Diets and ones limitations

Shad0r

I've changed what I eat slightly to what I would preceive to be a more healthy diet.

I'm going to take up either boxing or kick boxing again (depending on what/where I can find a club down in Cork. Actually if anyone knows any good clubs pls post details here) and am renewing the gym membership to do some weight and cardio workouts.

I intend spending two sessions a week at the club and two a week at the gym.

Its a long time since I did any circuit training or for that matter any serious training in the gym. The last time I joined was for swimming which I did do. My problem is that I'm totally out of my depth with regards to a) how much I should be doing (reps, distances, lengths of time) and b) how I should adjust my diet to facilitate muscle growth and to lower flab production

I've heard that eating fish and eggs, which are both high in protein (?), is a good thing whilst training seriously? What else would be good/steer clear of?

Any links/URL's to sites with info about any of the above would be really welcome.

Cheers
N

thedrowner

i think carbs are better for you, provided you burn them off, as theyre high energy-thats what i was told by my gym anyway.

id go against protein because if u eat too much of it (getting back to that whole urine thing again!) you can develop gout and mental retardation in later life. a 70 kg person is supposed to eat a minimal amount of 33g protein a day,(so if ur 80 kg, divide by 33 by 70 and multiply by 80 to get your requirements) anything over 100 can be dangerous in later life.

yellum

Originally posted by thedrowner
i think carbs are better for you, provided you burn them off, as theyre high energy-thats what i was told by my gym anyway.

id go against protein because if u eat too much of it (getting back to that whole urine thing again!) you can develop gout and mental retardation in later life. a 70 kg person is supposed to eat a minimal amount of 33g protein a day,(so if ur 80 kg, divide by 33 by 70 and multiply by 80 to get your requirements) anything over 100 can be dangerous in later life.

No time to give a detailed reply right now as I'm running out the door, but what you just wrote is a load of bollox to be blunt. Talk about misinformation....

Jak

Indeed if you were to take enough protein you make choke on it and suffer an untimely death.

Provide me with references for intakes of >100gm protein a day causing mental retardation or gout for an 80kg individual in training.

An intake of 1-4gm per pound of bodyweight depending on your levels of training is the ideal. Personally I think over 3gm is excessive, but I have seen no research to show the danger in this for a healthy individual in training. A simple search on the web should provide you with further information on protein intake.

Please from now on if you wish to post something so extreme provide backing for your argument. This is a fitness board, not first year science.

JAK.

logic1

Originally posted by thedrowner
i think carbs are better for you, provided you burn them off, as theyre high energy-thats what i was told by my gym anyway.

Well no, you can get carbs from mars bars, it doesn't mean they're good for you.

Get a balanced diet. Most people like a 50:30:20 ratio of carbs, protein and fat. Fat in your diet is essential.

id go against protein because if u eat too much of it (getting back to that whole urine thing again!) you can develop gout and mental retardation in later life.

No, no you can't. By "Go against protein" do you mean you wouldn't eat any? Gout is due to an accumulation of nucelotide derivatives, e.g. uric acid formning crystals in the joints. If you have kidney problems yes Creatinine can contribute to kidney stones and gout. It is far more likely you will get pure uric acid kidney stones a long time beforehand. Creatinine or protein will not cause liver failure when taken in large amounts.
To say eating too much protein causes mental retardation is abosulutely ridiculous.

a 70 kg person is supposed to eat a minimal amount of 33g protein a day,(so if ur 80 kg, divide by 33 by 70 and multiply by 80 to get your requirements)

I haven't a clue where you got your mathematics from but a gram of protein per kilo bodyweight is efficient for someone not exercising or participating in light exercise.

anything over 100 can be dangerous in later life.

Again this is a ridiculous, unfounded and uneducated statement. Provide the proof please.

.logic.

thedrowner

ok, ill do my best to look it up on the internet, coz where i got it from was an experiment in college and the lecturer's notes.

we did a test on the urine sample-it was concluded from the sample that the person had eaten 128 grams of protein on that day. this person had then gave the lecturer a list of what she had eaten that day, including 150 gms of chicken which is very high in protein-we condluded from the persons list of what she had eaten that day that she had eaten 136 grams of protein in total.
we were told by the lecturer (a professor) that eating that much protein is very bad for you, and that this person would run the risk of mental retardation and gout.


i got this from a website, the link is:
http://www.dietitian.com/gout.html

and this paragraph:

Current therapy for gout includes the use of medications to increase excretion of uric acid. a low purine diet that is limited to your Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of protein (50 grams for females and 63 grams for males),
may also be recommended. Weight reduction for overweight persons seems to reduce uric acid production. I would caution you against drastic dieting or fasting, which increases blood uric acid levels. In a fasting state, your body breaks down more muscle than fat and greater quantities of ketone bodies are produced. These ketone bodies inhibit uric acid excretion. Persons with gout who go on very low calorie (less than 900 calories per day), actually can cause their uric acid levels to go even higher.


now fair enough this is for sufferers of gout, but proteins are high in purines. if u eat too many purines, you get a build up of uric acid in the body, (uric acid is another product in urine) and the body cannot excrete it all. it builds up and causes gout.

http://www.podiatrychannel.com/gout/

as for my calculations, im just going on what my lecturer told me to. the least amount of protein a 70kg person should eat is 33gms, and we were working it out for a 76 kg person, to find our what her amount was.

i see that my post was easy to take the wrong way,sorry for that. And of course i dont mean to eat less proteins as thats just as dangerous. What you should do, is stay within the recommended guidelines for your body weight of things like protein, fat carbs. A balanced diet is the best. It does seem unlikely that someone would eat so much protein that is would cause risk to them in later life, but its not impossible, i never realised how careful you have to be with your diet until i id that experiment, and came face to face with someone who did have a health risk. the only reason i talked about it because the orignal poster mentioned a high protein diet, which is ok, once you keep within the limits.

getting back to the carbs thing, im just going on the advice i was given by the gym instructor. of course it would be more sensible to get your carbs from a healthier source than a mars bar, like pasta or rice.

Jak

we did a test on the urine sample-it was concluded from the sample that the person had eaten 128 grams of protein on that day. this person had then gave the lecturer a list of what she had eaten that day, including 150 gms of chicken which is very high in protein-we condluded from the persons list of what she had eaten that day that she had eaten 136 grams of protein in total.
we were told by the lecturer (a professor) that eating that much protein is very bad for you, and that this person would run the risk of mental retardation and gout.

Professor or otherwise, that is a somewhat foolish blanket statement to make. He or she is taking absolutely no account of other contributing factors and as such is simply scaremongering. Academic researchers (and I speak from experience) can be quite narrow in their understanding of the broader picture on a given issue. I put little faith in some people's true appreciation of sports training; diet and nutrition when they have not investigated the area specifically. I know of two qualified doctors (one also holds a relevant research doctorate) whom prescribe high protein intakes, creatine, greater than RDA vitamin intake and so on to the athletes in their charge as key tools in their training. My own GP would recommend none of this to me - as an aside he is in awful physical shape in my view compared with these other two of comparable age. Too many people with no experience in the specific field of sports training and nutrition try and throw their lot in, in my view.

High protein intakes and so on in sports training are not a new phenomenon. Show me the evidence of the harm it causes in healthy individuals in training. I agree (and had stated above) your intake needs to be tailored to your training regimen and your weight and build - but aside from this - show me the evidence. I have neither the time nor inclination to get into a detailed scientific debate - if you have evidence of this, let me know, I would be most interested in reading it.

as for my calculations, im just going on what my lecturer told me to. the least amount of protein a 70kg person should eat is 33gms, and we were working it out for a 76 kg person, to find our what her amount was.

RDA's do not apply in the same way to all people. Your level of training and other specific factors play a huge role. I have had doctors prescribe up to 1000% of the RDA of certain vitamins - they are just rough guideline of the minimum you need.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

fixer

also keep in mind, we each have different bodies with different metabolisms. What works for one might not be right for another.

The'real'Guvnor

From a medical perspective they suggest a maximum of about 1.8grams of protein per kilo of bodyweight per day.

As for retardation, people have been on high protein diets since the 20's.

A normal healthy male looking for gains should consume a minimum of 1 gram per lb of bodyweight per day and an ideal of 1.5grams per day. 2 grams per lb is getting close to what a competitive bodybuilder would seek.

Is it dangerous? No. Drinking lots of fluid helps the urine out and keeps toxins moving through. It would be very hard to eat less than 100grams of protein in one day and I shudder to think what foods one would have to eat to meet this low a target.

Carbs are good to but for a guy looking for more size, protein would take priority.