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I read this guy’s blog every Sunday. Very rational,very knowledgeable. No for everyone but I love reading what he has to say.
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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
View Diet Calendar, 29 September 2019:
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1268 kcal
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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...
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1491 kcal
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Exercise:
Studying - 1 hour, Housework - 1 hour, Cooking - 2 hours, Resting - 12 hours, Sleeping - 8 hours. more...
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 Comments
The other important issue, and one I TRULY believe in, is that it is not always the WHAT you eat, it is the AMOUNT and the FREQUENCY. Little kids are fed portion sizes that rival that of adults. Many people here are working to take control of their obesity while still feeding the same foods that got them into trouble to their kids on a consistent basis. The “ do as I say not as I do” approach does not work. Especially if you are a mother of girls. They will much more likely follow the path of obesity and yo-yo dieting that they see you walking. We also cannot preach to our kids— they become numb to it and will just stop hearing. Positive behaviors have to be modeled and talked about, but not pushed. None of us do all of this right all the time. We learn through trial, error, failure— repeat.
30 Sep 19 by member: Kenna Morton
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Pregnancy diets are crucial to the fetus. This is an area where micro nutrients are so important for normal fetal development. You are building the brain, organs, nervous system blood vessels, etc. the fetus needs healthy building blocks. Not much else to say about that.
30 Sep 19 by member: Kenna Morton
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Your posts and comments are always so informative! I agree wholeheartedly on how parents diets influence their children’s. I’ve read it begins even before birth. In addition to nutrients, what the mom to be eats trains the fetus taste buds to prefer certain foods.l Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
30 Sep 19 by member: moopie123
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Yea. Obesity impacts the black community significantly. It is because 1) most are concentrated in the south where the southern diet is not the healthiest and 2) increased screen time and convenience/price of fast food. Living in the car or not having the income or availabitly of healthy options or health education. Grandma sometimes watches kiddies during the day since daycare is so high - and grandma gives and gives and gives. Kiddos usually slim down once they begin daycare/school. Sitting in front of screen and snacking all day on chips, etc. Fast food kid portions are less than adults but still calorie dense for a kids size and if it's eaten for more 2 meals a day every day well....there you have it. I know too big of a handful of sickly toddlers - and I can only speak from my circle - but all have obese parents and/or parents with poor diets. Toddlers eat small portions but are sickly from infancy. Also those who don't breast feed or don't breast feed for long. I rarely see anyone give kids full adult sized plates of food. It's the density of the smaller items and consistency of drinking calories.
30 Sep 19 by member: AboutMyTribe
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I agree! You have such good information to help, Kenna. I also think very early foods make a big difference to a child's learning. My oldest had almost zero candy or sweets except fruit before turning 2.5. At 23 she still has very little desire for anything sweet. However, the spicy food we shared with her as a tiny thing is her very favorite. We got lazy and our subsequent offspring didn't get the same diet, and they have always loved sweets. Although all are at good weight and are active and "normal" I always wonder how we could have or still can do better.
30 Sep 19 by member: melissatwa
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*look at the NBA teams eating vegan ;) great post, whole food plant-based diet is really working for me!
30 Sep 19 by member: recycler164
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I will say that our simply not having juice in the house, not buying junk food, using real food for meals, and keeping desserts as special occasion treats probably has made a big difference for our family even though I overate and got fat. I'm trying to do my best to show without preaching better choices to my girls specifically.
30 Sep 19 by member: melissatwa
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The good old days when swim meets meant Big Gulps, giant Snickers bars and orange slices/bananas all in the same day. Yeah, that party's been over for me for awhile. Never liked Gatorade. Don't miss the rest though. Rarely drink soda, don't really find Snickers as appealing as a quality treat, and fruit is still around in my life.
30 Sep 19 by member: Katsolo
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Milissatwa— we just do the best we can. I don’t always eat totally healthy either. A 7oz. Coke here and there, a dessert that I have lightened up with a sugar substitute , 2 pieces of pizza every couple of weeks. We still need to enjoy some of the good foods around us and we can do that for many years to come if we can learn to be in control of ourselves.
02 Oct 19 by member: Kenna Morton
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Their are flaws in every way of eating. A totally plant based diet in today’s world in the United Sates is not guaranteed to be completely healthy either unless you are growing it yourself. Pesticides and contaminates in our soil for one. Plus, in this country we do not eat a varied enough diet to obtain all the nutrients we need. We eat a virtual small handful of vegetation as apposed to people from other countries. I have often mentioned my dear next door neighbor of East Indian background who buys and eats things that I have never seen and didn’t even know existed let alone figure out how to cook them. As a lifelong healthy vegetarian, she says she can almost always tell an American “vegetarian” because in her mind they do not look healthy. Many of the nutrients in vegetarian items are destroyed by cooking. Many nutrients are not accessible to our bodies unless heat is applied to them. Alternative ways of eating require a significant amount of self education— the see one, copy that, include this, ditch that way of eating often will not cut it in the long haul.
05 Oct 19 by member: Kenna Morton
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05 Oct 19 by member: binkytexas
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Kenna Morton's Weight History
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