Exercise & Nutrition

I thought this was an interesting article so I thought I would pass it on.

Exercise & Nutrition
by Dr. Mitra Ray

What I’m about to tell you is considered heretical by many, but it’s the absolute truth. At the risk of seeming self-important by including myself in the company of Copernicus and Galileo (both found guilty for their notions that the Earth revolved around sun, rather than the other way around), I’d like to assert that heresy can change the way that we view our whole world (even our whole universe!), and thus the way we live our lives.

So what’s the big blasphemy, you ask? Here it is:
Until you are eating right, you have no business exercising.

The free radical damage created when you exercise is so great that, unless you are consuming a huge variety of anti-oxidant rich and nutrient dense food, the net loss to your health is greater than any gain you receive from exercise. That’s right… I’m saying that there are people out there who have no business doing anything more strenuous than taking a leisurely walk outdoors in order to get a bit of fresh air and sunshine. But before you decide that this is your get-out-of-jail-free card with regards to exercise, we should talk about what it actually means to “eat right,” what you can do to get yourself there quickly, and what I mean by exercise.

Typically, when a person decides that they are ready to take their health seriously, one of the first things they’re taught is to begin to exercise. There’s all sorts of logic to this, as the benefits of exercise are manifold and dramatic (more on that, and how to reap its benefits, later), but it’s actually not the first thing that a person should do when they set out to get healthy.

For many people, adding exercise to their lives is easier than dramatically changing the way that they eat. And we have been taught that if you exercise enough, you can eat just about anything and stay healthy. If you exercise enough, you may be able to keep the scale weight stable, but that’s a far cry from being healthy and, in fact, you may become unhealthier in certain ways if you exercise vigorously but don’t eat the right food.

The very nature of exercise is to break down tissue in the body. The body responds by building stronger tissue, which is how muscles increase in size, and why you’re able to lift greater amounts of weight, or run further distances, over time. One problem with this, however, is that in addition to building stronger muscles, the body also builds protein carbonyls, which are oxidized protein from free radical damage. Free radical damage is something that the body is equipped to deal with if it is getting adequate nutrition, and if it isn’t exposed to any pollution, chemical or environmental toxins, or physical or emotional stress of any kind. That is to say, if you lived in a pristine environment, where the air, soil, and food were always fresh and unspoiled, with no chemical pollutants, and if you were always happy and stress free, your body could combat free radical production, provided that you ate a whole-food, plant-based diet, rich in a wide spectrum of fruits, vegetables, and grains, and that you avoided all preservatives, sugars, and additional fats. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t live in that world. I’d like to some day, but for now I have to accept that the air, water, and soil are polluted. I also have to accept that I become stressed at times, and it turns out that mental stress is a huge contributor to free radical production.

Additionally I enjoy exercise, which creates a huge amount of free radicals. Given that I can only partially control the environment I live in, I have to rely on the food that I eat to combat the free radical production in my body. The challenge is that although a diet rich in plant-based, whole foods is necessary to repair free radical damage, it’s not sufficient. It’s just not enough given the world that we live in, the stressful lives that we lead, and the extra damage created by exercise. Eating our fruits and vegetables is vital, but it’s not enough. This is when supplementation with an anti-oxidant rich, whole-food based product is essential. Juice Plus+ is one such product, and while there are others on the market, none of them can boast the more than thirteen different, double-blind, placebo controlled, randomized clinical trials that have been conducted on Juice Plus+.

Three of these studies were specific to exercise, and executed by top exercise physiologists (Bloomer, 2006; Lamprecht M. O., 2007; Lamprecht M. O., 2009). And two of these studies were conducted on the elite military Cobra forces in Austria during a 7 month intense training period. Amongst the markers of health measured, they noticed that the Juice Plus+ group had produced much less protein carbonyls and had fewer illness days. And the harder they trained, the more they benefited from the whole food nutrition available in Juice Plus+. This is significant because what every athlete wants is fewer illness days and quicker recovery time between trainings, which would be accomplished by reducing the amount of free radical damage in the body as a result of exercise.

Until you’re getting your phytochemical needs met through whole-food supplementation and/or from your whole-food, plant-based diet, I recommend that you avoid strenuous exercise. Instead, take a 10–20 minute walk at a relaxed pace. Allow yourself to use the time to focus on your breathing, to enjoy the fresh air, and to rejuvenate, rather than focusing on building muscle or endurance. Another option is to take a yoga class that focuses on restorative poses, and save the power yoga until you’ve got your nutrition handled.
Sources:
Bloomer, R. G. (2006). Oxidative Stress Response to Aerobic Exercise: Comparison of Antioxidant Supplements. Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise, 38 (6), 1098-1105.

Lamprecht, M. O. (2009). Protein Modification Responds to Exercise Intensity and Antioxidant Supplementation. Medicine & Science in Sports & Medicine, 155-163.

Lamprecht, M. O. (2007, December). Several Indicators of Oxidative Stress, Immunity, and Illness Improved in Trained Men Consuming an Encapsulated Juice Powder Concentrate for 28 Weeks. The Journal of Nutrition, 2737-2741.

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