Always wondering if sugar is really sabotaging your training gains? Well i was and therefore led me to do some research and came accross this great article from a website that has a lot of great smoothie recipes/articles    http://www.smoothie-handbook.com/sugar-side-effects.html

This article is a must to read and understand to be a your peak. Enjoy : )

Sugar Side Effects Puts a Wrinkle on More than Just Your Skin!

This article was originally intended to concentrate on the sugar side effects on aging your skin. However, in researching this article it became clear that it is a major contributor to all forms of degenerative diseases and will impact not just the aging of your skin but also the aging of your whole body.

Not So Sweet Facts on Sugar Side Effects!

Over the last 20 years, the average yearly sugar consumption per person in the United States has gone from 26 pounds to 135 pounds. Just before the start of the 20th century, the average consumption was only 5 pounds per person per year. Now we are seeing more and more sugar side effects in our society. To put this into perspective, a typical bag of sugar sold in your grocery store is 5 pounds. In 1890 that one bag would have lasted a person one year. Today, that 5 pound bag only lasts for about 2 weeks

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Wait! I know what you’re thinking! That last 5 pound bag that you bought at the grocery store over a month ago is still sitting on your pantry shelve. There is no way that you’re consuming all this sweet stuff! Right!? Wrong!!

What you’re forgetting to count are all the highly refined sugars in the foods you eat and drink. You don’t see them because the food companies give them aliases like barley malt, corn syrup, dextrose, fruit juice concentrate, maltose, maple syrup, molasses, turbinado, fructose, and high-fructose corn syrup.I challenge you to open up your refrigerator and pantry and look at the nutritional facts posted on each food product. The amount of sugar each product contains is listed under “Total Carbohydrates.”

Your average soda will have somewhere between 27 to 30 grams of sugar per 8 ounces. Most cans of soda are 12 ounce servings or more. Even something as healthy as a fruit smoothie from a juice bar can contain up to 105 grams of sugar in a 20 oz serving!

Granted. This is not just refined sugar. Some of the sugars come from fruit. But a 20 oz smoothie should not have 105 grams of naturally occurring sugar. Each one of my homemade blueberry smoothie recipes can contain as little as 23 grams of natural sugar from the fruit. That means that there are around 82 grams of unnecessary sugar.

Each teaspoon of sugar is equal to 4 grams. To determine how many teaspoons you are consuming all you have to do is divide the total grams by 4.

Your soda at 28 grams is equal to 7 teaspoons of sugar! Your fruit smoothie is just slightly over 20 teaspoons, not including the fruit. Possibly, you would put 3 or 4 teaspoons, maybe even 5 teaspoons of sugar in your fruit smoothie recipes, but surely not 20!

It takes 96 tsp of sugar to weigh a pound. Just in your weekday smoothie-run you get over 102 teaspoons by the end of the week. When you do the math, you are getting well over a pound of sugar in one week! That adds up to 55 pounds in one year! All from just one smoothie-run habit on the weekdays!

Yet, this is exactly what you’re doing each and every day with some of the foods you eat and drink. You may not directly be eating that 5 pound bag in your pantry but you are consuming an equivalent amount of it through all the different foods and drinks you consume each and every day.

How Sugar Side Effects Ages Your Skin!

There is a natural process in your body called glycation. It happens when the glucose in your bloodstream attaches to proteins to form harmful molecules called advanced glycation end products or AGEs for short. It’s a pretty simple process. The more sugar you eat the greater the number of AGEs you develop.

According to Dr. Fredric Brandt, dermatologist and author of 10 Minutes 10 Years: “As AGEs accumulate, they damage adjacent proteins in a domino-like fashion.”

Most vulnerable to this type of damage are the collagen and elastin protein fibers that keep your skin firm and elastic. Collagen is the most prevalent protein in your body. Once damaged, the normally springy and resilient collagen and elastin fibers become dry and brittle. This leads to wrinkles and sagging skin. According to a study published in the British Journal of Dermatology, this aging effect starts to show itself in the mid 30s and then increases rapidly after that.

In addition to damaging your collagen, the sugar side effects affect the type of collagen your body produces. The most abundant types of collagen in your skin are types I, II, and III. Collagen type III is the most stable and long lasting. The process of glycation will transform collagen type III into type I which has less volume and is more easily damaged. According to Dr. Brandt, “When that happens the skin looks and feels less supple!”

High-fructose corn syrup has the most of all sugar side effects. High-fructose corn syrup is used heavily in processed foods because it is sweeter, extends the shelf life, and is cheaper to produce. You will find it in most sodas, fruit-flavored drinks and packaged foods. Unfortunately, it produces the greatest number of AGEs.

To compound the problem, AGEs also deactivate your body’s natural antioxidant enzymes to reduce your antioxidant levels. This leaves you even more vulnerable to sun damage from free radicals which are the leading cause of aging for your skin.

Sugar Sugar Side Effects Depresses Your Immune System!

Your body uses white blood cells to destroy viruses and bacteria. In the 1970’s researchers discovered that vitamin C was needed by the white blood cells to aid them in the process of destroying viruses and bacteria. Researchers developed a “phagocytic index” which tells them how rapidly a particular macrophage or lymphocyte can gobble up a virus, bacteria, or cancer cell to destroy it. Dr. Linus Pauling realized that white blood cells need a high dose of vitamin C to effectively do their job in protecting you.

Sugar in the form of glucose has a similar chemical structure to vitamin C. As your glucose levels increase, this molecule competes with vitamin C to enter the cell. If there is more glucose present, then there will be less vitamin C allowed into the cell. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much glucose for this disruption to occur. A blood glucose level of 120 reduces the “phagocytic index” by 75%!

You need to realize that when you eat sugar, you depress your immune system!

In addition to depressing your immune system, refined sugar lacks minerals and vitamins. For it to be metabolized into your system it must draw upon your body’s micro-nutrient stores which can deplete them. This process impedes the metabolism of cholesterol and free fatty acids leading to higher blood serum triglycerides and cholesterol. In time, this leads to heart disease and obesity and becomes a precursor for diabetes.

Sugar is devoid of minerals, vitamins, fiber. Sugar side effects has such a depressing effect on the endocrine system, major researchers and health organizations such as the American Dietetic Association and the American Diabetic Association, agree that its consumption is one of the 3 major causes of degenerative disease in America.

Sugar Side Effects and Cancer!

In 1931, Nobel laureate Dr. Otto Warburg discovered that cancer cells use a fundamentally different metabolism pathway to create their energy needs when compared to healthy cells. The basis of his Nobel thesis was that malignant tumors frequently exhibit an increase in anaerobic glycolysis. This metabolic process uses glucose as its primary energy source but without oxygen so that the anaerobic by-product is lactic acid.

Thus, glucose feeds the tumor and the end by-product of lactic acid causes the pH of the tumor and surrounding tissue to become acidic. This production of lactic acid also places additional stress on your liver since your liver is used to remove this toxin from your system. Maintaining your acid alkaline balance is one of the keys to preventing degenerative diseases, promoting optimal health, and reducing the sugar side effects.

Cancer therapies should focus on limiting your sugar consumption through diet, supplements, exercise, and/or medication when necessary so that your blood glucose levels are kept in a narrow range. This will help to starve the cancer cells while allowing your immune system to help destroy these cancer cells.

The Devastating Sugar Side Effects!

As we have seen, sugar side effects age your skin, depress your immune system and is the preferred fuel of cancer cells. In Dr. Nancy Appleton’s book Lick The Sugar Habit she lists 76 ways it can ruin your health. I’m not going to list all 76 but let me highlight the top 10 that stood out to me:

1. It feeds cancer cells and has been connected with the development of cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, lung, gallbladder and stomach.

2. It can cause autoimmune diseases such as: arthritis, asthma, multiple sclerosis.

3. It greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida yeast infections.

4. It can increase the size of your liver by making your liver cells divide and it can increase the amount of liver fat.

5. It can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney such as the formation of kidney stones.

6. It can increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

7. It can cause hormonal imbalances such as: increasing estrogen in men, exacerbating PMS, and decreasing growth hormone.

8. Your body changes it into 2 to 5 times more fat in the bloodstream than it does starch.

9. It has the potential of inducing abnormal metabolic processes in a normal healthy individual and to promote chronic degenerative diseases.

10. It upsets the mineral relationships in your body causing chromium and copper deficiencies and interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.

This is quite a list of health concerns. To help the general public understand which consumable products are high in sugar, the glycemic index was created.

The Glycemic Index and Sugar Side Effects!

This index assigns a numbered rating to a food based on how that food affects blood glucose levels. The lower the glycemic index the slower the absorption of glucose into the bloodstream. A high rating means that the sugars in that food are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream elevating blood glucose levels above normal. This stimulates the pancreas to secrete insulin. Insulin helps return your blood glucose levels back to normal.

This constant stimulation of the pancreas to secrete insulin is not healthy to your body. It stresses the pancreas. Additionally, insulin inhibits the release of growth hormones which in turn depresses the immune system. Insulin also promotes fat storage. No one likes these excess sugar side effects!

Reverse the Damage with Smoothies!

As we have noted throughout this article, sugar does more than wrinkle and age your skin. It damages your whole body and prematurely ages you. The good news is that you can begin the process of healing your body, especially your damaged skin by the following five steps:

1. Limit your dietary consumption of sugar. No one is asking you to eliminate it completely but you do have control over the amount you consume on a daily basis. Try to keep your intake to 12 teaspoons or less on a daily basis. This represents no more than 48 grams.

Better yet… Use healthy sugar substitutes to satisfy your sweet tooth. Nutrient dense smoothies are a great way to still get the sweet flavor you are looking without the horrible sugar side effects.

2. Use foods that contain vitamins B1 and B6. Blend 1/3 of a cup of sunflower seeds with coconut milk into your chocolate smoothie recipe to get 1 mg of B1. Drink a smoothie with a banana and 2 cups of spinach and receive over 1.5 mg of B6. Check out green smoothie recipes to easily meet this requirement.

Several studies have proven that both of these vitamins are potent inhibitors to the production of AGEs.

3. Drink foods high in antioxidants and other phytonutrients in your smoothies. Check out this simple ORAC chart to see what foods are best for your smoothies.

I could continue to give you additional information on sugar side effects. It is one of the primary contributors to the aging of your skin and body while creating an environment that fosters degenerative diseases. It is up to you to be proactive to prevent this nasty ingredient from putting a big wrinkle into your health and wellness.

Until next time, may we both age youthfully!

Synergistically yours,

Dan Hammer

www.aging-no-more.com

So there it is, a great article with lots of valuable points on why it’s a must to eliminate refined sugars from our diets.

After committing to the study and doing BJJ for a few a whilenow has led to study some of the “masters” in BJJ. By chance i happened to click on some videos of Rickson Gracie. It’ s such an inspiration to see a true martial artist and the way they connect their mind, body and spirit.  Here is an interview i found on the net that goes into his philosophies and some very important key points on Diet. As you will see in the later part of the interview he points out about the digestive process and how the wrong combination of foods can tax the digestive system. It’s a great read Enjoy

Rickson Gracie interview with TOOL frontman Maynard Keenan

Author: Maynard Keenan

A conversation with Gracie Jiu Jitsu Master Rickson Gracie and TOOL singer/songwriter, Maynard James Keenan.

Rickson: Jiu Jitsu is like a philosophy. It helps me learn how to face life.

Maynard: In what way?

Rickson: In every way. To understand our society, to relate myself to people, to compete in an actual self defense tournament, to feel confident to walk on the street and to be able to help people, to be strong enough to forgive…

——-Balancing the Scales of Justice——

Maynard: Do you think it is better to avoid a fight rather than to provoke a fight?

Rickson: I believe that you must do what you believe you have to do. If I don’t believe I should fight, I’m not gonna fight. My decision is based more on my personal honor than it is on who I’m channeling my anger towards. For example, if I see a guy smacking an old lady I’m going to do something about that. I don’t care who it is. It’s a moral concern. I cannot live with this on my mind without taking action just because I don’t know who it is. In cases like this my honor, my dignity, and my moral code is much more important than my physical body.

——Balancing Aggressive Nature with Physical Limitations——

Steve: Do you think that Gracie Jiu Jitsu has something for the person who doesn’t have a natural talent?

Rickson: Definitely. I can’t think of any one with less physical ability than my father, Helio Gracie. When my father was twelve the doctor said that he couldn’t do any exercise because of vertigo. If he ran 200 yards in a sprint, he would pass out. But he is a very short tempered, tough guy. So with the impossibility of using power while training with his uncle in Jiu Jitsu, he was forced to develop his own technique thus balancing his inability. We like to say that Einstein was to mathematics what Helio Gracie is to Jiu Jitsu. He totally invented 80 percent of the Jiu Jitsu we have today. Leverage and sensitivity and using the opponent’s energy against himself are basic to Jiu Jitsu, but the application of these principles was never done in the way my father developed them. My father broke the mold. He initiated a different perspective. It used to be that when someone told you, “hey, there’s a tough guy coming here to kick your ass,” you imagine this big guy with and ugly face. He’s 280 pounds and has big fists. You don’t imagine a guy who weighs 135 pounds.

——Balancing Wants and Needs——

Maynard: I don’t know if you realize how significant it is but, seeing your whole family showing up in support of Royce at the UFC is a very moving image for many people. It seems that you don’t see that kind of family love and pride much anymore.

Rickson: Especially in the big cities. People don’t make the time to give to each other. I think that’s just a sign of our times. Smart are the ones who try to preserve those old elements. People today just want to make money. I understand that and respect that but… I find myself in a very fortunate position because I love what I’m doing and I’m good at it. So I make a living.

Maynard: It seems that here in the states, people are more concerned with doing something to make money than they are with doing what it is that they love to do. They decide that money is the goal and then begin to figure out what they’ve got to do to get it. They forget to listen to themselves to find out what it is they really are not only best suited for but are passionate about as well.

Rickson: Yes. I think exactly the opposite. You need to make money but it should never be the priority. What you like to do is what you should try your best at doing. The money is gonna come. That’s the way people really get rich, you know? They just enjoy what they do and the money comes in some way. It’s the same with the work out. Some people think that the workout is to increase heartbeats or flexibility or endurance or coordination. So they make up exercises to improve one of more of these areas. When I’m doing exercise, what I’m trying to do is meditate. Get in a state that I feel a balance between body, mind, and spirit. It’s just enjoyment. When I train in Jiu Jitsu I don’t have a clock in mind. I’m just feeling and flowing. When playing or surfing or hiking there are no timings or special rules. If you love it you just get into it with your whole body. You don’t care that it’s exercise.

Maynard: …and the endurance comes.

Rickson: I can’t imagine going on a stair master or lifting weights or whatever to get in shape.

——Balancing the Diet——

Maynard: I heard that the Gracies also follow a specific diet.

Rickson: Yes. It doesn’t have as much to do with what or how much you eat as it does with how you combine your foods. You can eat vegetables, fruit, rice, beans, meat, or whatever. But the most important thing is the food combinations. The digestive process is the biggest workout your body does on a daily basis. You use energy to digest. You can save energy by choosing foods that digest better in certain combinations, and you can absorb more nutrients and gain more energy by choosing food that use compatible enzymes to digest.

Maynard: So in the reverse…if you eat something that is difficult to digest and has no nutritional value…

Rickson: Exactly. You waste even more energy. We are not cows. We don’t have to eat all day long to maintain. We eat, digest, absorb, then rest. For me, I think three meals a day is enough. I spend at least four hours in between without anything but water.

Maynard: A very traditional Brazilian dish is black beans and rice, but in your diet this is a bad combo.

Rickson: That’s right. What you really want to fight in your body is the fermentation process. Fermentation basically is a bad combination between acids you produce to digest your food. For example, when you eat rice, your mouth produces specific acids to break down the rice so your stomach can begin the digestive process. When you eat ice cream, or an apple, or watermelon juice, your mouth produces completely different acids. And that can create a bad chemical reaction in your body. You feel heavy or sluggish which is not good. It’s not only uncomfortable, it’s counter productive.

——Balancing Perspective/Points of View——

Rickson: I believe that you should have an evolutionary point of view. You must meditate, you must pray, you must be thankful, you must give. I think those things are very important spiritually for you to be at peace with yourself. Once you’ve tried to improve spiritually, physically, and mentally your are in a good way. Even if I lost my two legs now I don’t think that it would make me lose the sense of life. Of course I’m not gonna be a fighter anymore, but I’m able to allow myself to do other things. I’m gonna try to swim. I’m gonna try to surf. I don’t know what else, but I’m definitely going to still be in love with life and learning. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play the piano, but I’ve never had the time. Or play the guitar. So many things. Some people have legs and they don’t use them because they’ve focused on something else. I think every bad thing has a good way to look at it. Of course I love to do what I’m doing, but if I get sick…understand? The mind is so beautiful and so wild and you can have so many different things. There’s always a good side to everything. Nothing is totally desperate. Like “Oh…I lost my job.” You lost your job? Go to the beach, man. Get some waves.

Maynard: If you have a clear mind like that, and if you have confidence in life and in yourself you’re going to get fed.

Rickson: Definitely. You can’t be negative all the time.

Maynard: You can, but don’t expect for things to come to you very easily.

Here are a few more points in regards to the Gracie diet to test out in your own daily nutrition

The Rules of the Gracie Diet

FOOD GROUPS
GROUP A – Proteins, vegetables, and fats (meat, fish, vegetables, nuts, and oils)
GROUP B – Carbohydrates (grains, pasta, beans, bread, rice)
GROUP C – Sweet fruits, fresh cheeses (such as cream cheese), sugar and sweeteners.
GROUP D – Acidic fruits (citrus, berries, etc.) and sour diary products (yoghurt, buttermilk)
GROUP E – Sweet dairy products.

RULES

• Foods from Group A combine with each other plus one from Group B.

• Foods from Group C combine with each other plus one from Group B.

• Foods from Group B do not combine with each other but combine with Groups A or Group C.

• Foods from Group D do not combine with each other or any other group. They must be eaten alone.

• Foods from Group E combine with all of Group B and Group C but none of Group A.

Observations

• Banana does not go with Bread, so if you’re having a banana for breakfast, forget the toast.
• Orange juice (Group C) with breakfast won’t combine with any food type. So if you’re planning on having a fruit drink with your breakfast try drinking something less acidic like apple or guava juice.
• It is ideal to have your cooked meal in the afternoon with a fruit meal in the evening as it is easier to digest.  Do not eat Acidic Fruits (Group D), more than three times a week.
• Never mix one kind of acid fruit with another – example; oranges do not combine with grapefruit. It is better to eat acid fruits in the morning.  Because you should not mix other foods with acidic fruits, remember to eat as much as you can in one sitting.
• Milk only combines with: all group B (breads, cereals), mild cheeses and butter/margarine or bananas.
• Starches don’t combine with each other, so if you’re planning on eating a burger with a bun (wheat), you can’t have French fries (potato) with them at the same time.
• No aged cheeses or vinegar. Aged cheeses have a high fat content. Vinegar is pure acid, which cannot mix with anything else – and you can’t eat a meal of vinegar alone
• Egg yolk. raw or cooked, fresh coconut, brewers yeast, coffee, and several kinds of teas are compatible with any food, for they are considered neutral.

A common question that we get asked all the time and that people need to know is why brown rice is so good. Well here is a great article that i came accross so i have posted it here for you guys to read.

I personally love eating brown rice in my daily diet and find that it really gives me the extra energy when I’m training hard.

Making it easily digestable when i eat it, i add more boiling water after it is completely cooked in the rice cooker. I use my plastic spatula to move the rice around so the boiling water soaks right to the bottom of the pot and until there is about 1cm of boiling water covering the cooked rice. I then leave it with the rice cooker lid on for about an hour. After an hour the rice has usually absorbed all the boiling water and is ready to eat or be cooled and put in containers for the fridge.

I have pasted the parts that i found interesting.  You can get onto their site to read more if you like.  The site reference is http://www.elements4health.com/brown-rice-vs-white-rice.html

Brief History of Brown Rice

The earliest record of rice being cultivated in China date back to 7000 B.C.E., and rice was exclusive to Asia before travelers brought it into ancient Greece. Although typically viewed as a side dish in Western nations, rice provides up to half the calories in a typical daily diet in many Asian countries. Most of the world’s rice is grown in Asia. There are more than 8,000 varieties of rice.

Nutrients in Brown Rice

Here is a video on how to do head kicks. Make sure that you warm and stretch up before you train so you don’t get any injuries.

Here is a variation of jumping knees’ that you can do to get your height and explosiveness.

Enjoy…

Here is The video from wk 2 of this mass gain program im currently doing. It’s been a bit of a slow start this year because of various other training that im doing and being injured but I have put on over 2 kgs so far, so it’s all good.
I am noting all of the changes to this current mass gain program i’ve designed because i should build more muscle but more importantly more functional explosive strength and power. Stay posted so you can try it out once i have compiled all of the diet and training into a program….

What an inspiration it is to see people well above the age age of 50 still keeping active and training.

Lately i have met several people that have shown me that by keeping the mind and body strong with great nutrition physical training you can stay functional, fit and alert.

Here is one of my clients who is 61 years old and came to me as a last resort after getting diagnosed with diabetes, 8 weeks later he is walking every day and personal training with me 3 times a week. It’s great to see someone turn their life around and just shows us all how getting fit and healthy can change your whole outlook on life.

Well done John “Your a Legend Mate”

Here is a full body workout that will get every muscle in your body working and tone you up…
Here is the basic rundown.

Complete each exercise 1 minute on and then rest one minute before moving onto the next exercise.
Take 2-3 minutes break when you finish all the exercises and then repeat again and again. Advanced will be able to
complete + 3 rounds in 45-60 minutes…

The first video goes through the technique and exercises

The spinning head kick is a great kick to try and improve your skill with.

Be wary trying it during sparring until you can do it with control or else you might break your sparring partners Jaw or if your too slow he will hit you when you turn your back. So practice is the key with this kick, Have some fun…

Here is a couple of Yoga postures i have just been taught.
These postures are great for the core and your functional strength so give them a try.