****Actual useful Information**** So we all know what a food allergy is, that’s the thing where your Aunt accidentally ate some shell fish one Christmas dinner and went all Violet Beauregard till your uncle ran over and stabbed her with an epipen, right? Well if you have a food allergy you’d damn well know about it by now. What you may not be aware of is if you have a food sensitivity or intolerance. There are some that are really obvious, like Lactose intolerance, but sensitivities and some intolerances are generally not easily tested by normal procedures and either have to be found via specific blood panel testing or through trial and error. NOW, I am far from intelligent enough to speculate at length on the subject, and what little research I have done is in relation to myself not the general public so what follows is a suggestion and if you think you’ve got a greater problem in relation to this subject hit up your GP or a dietician for more advice. Food sensitivities can manifest in some pretty common symptoms, common as in you might think that you’ve just had some bad food or are feeling generally unwell. Nausea, bloating, water retention, discomfort, headaches, problems concentrating, skin rash, itching inside the mouth or sinus area, sores inside the mouth, gas, irregular bowel movements, the list goes on and I’m willing to bet that a lot of you have experienced it at one time or another. So what’s this got to do with bodybuilding. I haven’t always but recently I’ve become a big proponent of proper gut and digestive health. Why? Because I found that it was the missing link in my own growth, health and general wellbeing. And how did I figure that out? With a comp prep. Every diet I’ve ever read online or seen recommended in a magazine has had one thing in common. Breakfast always features oats. Whether its oats and eggs, oats and protein powder in a pancake, oats and tuna (#TBT ya’ll) they’ve always had oats as the foundation of a good healthy low GI breakfast “None of that insulin spiking sugar for breakfast kids, have a some honey on your oats instead”………sure. So being that I’ve been told this since the beginning of my training it’s no surprise that every diet I’ve written for myself featured Oats for breakfast. Comp prep or bulking that lovely superfood was a key player. Last prep I decided to get all intelligent with my training and diet and thought I’d try some rather outlandish ideas, first of which was the idea that eating no carbs but rather fat and protein at breakfast steered the body into thinking that fat was its primary fuel source. I stole the idea from the very intelligent Luke McNally who tends to recommend grass fed beef and activated walnuts for breakfast. I’m poor. So it was eggs and spinach cooked in coconut oil with LSA all over them instead. Energy levels were up in the morning, I didn’t crash mid-morning, focus was great throughout the day and more importantly, I seemed to be burning fat quicker than I used to in previous comp preps. But another thing I noticed after a while was that I wasn’t feeling foggy in the head, gassy and severely bloated throughout the day. I chalked this up to the diet itself and not eating as much as I usually did (despite the fact I was taking in more calories?). During my diet I went to FitX to watch the pro qualifier and see the expo, while there we were living out of a hotel room and I couldn’t find a place that sold the rice flakes I usually ate as a post workout meal so I just got some oats instead. I have to take a moment to apologise to anyone and everyone at FitX. I was that bloated gassy guy walking around with the lovely woman who was pinching her nose and coughing away my fart gas. Point of the story? I completely stumbled upon a food sensitivity that has been holding me back for years. Throughout the prep, being that my diet was restrictive but I wrote it myself so I knew how to manipulate macros, I was afforded the opportunity to test myself weekly with different foods to gauge my tolerance to them. Oats, bread/gluten, Avocado, Raw almonds and walnuts, celery, any and all types of melons and grapes all cause me to have a reaction in one way or another. I’ve been eating these foods for years and the impact has been interrupted digestion, malabsorption of nutrients and inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract that can go on for hours or days. This type of thing can hold you back severely, imagine not being able to lift heavy because your stomach is bloated or upset, not being able to grind through that cardio because your brain is foggy, not being able to focus that mind muscle connection, feeling lethargic on TOP of being in calorie deficit, or my biggest problem, feeling so full and uncomfortable that you can’t fit in all those meals when bulking. The typical bodybuilding diet is very helping in finding these intolerances in that they are generally pretty restrictive in food choice so you have the opportunity to switch or rotate nutrient sources. However they’re a double edge sword in that some people can develop food sensitivities from eating the same thing for prolonged periods of time. So what’s the take away here? - Do a quick search on most common sensitive foods and see if anything lines up with your diet. - If you’re experiencing any of the symptoms stated above, try swapping out protein/fat/carb sources for something not on the sensitivity list. - Try and rotate protein/fat/carb sources every 6 months to prevent sensitivities or intolerances forming. - If you’re dieting and aren’t progressing like you feel you should, now’s the time to give this a try, just make sure whatever you’re swapping with meets your macro breakdown. But the biggest thing I want people to take from this is that not everything works for everyone. Just because all the pro’s tell you to eat oats doesn’t mean you should eat oats. Hell branch warren will tell you to bench so hard the bar bounces off your chest. I’m not saying he’s wrong, it obviously works for him, but will it work for you? And what I’m suggesting might not help you either, you might need to talk to your GP about getting some bloods done to test for sensitivities. Then again it might help immediately. If it does let me know. And if you really want to try something different, give the no carb breakfast a crack. I mean what harm could it do? Unless you’re diabetic. In which case I honestly have no idea what harm it could do. Just as a final note, If you ARE experiencing any of these symptoms, go back a few weeks and looks at the AI article I did on GI health, try putting the digestive activation and greens protocol into action first for a week, if you’re still getting any of the symptoms, step two is to look into your sensitivities/intolerances. And share if its helpful, share this shit like you would a pack of mixed cream biscuits thats down to the orange creams.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 09:56:18 +0000
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