Kenna Morton's Journal, 29 Sep 19

I read this guy’s blog every Sunday. Very rational,very knowledgeable. No for everyone but I love reading what he has to say.

BLOG |
PRIMAL KITCHEN |
PRIMAL BLUEPRINT

Mark Sisson with Coffee Cup
Good morning, everybody.
Earlier this week, someone asked me how I'd deal with a student athlete whose coaches were telling them what seems to be the opposite of Primal nutrition, things like fueling up on simple carbs, drinking Gatorade for electrolytes, drinking chocolate milk postgame to recover, etc.
It's a great question, and it's actually something I had to deal with as the father of two athletic teens—teens who were in the prime of their athletic lives as I was getting deep into Primal nutrition, writing books and daily blogs on the subject.
Here's how I dealt with it—by talking to my kids. They had to make the decision. They had to understand why eating junk probably wasn't a good idea.
It's a hard one, to be sure. My kids were lean and fit with no obvious health ramifications from eating whatever they wanted.
On a purely physiological, mechanistic level, a teen athlete who is training like most high school teams train—every day, for several hours, with tons of conditioning and (often) strength training—can "get away" with stuff like simple carbs, Gatorade, and chocolate milk.
They're training so hard and burning through so many calories that even something as pernicious as rancid seed oils won't gain much purchase or become incorporated into as many cell membranes as they would in a sedentary adult because they'll be burned for energy so quickly. And they're physically growing in stature and swimming in androgens (teen boys, at least), so they need even more calories just to build new tissue.
But there are three things wrong, even if they appear to be in the clear today:
1. It's not optimal. There are always whole food, nutrient-dense options that provide just as many calories in as attractive a package as the junk. A banana and peanut butter. A glass of whole milk. Burger patty with baked potato. Whey protein shake. Coconut water. Why not go optimal?
2. It sets bad psychological precedent. Kids may not feel the pain when they're training 4 hours a day, but what about 20 years later working an office job with the same dietary predilections? Time and time again, I see former athletes who kept eating like they were elite athletes and ended up with 50 extra pounds and a slew of totally avoidable health problems.
3. It catches up to you. I was the picture of health and fitness when I was training for marathons and eating a quart of ice cream and pounds of grains every day, but inside I was a wreck. My joints ached. I had digestive issues. It caught up to me—fast.
Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much. Change is coming. The top athletes these days eat clean. Look at Tom Brady. Look at Novak Djokovic. Look at the NBA teams overhauling their nutrition, drinking bone broth, and buying grass-fed meats. This stuff hasn't trickled down to the high school level as quickly, but it's coming. Pretty soon (and it's already happening in some locales), your average high school football coach will be making custom electrolyte blends and recommending collagen kefir shakes preworkout and sweet potatoes instead of spaghetti. Just you wait.
If you have any other tips for parents of teen athletes, add them to the comment section of this week's Weekly Link Love. Thanks for reading, everybody.
Enjoy your Sunday.
Best,

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Mark's Daily Apple 1641 S. Rose Ave. Oxnard, CA 93033

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1268 kcal

Fat: 42.82g | Prot: 88.23g | Carbs: 132.22g.   Breakfast: Spinach , Nopales (Without Salt, Cooked) , Sarabeth's Orange Apricot Marmalade, Dave's Killer Bread Thin-Sliced Organic Bread 21 Whole Grains & Seeds, Egg, Maxwell House International Cafe Orange, Turkey pork breakfast sausage, Aqua de Jamaica (hibiscus ice tea), POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice, Welch's Concord Grape Fruit Juice Cocktail. Lunch: Tillamook good and creamy vanilla bean yogurt, Ranch Granola, Tru-Nut Powdered Peanut Butter, Wheat Montana Milled Flax Seed, Driscoll's Blueberries, Chobani Nonfat Plain Greek Yogurt, Nutiva Organic Chia Seed, 2% Lowfat Cottage Cheese. Dinner: Peach Pie (One Crust), Spinach , Simply Enjoy Grilled Zucchini, Publix Sea Scallops, Publix Large Shrimp. more...

1491 kcal

Exercise: Studying - 1 hour, Housework - 1 hour, Cooking - 2 hours, Resting - 12 hours, Sleeping - 8 hours. more...