Nutritional Counseling

Nutritional Health…

“The Measure of a man’s life is directly proportional to his commitment to excellence”. ~Tom Landry

Live Life consistently, with regards to exercise and nutrition!

Defining the perfect diet has been a tough task for the nutritional sciences for decades. Likewise, specifying the optimal intake of vitamins and minerals(micronutrients) and macronutrients(Carbs/Fats/Proteins) is difficult in the face of continuing nutrient research. This makes giving concrete nutrient recommendations challenging, because EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT! For most nutrients, there is a large therapeutic range. The notion that food alone will satisfy all physiological needs of the body for proper and ideal nutrient intake is outdated. Obstacles to proper eating and ideal nutrient intake include:

Focus on MICRONUTRITION NOT MACRONUTRITION

The Monkey Bar Gym diet emphasizes the following key concepts:

• The best food comes from plants in an organically grown environment, and animals that have been fed their natural diet
• Correct ratio of fats with a special emphasis on saturated fats
• Fat soluble vitamins, and their role in endocrine function
• Keeping your liver and other organs healthy
• Supplements to manage nutritional deficiencies

There are actually MANY other key concepts such as carb/fat intake and the manipulation of the source energy macronutrients, veggie and fruit consumption, what spices, herbs and condiments can do for your metabolism and overall health.

Many of the foods and practices I recommend are in fact not new, or groundbreaking ideas. In fact, Naturopaths and progressive dieticians have long known that fat is not the enemy, nor are carbohydrates, rather the form and function they come in and their effect in the body and role in our metabolism is of greater concern.

The best food comes from animals that have been fed their natural diet

Remember the old saying you are what you eat? This is not entirely true! You are what you eat has consumed. Here’s a smattering of what I mean below:

Grass Fed Beef

This type of beef is from cows that have been fed their normal diet who have graised on grass. The only exception would be in winter where hay, root vegetables, and some grains are substituted when grass is not plentiful in non-sunny states or harsh winters are the mainstay. Cows are termed ruminant animals and have a really cool section in their stomachs called rumen, where a perfect balance of Omega 3 to Omega 6 fats, Conjugated Linoleic Acid(CLA) and unhealthy Omega 3 to 6 ratio that is heavily skewed toward Omega 6 is prone to high inflammatory rates, and is thought to increase chances of heart disease and bodily inflammation. The PH of the rumen is negatively affected by grain, greatly increasing acidity, completely throwing off Omega 3, CLA, and other levels.

In case you are wondering what exactly happens to the cow fed their atypical diet or grass, go to www.eatwild.com “when fed an unnatural diet of grain, acidosis can result and lead to a condition called “rumenitis,” which is an inflammation of the wall of the rumen. Rumenitis then leads to liver abscesses as the rumen wall becomes ulcerated, bacteria are able to pass through the walls and enter the bloodstream. Ultimately, the bacteria are transported to the liver where they cause abscesses. From 15 to 30 percent of feedlot cattle have liver abscesses, hence the need for antibiotics and such.” Not cute.

There is a strong link between nutrition and the following medical conditions:
Hyperlipidemia(high concentrate of blood fats), Type 2 Diabetes, Hypertension, Cardiovascular disease, Osteoporosis, Obesisty & Cancer.

These are the 6 essential nutrients: Carbohydrate, Water, Protein, Vitamins, Minerals and Fats.

Nutrition is half of the equation in attaining health and preventing disease

As such, we at Monkey Bar Gym Bellevue realize that trans fatty acids, the white menace(white flour, white sugar), processed meats, rancid and highly processed vegetable oils will bring about free radicals due to oxidation. This is one of the causes of accelerated aging and disease. Literally, unstable molecules missing a particular electron will systematically break down body parts while looking to strip that lost electron from healthy molecules. Not to get too scientific with the wording here, but basic nutritional science needs to be explained to understand what is happening on a cellular level, in our bodies to get the tenets of what “bad food” does to us. It literally will kill you prematurely.

Eating foods high in antioxidants help neutralize or reverse oxidation. Certain other nutrients in foods are also known to reduce aging and stave off disease. Getting a DIET PLAN from Monkey Bar Gym Bellevue will help your body fight free radicals and protect it’s source enzymes. An enzyme is a generalized term used for a protein catalysts. Protein catalysts maintain proper functioning in cellular metabolism, essentially helping the body to maintain homestasis(balance within the body). When an Organ or part of the body uses an excessive amount of it’s enzyme supply, the body will have a difficult time supporting the nervous, endocrine and immume systems because it will deplete the source enzymes of the body creating a shortage in those areas. When large amounts of highly toxic free radicals accumulate in the body, source enzymes transform into enzymes that detoxify free radicals.

The problem with overeating refined carbohydrates, specifically, is that the enzyme amylase quickly converts those carbohydrates into the simple sugar glucose. That goads the pancreas to overproduce insulin, the substance that conducts glucose into the cells. Unfortunately, excessive sugar is toxic to cells, so after many years of glucose and insulin overload, the cells can become insulin resistant and may no longer allow insulin to easily push glucose inside them. Needless to say, eating refined sugars, lack of exercise an too many processed food consumption and the wrong kinds of fats will overly stress out the body, which in turn will not support the body’s source enzyme supply(the enzymes already inherently in your body.).

To make it simple, or in understanding the basics, we need to eat a wide variety of foods, organic and grass fed, minimally processed and rotate the fats, proteins and carbohydrates we eat on a regular basis to help our bodies out. The problem with eating too much of any one kind of food, is our bodies tend to start to reject them and build antibodies against them, inflammatory markers if you will, where things like egg whites, or almonds eaten too much, too frequently will become detrimental if not used in a rotated manner. So, what you would do is eat peanut butter one day, almonds the next, walnuts, then maybe macadamia nut butter the day after and rotate them like this, rather than eating almonds every day, make sense? Same can be said for grains, legumes, proteins, eggs are a great source of protein, but eaten every day and there will be a good chance your body will soon dislike the exact same kind of protein and start attacking it by causing a ILK-6 cytokine like response to it and build a moderate allergic reaction to this. At Monkey Bar Gym Bellevue, we give you a plethora of choices and substitutions to use and choose from so that you stay healthy, happy an well nourished throughout your diet plan and philosophy in eating plant or animal based!

Those challenged with chronic diseases, or on their way to chronic diseases are in need of a nutritional revamp so to speak. In some instances, medical care must be sought as well after the fact. The father of medicine, Hippocrates understood and stressed the importance of prevention. “The function of protecting and developing health must rank above that of restoring it when it is impaired.” This philosophy are words to live by.