Download a transcript of this episode
Topics
1. [1:00] Good Bacteria Sensitivity
2. [5:40] Muscle Glycogen
3. [9:23] Unilateral Training
4. [16:02] Dizziness after Eating
5. [19:33] Skinniness, Paleo and Steroids
6. [29:22] Explosive Lifting & Hypertrophy
7. [35:26] Getting off Medication
8. [40:21] Birth Control & Fat Loss
Questions
1. Good Bacteria Sensitivity
Ashley Says: Robb, Your site has been a great resource to me as I’ve been working to get my gut straightened out after a major gluten-related upheaval. For just a brief background, four years ago, at age 30, I got acutely ill with neurological and digestive symptoms (went from riding the MS150 to being unable to walk without help in less than a month). Today I have a stupendously leaky gut which is not healing, a TON of food sensitivities, and some major health issues, not the least of which is plain old malnutrition (I assume from malabsorbtion). I’m doing what I can to address all that, limited often by money and by the health system.
One thing’s got me (and apparently my dr.s) totally stumped. When tested in stool samples, my good bacteria numbers are very poor for everything but bifidus. However, I can’t take probiotics. Even in small quantities, even if dairy-free, home ferments, you name it, I’ve tried it. I just can’t take probiotics without symptoms. I get bloated, lethargic, and confused. Even when I was able to take the stuff, a couple of years ago, it didn’t “stick”. I would go on a round of probiotics and then the Doc would re-test me, and my bacterial numbers wouldn’t be any better than before.
I can’t even find any good information on this topic in my research. My doc says he’s seen it happen but it’s quite rare. No one’s been able to explain why I would be unable to rebuild that bacterial colony, which is getting worse, rather than better, and I have NO IDEA what I could do to improve that situation, hopefully before I become allergic to *absolutely every food.*
Any ideas, SuperRobb?
2. Muscle Glycogen
Aldo Says: I’ve heard that consuming a 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 ratio of carbs to protein will replace your muscle glycogen after a workout. Or that your muscles “use up” glycogen over night. Is this true, or does the body just continually try to top off glycogen stores all the time? Can you explain how this system works? Thanks
3. Unilateral Training
Jonathan Says: Robb and Greg, Let me start off by saying I’m a huge fan of the podcast. Keep up the good work!
I have a question regarding unilateral vs bilateral training. It often seems like barbell work heavily overshadows dumbbell or kettlebell work, especially in the case of squats and deadlifts. What is the reason for this? I understand that BB’s allow you to move heavier loads but isn’t it difficult to balance strength disparities between limbs without including a fair amount of unilateral work in your routine? I ask because I know I have some strength imbalances between limbs that I would like to correct.
Are there any reasons aside from greater overload to favor BB back/front squats over, lets say, weighted bulgarian split squats or lunges. I do understand the exercises are not quite the same…
Also, how frequently would you include unilateral movements into a weekly workout schedule when you DO use them?
Thanks and I appreciate your thoughts on this.
4. Dizziness after Eating
Amy Says: Hi Rob,
I listen every week and have been since the beginning! Coming to your lecture in Boston in August. I’ve recently had little spouts of dizziness after eating. I’m trying to pin point when and what im eating but it seems to be pretty random. I have however noticed that when my meal is slightly higher in carbs (aka large salad) it occurs more often. The dizziness occurs instantly after eating, and lasts anywhere from the rest of the day to only a few minutes. its a dizziness thats almost like vertigo. Im 35, crosfitter, bloods are great, eating paleo for over a year now, with occassional cheats of dark chocolate and nacho chips. I guess im wondering if i should get checked for any food allergies, if that could be the problem, also would it help to take my blood pressure before eating and after to see if its a drop in pressure? Any thoughts?
5. Skinniness, Paleo and Steroids
Background / Stats
Age: 28
Height: 6’2
Weight: 186
BF: 19%
High Blood pressure and Cholesterol.
(prescribed pills for both that i do not take)
Workout: 4x a week, split muscle groups on lunch break. Cardio 3-4x /week after work for 30min.
Work: Sit a desk all day, low stress
Sleep: Go to bed around 12-1am , get up around 9.. still feeling tired, have a hard time getting up.
Eating: Was doing oatmeal for breakfast, brown rice w/ black beans and tuna every day for lunch, salmon or chicken at dinner with more brown rice and a small amount of veggies (if any.. i know i know!).
I’ve always been lean everywhere on my body, except my belly area. Arms, legs are both lean and well defined. I feel like i carry all my fat in my mid section. And with the way i was eating before, under my previous train of thought, thought man, i should be ripped! But that was not the case.
Now, i’m on my second week of paleo. After only 5 days, i went from 186lbs to 179. I feel like i probably had alot of swelling / water loss due to the carbs and legumes.
So, that being my background, on to my questions. I feel like the switch to paleo is going to get me to my goal of finally getting a six pack. However, i feel i definitely have the monkey with his hand in the jar mentality in feeling like, i’m 6’2.. i’m probably going to get down to 160 something pounds before i get to my desired level of leanness to get my abs. If thats the case, i don’t want to look scary skinny either at 6’2 just to get abs. Is that really my only option? Is my best plan of action to get to my level of leanness, and then try to slowly build up the mass without gaining the fat to get back up to 185? Is it going to be possible?
Second question: I’ve dabbled with steroid use in the past, i’ve always heard that it negatively affects your LDL levels. Now that i’m Paleo, i know that the LDL particle size is most important, does steroid use increase the small bad LDL particles or big puffy ones? Have you had any experience with steroids while paleo? I know they are controversial, and there are two sides to every story, but i have had some good mass and strength gains with no noticeable side effects in the past, so i am still open to trying them again.
If you have any follow up questions to ask me so that you can discuss it in a podcast with more clarity, please don’t hesitate to email me. Thank you,
6. Explosive Lifting & Hypertrophy
bjoern Says: Hi Robb
I read recently that the Idea of the traditional practiced weightlifting of 3 Up 4 Seconds is not building mass as fast as explosive movements because not all muscles will be recruited in a slow pace movement.
So For example for a bench-press. Explosive fast movement up and then slowly down…
Also it is mentioned that if you are able todo the fast explosive movement you will have developed strength for the slow movements as well.
But If you are doing only slow pace training you won’t be able to pull of the fast explosive ones.
I just want to get big… and the point that more muscle tissue gets broken down the more tissue is recruited
Makes sense… But If I talk to big guys in the gym, they all say no don’t do it its dangerous and you don’t get as fast big.
whats your take on this? J
ps.: sorry for bad English, doing my best.
Greets
7. Getting off Medication
Gonzo Says: Hi Guys, love the show!
I have been Paleo/Primal (cuz I eat some dairy) for going on 7 months. I feel great, have lost some weight, clothes fit better, etc.
Weight loss has slowed down for me so I think dairy is the next to go.
I’m 6’3″, 49, and still just over 300 lbs …yes, a bit fat. Having said that I still do BJJ at an advances purple belt level, I do Kettlebells and ropes, usually in Tabata like intervals, or sometimes
just lifting heavy Kettlebells. Total workouts are 2 or 3 per week.
I’ve been on Caduet and water pills for many years now and I want to get off! My bloodwork looks normal, my blood pressure can tend high depending on how much coffee I’m injecting. I’m concerned about the long term effects of these drugs on my health. I told my doctor about my change in eating last time I saw him and he was impressed with the weight loss and improved blood. He seems to be reluctant to take me off the drugs though. I feel like he is just covering his ass, and if he had his way I’d be on them forever. This is disappointing since he is an Osteopathic MD. But he’s a bit chubby too, can’t imagine how I’m living without bread, etc.
From all I’ve heard, these drugs are simply a cash cow for the pharmaceutical industry, and don’t really prevent anything. Can I just quit them and see how I feel. I can’t find straight answers about this anywhere. Come on guys, show some balls to all of the fence sitters and give me the straight dope.
Keep doing what you do,
Gonzo
PS- if you don’t answer my question, I’m coming up north to roll with you, and eat your food. I’m just sayin’ …
8. Birth Control & Fat Loss
Miki Says: Hi Robb, I’m a 21 year old female and I’ve just stopped taking the pill after being on it for almost four years, and instead had an implanon inserted. It’s a progesterone-only contraception and they’re subsidised by the government here in Australia so it only cost me $28 (rather than the $30 a month that I was paying for the pill) and it lasts for three years, and my periods have stopped all together which I’m enjoying – though I still worry about the side effects.
My doctor mentioned something about how the hormones from the implanon bypass the liver, as it’s inserted in my arm and doesn’t have to travel through my stomach either, which sounds like a slightly better option than oral contraceptives, but I’m sure there’s much more to it than what my doctor has told me.
Condoms aren’t really an option for me or my partner as they cause skin irritation – but I definitely am not ready to be pregnant for the next few years, and don’t trust myself with remembering to do all the temperature checking with the fertility awareness method. So I don’t see any other option 🙁
I haven’t gained any weight since the implanon, but I haven’t lost any either, which I was hoping might happen after stopping the pill. I’m fairly fit but have carried a small layer of fat that I can’t get rid of ever since adolescence; probably with no help from taking the pill for years – I know that you’ve mentioned before that hormonal birth control can be problematic for weight loss. For about three months now I’ve been dialing in everything else I can – sleeping 8-10 hours a night in a pitch black room, eating low carb, low protein, high fat (mainly from coconut) to be in ketosis (which I have successfully been in for a month now), eating 100% grain/legume/dairy/nightshade/fruit and nut free, no alcohol, strength training 3-4 times a week and two hours of dance classes a week, as well as all of the supplementation suggested in your book, yet I have only lost one kilogram in this time, so I am assuming that my lack of weight loss is due to birth control. The only other potential factors I can think of are my one or two daily black coffees or my occasional sugarless cocoa hot chocolates. I’m comfortably eating anywhere from 1000 to 1400 calories a day based on hunger levels and/or amount of exercise, rather than any effort to actually restrict calories (I guess being in ketosis helps keep me full).
So anyway, I suppose my actual questions are:
1) what is the implanon actually doing to my body – and is it actually any ‘healthier’ than the pill?
2) what can I do to try and maximise my weight loss whilst on the birth control? Are there any supplements or herbs I could take to help balance my hormones or to help negate any negative effects of the implanon? Do you think any procedures such as acupuncture or cupping could help?
Thanks for everything you’re doing.
From Jonathan’s question:
“Are there any reasons aside from greater overload to favor BB back/front squats over, lets say, weighted bulgarian split squats or lunges. I do understand the exercises are not quite the same…”
Hi, I just wanted to chime in here when I heard this question. In addition to what Robb & Greg said, my take on this is that sports-specificity is the reason to choose one type of exercise (Squats vs Lunges) over another. In Olympic Weightlifting one competes in moving the weight fast from a bilateral position and ending in the same position (with exceptions like split jerks and other “splits”). On the other hand, in any sport that is based on running and large strides (generally the Gait pattern and the Lunge pattern) training unilaterally might yield greater performance. There are a good number of sports where hip separation (1: how deep you can lunge or how far you can split your hips; 2: how powerfully you can explode out of that extreme ROM) is a very important athletic attribute.
As a curious fact, when we are walking about 80% of the stride’s time is spent on either foot, so making oneself stronger / more stable / mobile unilaterally may have good carryover to one’s bilateral capacity.
I know of a coach in Sweden who competed in obstacle racing and reportedly has used very targeted unilateral training with spectacular results with his athletes. Obviously, hip separation is a huge factor in this sport:
http://riggberger.dinstudio.se/
But generally, if someone has an muscular imbalance prior to beginning a program (whether or not their sport makes unilateral demands) I’d personally straighten out their imbalance first. It is just a much better, safer, and sustainable way to achieve athleticism. Muscle imbalances can make one’s game weaker via CNS inhibition mechanisms (the body, when faced with a choice, will always choose to protect you rather than going heavier), they can perpetuate imbalances in other parts of the kinetic chain, thereby increasing one’s chance of long-term injury and making progress even more difficult.
The human body is designed to function most optimally from a state of perfect posture, both static and dynamic. I’d take that as my foundational guideline.
haven’t got the chance to listen to Robb’s answer yet, but there is a very recent study (Alcarez et al. 2011 – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21659889) showing the efficiacy of explosive concentric and controlled eccentric lifting with relatively high loads – combined with a fast pace circuit training this is particularly helpful, when it comet getting buffed … if you do not have time to or dont have access to the fulltext, you may also want to check out my write-up @ http://suppversity.blogspot.com/2011/07/fast-paced-high-resistant-explosive.html
Prof, this is really interesting, but seems incredibly difficult to actually execute. Worse yet, the rep schemes at these percentages are barely, if at all, possible.
First, just doing 6 reps at 90% is off the charts– literally. If you look at any 1RM chart 90% equals about 3-4 reps. Even doing 5 reps at 85% is pushing it, even with 5 minutes rest between sets.
Now, add in no rest in a circuit? No way.
I’m looking at Brzycki and Beachle rep charts. I thought these are pretty well established. Am I missing something here?
Spot on.
Glad to hear the lesson stuck, Greg! Now that you nearly have “whilst” under control, we can look at moving on to pronouncing “Tane” correctly.
Is Robb back from using his MovNat skills to hunt down Mullah Omar in North-western Pakistan yet?
Ashley, I experienced many of the same symptoms after a virus 3 years ago, like food sensitivities, neurological problems, etc. I would HIGHLY recommend you look into the GAPS diet and then transition back to Paleo. After 6 months of GAPS, 1.5 years of Paleo, yoga and the right supplements, I have minimized and/or completed reversed all of my food sensitivities (with the exception of gluten.) My neuro symptoms have definitely gotten better though I still have adrenal fatigue and related occasional memory loss. I am about 85% better. Now, I’m working with my chinese medicine practitioner to heal the rest of the way. Good luck!
Ashley: a good information source on gut intergrity is Dr. Art Ayer’s Cooling Inflammation blog.
http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.com/
Greg & Robb,
Thought you might like this, you may have seen it already…
The story of “CrouchShit”.
http://krajkrajisnik.blogspot.com/2009/07/crossfit-revisited.html
Greg, you should read this on the next podcast, It’s too awesome not to share…lol
OMG, I completely LOL’ed. He doesn’t pull his punches.
I have had some luck with the intro gaps diet, too
http://www.gapsdiet.com/INTRODUCTION_DIET.html
but regarding dizziness and brain fog.
I went on the paleo diet, and certain things have cleared up, such as GERD, and I’ve been losing weight, but I became so dizzy! then I had a 2 week period financial crisis where I could not buy any groceries and had to live on whatever was in the pantry. I made the coconut milk and meat last as long as possible, but by the end I was eating whole wheat blueberry muffins.(hey, better than nothing!) GERD etc started coming back, but the dizziness mysteriously continued on. When I finally got to shop I had decided to try the gaps protocol. After a few days, the dizziness had cleared up considerably, and is now pretty much gone. I have been eating home made broths and meat with probiotics almost exclusively. Salted. I thought Robb’s comments about postassium interesting, as I have been eating cooked green vegetables, but have not been going crazy with them, with small amounts of home made fermented vegetables.
When I started searching, I noticed a number of posts about dizziness starting up with paleo and I had begun to wonder if this was the paleo achilles heel, and I think it’s interesting that the even sticter protocol is clearing up the problem.
I mean to say, that the stricter paleo was better, when the wheat and oatmeal did nothing!
Hey Robb and Greg,
For the next training based Paleo Solution it would be very interesting to hear from Dr. Romanov. I know he is part of an organization that leaves a rather unsavory taste in both of your mouths, but it seems as though he is making a claim that POSE Method is applicable to all human movement. It would be interesting to get his take on POSE Method applying to multi-directional sports. Just a request from a psuedo geek. Thanks for all of the absolutely amazing info.
-Jake
Best quote of the podcast: About 33:00 “…I spent 10 years vilifying everybody from doing yoga to bodybuilding and I’m just sick of it. I just want to help people do what they want to do and enjoy what they are doing…” Nice display of leadership Robb!
Hey Robb, BIG fan of your work and the Paleo style of living in general. Great site man! Keep up the great work!
Re: Question 8
Maybe it’s just me, but 1000-1400 calories doesn’t sound like all that much for someone doing “strength training 3-4 times a week and two hours of dance classes a week.” I understand Miki’s trying to lean out, but I wonder if she isn’t maybe shooting herself in the foot. I also know good, deep ketosis can keep the appetite in check, so maybe that’s what’s going on, as she alluded to.
I guess I would have liked a little more info on how much she weighs now, some approximation of her body fat percentage, and just how much she’s looking to lose. Also depends on how intense that strength training is.
I dunno…It just doesn’t sound like all that much food for someone working out like that. Robb’s answer was spot on. A few years ago I was extremely low carb, and working out pretty intensely. I think exactly what happened to me was what he mentioned — my thyroid slowed down and my cortisol ramped up. The perfect one-two punch for — to quote Robb — “absolutely cockblocking your fat loss.” I added in some more carbs post-workout (usually fruit or lentils [yes, I know…]), and felt MUCH better in a matter of days. Energy levels, mental outlook, performance and recovery were all improved significantly.
It took a long time for me to learn — and for me to be my own guinea pig, essentially — some of us fall into the trap of doing so well on low-carb that we’re flat-out terrified of upping the carbs a bit, even from fruits and tubers (i.e. not grains or sugary crap). The thing is, and the podcast has covered this ad nauseum, when you’re working out intensely, carbs can be extremely beneficial when eaten at the right times and in the right proportions. It’s just hard to wrap your head around when you’ve had such success with very low carbs. The only thing to do, really, is follow Robb’s advice — try it for a bit, and see how you look, feel, and perform. Sometimes you’ll really surprise yourself.
Robb,
I’m one of the people who followed your copper IUD directive in an effort to lean out and get off of hormones. My body flat out rejected the IUD and I have ended up with bilateral hydrosalpinx in my fallopian tubes because of it. Now, the only way I will ever be able to get pregnant is to get IVF.
I was a well informed patient who had done patient counseling at Planned Parenthood on birth control options for years but I did not consider what happened to me as a significant risk associated with an IUD. It’s definitely disclosed on the patient insert, but it’s, of course, one of the more rare side effects. Please, please, please encourage your listeners to do their research before going down the IUD path. If you’re a woman with lots of sensitivites, the IUD may not be for you.
Drew-
Would you like to doa blog post on this?
I’d be happy to.
Another option is condoms in combination with foam. individually they are not great, but in combination they are as good as the pill. They are a bit messier, though, and not for anyone. With my ex, who was a biochemist and could understand such things, it went well. But with one boyfriend in particular who was a moron when it came to understanding fluids, it didn’t go so well. I quickly went on the pill when I was with that guy.
But it is an option to the hormones. And the IUD, which even when it works can cause very heavy bleeding and anemia plus cramps.
The other advantage is that you are using nothing when nothing is going on.
Another great episode. How about devoting an episode to follow-ups from previous episodes? I’ve always noticed Robb will sometimes end a response with asking for further communication down the line to see how things went. This episode in particular had a lot of room for follow ups.
Henry
has Ashley looked into fecal transplants?
Re: Dizziness & Adrenal Fatigue- I was thinking the same thing when I heard the question. Hopefully Amy is using some good salt on her food as the adrenals really need sodium for the reasons Robb explained related to potassium. Dr. Bryan P. Walsh talks a lot about this stuff on some podcasts that Amy can check out by searching in iTunes. Getting an ASI test done by a holistic practitioner is a good idea to work on the problem and finding out the status of where her cortisol output is currently.
Hey Robb, I completely agree with your POV re: steroids. Very refreshing. Let the markets figure this stuff out.