volume will diminish maximum strength thresholds, for just one example. Modern sports training uses periodization models to best mete out the stimulus of exercise to reach athletic objectives. CrossFit apparently believes you can develop all strength and fitness qualities at once. This is another place where enthusiasts have claimed unfair criticism, that in practice workouts are varied in intensity and scalable to individual needs. To this I call bullshit. I’ve watched one CrossFit WOD after another. You go hard in every single one.

And scalable to individual needs?! The individual is nowhere to be found in CrossFit. The Workout of the Day format itself eliminates all subtlety from training. Everyone does the same thing give or take a rep or two. The competitions, so central to the CrossFit ethos as the sport of fitness are about determining who can perform a pre-determined workout with a best time.  Maybe it’s my bias as a personal trainer, but my sentiment is that exercise should take the form of something that’s, you know, personalized, not some mindlessly followed template where everyone does the same workout and then compares results. It’s also worth asking, as my Toronto-based colleague Sam Trotta has, whether all exercise-related goals should be based on competitive rankings and reps/units of time.

Enthusiasts have told me that they are in the best shape of their life because of CrossFit. My first thought, given that many of these claims have come from colleagues – exercise professionals who are paid for their expertise in exactly this area – is, what exactly were you doing before? Second, that’s great, you’re in fantastic shape, but that in no way precludes there being even more effective, far less risky methods to accomplish the same fitness level or better. As Deng Xiao Ping said, ‘the color of cat doesn’t matter so long as it catches mice.’

Moreover, and exercise professionals really should know this, any newly implemented training regimen will garner improvements. That’s what happens when the demands in training get subjected to significant alteration, not because CrossFit is somehow magic. In practice this is rarely what happens, but we should really judge conditioning systems on their results over the long-term, not a few workouts.

Ultimately the most important requirement for any training regimen is whether or not you enjoy it. Personally, I love really demanding circuit training in the CrossFit vein. It’s one reason I’ve been putting workouts together like this for years. I just wish I had thought of branding them. It’s not new or innovative in any way, but that’s really a genius move on the part of CrossFit.  But there are other questions that need to get asked when it comes to conditioning as well. Like, what are the goals of training? And, what are my current abilities? Is this form of training the most appropriate for me? What does the risk to benefit ratio look like for an exercise like a dip, or kipping pull-up? Unfortunately, as enjoyable and wildly popular as CrossFit has become, it’s simply not asking those questions.

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Small Victories by Kirsten Gallagher

It’s almost January. Many people have visions of a complete lifestyle overhaul at this time of year. You might even be telling yourself right now, “I’m going to go to the gym five days a week, I’m going to eat healthy, I’m going to get eight hours of sleep every night – nothing’s going to get in my way this year!” But if this year is anything like last year then your enthusiasm will probably peter out come February and those healthy habits won’t stick. Why? Face it – change is difficult. Especially when it comes to eating right and exercising.

As a personal trainer, I emphasize small victories with all my clients. Whether they’re eager or resistant to change, I ask them the same question: what are the little ways you can create a healthier lifestyle? Let’s say you take four sugars in your morning coffee. Wouldn’t decreasing it to three be a small victory? Absolutely. Is having three sugars in your morning coffee healthy? Not particularly. But it’s better than four, that’s for sure. And that’s a step towards a healthier lifestyle.

Consider your current lifestyle right now, whatever it is. It’s a collection of habits that you have learned over time. Those habits took you time to form and, if they happen to be bad ones, will also take you time to transform. You’ll be faced with numerous challenges along the way. I often hear from clients, “I was doing just great until…”. Whether it’s a co-worker’s retirement party or a vacation at an all-inclusive resort or a day when you don’t get to stop to eat until late, there are ways to win small victories and maintain your resolve to make healthy choices regardless of the situation. For example, you’re set to attend your best friend’s bachelor or bachelorette party where there certainly will be drinking. A small victory would be to steer yourself towards simple mixes (vodka-soda, anyone?) or even red wine, which contains some beneficial antioxidants (resveratrol, anyone?). Not bad choices in comparison to some of the more sugary, calorie-packed drinks. Add a glass of water between drinks and you’re setting yourself up for success.

Emphasizing small victories can release you from all-or-nothing thinking when it comes to eating right an exercising (a very common downfall). So what if you’ve given in to temptation and eaten that cookie? That doesn’t mean that your diet’s blown and you might as well stuff yourself with the entire batch. It doesn’t have to turn into, in the words of one of my clients, “a regular piggery”. No. What you should do is find a way to do a little something that is in keeping with living a healthy lifestyle, such as taking a short walk. Accept that change is gradual and you won’t do everything perfectly along the way to your goals.

Many of us think that past failures to make a change in lifestyle were due to a lack of willpower. I don’t think so. I think that the problem is trying to hard to be perfect. We each need to go through a gradual process of learning how to make better choices, and recognizing our small victories along the way.

By Kirsten Gallagher

It’s Monday morning at 6:00am and with a tired but determined demeanor I pass through the turnstile of my local fitness establishment.

This is one of a dozen fitness clubs I’ve been a member of in the last 15 or 20 years, a few of which I’ve even worked in part time as a trainer…but not this one. As a health and fitness professional myself, I can appreciate the motivating qualities and anonymity of a different training environment outside the one I work in for 8-10 hours a day.

As I move towards my first exercise I see out of my peripheral vision a staff trainer demonstrating a movement for their early morning client. The movement involves a lunge (one legged squat) and a Bosu ball.  This is a Swiss exercise ball that has been cut in half to provide trainer and client alike with endless possibilities of adding instability to a given movement or series of movements, whether it is needed or not. Beginning my first movement, out of the corner of my eye I can still see the trainer struggling with teaching his client the previously demonstrated movement. With legs and arms flailing, the frustrated client blurts out, “I just can’t seem to stay up on the ball no matter how hard I try”. After several futile attempts, the client’s unsuccessful endeavor to perform a single leg-supported movement on a Bosu ball is met with the all too familiar phrase, “Alright, that’s enough of that. Let’s go on to the next leg exercise”. I grit my teeth and continue with my workout, and so it goes. This series of events is a daily occurrence in my existence. I see trainer after trainer with seemingly no real knowledge or comprehension of the clients’ needs, capabilities or limitations and I watch client after client attempt to perform exercises for which they do not have the control, skill level or seemingly any understanding of how the movement relates to their goal.

The exercises this particular trainer has chosen for his client this morning have very little to do with the client at all. They have everything to do with an industry that is absolutely in the wrong paradigm.

I have been involved in the fitness industry from the early age of fourteen and at age forty, that’s much more than half of my life. Before long, I developed a keen and lasting interest in how the human body works physiologically and mechanically with a passion few people seemed to share. Oh sure, through the years colleagues read the magazines and did the diets and the workouts, they even studied a little bit of anatomy. They all followed the gurus of the day and if it was new and innovative they were doing it. There was only one problem with all that and it still is happening all around me no matter where I go; most of the fitness professionals out there are still following gurus, not science and especially not common sense.

The ability to think for yourself isn’t automatic, this is a learned skill. No one in the fitness industry is learning how to think! I am starting to believe that there is no one out there teaching the basics for my industry. Principles of resistance, anatomy, mechanics, progression and most of all CONTROL need to be far more present. These fundamental principles are essential to master before performing even the most basic movements and exercise programs that are put out there for all to abscond with back to their clients. Have you ever noticed that it’s never the simple exercises the trainer attempts first on the client to even establish a skill level? Witnessing seemingly qualified trainers jump on the first opportunity to try these advanced movements on the unsuspecting masses is the biggest challenge I face in the gym every day. These practices can easily lead to clients not achieving their goals and more importantly; getting hurt.

No matter what high quality fitness establishment of which I become a member, I am still faced daily with what are supposed to be qualified professionals with very little grasp of what their clients really need. In the many conversations I’ve had with trainers and other fitness professionals over the last several years, I get the sense there is something greatly lacking in the approach of the educating bodies that are launching thousands of “Certified Fitness Professionals” every year into the foray. Don’t get me wrong, I know many of these trainers and fitness pro’s myself. These are smart and conscientious people. These fitness pro’s , however, are being taught to learn a guru’s new movement, system of movements or program and transfer that directly to the client regardless of whether or not the client can operate at the skill level required to perform the movements safely and with some benefit.

Maybe it’s a question of laziness on the fitness industry’s part. Continuing education requires effort and these people never have any time.  As for me, I don’t buy it.  Start teaching the basics again; evaluation, force, resistance, progression, anatomy, and exercise mechanics. Make these things be a requirement to work in the industry, not just a bonus to a somewhat hobbled education.

Peter Chiasson BSc,MATcms,RTSm,MAT/RTS Instructor

Core Strength Inc.

It sure is easy to eat healthy these days. Perusing the aisles at the grocery store, I am struck by the vast array of wholesome foods out there. And I know they’re wholesome because they’re so clearly labeled. With labels like “trans-fat free” and “more fiber” and “less sodium,” I simply can’t go wrong. It’s a breeze to choose foods that are new and improved, and decidedly better for me.

Of course, I’m being sarcastic here. It’s a terrible irony that most of the foods that tout health claims in their packaging aren’t in reality actually healthy. More often that not, they’re highly-processed, sugar-laden food products. These products are using a slippery strategy to market themselves, by making consumers think that just because something is marginally healthier, it is in fact, healthy.

A prime example of this kind of marketing strategy is Lay’s Baked Potato Chips. I’ve been to many a shin-dig where I’ve witnessed a veritable feeding frenzy when the host breaks out the Baked Lay’s. “They’re baked!” “Not fried!”. Everyone rejoices, mouths full of flavorless, desiccated former potatoes. What’s forgotten is that they’re still basically potato chips, and offer little to no substantial nutrition.

Becel has long been running a “Love Your Heart” campaign (and judging from the commercials, managing to make a tenuous connection between margarine and women’s empowerment). The recent boast is that Becel is trans-fat free and low in saturated fat. Butter, margarine’s mortal enemy, does contain saturated fat. Capitalizing on saturated fat’s bad reputation, Becel has jockeyed ahead in consumer perception as the healthier of the two. But consider this telling comparison: margarine is made through an extensive process of chemical alteration; butter is not. Margarine is made by adding hydrogen to unsaturated bonds in controlled conditions; butter is made by churning.

One simple way to avoid confusion in the grocery store is to ignore what’s on the front of the packaging and read what’s on the side of it. That is, the ingredient list. Is it short? Are the words recognizable? Wonderbread is stacking shelves with its new “Enriched White” bread (so you can trick your kids!). The brand claims that you can have all the nutrition of whole wheat bread without its offensive appearance or taste (yuck!). Sounds good. But if you take a gander at the ingredient list on the side, you’ll realize that a nutritious loaf it is not. It’s full of multi-syllabic chemicals, preservatives, and other junk. It’s probably slightly healthier then its predecessor, but it certainly is not healthy.

In his book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan warns consumers that the foods that proclaim the loudest that they are healthy are, in all likelihood, the least healthy. I completely agree. The foods that are actually healthy are hanging out pretty nonchalantly around the perimeter of the grocery store. Foods like… hmm, let’s see… vegetables?! Vegetables and other single-ingredient foods are difficult to market, aren’t they? I suppose that’s because they’ve always just been healthy, with no need to be healthier.

Foam Rollers, could we possibly be wasting our time?

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