SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Image 1:Avoid performing stretches before your workout; if you don't do them at all, things like this are out of reach and for the avg. 'no stretcher', 'all bencher', the hunched over look is just right around the corner. Stretching is one of those topics most trainees are not really interested in. In that most of you are probably happy that most researchers agree that passive stretches, as they may have been prescribed 50 years ago, are counter-indicated before workouts. And though the experts still disagree on whether or not certain active stretching regimen may be useful, most trainees read the headline "Stretching Before Your Workout Reduces Your Strength" once and gave up the in their eyes bothersome, unnecessary ( "I've never hurt myself, although I never stretch, bro!" ) and with the said headline "officially" detrimental pre-workout routine and spend the they otherwise have invested in a couple of stretches either guzzl...

Image 1: Intermittent fasting, breaking the fast, macronutrient ratios and timing, caloric zigzagging and refeeds - learn how it can be done, learn how Adelfo does it! Today's thursdaily SuppVersity post by Adelfo Cerame starts with an advertisement... "What? I thought the SuppVersity was ad-free!"... I see you are shocked!? Well, actually it ain't a real ad anyway, it's more a plug and what's best, I am plugging myself, or rather the new, likewise thursdaily radio show I am going to do with Carl Lanore . Those of you who have tuned in live or listened to the podcast ( click here to download) last Thursday, when Carl was sitting alone in the studio going over the latest news-stories from the realms of health, nutrition and exercise science and I shot him an email, whether he did not want to call me to have some company, will probably already know what to expect. For the rest, I would say, the best way to describe what you will  hear today at 1PM EST on...

Image 1: "Bikini Body Now!" , headlines like this and the unfair suggestion that by following diet X or taking supplement Y you would make it onto the cover of a magazine like that are part of the problem why diets fail, people get discouraged and caught in the diet trap. The issue of yoyo dieting and the existence and non-existence of a body weight or body fat set-point has been an issue in more than a handful of SuppVersity posts, already ( click here to read more). None of the studies I cited (and not even one of those I have read) did yet provide a conclusive and experimentally verifiable answer to the question whether or not there is such a thing as a "set point" and how or even if dieting influences the latter. What common "wisdom" would suggest, though, is that dieting will ruin your metabolism, so that both the post-dieting weight rebound, as well as future problems with losing weight would be programmed. So the question is: Can you diet...

Image 1: Nice! Luckily nothing you will catch everyday, because if you ate this little bastard, a Tile Fish from the Gulf of Mexico, everyday, you could - in the worst case - be consuming 933µg of mercury with every 250g serving! "Mercury from fish is not a problem, because you get plenty of selenium to counter it... moreover it's mostly protein bound, already..." - Another Myth Busted!? I must admit, I did believe (without ever checking scientific references) the common mantra that the mercury (Hg) content of fish would not actually be a problem, as long as there is enough selenium (Se) in the fish to "buffer" the Hg load. Now, this certainly makes sense and even very recent studies confirm that the effective uptake is reduced with higher Se:Hg ratios (e.g. Calatayud. 2012). Moreover, the notion that selenium exerts a protective effect is bolstered by data from various indigenous populations in the Brazilian Amazon (Lemire. 2011). Cysteine, Omega-3 ...

Image 1: Can you really team up leucine (or HMB) and resveratrol to make tired mitochondria get a move on? NuSirt Sciences says "YES!" And in the dish and rodents it's actually already working. What happens if you marry a well-known AMPK promoter and exercise mimetic, with an even more prominent exercise adjuvant and nutritional mTOR booster? Will they neutralize each other? Think about it.... ok, now gimme your answer: What happens if you put resveratrol and leucine together? At first it does not really make sense, does it? Right, it doesn't, at least not unless you follow the same train of thought, the researchers from NuSirt Sciences . NuSirt? That rings a bell, hah? Yeah those were the guys who did a study on their 250mg leucine + 30mg vitamin B6 proprietary blend NuFit (see " Testosterone - 12% Drop /W 75g Glucose? Fat Loss - Adzuki, Leucine + B6 or HiMaize & More ") and actually, the leucine + resveratrol combination is sort of a spin-off of t...

Image 1: What would a King say if you served him that for breakfast? When it comes to the regulation of circadian rhythms by nutrient intakes (and vice versa) the first thing we have to consider is the relation of the day-/night-cycle as discussed in the previous installments of this series and our (historical) ability to hunt and gather food. With our pathetic visual acuity in the dark and our laughable odor sensitivity and sense of hearing, our food intake has always been closely in tune with the light-controlled circadian rhythm. Without the "paleolithic" requirements of gathering and hunting, however, our eating time and frequency is either consciously controlled (e.g. "intermittent fasting") or behaviorally entrained, respectively learned via socialization. While our sleep/wake cycle is very rigid, our feeding cycle gives us a lot of leeway  Everyone of you who has ever tried to change a previously learned eating habit or (en-)train a child who is use...