Stop Wasting Your Time!
By
Anthony Castore
You are wasting your time! That’s right. I said it. You are spending
countless hours in the gym and hundreds of dollars on organic foods and exotic
supplements, and you’re wasting your time!
Before you accuse me of being some grain-eating vegetarian or some
anti-muscle hippie, let me explain. I have been training clients and helping
them with nutrition for over 15 years. It is truly my passion. I have
corresponded with Dr. Eric Serrano for the past ten years, attended and achieved
certification in Charles Poliquin’s Biosignature level 1 and level 2, and sat in
on lectures by Dr. Suzanne Mack.
Three to five hours out of my typical morning are spent answering emails from
clients, athletes, and physique enthusiasts about their nutrition and supplement
programs. They detail everything from the side of the plate they put their fork
on to the milligrams of sodium in their last glass of water. Their attention to
detail is astounding…even to me!
The diets I look at range from carb cycling approaches to cyclic ketogenic
diets and everything imaginable in between. My clients will tell me about
everything from their Iron Fortress WalMart whey protein (which I quickly
convince them to change to
Grow) to the latest products that
Biotest and
Poliquin have to offer. Overall, their approach is usually well laid out. There
are no glaring errors in their training programs and they seem intelligently
designed.
On the surface, it looks like they should be getting results, but for some
reason they’re stuck. Not only has their progress come to a screeching halt, but
often times they tell me they feel sluggish or depressed. They can’t figure out
why they aren’t “ripped.” In fact, the only thing that is close to being ripped
is the seam in their pants from the pressure of their distended abdomens. They
are expecting me to offer some elaborate solution such as replacing their
strawberries with white grapes or decreasing their sodium by 150 mgs at their
last meal, but the simple and effective solution that I pose is for them to fix
their gut. At first, I am met with skepticism. They think I’m holding out on
some esoteric supplement, but I convince them to try, and they are always amazed
and grateful.
Your digestive health is at the apex of your progress both in terms of health
and physique. According to the Royal Society of Medicine UK, 90 percent of all
chronic diseases are due to infection of the gastrointestinal tract. By fixing
clients’ digestive disorders, I have personally witnessed everything from
improvements in health to decreases in body fat, surges in muscle growth, and
increases in strength. The importance of a healthy gut simply can’t be
overstated. No matter what you’re doing, your gut health should come first.
Imagine if you went to a gas station to fill your Bentley up with premium and
left the gas cap on while you pumped $50.00 worth of gas “on to” your car. You
would feel pretty stupid. Buying the right organic foods and the latest cutting
edge supplements but not making sure that your body can take in the nutrients is
basically the same thing. By the end of this article, you will have a simple way
to check your gut’s health and a four step protocol to ensure your insides are
as healthy as your outsides!
It begins with your gastrointestinal (GI) mucosa. It’s a vital link to your
health. It filters toxins; blocks bacteria, viruses, parasites, and other
organisms from entry; assists in digestion; tries to ensure that large, poorly
absorbed food particles are kept out; and attempts to assimilate vitamins,
minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, and all the other great supplements it takes
in (1). On top of this, it bears the burden of maintaining itself through an
extremely high rate of regeneration of the surface cells (1). An interesting
side note is that seventy (yes seventy) percent of your nutrition goes toward
repairing your immune system and for detoxification purposes (4). It’s no wonder
we often feel undernourished when we add in working out and the demands of a
physical job. Those processes require a lot of blood!
The body shuttles blood to the plexus of vessels surrounding the intestines.
This process better aids digestion when we consume a meal. This is one of the
reasons why a nap sounds pretty good after eating a Thanksgiving feast. It is
the body doing its best to remove blood volume from the muscles and temporarily
use it to do the work of the gut (1).
As we look to today’s stressful society, we are constantly being confronted
with stresses. Whether it is our nagging spouse, a stack of mounting bills, our
boss at our dead end job, or not being able to hit that 5-lb PR on the bench,
our body perceives it as stress. These and other stresses initiate our body’s
amazing “fight or flight” sequence. The body then prepares to defend itself in
times of stress as a means of survival. Adrenalin is released to deal with the
stress, and one aspect of this response is to shut down the gut, shunting blood
to the muscles in preparation for immediate defense. This is a necessary
reaction. After all, when you think back to where our genetic blueprints came
from, it would be far more important to be able to outrun a saber tooth tiger
than it would be to digest that last bit of meat.
Over time, if you’re frequently stressed out, this constant release of
adrenalin will keep the gut from doing its job (2). With food these days, we
have a lot to deal with—refined sugars, starches, and other processed foods;
synthetic chemicals (artificial colors/flavors/preservatives; pesticide
residues, fertilizers, and herbicides); antibiotics, hormones, and other drugs;
alcohol; caffeine and other stimulants; chlorine; fluoride; and parasites and
other invading organisms. I think you can see where I’m going with this (4).
It is these challenges that help to destroy the gut’s ability to keep out
things that we wouldn’t want in. When stuff gets in that isn’t supposed to, we
are left with what experts term “leaky gut syndrome” (2).
Leaky gut syndrome is a low level inflammatory process that many believe to
be the beginning of disease processes in the body. Food particles sneak in that
are poorly digested and too large in size so they are improperly handled. These
stealth particles can cause allergic responses that formerly weren’t present
(5). Toxins are allowed to enter that would normally have been filtered out.
Worse still is that the mechanisms for absorbing nutrients is impaired in such
situations, and deficiencies arise making the long term situation worse.
Undesirable microbes enter the body across the weakened defenses of the inflamed
and stressed mucosa wreaking their own varieties of havoc. The list continues to
grow, and before you know it, you’re looking at the start of chronic disease
(2).
Now that you have a sense of what begins to go wrong, let us look at what we
can do to fix it. The best approach I have found to date is one that I picked up
at Charles Poliquin’s Level 2 Biosignature Modulation seminar. It originated
from Jeffrey Bland and is simply named the four “Rs.” The 4Rs stand for remove,
replace, re-inoculate, and repair. The terms are fairly straightforward, but I
will walk you through the specifics.
Step 1: Remove
The first step of the program focuses on taking out allergic foods. Sometimes
an allergic reaction to a food is obvious. If I eat regular white eggs, my nose
runs, my eyes water, and I sneeze. Other times, the reaction may be a little
more subtle, and sometimes a reaction to the food may not appear for hours or
even days. An example that comes to mind is wheat. Some people don’t notice any
symptoms for about 24 hours, and others might not notice anything for two days.
In rare cases, symptoms may not appear for a week. This can make the job of
determining what you are allergic to very difficult.
To help out, here is a more complete list of common allergenic foods that
I’ve given my clients:
· Cow’s milk
· Wheat gluten (gliadin)
· Gluten (in wheat, oats, rye, and barley)
· Yeast
· Egg whites
· Cashew nuts
· Egg yolks
· Garlic
· Soya beans
· Brazil nuts
· Almonds
· Corn
· Hazelnuts
· Oats
· Lentils
· Kiwi fruit
· Chilli peppers
· Sesame seeds
· Sunflower seeds
· Peanuts
If you think you might be suffering from a food allergy but aren’t sure which
food is causing the problem, start by cutting out all of the above foods. Other
foods commonly associated with allergic reactions (although not necessarily
delayed) include:
· Spinach
· Shrimp
· Oranges
· Chicken
· Strawberries
· Tomatoes
· Pork
· Beef
For a more accurate list specific to your body, I recommend the LEAP MRT food
allergy test. The program includes the testing of 150 foods and chemicals for
reactivity (2).
Step 2: Replace
Start with an HCL protocol. If you need to know how to do the test, visit
Charles Poliquin’s
website.
Additionally, you will benefit from adding in enzymes. Choose an animal
source over vegetarian. There are many good ones out there. Another trick that I
picked up from Dr. Eric Serrano is to add in aminos at this stage. They will
help speed tissue and gut regeneration by increasing protein synthesis and
reducing rate limiting factors. I like MR and MS by SST or Density by Beverly
(3).
For an excellent resource to determine whether HCL and/or enzymes is the best
choice for your gut’s needs, try taking an
HCL/enzyme
questionnaire.
It only takes a couple of minutes to fill out.
Step 3: Re-inoculate
This is the step where you introduce probiotics. An effective course should
include bifidobacteria and lactobacillus acidophillus. In addition to your
probiotics, be sure to include adequate “prebiotics.” Prebiotics are usually a
carbohydrate (such as an oligosaccharide). They can be some other type of macro
though. Prebiotics are nutritionally classified as soluble fiber. To some
extent, many forms of dietary fiber exude some level of prebiotic effects.
Some great probiotic formulas are HMF Replete or Poliquin’s Proflora
Excellence. Be sure to take your probiotic at the end of the day, and if you
happen to be on antibiotics, follow the rule of twos by Dr. Suzanne Mack—take
two capsules of probiotic either two hours before or two hours after the
antibiotic at least twice daily (4).
Step 4: Repair
Now you’re ready to start rebuilding. This is the fourth and final step. You
will need to supply the nutrients that your body needs for gut cells. Special
attention should be paid to glutamine, zinc carnosinate, B5, and essential fatty
acids. Additionally, if your gut is inflamed, you will benefit from deglycerated
licorice (DGL), aloe vera, slippery elm, mucin, marshmellow (root), n-acetyl
glucosamine, and quercetin. The best product out there hands down is Designs For
Health’s GI-Revive, which not only contains the aforementioned supplements but a
few others as well (4).
Now that you have completed the gut repair protocol, you’re ready to test
your results! According to Dr. Mack, a healthy 70-kg male will poop about five
cups of soft poop daily in one or more bowel movements (or think tank sessions
as I like to call them) (4). If you addressed the 4Rs, you should hit the goal
every time. This being said, Biosignature practitioners, including myself, use
three basic tests to check our results:
Test 1: The zinc taste test
For this test, take one teaspoon of zinc sulfate and hold it in your mouth.
Swish it around for about five seconds. It should taste like the inside of a
three-day old plastic protein shaker...awful! If not, you should replenish zinc.
Charles Poliquin recommends starting with 120 mgs a day for eight weeks. Then
cut to 15 mg/day every five days until a maintenance dose of 30 mgs is reached
(4).
Dr. Serrano added that if you go over 50 mgs, it may be necessary to
supplement copper as well. Anyone taking insulin should work with their doctor
to determine the correct dose (3). Zinc is needed for HCL production so be sure
to check your levels regularly (1). The two work in synergy.
Test 2: HCL test
This is the test that I made reference to earlier. Whether you burn or not,
you shouldn’t exceed 1400 mgs. It could take anywhere from a month to a couple
of years for your HCL levels to restore, but stay with it. You need HCL
to digest your food (4)!
Test 3: The poop test
This last test gets a little gross. You guessed it. You need to evaluate your
stool. What you will be checking for is the transit time for either corn or
beets. The reason one chooses one of these options should be fairly obvious.
When you eat corn or beets, they have a way of showing back up later.
Eat 3–5 cups of corn or 1–3 cups of beets at your evening meal. Note when the
first and last sign of the item is in your stool. Normal transit should be
between eight and twenty hours approximately (4). If you have diarrhea but are
not seriously ill (vomiting or a fever), use saccharomyces boulardi three times
a day until it is resolved. On the flip side, should you be constipated, take a
cocktail of 500–3000 mgs of vitamin C (this dose is actually taken three times a
day), 1–3 caps of aloe vera, and 300–1500 mgs of magnesium glycinate (although
any form will work) at bedtime to get things moving. They can be taken together
or separately (4).
Remember, your body’s top priority is to remain healthy (1). Seventy percent
of your immunity is clustered around the gut (1). By keeping the gut healthy and
the immune system strong, you will be well on your way to better health and
better gains in the gym! By giving the 4Rs a go, you will be getting the most
out of your food and supplements, and your body and bank account will both thank
you.
References
- Lipski E. Digestive Wellness: Completely Revised and Updated Third
Edition.
- Hyman M. Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss.
- Serrano E. Correspondence.
- Mack S, Poliquin C, Schauss M. Biosignature Level 2 Seminar.
- Bland J. Intestinal Toxicity and Inner Cleansing.
Anthony Castore has worked as an independent training and nutrition
consultant for the past 15 years. His unique approach to training and nutrition
is a reflection of the many great minds he has worked under including World’s
Strongest Man competitor Chad Coy, Dr. Eric Serrano, IFBB pro Dennis James, 1995
Arnold Classic champion Mike Francois, strength and powerlifting guru Louie
Simmons, and world famous strength coach Charles Poliquin to name a few. He has
attended numerous seminars and has achieved certification through Charles
Poliquin as a PICP and a Level 2 Biosignature practitioner. Anthony can be
contacted at acastore@gmail.com.
Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the strength
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