Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
Does being in the front rack position cause you to make an ugly pain face?
Does it feel like one person is breaking your wrists, while another is aggressively pinching your shoulders when you’re in the front rack? Does your back suddenly tighten up? You are not alone.
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A special thanks to Courtney Hamilton at Paleohacks.com for today’s keto recipe roundup.
Yes, you can have desserts while on keto! These totally sugar-free and low-carb recipes prove that it’s not only possible, but also deliciously satisfying.
The trick to keto desserts is relying on healthy fats to provide richness while using low-carb sweeteners like monk fruit or stevia.
On this list, you’ll find a bevy of keto-approved dessert options, from fudgy brownies to dairy-free cheesecakes. Need a birthday cake recipe? We’ve got that covered. Craving candy? Try a keto and Paleo “PB&J” cup, no peanut butter necessary.
When a sweet craving strikes, these keto-friendly desserts are here to keep you on track.
These candy-like treats are loaded with healthy fats from cocoa butter, coconut oil, coconut butter, and MCT oil.
We love these uber-rich, sugar-free brownies made possible with a healthy dose of creamy avocado.
If you’re not keen on avocado in your brownies, no worries. Try these impossibly rich, super-fudgy brownies instead.
Nix the lectin-filled peanut butter and whip up these almond butter cups with a stevia-sweetened raspberry jelly.
Need a keto birthday cake recipe? This classically indulgent vanilla cake stays fluffy and light with a keto buttercream frosting. Top with berries for a pop of keto-friendly color!
Whip up these fluffy cloud cookies to see the power of egg whites in action.
Why bake up a whole key lime pie when you can enjoy these no-bake, keto-friendly parfait cups instead?
Cashew butter and coconut butter are the creamy base of these fat bombs, made complete with freeze-dried strawberries and a dash of lemon juice.
I can’t believe there’s no butter! These buttery keto shortbread cookies are made from dairy-free ghee.
If you’re a fan of apricots, you’ll love these healthy bars with a coconut cream layer and a crumbly almond flour topping.
All you need is five minutes and five ingredients for these sunflower seed butter treats!
While you can’t technically have white chocolate on keto, these sneaky truffles combine coconut butter and coconut cream to achieve a similar effect.
A simple almond-cinnamon crust sits at the bottom of these rich eggnog cheesecakes, made with coconut cream, nutmeg, and cashews.
Did you know you can make keto cake in a slow cooker? Yeah, that means you don’t have to turn your oven on!
If you’re a chocolate lover, you’re not going to want to miss these classic chocolate chip cookies.
Thanks again to Courtney Hamilton from Paleohacks.com. Interested in seeing a certain recipe or roundup of a certain category—Primal or Primal-keto? Let us know below!
The post 15 Low-Carb, Keto-Friendly Desserts appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
Chances are you probably have a scar somewhere on your body. Anyone can get a scar from just about anything. Perhaps you were goofing around as a child and fell off your bike or maybe you recently took a fall down the stairs and banged yourself up pretty well. Maybe you are an athlete who had a mishap on the field that resulted in an injury that required surgery.
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As I’ve written before, although most people’s lipid numbers improve across the board, some people get interesting cholesterol responses to Primal ketogenic diets. LDL skyrockets, even LDL particle number. The jury’s out on whether or not they indicate negative health concerns or if keto dieters are a special breed that hasn’t received enough study. (There may be a few genetic profiles, such as APOE4 carriers, that react differently to certain dietary inputs.) Either way some people just want their cholesterol numbers to look good in a conventional way. These days, whenever I run into someone in the real world with these or similar concerns, I tell them to try “Mediterranean keto.”
What is that, anyway?
The Mediterranean diet can mean a lot of different things depending on who you ask. On one side, you have the folks who make the ridiculous claim that the Mediterranean diet consisted of pasta, low-fat dairy, beans, green veggies, seed oils with a “drizzle or two” of extra virgin olive oil for good measure, a handfuls of nuts, and a single filet of sardine once every three days. They avoided salt and red meat and full-fat cheese, somehow ignoring the vast body of salt water on their shores and the large population of sheep and goats roaming the land. I guess that livestock is only there to keep the weeds down.
On the other side, you have the people claiming that the true Mediterranean diet consisted of fatty lamb, hard cheeses, fish filets dripping with oil, skins of homemade red wine, cured meats, endless olives, vegetables at will, and the occasional legume bathing in mutton juices and a tiny piece of bread crust submerged in extra virgin olive oil.
This is probably closer to the truth, but both are a bit hyperbolic.
It also depends on where you’re looking. The Mediterranean is a big sea. Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Crete, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, and even France are all technically Mediterranean countries. Are their diets identical? No. Are there common threads running through their respective cuisines? Yes.
And that’s not even mentioning all the various social, spiritual, and lifestyle components of the Mediterranean way of life. The sun, the walking, the hills, the family connections, the religious leanings. Today’s label is all about the diet.
The Mediterranean keto diet emphasizes olive oil, fish, cheese, meat, low-carb vegetables, and red wine. In other words, it takes all the keto-compliant foods readily available to denizens of the Mediterranean and constructs a nutrient-dense diet out of them.
And you know what? It seems to work really well.
In one of the most impressive studies, people with severe obesity and metabolic syndrome tried a Mediterranean keto diet for 12 weeks. That’s three months.
Here’s what the diet consisted of:
What happened to these subjects after 12 weeks on this Mediterranean keto diet regimen?
On average:
That last bit is pretty interesting. Note that the majority of the participants were still obese (BMI over 30) by the end of the study, yet every single one had cured their metabolic syndrome. Sure, they lost weight, and the trend was fantastic and heading down, but they weren’t there yet. Something about the diet itself was incredibly powerful.
The only limitation? It was a pilot study, not a randomized controlled trial pitting the Mediterranean keto diet against a control diet in real time. But considering that these people were coming off control diets—which clearly weren’t working for them—and onto the Mediterranean keto diet, it has more real-world power than you might think. You can bet the participants weren’t complaining about a lack of placebo control.
I’m not saying this is the best incarnation of all the potential Mediterranean keto diets out there. But if you’re having mixed metabolic results from the keto diet and looking for a ketogenic option with more monounsaturated fat and omega-3s, it’s the one that has some clinical research behind it. It’s one that doesn’t possess any glaring red flags.
This is also a form of ketogenic dieting that most people will view as “healthy.” It can be hard to get people to accept that putting real cream in their coffee and steak on their plates is good for them, even if they’re approaching death’s door eating what they’ve always eaten. It’s not so hard to get people on board with a diet of olive oil, fish, red wine, and salad. That’s no small feature.
In the end, the ketogenic Mediterranean diet appears to be an effective way to treat metabolic syndrome without scaring people away. For that reason, it might be a good option to try if you’re having issues with cardiovascular markers, blood sugar, hypertension, body fat, or any of the components that make up the metabolic syndrome.
What do you think of the Mediterranean keto diet? Think you could stick to it?
References:
Pérez-guisado J, Muñoz-serrano A. A pilot study of the Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet: an effective therapy for the metabolic syndrome. J Med Food. 2011;14(7-8):681-7.
Pérez-guisado J, Muñoz-serrano A. The effect of the Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: a pilot study. J Med Food. 2011;14(7-8):677-80.
The post What is Mediterranean Keto? appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
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As every woman knows, periods are not fun. Unlike those smiling women frolicking around on tampon and pad commercials, most female people wish they could spend their period curled up on the couch with a cup of hot tea, dark chocolate, and a comfy blanket. Depending on the severity of your period, you may experience […]
Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
Training comes down to stress management: it’s my job to determine how much and what kind of stress to apply, and it’s your job to get yourself ready to handle as much stress as possible.
I work as a trainer, both in person and online, specializing in getting former athletes back into game shape. A lot of the time this comes down to dudes in their 30s and 40s trading a few pounds of fat in for some more muscle. The tough part? Most of them are busier than ever, and certainly busier than they were when they felt their best.
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For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering questions from last week’s Collagen vs Whey post. You guys had a lot of questions, mostly about collagen, and I’m here to answer them. Can collagen help with plantar fasciitis? Should you take collagen and whey together in the same smoothie, or do they cancel each other out? If a person can’t have whey, is there an equivalent protein powder source? Is glycine a good replacement for collagen? What about liquid whey from raw milk—how does it compare to powdered whey? If I wanted to get my glycine from foods, what would I need to eat and how much of it?
Let’s find out:
Is there any evidence that collagen supplements can help with plantar fasciitis? Suffering from this recently and the stretching from MDA has helped but looking to get that last 10% of healing so there is no pain.
Fascia is basically pure collagen. If collagen supplementation has been shown to improve pain in other parts of the body made of collagen, like the knees or tendons, and improve collagen synthesis in collagenous tissues like skin and joints, I see no reason it shouldn’t also improve the fascia. Boosting collagen synthesis is boosting collagen synthesis, and supplemental collagen does it.
A good thing to try is eat 20-30 grams of collagen with 200 mg of vitamin C 30 minutes before a workout that you know targets your plantar fascia.
Hey Mark,
Is there any benefit to having them at the same time? Or do they cancel each other out?
I’m a big fan of stirring collagen into any foods I make that have sauce.
What about a 50/50 smoothie of whey and collagen?
Thanks for any insight!
I’m unaware of any unique benefit.
When you think about how collagen appears in the natural world, it’s usually alongside muscle meat.
Entire culinary traditions revolve around the consumption of collagen and muscle meat together. Think Vietnamese pho (bone broth and meat). Think French (reduced broth-based sauce poured over meat). Think Mexican (bone broth-infused rice served with meat). Hell, go all the way back to the Pleistocene and humans were boiling smashed bone fragments in stomach casings.
No reason to separate them.
It is possible for a person to be allergic to casein and I don’t think it’s possible to have fully casein free whey protein except maybe the isolate. However, if the person is allergic it wouldn’t be safe. What’s the next best complete protein if a person can’t use whey, and wants the convenience of a powder? I’ve seen beef protein before, but have no idea of the quality.
I’d say go for egg white protein. Extremely complete, tasteless, and blends seamlessly into anything.
Is it true that collagen doesn’t work/assimilate without vitamin C? I try to take mine with some cherries or lemons.
It seems to work better. The recent study that found pre-workout collagen improved tendons also included vitamin C.
I sometimes buy raw A2 milk from Jersey cows, and make my own whey. Wondering how that compares to powdered whey?
That’s awesome. The liquid whey will have a broader range of nutrients, but the powdered whey will be more concentrated and far higher in protein. Remember that whey protein is basically dehydrated liquid whey and you’ll get a picture of how much liquid whey goes into whey powder.
My interest in this has led me to start studying biology because I would like to know more about nutrition and digestion. Because the way that my nails changed seems incredible to me and it really makes me wonder what else collagen is doing.
You make a good point. I often use improvements in one area of health as assurance that other areas of health are also improving. I’m sure that’s not always true, but I think that’s a pretty safe assumption most of the time.
My question to you Mark would be to echo the same question others have posed, ie are there any downsides to me taking whey, collagen and glycine simultaneously in my pre-workout shake? Otherwise I have a real dilemma, as it appears that there is very good science to support having both collagen/ glycine as well as rapidly digested essential aminos (from whey) in your system before undertaking a ‘fasted’ workout.. A tough question I know but any insight you have would be much appreciated!
There’s no reason to avoid it. Do it. Should be good for both your connective tissue and your gains.
Would glycine supplements have a similar effect as collagen? Glycine supplementation would be way less expensive than collagen:
• 30 grams of collagen (=~10 grams glycine) from Great Lakes = 5 tablespoons, costs =~$1.13 if you buy the 8 pound bag.
• 10 grams of glycine from Bulk Supplements =~$0.18 if you buy the 5 kilogram bag.
Pure glycine is great for things like balancing your intake of methionine. As I wrote in the original post, muscle meat is high in an amino acid called methionine. Methionine metabolism depletes glycine, so the more meat you eat, the more glycine-rich connective tissue, bone broth, and collagen supplements you should be eating to balance out the amino acids. This is the basic foundation for eating all that collagen I recommend.
But balancing methionine for longevity and health isn’t the only reason we’re eating collagen. Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body, providing tensile strength to our bones, teeth, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage. It’s an important structural component of the skin, lungs, intestines, and heart. And as far as the evidence so far available suggests, eating the amino acids that make up collagen separately doesn’t have the same effect on those collagenous tissues as eating them together in a collagenous matrix.
In one study, rats with osteoporosis ate collagen hydrolysate that scientists had marked with a radioactive signature to allow them to track its course through the body. It survived the digestive tract intact, made it into the blood, and accumulated in the kidneys. By day 14, the rats’ thigh bones had gotten stronger and denser with more organic matter and less water content.
Another study found similar results, this time for cartilage of the knee. Mice who ate radioactive collagen hydrolysate showed increased radioactivity in the knee joint.
When you feed people collagen derived from pork skin, chicken feet, and cartilage, many different collagenous peptides appear in the blood. You don’t get any of those from isolated glycine.
All that said, pure glycine can be a helpful supplement. As mentioned, it’s great for balancing out methionine intake from muscle meat consumption. It’s also been used in several studies to improve multiple markers of sleep quality. And glycine is probably the most important component, if you had to choose just one, of collagen.
Collagen is ideal, but glycine isn’t a bad option. In fact, I’d argue that perhaps collagen plus supplementary glycine could offer the best bang for your buck.
Mark, can you please do a post examining the different amounts of glycine in actual foods, i.e. pork rinds, chicken skin, connective tissue rich cuts of meats, etc? I’d really like to get my collagen and glycine from food sources and know how much of the foods I would have to eat in order to get the 10g you mention.
I’ll do a quick answer.
An ounce of pork rinds gives you 3.38 grams of glycine.
An ounce of roasted chicken skin gives you 1 gram of glycine.
A pork tail of about 4 ounces will give you almost 3 grams of glycine. Oxtail should be about the same.
So getting your glycine from food alone is entirely doable, but you’ll probably have an easier time if you like chicharrones/pork rinds and animal tails. There are some higher quality pork rinds out there these days, like the Epic brand ones.
Hi Mark – thank you for all of your great information!!!
I make homemade Greek yogurt at home – I strain it in a fine mesh strainer and get an incredible about if whey as a result. I generally mix about 1/4 cup back into the yogurt to get the right consistency. I throw the rest out. Is this consumable as whey for the diet?
It is consumable. But keep in mind that liquid whey isn’t as protein-dense as whey powder. It’s still good to eat and a great source of probiotics.
Thanks for your questions, everyone. Take care!
References:
Figueres juher T, Basés pérez E. [An overview of the beneficial effects of hydrolysed collagen intake on joint and bone health and on skin ageing]. Nutr Hosp. 2015;32 Suppl 1:62-6.
Shaw G, Lee-barthel A, Ross ML, Wang B, Baar K. Vitamin C-enriched gelatin supplementation before intermittent activity augments collagen synthesis. Am J Clin Nutr. 2017;105(1):136-143.
The post Dear Mark: Collagen vs Whey Follow-Up appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
“I’m chasing performance, not looks,” seemed to be the narrative from the Olympic weightlifting community for a while. There appeared to be no room for time spent on focused, strategic muscle building. I was a part of the community. I heard many say it. But I was always confused as to why functional bodybuilding and training for performance in a sport had to be mutually exclusive. It had never been for me, although I must admit, I’ve often mistakenly not kept it as a priority.
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As Mark has always said, the key to great food is the sauces and seasonings. This simple and versatile compound butter is yet another way you can add more flavor and richness to just about any Primal or keto meal you make. Fresh herbs add a bright taste and butter lends a smooth richness to everything from roasted vegetables to hearty omelettes to varied fish and meat dishes. Use your favorite herbs for the perfect taste you’ll enjoy!
Ingredients:
Instructions:
If using fresh herbs, wash, dry and roll together into a “cigar” shape, and finely slice, gathering up the herb pieces and cutting the pile until the pieces are very small. (If you’re using dried herbs, combine in a small bowl.)
Place the chopped herbs in the same small bowl as a stick of softened butter. Use a fork to mash the butter and combine the herbs with the butter.
When combined, place the compound butter on a small sheet of waxed paper or parchment paper, and roll into a log. Twist the ends to seal. Refrigerate for an hour to harden.
Take a tablespoon or more to add to omelettes, roasted vegetables, meats, or other dishes for added flavor and richness.
Note: To maintain freshness, store in the refrigerator in the rolled paper and a plastic container.
Other flavor options: chipotle powder, chili powder, cumin, fresh garlic, tarragon.
Nutritional Information (1 tablespoon = 1 serving):
The post Compound Butter appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
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