Brink's Unified Theory of Nutrition
By Will Brink author of BodyBuilding Revealed and Fat Loss Revealed
When people hear the term Unified Theory, some times called the Grand Unified Theory, or even "Theory of Everything," they probably think of it in terms of physics, where a Unified Theory, or single theory capable of defining the nature of the interrelationships among nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravitational forces, would reconcile seemingly incompatible aspects of various field theories to create a single comprehensive set of equations.
Such a theory could potentially unlock all the secrets of nature and the universe itself, or as theoretical physicist Michio Katu, puts it "an equation an inch long that would allow us to read the mind of God." That's how important unified theories can be. However, unified theories don't have to deal with such heady topics as physics or the nature of the universe itself, but can be applied to far more mundane topics, in this case nutrition.
Regardless of the topic, a unified theory, as sated above, seeks to explain seemingly incompatible aspects of various theories. In this article I attempt to unify seemingly incompatible or opposing views regarding nutrition, namely, what is probably the longest running debate in the nutritional sciences: calories vs. macro nutrients.
One school, I would say the 'old school' of nutrition, maintains weight loss or weight gain is all about calories, and "a calorie is a calorie," no matter the source (e.g., carbs, fats, or proteins). They base their position on various lines of evidence to come to that conclusion.
The other school, I would call more the 'new school' of thought on the issue, would state that gaining or losing weight is really about where the calories come from (e.g., carbs, fats, and proteins), and that dictates weight loss or weight gain. Meaning, they feel, the "calorie is a calorie" mantra of the old school is wrong. They too come to this conclusion using various lines of evidence.
This has been an ongoing debate between people in the field of nutrition, biology, physiology, and many other disciplines, for decades. The result of which has led to conflicting advice and a great deal of confusion by the general public, not to mention many medical professionals and other groups.
Before I go any further, two key points that are essential to understand about any unified theory:
A good unified theory is simple, concise, and understandable even to lay people. However, underneath, or behind that theory, is often a great deal of information that can take up many volumes of books. So, for me to outline all the information I have used to come to these conclusions, would take a large book, if not several and is far beyond the scope of this article.
A unified theory is often proposed by some theorist before it can even be proven or fully supported by physical evidence. Over time, different lines of evidence, whether it be mathematical, physical, etc., supports the theory and thus solidifies that theory as being correct, or continued lines of evidence shows the theory needs to be revised or is simply incorrect. I feel there is now more than enough evidence at this point to give a unified theory of nutrition and continuing lines of evidence will continue (with some possible revisions) to solidify the theory as fact.
"A calorie is a calorie"
The old school of nutrition, which often includes most nutritionists, is a calorie is a calorie when it comes to gaining or losing weight. That weight loss or weight gain is strictly a matter of "calories in, calories out." Translated, if you "burn" more calories than you take in, you will lose weight regardless of the calorie source and if you eat more calories than you burn off each day, you will gain weight, regardless of the calorie source.
This long held and accepted view of nutrition is based on the fact that protein and carbs contain approx 4 calories per gram and fat approximately 9 calories per gram and the source of those calories matters not. They base this on the many studies that finds if one reduces calories by X number each day, weight loss is the result and so it goes if you add X number of calories above what you use each day for gaining weight.
However, the "calories in calories out" mantra fails to take into account modern research that finds that fats, carbs, and proteins have very different effects on the metabolism via countless pathways, such as their effects on hormones (e.g., insulin, leptin, glucagon, etc), effects on hunger and appetite, thermic effects (heat production), effects on uncoupling proteins (UCPs), and 1000 other effects that could be mentioned.
Even worse, this school of thought fails to take into account the fact that even within a macro nutrient, they too can have different effects on metabolism. This school of thought ignores the ever mounting volume of studies that have found diets with different macro nutrient ratios with identical calorie intakes have different effects on body composition, cholesterol levels, oxidative stress, etc.
Translated, not only is the mantra "a calorie us a calorie" proven to be false, "all fats are created equal" or "protein is protein" is also incorrect. For example, we no know different fats (e.g. fish oils vs. saturated fats) have vastly different effects on metabolism and health in general, as we now know different carbohydrates have their own effects (e.g. high GI vs. low GI), as we know different proteins can have unique effects.
The "calories don't matter" school of thought
This school of thought will typically tell you that if you eat large amounts of some particular macro nutrient in their magic ratios, calories don't matter. For example, followers of ketogenic style diets that consist of high fat intakes and very low carbohydrate intakes (i.e., Atkins, etc.) often maintain calories don't matter in such a diet.
Others maintain if you eat very high protein intakes with very low fat and carbohydrate intakes, calories don't matter. Like the old school, this school fails to take into account the effects such diets have on various pathways and ignore the simple realities of human physiology, not to mention the laws of thermodynamics!
The reality is, although it's clear different macro nutrients in different amounts and ratios have different effects on weight loss, fat loss, and other metabolic effects, calories do matter. They always have and they always will. The data, and real world experience of millions of dieters, is quite clear on that reality.
The truth behind such diets is that they are often quite good at suppressing appetite and thus the person simply ends up eating fewer calories and losing weight. Also, the weight loss from such diets is often from water vs. fat, at least in the first few weeks. That's not to say people can't experience meaningful weight loss with some of these diets, but the effect comes from a reduction in calories vs. any magical effects often claimed by proponents of such diets.
Weight loss vs. fat loss!
This is where we get into the crux of the true debate and why the two schools of thought are not actually as far apart from one another as they appear to the untrained eye. What has become abundantly clear from the studies performed and real world evidence is that to lose weight we need to use more calories than we take in (via reducing calorie intake and or increasing exercise), but we know different diets have different effects on the metabolism, appetite, body composition, and other physiological variables...
Brink's Unified Theory of Nutrition
...Thus, this reality has led me to Brink's Unified Theory of Nutrition which states:
"Total calories dictates how much weight a person gains or loses;
macro nutrient ratios dictates what a person gains or loses"
This seemingly simple statement allows people to understand the differences between the two schools of thought. For example, studies often find that two groups of people put on the same calorie intakes but very different ratios of carbs, fats, and proteins will lose different amounts of bodyfat and or lean body mass (i.e., muscle, bone, etc.).
Some studies find for example people on a higher protein lower carb diet lose approximately the same amount of weight as another group on a high carb lower protein diet, but the group on the higher protein diet lost more actual fat and less lean body mass (muscle). Or, some studies using the same calorie intakes but different macro nutrient intakes often find the higher protein diet may lose less actual weight than the higher carb lower protein diets, but the actual fat loss is higher in the higher protein low carb diets. This effect has also been seen in some studies that compared high fat/low carb vs. high carb/low fat diets. The effect is usually amplified if exercise is involved as one might expect.
Of course these effects are not found universally in all studies that examine the issue, but the bulk of the data is clear: diets containing different macro nutrient ratios do have different effects on human physiology even when calorie intakes are identical (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11).
Or, as the authors of one recent study that looked at the issue concluded:
"Diets with identical energy contents can have different effects on leptin concentrations, energy expenditure, voluntary food intake, and nitrogen balance, suggesting that the physiologic adaptations to energy restriction can be modified by dietary composition."(12)
The point being, there are many studies confirming that the actual ratio of carbs, fats, and proteins in a given diet can effect what is actually lost (i.e., fat, muscle, bone, and water) and that total calories has the greatest effect on how much total weight is lost. Are you starting to see how my unified theory of nutrition combines the "calorie is a calorie" school with the "calories don't matter" school to help people make decisions about nutrition?
Knowing this, it becomes much easier for people to understand the seemingly conflicting diet and nutrition advice out there (of course this does not account for the down right unscientific and dangerous nutrition advice people are subjected to via bad books, TV, the 'net, and well meaning friends, but that's another article altogether).
Knowing the above information and keeping the Unified Theory of Nutrition in mind, leads us to some important and potentially useful conclusions:
An optimal diet designed to make a person lose fat and retain as much LBM as possible is not the same as a diet simply designed to lose weight.
A nutrition program designed to create fat loss is not simply a reduced calorie version of a nutrition program designed to gain weight, and visa versa.
Diets need to be designed with fat loss, NOT just weight loss, as the goal, but total calories can't be ignored.
This is why the diets I design for people-or write about-for gaining or losing weight are not simply higher or lower calorie versions of the same diet. In short: diets plans I design for gaining LBM start with total calories and build macro nutrient ratios into the number of calories required. However, diets designed for fat loss (vs. weight loss!) start with the correct macro nutrient ratios that depend on variables such as amount of LBM the person carries vs. bodyfat percent , activity levels, etc., and figure out calories based on the proper macro nutrient ratios to achieve fat loss with a minimum loss of LBM. The actual ratio of macro nutrients can be quite different for both diets and even for individuals.
Diets that give the same macro nutrient ratio to all people (e.g., 40/30/30, or 70,30,10, etc.) regardless of total calories, goals, activity levels, etc., will always be less than optimal. Optimal macro nutrient ratios can change with total calories and other variables.
Perhaps most important, the unified theory explains why the focus on weight loss vs. fat loss by the vast majority of people, including most medical professionals, and the media, will always fail in the long run to deliver the results people want.
Finally, the Universal Theory makes it clear that the optimal diet for losing fat, or gaining muscle, or what ever the goal, must account not only for total calories, but macro nutrient ratios that optimize metabolic effects and answer the questions: what effects will this diet have on appetite? What effects will this diet have on metabolic rate? What effects will this diet have on my lean body mass (LBM)? What effects will this diet have on hormones; both hormones that may improve or impede my goals? What effects will this diet have on (fill in the blank)?
Simply asking, "how much weight will I lose?" is the wrong question which will lead to the wrong answer. To get the optimal effects from your next diet, whether looking to gain weight or lose it, you must ask the right questions to get meaningful answers.
Asking the right questions will also help you avoid the pitfalls of unscientific poorly thought out diets which make promises they can't keep and go against what we know about human physiology and the very laws of physics!
There are of course many additional questions that can be asked and points that can be raised as it applies to the above, but those are some of the key issues that come to mind. Bottom line here is, if the diet you are following to either gain or loss weight does not address those issues and or questions, then you can count on being among the millions of disappointed people who don't receive the optimal results they had hoped for and have made yet another nutrition "guru" laugh all the way to the bank at your expense.
Any diet that claims calories don't matter, forget it. Any diet that tells you they have a magic ratio of foods, ignore it. Any diet that tells you any one food source is evil, it's a scam. Any diet that tells you it will work for all people all the time no matter the circumstances, throw it out or give it to someone you don't like!
About the Author - William D. Brink
Will Brink is a columnist, contributing consultant, and writer for various health/fitness, medical, and bodybuilding publications. His articles relating to nutrition, supplements, weight loss, exercise and medicine can be found in such publications as Lets Live, Muscle Media 2000, MuscleMag International, The Life Extension Magazine, Muscle n Fitness, Inside Karate, Exercise For Men Only, Body International, Power, Oxygen, Penthouse, Women’s World and The Townsend Letter For Doctors.
He is the author of Priming The Anabolic Environment , Body Building Revealed & Fat Loss Revealed. He is the Consulting Sports Nutrition Editor and a monthly columnist for Physical magazine, Musclemag and an Editor at Large for Power magazine. Will graduated from Harvard University with a concentration in the natural sciences, and is a consultant to major supplement, dairy, and pharmaceutical companies.
He has been co author of several studies relating to sports nutrition and health found in peer reviewed academic journals, as well as having commentary published in JAMA. He runs the highly popular web site BrinkZone.com which is strategically positioned to fulfill the needs and interests of people with diverse backgrounds and knowledge. The BrinkZone site has a following with many sports nutrition enthusiasts, athletes, fitness professionals, scientists, medical doctors, nutritionists, and interested lay people. William has been invited to lecture on the benefits of weight training and nutrition at conventions and symposiums around the U.S. and Canada, and has appeared on numerous radio and television programs.
William has worked with athletes ranging from professional bodybuilders, golfers, fitness contestants, to police and military personnel.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
Nutrition Or Training - Which Is More Important?
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
http://www.BurnTheFat.com
Legendary bodybuilding trainer Vince, "The Iron Guru" Gironda was famous for saying, "Bodybuilding is 80% nutrition!" But is this really true or is it just another fitness and bodybuilding myth passed down like gospel without ever being questioned? Which is really more important, nutrition or training? This IS an interesting question and I believe there is a definite answer:
The first thing I would say is that you cannot separate nutrition and training. The two work together synergistically. Regardless of your goals - gaining muscle, losing fat, athletic conditioning, whatever -you will get less than-optimal or even non-existent results without paying attention paid to both.
In fact, I like to look at gaining muscle or losing fat in three parts - weight training, cardio training and nutrition - with each part like a leg of a three legged stool. pull ANY one of the legs off the stool, and guess what happens?
In reality, it's impossible to put a specific percentage on which is more important - how could we possibly know such a number to the digit?
Nutrition and training are both important, but at certain stages of your training progress, I do believe placing more attention on one component over the other can create larger improvements. Let me explain:
If you're a beginner and you don't posses nutritional knowledge, then mastering nutrition is far more important than training and should become your number one priority. I say this because improving a poor diet can create rapid, quantum leaps in fat loss and muscle building progress.
For example, if you've been skipping meals and only eating 2 times per day, jumping your meal frequency up to 5 or 6 smaller meals a day will transform your physique very rapidly.
If you're still eating lots of processed fats and refined sugars, cutting them out and replacing them with good fats like the omega threes found in fish and unrefined foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains will make an enormous and noticeable difference in your physique very quickly.
If your diet is low in protein, simply adding a complete protein food like chicken breast, fish or egg whites at each meal will muscle you up fast.
No matter how hard you train or what type of training routine you're on, it's all in vain if you don't provide yourself with the right nutritional support.
In beginners (or in advanced trainees who are still eating poorly), these changes in diet are more likely to result in great improvements than a change in training.
The muscular and nervous systems of a beginner are unaccustomed to exercise. Therefore, just about any training program can cause muscle growth and strength development to occur because it's all a "shock" to the untrained body.
You can almost always find ways to tweak your nutrition to higher and higher levels, but once you’ve mastered all the nutritional basics, then further improvements in your diet don't have as great of an impact as those initial important changes...
Eating more than six meals will have minimal effect. Eating more protein ad infinitum won't help. Once you're eating low fat, going to zero fat won't help more - it will probably hurt. If you're eating a wide variety of foods and taking a good multi vitamin/mineral, then more supplements probably wont help much either. If you're already eating natural complex carbs and lean proteins every three hours, there's not too much more you can do other than continue to be consistent day after day...
At this point, as an intermediate or advanced trainee who has the nutrition in place, changes in your training become much more important, relatively speaking. Your training must become downright scientific.
Except for the changes that need to be made between an "off season" muscle growth diet and a "precontest" cutting diet, the diet won't and can't change much - it will remain fairly constant.
But you can continue to pump up the intensity of your training and improve the efficiency of your workouts almost without limit. In fact, the more advanced you become, the more crucial training progression and variation becomes because the well-trained body adapts so quickly.
According to powerlifter Dave Tate, an advanced lifter may adapt to a routine within 1-2 weeks. That's why elite lifters rotate exercises constantly and use as many as 300 different variations on exercises.
Strength coach Ian King says that unless you're a beginner, you'll adapt to any training routine within 3-4 weeks. Coach Charles Poliquin says that you'll adapt within 5-6 workouts.
So, to answer the question, while nutrition is ALWAYS critically important, it's more important to emphasize for the beginner (or the person whose diet is still a "mess"), while training is more important for the advanced person... (in my opinion).
It's not that nutrition ever ceases to be important, the point is, further improvements in nutrition won't have as much impact once you already have all the fundamentals in place.
Once you've mastered nutrition, then it's all about keeping that nutrition consistent and progressively increasing the efficiency and intensity of your workouts, and mastering the art of planned workout variation, which is also known as "periodization."
The bottom line: There's a saying among strength coaches and personal trainers...
"You can't out-train a lousy diet!"
If your nutrition program is your weakest area, either because you're just starting out or you simply don't have the nutritional knowledge you know you need to get results, then be sure to take a look at the Burn The Fat program at: www.burnthefat.com
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle.” Tom has written hundreds of articles and been featured in IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men’s Exercise, as well as on dozens of websites worldwide. For information on Tom's Fat Loss program, visit: www.burnthefat.com
The Truth About Counting Calories and Weight Loss
The Truth About Counting Calories And Weight LossBy Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS http://www.BurnTheFat.com
Do calories matter or do you simply need to eat certain foods and that will guarantee you’ll lose weight?
Should you count calories or can you just count “portions?” Is it necessary to keep a food diary? Is it unrealistic to count calories for the rest of your life or is that just part of the price you pay for a better body? You’re about to learn the answers to these questions and discover a simple solution for keeping track of your food intake without having to crunch numbers every day or become a fanatic about it.
In many popular diet books, “Calories don’t count” is a frequently repeated theme. Other popular programs, such as Bill Phillip's "Body For Life," stress the importance of energy intake versus energy output, but recommend that you count “portions” rather than calories…
Phillips wrote,
"There aren't many people who can keep track of their calorie intake for an extended period of time. As an alternative, I recommend counting 'portions.' A portion of food is roughly equal to the size of your clenched fist or the palm of your hand. Each portion of protein or carbohydrate typically contains between 100 and 150 calories. For example, one chicken breast is approximately one portion of protein, and one medium-sized baked potato is approximately one portion of carbohydrate."
Phillips makes a good point that trying to count every single calorie - in the literal sense - can drive you crazy and is probably not realistic as a lifestyle for the long term. It's one thing to count portions instead of calories – that is at least acknowledging the importance of portion control. However, it's another altogether to deny that calories matter.
Calories do count! Any diet program that tells you, "calories don't count" or you can "eat all you want and still lose weight" is a diet you should avoid because you are being lied to. The truth is, that line is a bunch of baloney designed to make a diet sound easier to follow.
Anything that sounds like work – such as counting calories, eating less or exercising, tends to scare away potential customers! The law of calorie balance is an unbreakable law of physics:
Energy in versus energy out dictates whether you will gain, lose or maintain your weight. Period.
I believe that it's very important to develop an understanding of and a respect for portion control and the law of calorie balance. I also believe it's an important part of nutrition education to learn how many calories are in the foods you eat on a regular basis – including (and perhaps, especially) how many calories are in the foods you eat when you dine at restaurants.
The law of calorie balance says:
If you only count portions or if you haven't the slightest idea how many calories you're eating, it's a lot more likely that you'll eat more than you realize. (Or you might take in fewer calories than you should, which triggers your body’s "starvation mode" and causes your metabolism to shut down).
So how do you balance practicality and realistic expectations with a nutrition program that gets results?
Here's a solution that’s a happy medium between strict calorie counting and just guessing:
Create a menu using an EXCEL spreadsheet or your favorite nutrition software. Crunch all the numbers including calories, protein, carbs and fats. Once you have your daily menu, print it, stick it on your refrigerator (and/or in your daily planner) and you now have an eating "goal" for the day, including a caloric target.
Rather than writing down every calorie one by one from every morsel of food you eat for the rest of your life, create a menu plan you can use as a daily goal and guideline. If you’re really ambitious, keeping a nutrition journal at least one time in your life for at least 4-12 weeks is a great idea and an incredible learning experience, but all you really need to get started on the road to a better body is one good menu on paper. If you get bored eating the same thing every day, you can create multiple menus, or just exchange foods using your primary menu as a template.
Using this meal planning method, you really only need to “count calories” once when you create your menus, not every day, ad infinitum. After you've got a knack for calories from this initial discipline of menu planning, then you can estimate portions in the future and get a pretty good (and more educated) ballpark figure.
So what’s the bottom line? Is it really necessary to count every calorie to lose weight? No. But it IS necessary to eat fewer calories then you burn. Whether you count calories and eat less than you burn, or you don’t count calories and eat less than you burn, the end result is the same – you lose weight. Which would you rather do: Take a wild guess, or increase your chance for success with some simple menu planning? I think the right choice is obvious.
For more information on calories (including how calculate precisely how many you should eat based on your age, activity and personal goals, and for even more practical, proven fat loss techniques to help you lose body fat safely, healthfully and permanently, check out my e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle at http://www.BurnTheFat.com
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle.” Tom has written more than 200 articles and has been featured in print magazines such as IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men’s Exercise, as well as on hundreds of websites worldwide. For information on Tom's Fat Loss program, visit: http://www.BurnTheFat.com
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