Other Problems With the High-Carbohydrate Diet

The High-Carbohydrate Diet is Associated with All Kinds of Bad Effects

The high-carbohydrate diet that’s in vogue today doesn’t represent a balanced diet.

Dr. Jan Karlsson, one of the original developers of the carbohydrate-loading regimen so popular among current-day athletes, has argued vehemently against a high-carbohydrate diet as a regular, everyday regimen.

He claims that such a diet is only acceptable for two or, at most, four days within the framework of the carbohydrate and muscle glycogen loading program.

Of course, if the body was fat-adapted, there would be no need to ever do glycogen loading, but this point has been thoroughly missed by everyone.

The carbohydrate-enriched diet leading to muscle glycogen loading has been widely accepted since the late 1960’s as an important way to prepare for endurance sports and training.

The dietary program, however, was to be applied only occasionally. Unfortunately, it was developed into a long-term treatment program and was used, not only by elite cross-country skiers and long-distance runners, but also by professional athletes in many different sports.

Even International Organizations such as the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission Recommended the Use of the High-Carbohydrate Diet for Athletes

Dr. Karlsson has stated that such long-term dietary regimens are synonymous with malnutrition. It has been shown that the intake of lipophilic (fat-loving) nutrients such as vitamin E is linearly related to fat intake.

Other risks are associated with such an extreme high-carbohydrate diet if followed for a long time. In fact, this dietary regimen means that individuals may actually sacrifice their own structural lipids (fats) for energy needs.

Vitamin Q and vitamin E are significant factors for the health of white blood cells; they’re the cells that are richest in antioxidants and, consequently, enhance the immune system. Significant immune system suppression is a possible result of low dietary intake of fats and the consequent use of one’s own fat stores as an energy source.

Athletes, with an extremely high intake of carbohydrates and, hence, subsequent impaired intake of lipid-based or lipophilic nutrients, have been in a situation referred to as the Carbohydrate Syndrome or the Carbohydrate Trap.

It seems reasonable to assume that this condition might:

•  reduce free radical elimination and lead to damage in muscles
•  increase cell injury
• inhibit the body’s inflammation and healing process in response to injury and infection
• hard-training athletes, who follow a high-carbohydrate diet, will suffer from overuse injuries due to a decreased ability to repair and rebuild damaged tissues
• vegetarians and others who consume a low-fat diet are also at serious risk for the same type of damage

People Who Have Extreme Energy Needs, such as Athletes and Those Involved in Manual Labor, Must be Very Careful About the Sources of  Their Daily Food Intake

If foods rich in carbohydrates come to serve as their primary source of energy, their risk of suffering from an insufficient supply of nutrients will increase.

Fats contain many of the essential nutrients we need each day to maintain our health. As I have proposed for many years, the low-fat diet is dangerous.

Sports medicine authorities have just recently recognized the existence of the Carbohydrate Trap or fat-phobia. The Carbohydrate Trap represents a stage of malnutrition imposed by unprofessional advisors and followed by unwitting, unknowledgeable clients.

This is one of the major difficulties in nutrition today: the emphasis on the low-fat diet in contrast to a diet that maintains an adequate fat intake.

How long will it take until our medical and scientific “experts” recognize the folly of their recommendation of low-fat eating?

Glycogen Loading: Good or Bad?

Even Though It’s Disproved, Glycogen Loading is Still King

In the late 1960’s, Swedish researchers developed a new dietary protocol to increase performance.

It went like this: cut way down on carbohydrates (breads, sweets, fruits, and some vegetables) and eat nothing but protein and fat for three days.

Then, on days 4, 5, and 6 (game day is day 7), load up on carbohydrates. In this way endurance performance would increase.

So glycogen (or carbohydrate) loading became the dietary king and still rules today. The trouble is that many people missed the point: carbo loading only works for events (or competition) where the athlete must perform for long periods of at least 90 minutes.

For other athletes, and that’s most sports (including football), the time of activity is short and muscle and liver stores of glycogen are not limiting factors.

Glycogen is the storage form of blood sugar or glucose. Your liver holds about 3/4 of a pound and muscles about 1/4 of a pound. The primary purpose of liver glycogen is to supply glucose for the blood. As glucose enters the muscles, brain, and other organs, the blood sugar levels drop and the liver provides additional amounts.

The Primary Fuel of the Body is Fat: at Rest 90% of Your Energy Comes from Fat

Most scientists do not understand this fact. With the assumed implication of fat to obesity and heart disease, very few scientists have researched the “fat as fuel” studies.

As exercise intensity increases, the body uses a higher percentage of carbohydrate to supply the energy for the event. This notion has led to an emphasis on carbohydrate as the primary fuel for exercise.

The percentage of total calories consumed each day has risen from about 40-45% years ago up to as high as 70-80% today. Some of the popular sports performance drinks and sports bars are 70-100% carbohydrate.

The increased use of carbohydrate has led to a decrease in protein intake. This shift to low protein-high carbohydrate has led to changes in body composition: less muscle and more fat.

Conventional Wisdom has it the Other Way Round: Most Athletes Believe They Need Lots of Carbohydrate to Build Muscle Tissue. Wrong!

In a study of bodybuilders, one group of athletes ate about 270 grams of protein per day including eating up to 82 eggs per week. Compared with the low protein group, the high protein group had 7 pounds more muscle and 4 pounds less fat on their bodies.

The high protein group also ate a diet higher in saturated animal fat. Contrary to popular belief, the blood fat levels of these athletes was excellent. Their risk factors for heart disease were also very low.

The movement to higher carbohydrate diets is of no value to strength/power athletes. A typical professional football game is about 9-13 minutes of physical activity.

A recent study showed that this amount of playing time hardly reduced muscle glycogen levels. Further, the high carbohydrate diet may actually decrease performance in several ways: 1) decrease energy, 2) decrease muscle mass, and 3) decrease strength.

In short, high protein-moderate carbohydrate diets will enhance athletic performance in strength/power athletes.

My recommendation is to reduce carbohydrate consumption to less than 25% of total calories to gain optimum athletic performance.

Fighting Fatigue and Avoiding Life’s Energy Drain Has Never Been Easier

Read Part 1 to this Post on the Energy-Increasing Power of X-Cell-R8

I Recruited a Nutritional Biochemist to Help Me Study the New Product

I worked with Dr. Orien Tulp of Drexel Universty and we first tested the product to see if the bond was strong and we found that it stayed 95% chemically intact when tested in an acid environment.

Then we tested it for it’s ability to increase endurance in both animals and humans, and these results were dramatic as well.

After these results came in, we began to market X-Cell-R8 in 1994.

X-Cell-R8 increases power and endurance through multiple physiological and biochemical pathways:*

• the body produces ammonia when muscles contract; ammonia is a major cause of fatigue
• X-Cell-R8 enters into the energy pathways inside the cells, directly contributing to an increase in energy*
• the amino acid carries magnesium into the cell; magnesium is an important part of cellular energy production*
• X-Cell-R8 alters the electrical activity in nerves increasing their responses*

X-Cell-R8 will provide benefits and energy increases to many people:*

• athletes*
• working mothers*
• busy executives*
• active grandparents*
• at least 80%-90% of people who try this product have an increased energy level*
• chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia patients LOVE X-Cell-R8*

X-Cell-R8 Stands Head and Shoulders Above its Competitors

There are many energy products such as bee pollen, ginseng, various vitamins, powdered drinks, liquid drinks, and high doses of B-vitamins; these represent just a short list.

Marketers make claims about these supplements and their ability to increase energy and endurance.

I haven’t seen any products that are in a class with X-Cell-R8. Even the original Laborit formula beat all of those other pretenders to the throne. X-Cell-R8,with it’s chelated mineral/amino acid ingredients, is an incredible product.

I give a 100% money-back guarantee on the product.

X-Cell-R8 is a great energy nutritional supplement and you can order it right now by clicking here.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure, or prevent any diseases.

The Nutritional Supplement Industry is a Huge and Very Confusing Business

If You Want to Use Them, How Do You Choose the Supplements That’re Right for You?

The nutritional supplements industry expanded greatly after World War II. Today, more than 90% of all supplements are sold as “nutraceuticals,” or supplements taking on the roll of pharmaceuticals.

In other words, people are using nutritional supplements to fight disease. But the FDA doesn’t allow manufacturers to make disease claims. No matter, many still do as the FDA is so under-staffed that they can’t really cover the country and bring down enforcement actions.

The FDA requires a Nutrition Supplement Fact label on every bottle. They think this will help consumers make “educated” nutritional supplement choices. But, consumers really have no idea what the writing in the panel means.

• for example: producers put in lots of cheap nutrients like B vitamins and skimp on important nutrients such as minerals
• you can see this right on the label in the column that lists % DV (Daily Value), % RDA, or % RDI
• B vitamins are often 5000% the DV and minerals are often under 100% of the DV
• minerals take up lots of space in the capsule and to get the amount you need would increase cost (bad for the maker) and cause you to take more capsules (not what most people want to do)
• nutrient balance is very important but cost/profit concerns negate any interest in this
• why worry as the manufacturer knows the consumer has no clue how to evaluate the supplement anyhow

I’ve Studied This Topic Since I Was Twelve Years Old

I Became Desperatly Obese and Jumped Headfirst Into Pills and Potions to Solve My Problem

I’ve learned a few things. The nutritional supplements I took did not solve my weight problem. That was diet and exercise. But they did contribute to improvements in my health. It was far easier in the 1960’s to understand this topic because there weren’t many products out there.

Today, you’ve got all the multi-level marketing companies, vitamin and mineral companies, and many others. It’s no different than the weight loss industry; it’s about marketing and making money. Are there good ones out there? Yes, but they’re few in number.

I challenge you to look at the bottles and see how many have a balanced ratio of nutrients as I taught you above.

Essential Nutrients vs. Nutraceuticals

Your first concern in choosing a nutritional supplement is to choose essential vitamins and minerals. These are the ones your body cannot make each day and you must get them from your diet and/or from a supplement:

• there are 30 different nutrients in this group
• these include both vitamins and minerals
• minerals are harder to get than vitamins so one should concentrate on them

Nutraceuticals are nutrients for which humans have no known need. These include herbs and other newer, modern- day substances such as lycopenes and pycogenol.

There’s much empahasis on using a dizzying array of nutraceuticals to fight against disease.

The supporters of using supplements this way claim that we’re all suffering from nutrient deficiencies and the result is disease.

There’s some truth to this because many people eat refined foods (nutrients have been stripped out) and our soil is over-worked and has less nutrients than it did fifty years ago.

Environmental Pollutantion is a Very Big Concern Today

Few people realize the extent of the pollution problem.

Dr. Henry Schroeder of Dartmouth University claimed more than 35 years ago that five toxic metals were responsible for 95% of all illnesses and 50% of all deaths in the US.

OK, that’s far from a nutrient deficiency but it actually represents a toxic overload.

Our bodies have key enzyme systems that detoxify pollutants and a mineral or vitamin deficiency will reduce enzyme capacity.

Cytochrome P450 is the primary liver enzyme responsible for eliminating toxins. Low levels of calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, and zinc cause problems in the manufacture of this enzyme.

Good nutrition combined with reasonable and balanced nutritional supplement use can help protect against this toxic overload.

Learn Some Basics About Choosing Your Supplements

I’ve written a basic primer book on the subject:

• supplements help if chosen wisely
• unwise choices can create problems
• one of my clients was taking supplements with a zinc to cooper ratio of more than 200 to 1
• ideal is no more than 10 to 1
• what’s the risks? heart disease, high blood pressure, and immune system suppression
• what happened to him? A non-lethal heart attack

You need to know what you’re doing.

Check out my little book, The Vitamin & Mineral Hoax, Rip-Offs and Lies at Your Expense. This willl give you a comprehensive overview of the nutritional supplement industry and get you on the straight path to good supplement choices. Knowing how this industry works will save you money too.

You must be a knowledgeable consumer.

X-Cell-R8 is a Powerful Energy & Anti-Fatigue Nutritional Supplement*

X-Cell-R8’s Label Claims that “It Helps to Increase Energy and Endurance”*

Fatigue is the Main Curse Suffered by So Many People Today

Humans have, for centuries, searched far and wide for any substance with anti-fatigue power.

Scientists have also researched thousands of compounds for their possible fatigue-reducing ability.

One compound, a salt that combined the amino acid, aspartic acid (not Nutrasweet’s aspartamine) with two minerals, magnesium and potassium, was patented by French researcher, Dr. Henri Laborit, in 1960. Hundreds of papers were published during the following decades.

There seemed to be a problem however: when the compound was injected into animals it surely increased endurance performance. But when humans took it orally, it didn’t work nearly as well. In the 1970’s Dr. Zebulon Kendrick of Temple University discovered that when the compound was taken by mouth there was almost no increase in endurance capacity in rats.

But when he injected it into rats, they swam 90% longer!

Further studies using a rat treadmill confirmed the previous findings.

Dr. Kendrick was my PhD thesis advisor (Dr. Gregory Ellis). Late in the 1980’s I started to develop nutritional supplements. I had run across articles about magnesium-potassium aspartate, including Dr. Kendrick’s work.

I quickly realized that something was happening to the compound in the stomach. Now, the acid level in the stomach is very high and the minerals were probably breaking away from the aspartic acid. This makes sense because the chemical bonds for salts are very weak.

Since the compound was no longer a compound, could it be that the ingredients, now no longer attached, lose their effectiveness?

My studies taught me that others had realized this same feature in supplying humans with mineral nutritional supplements. I ran into a guy who had a PhD in “chelation” chemistry. He used special methods to make a very strong chemical bond between minerals and amino acids.

I had him make the potassium-magnesium aspartate as a chelate and X-Cell-R8 was created.

Using magnesium as an example, it has two + charges and these bind to the - charge on the two sides of the aspartic acid. This forms a very strong ring structure. Chelate means claw. These strong bonds are what make chelated minerals an excellent method for giving nutritional supplements.

Much of the research on the Laborit formulation confrimed Dr. Kendrick’s work:

• taken by mouth, it doesn’t increase endurance
• inject it and it works
• the problem: you can’t inject humans with it

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure, or prevent any diseases.

Read Part II of the X-Cell-R8 Story

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