Recently, I was metabolically typed as I was feeling a bit unwell and under the weather. So I thought that my diet might be responsible.

Metabolic typing is a process that identifies how your body metabolises food and what foods suit your metabolic type  hence your metabolic profile. This is done over a period of time and requires the completion of a food diary and, for example, the completion of questionnaires that test your relationship with food. Obviously, we are not all the same, so we will not have the same metabolic profiles. Audrey Kaipio my profiler gave the example of an Eskimo, whose diet would primarily be comprised of fat. She also talked about how various innovations - supposedly in food processing methods  actually can be linked to the rise of cancer and heart disease. Serious. After my hour-long consultation I left with a list of suitable eating options. These included most meats and interestingly a high proportion of healthy fats. Vegetable wise, beans, peas and most other green ones were recommended, but not too much starch, by way of potatoes.

Organic food was deemed to be a very important food option. I was informed that some organic products produced from some super-markets are not as organic as you might think. I was also told to go look for suitable sources, such as at farmers markets. Audrey explained that she had been a vegetarian, but had attended a CHEK institute nutrition seminar in the States and that this had switched her personally onto metabolic typing. "I recall sitting there with my tofu and my coffee and the teacher coming round. She was full of energy and radiant and I was lacking energy. I was soon converted."

The metabolic typing diet derived from the work of Weston Price in the thirties and his finding on the relationship between disease and diet across the World. The diet makes a great deal of sense as none of us carry the exact same genetics and our bodies may therefore do better on certain foods. Counter arguments have it that a metabolic profile diet that is too rich in fat or protein will be nutritionally unsound. Funny thing though with me is that the profiled diet was not too far away from what I have been eating for a couple of decades!


I was metabolically profiled at the 25 Club in London
Telephone: 020 7495 8642
Email: info@the25club.com

Pic: John and Audrey at The 25 Club

I often get asked what supplements work. One that definitely does is creatine.

Creatine is made naturally in the body from three amino acids. It's stored primarily in muscles in phosphocreatine (PC). PC is a high energy producing body compound that powers in particular short lived (anaerobic) exercise, such as sprinting and weight training. It can only be stored in limited amounts. Supplementing with creatine will boost the bodys PC stores by 10-40%. This will put more fuel into your muscles and allow for more high powered - muscle building, speed and power producing - repetitions.

Creatine has been crowned the king of supplements due to the amount of creditable research that says that it works.

Men and women should supplement with creatine if they are after increased muscle size, power and speed (note creatines benefits for aerobic exercisers is limited). Both sexes will increase their lean muscle mass and decrease their body fat levels in consequence (but not just by taking the supplement alone). Muscle is metabolic dynamite so  the more you have the more calories you burn.

To benefit from creatine take a loading dose of 20g (4 x5 g per day for 5 days) and then a maintenance dose of 2g a day. Cycle your creatine usage on a month on month off basis. Once your muscles are saturated further creatine cannot be absorbed.

Note older people or those suffering from kidney problems should consult their doctor before supplmenting with creatine

The greatest anabolic (growth) effect from weight training is achieved with medium to heavy weights (around 70-80% of 1RM) performed over multiple sets (6-8, with 10 reps) with little (60-90 seconds recovery. These workouts are tough and should only be performed by the advanced weight trainer and then only 2 times a week - it's when you are not training when your muscles grow - so you need training down time. And you also need to optimum nutrition - protein is key. Go for 2g per kg of body weight. Prime your muscles with protein pre-workout and stimulate the recovery process immediately afterwards. Protein shakes, or sports drinks containing amino acids are great options at these times.

These workouts build big muscles due to the huge stimulus they give to the androgen hormones.  that's growth hormone and testosterone. These are released during and after the workout and the more intense the workout, the greater the release. This type of workout is a typical body builders one. As mentioned it's a tough one, so please don't try it unless you are ready.

As many of you will know track and field is my main sport of choice for participation. At is purest it is perhaps the most honest of all sports in terms of testing the human races physicality - it tests who is the fastest, most enduring, who can jump the highest or longest and throw the furthest. Yet the sport that I loved for so long, is much less important to me now (and for many others of us by the sounds of it). It's in fact very dishonest. This is of course because of drugs. Marion Jones once an inspiration is now in disgrace  imprisoned for hiding the truth. Dwain Chambers took the drugs and the money and ran very fast (and still can as he showed this season in gaining a silver in the World Indoors in Spain). He got caught, but at least he admitted his crimes.

I find it hard to stomach the hypocrisy that abounds among the athletes who swear that they don't take drugs, but do and are fuelling their somewhat improbable performances with a high-octane pharmaceutical cocktail. We sort of know what's humanly possible for most athletes in most events and have more than an idea of whos clean and whos not. When I was competing at elite level, drugs were used. People were able to jump significantly further than me, for example, who werent that physically superior - and some were women! There will always be drugs in track and field and other sports (and we face the spectre soon, if not already, of gene doping). Track and field and sport in general has to clean itself up. It is doing its best to do so, but its like using a dirty rag to clean a glass window  no matter how hard you try to clean it, youll still leave smears behind. Track and field will never (if it every was) be shiny and new again.

John,

This falls into a couple of categories: -
1. I don't know everything and have been a trainer for 12 years.
2. Endurance Training.
3. Cycling like a nutter.
4. Please point me in the right direction.

Firstly, great site some very sound advice that comes straight off the bat for all levels. Refreshing to see a no nonsense approach disabling the myths and fads that are often confusing and occasionally misleading.

Here's my dilemma. I am a rider who is part of an eight man team racing in the RAAM this June. We have put in some great practice, John O'Groats to Lands End, and in America have to do 3,000 miles climbing 4 times the height of Mt. Everest in under eight days as a relay, no small feat.

Our team is a little split in so much that we have discovered racing for 90 mins and then having 10 hours recovery before racing again is manageable over a 3 day period and therefore, probably, manageable over a 7-8 day period. We may have to keep some flexibility depending on weather, terrain, ability, illness, etc. Some of the team would like to ride more whereas some believe the above suits them well. We have a decision to make as a team as to what we should do. Riding at 80% - 85% of MHR for individuals means there's an ability split and most will take different times for their MRH to recover fully before they can put a similar effort in again. We could ride in pairs or more for the benefit of drafting but ultimately that means recovery is not as long and therefore our overall average speed drops.

There is a marked difference between speeds for those who are in a 'survival pace' (14 mph ave) and those who can race (22 mph ave) so ensuring they are recovered well is important. Over seven days that is a big time difference and could be the difference between a placing or not.

So after a long winded preamble what I'd like to know is, are there other ways of identifying when someone has recovered from intense activity other than resting heart recovery? What I find is I can not get my heart rate up to 80% if I'm not recovered fully.

Your answer will help our team make a decision on the basis for our method of racing. We may well have some guys decide they would like to do more but if I have more knowledge about gauging their recovery it will help the argument for doing less or more.

Thanks I appreciate your time.

Steve www.united8.org Racing Across America for CLIC Sargent.