19 Tips and Strategies to Get Super Lean

Source: http://www.burnthefatinnercircle.com/public/1120print.cfm

Winning the Burn the Fat 49-Day Challenge "Most Ripped" award was both an honor for me and the realization of a major personal goal. I got in the best shape of my life and I'm delighted to be able to share with you the secrets and strategies that I used for success.

MINDSET AND MOTIVATION
Mindset and motivation will either carry you through if it's strong or stop you in your tracks if it's weak.
1. Strong personal drive: Motivation is a fire from within, and not something someone else can ignite for you. I turned my initial "curiosity" into a "fire from within," and that translated into a burning desire to create a lean and sculpted physique.
That fire gave me the strength to never, ever throw in the towel.
2. Commitment: Before the 49-day challenge even began, I had booked an appointment with my photographer. I told my husband that I was going to win the most ripped award. He believed that I could, and supported everything that I did.
I sorted out issues I had with food choices, discipline and timing before the challenge began so that I could hit the ground running. Commitment was the glue that bonded me to my goals.
3. Teamwork and support: I joined a great team of ladies, who before the challenge, had never met. The support, encouragement, expectations and belief we shared for each other helped us where we may have otherwise failed.
The wider community of the Inner Circle was also a valuable part of my broader support network. It's a place where complete strangers from across the globe come together to help each other. In fact, my team, and the IC on a larger scale, are anachronisms for the word T E A M...Together Everyone Achieves More.
4. Retaining focus: I found inspirational images every day that were relevant to how I felt at that particular time and posted these onto my Challenge thread every day; which helped to remind me of my daily goals and helped to renew my focus. If I lost focus, it I ate too much or just missed a workout I simply got straight back on track. Strength comes not from falling down but from getting up after you have fallen down.
NUTRITION
"Great abs are made in the kitchen." It's soooo true. It was only by eating clean that I achieved great results. You simply can't "out-exercise" junk food and this is the reason that bodybuilders and fitness models pay such detailed attention to their nutrition.
I learned to not only eat "clean" but to use the following very effective nutrition strategies to "trick" my body into letting go of its beloved stores of fat while at the same time preserving and adding muscle.
1. I did the math: I've always loathed the idea of counting calories. It just wasn't for me. Worse still, counting macros was just plain OCD...right? WRONG! I learned that to achieve great results I needed to know EXACTLY what I was burning and what I was consuming AND I also needed to understand Macros.
For the first two weeks of the challenge I tracked everything that went in my mouth and at the end of the week I did the math. I knew exactly how many calories I'd eaten, my weekly weight change and that 3500 calories = 1 pound of weight. My mathematician alter ego figured out that I burn pretty much exactly 2300 calories in a normal a day.
2. I planned: "Failing to plan is planning to fail." Another great quote I love. I worked out three separate daily meal plans dividing up my nutrition into five or six meals with similar quantities of protein, carbohydrate and fat in each meal. (yikes! more math!!!) I used the menu templates in BFFM to create menu plans for HIGH, MEDIUM and LOW days and made sure that I had a minimum of 130g lean protein each day.
I divided my calories up into 35% protein, 50% carbohydrate, 15% fat (baseline plan) for high and medium days, and 40%P 40% C 20%F for low days. Each meal contained lean protein, starchy carbs, fibrous carbs and healthy fats although on "low" days one or two meals sometimes had little or no starchy carbs. I left as many carbs as possible around the pre and post workout meals.
3. I swung high and low: Cycling both calories and carbohydrates was a very important strategy in keeping my metabolism switched into overdrive. My "HIGH" days would go into SURPLUS calories to promote muscle growth, with the extra calories mostly coming from carbohydrates. My body got used to churning through a lot of calories on these days so that when I suddenly dropped both calories and carbs my body churned up fat very quickly.
At the beginning of the challenge, approximately half of my days were either at maintenance or surplus (about 2500 cals) and half were in deficit (about 1500-1800 cals). Towards the end of the challenge, I had more days in deficit. I also enjoyed one or two cheat meals a week on the HIGH days.
4. I cooked in bulk: "The more you value your time, the more value it brings." I was able to save an enormous amount of time cooking and cleaning the kitchen by simply cooking in bulk. That time was instead used for training and for quality "me" time. I cooked nutritious and tasty meals and stocked my freezer with meals that were exactly 300 calories each.
Then, each morning I would simply grab two or three freezer meals to heat later in the day. My non-freezer meals were mostly oats and non-cooked food such as nuts, non-fat yoghurt, wholemeal bread, whey, raw fruit and raw veggies.
5. I stayed well hydrated: Water would have to be the best kept fat burning secret around. If it didn't come out of the faucet for free someone would be making a fortune. I drank about a gallon (3.5 litres) of water every day including green tea. I got in the habit of having three glasses of water every time I went into the kitchen.

In the last week of the challenge I drank 8 litres of water every day. This, and a few glasses of wine over the festive season was all that I drank.


6. I relied on food: My only supplements are a daily multivitamin and Omega 3 supplement. I relied on clean eating to get the results I got. Typical day you ask? It went something like this:

• Breakfast: Protein porridge (i.e oatmeal , whey powder) orange, green tea
• Morning tea: Protein porridge, yogurt, raw veggies, almonds
• Lunch: Freezer meal (eg Red kidney bean curry: egg white, beans, veggies, brown rice), almonds
• Post workout snack: Banana, yogurt, whey powder
• Dinner: Freezer meal (eg: spinach and lentil curry: egg white, lentils, veggies, brown rice ), almonds, green tea
• Supper: "chocolate fix" (yogurt, cocoa and stevia mixed together),watermelon, almonds, green tea
• Anytime snacks: raw carrot, raw celery, raw tomatoes

On "HIGH" days, I would have a heap more carbs in the form of brown rice, bread, yam, potato, and fruit. On the low days, my menu would look similar to above but I would reduce the fruit portion sizes to reduce the carbs.
TRAINING




"Train hard and expect success!" Hmmm, where have we all heard that one! This is what coach Tom tells us, so I trained hard for months and months and I succeeded! I made my strength workouts aerobic and my cardio workouts anabolic (muscle building) using resistance based cardio workouts and volume based strength workouts.
In this way I reduced the amount of time spent training and enjoyed the benefits of both muscle building AND fat burning in every workout. I was very careful in my post workout nutrition to take in both protein and carbohydrates immediately following all workouts to refuel my muscles and to promote muscle growth.
1. STRENGTH: Getting ripped is a bit like digging for gold: You want to be able to find the gold (muscle), after you have dug (burned the fat); otherwise, you will not get "ripped," you will just get "skinny."
I used a 4-day split weight training routine as follows:

1. Shoulders and triceps
2. chest and biceps
3. legs
4. back & abs

I chose 3 to 5 different exercises for each body part and would do 8 sets of 8 reps per exercise with very short 15-30 second breaks in between reps and sets. Do the math and you will notice that I was doing up to 500 reps during each strength workout. I worked hard, but because I took very short breaks in between sets, my workouts only took me 35-45 minutes.
2. CARDIO: My cardio workouts were cycling and rowing, each of which worked in nicely with and enhanced my strength work. When possible, I would also do "fasted" cardio; especially first thing in the morning (before breakfast) to promote fat burning. My cardio sessions followed these very simple formats.
3. CYCLING: (Two minutes effort , one minute easy) x 10
4. ROWING: (Three minutes effort, one minute easy) x 8
At the beginning of the challenge I did only two cardio sessions a week but as the challenge progressed, I worked in more cardio in Week 6 peaking in intensity at two cardio sessions per day. I took one day of rest from training each week.
MY PERSONAL TIPS:
1. Use a visualization picture ("viz-pic"). This is a very powerful tool where you find a picture of a physique model that you would like to look like that has a similar height and basic build to you and then "photoshop" your head onto their body. By looking at your viz-pic daily, you gradually change the way you perceive yourself.
I don't delude myself about where I am but I do use my viz-pic to honestly identify the work I need to do. Try Pizap.com; it's a free website that is easy to use.
2. See yourself through a different pair of eyes. As your weight and shape changes it is useful to see yourself through someone else's eyes in order to continue moving forward. Having an objective evaluation from a fitness coach would be ideal.
And if friends and loved ones don't have the courage to offer you "the truth" about your progress, then find someone who will. Having honest, accurate and constructive criticism is extremely important.
3. Focus on your own goals and not on the (Maui) grand prize. We would all love to win the big trip to Maui. But if all you focus on is the trip, and you notice someone else is having a more spectacular challenge than you, you may lose heart and give up. If you develop your personal goals enough where the trip is not the only reason you are in the contest, then you are more likely to stick it out when the going gets tough.
4. Check into the Inner Circle daily. The Inner Circle is so much more than a place to post your weekly stats. It is a source of knowledge, camaraderie, and inspiration. Checking in daily helps to keep you cued in, focused and accountable.
5. Finish strong. There is no point running the whole race and falling over at the last minute. My final tip is simply to maintain your focus and finish strong.
In closing, I wanted to give a huge thank you to Tom, Kyle and the rest of the IC team for making these challenges possible. I also want to extend a personal thank you to coach Tom for designing such a wonderful program and for his very personal and genuine support on the Inner Circle forums.
All my best to everyone,
-Rowena Dalzell
Most Ripped Female, Season 7. Visit her challenge thread here.

YOU Could Be The Next Success Story!
The Burn the Fat Challenge is a twice-a-year event sponsored by Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (BFFM) and hosted at the Burn the Fat Inner Circle.
There's nothing like a BIG GOAL and a CHALLENGE for ramping up your motivation (the chance to win a trip to a tropical island to show off your new body doesn't hurt either).... and when it's done inside a community like our Inner Circle, the support skyrockets your chances of success compared to trying to go at it alone.
Join us for the next challenge and join us in the Inner Circle to stay motivated and connected to positive people all year round. Your membership at the Inner Circle gets you free enrollment in all our challenge events and remember, it's never too early or too late to get started.

You should incorporate at least one lifting from the floor exercise in your weekly routine.
Funky socks are optional.

Natural Tips To Increase Testosterone To Get Leaner and Stronger

By Charles Poliquin

Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:58 AM

The hormone testosterone is associated with body fat and muscle mass in men: Low testosterone means you’ll have more body fat, less muscle, and put yourself at risk of disease. It is also an important hormone for women, however, the key is to keep everything in balance for both sexes.

To do this, you have to make sure you aren’t lacking key nutrients, or engaging in habits that compromise your testosterone levels such as being sleep deprived, drinking alcohol, or exposing yourself to hormone disruptors like BPA and phthalates. This tip will cover the basics for increasing testosterone (T) for optimal body composition and health.

First, you must solve the following nutrient deficiencies: Vitamin D, magnesium, and zinc. Vitamin D is all the rage in the medical world for preventing disease and improving health, and rightly so. Low vitamin D puts you at risk of having more body fat, less strength, more risk of bone fracture, and a host of other problems including low T. It appears that vitamin D inhibits aromatization in which T is turned into estrogen. Take vitamin D daily to raise your levels above 50 ng/ml to prevent low T—one study had men take 3,332 IUs for a year and found blood levels and T were significantly improved at the end of the trial.


Magnesium is another extremely common deficiency that is linked to low T due to this mineral’s role in enhancing vitamin D activity, improving sleep, and aiding insulin health. Taking 500 mg of magnesium a day is a no-brainer for health and body composition, especially if you are working out since magnesium must be present to enable forceful muscle contractions.



Zinc deficiency predicts low testosterone in men, by avoiding aromatization of T to estrogen. Zinc is involved in hormone conversion and it’s a potent antioxidant, protecting the organs for optimal function. Solve low zinc by doing a zinc taste test, or better yet, get a red blood cell zinc test the next time you get a physical because the regular serum blood readings don’t reflect trace mineral levels in the body. If you have low zinc take a high quality zinc supplement that is not cut with calcium because this will impair absorption.



After solving nutrient deficiencies, you need to focus on decreasing stress because it will lead to high levels of cortisol, testosterone’s primary nemesis. Assuming you have a basic handle on stress in your life, make sure you aren’t sleep deprived (this is repeatedly linked to low T, high cortisol, and poor insulin health), and focus on clearing cortisol after intense exercise. Vitamin C will do this and if you take regularly, it has been shown to raise T. Try 2 to 10 grams after your workout.

[Nutri-Calm is an amazing combination providing generous levels of Vitamin C and B-Complex vitamins with added chamomile, and helps us settle when life becomes too much of a challenge. Designed for the nervous system during times of pressure, and for physically stressful conditions that can deplete the body of B-vitamins.]
Your final tool to improve T levels is a high-protein, “clean” diet with regularly spaced meals. Anytime your blood sugar is elevated, T will be temporarily reduced, which means that if you experience repeated elevations in blood sugar throughout the day, your T levels will become depressed. For example, one study found that men who had normal insulin health had a 25 percent decrease in T after ingesting a drink containing sugar. T remained low for 2 hours, and nearly 80 percent of the men had their T drop to levels that would be considered clinical testosterone deficiency.

Obviously you MUST manage blood sugar and the best way to do that is by eliminating all carbs other than vegetables and fruit and eating high-protein, healthy fat diet. The other benefit of this that you need fat from both saturated and unsaturated sources to provide the building blocks for T in the body.

Lastly, eat regularly spaced meals every 2 to 3 hours to support T. Avoid missing meals or long periods of fasting because emerging evidence suggests this will compromise T: A new study on male rats showed that 12 weeks of intermittent fasting with calorie restriction led to a significant reduction in T and luteinizing hormone (involved in T production) compared to rats that were allowed to eat at will.

Take away the understanding that supporting T is not hard, but simple errors have a devastating effect. Focus on the key nutrient deficiencies, a clean diet, sleep, avoiding endocrine disruptors, and blood sugar regulation and you will experience rapid progress in terms of health and body composition.

Reference
Kumar, S., Kaur, G. Intermittent Fasting Dietary Restriction Regimen Negative Influences Reproduction in Young Rats: A Study of Hypothalamo-Hypophysial-Gonadal Axis. PLOS One. 2013. 8(1), e52416.

Caronia, L., Dwyer, A., et al. Abrupt Decrease in Serum Testosterone After an Oral Glucose Load in Men. Clinical Endocrinology. July 2012. Published Ahead of Print.

Maggio, M., Ceda, G., Lauretani, F., Cattabiani, C., Avantaggiato, E., Morganti, S., et al. Magnesium and Anabolic Hormones in Older Men. International Journal of Andrology. 15 June 2011. Published Ahead of Print.

Prasad, A., Mantzoros, C., et al. Zinc Status and Serum Testosterone Levels of Healthy Adults. Nutrition. 1996. 12(5), 344-348.

Menéndez, E., Valdés, S., Botas, P., Delgado, E., Abello, N. Glucose Tolerance and Plasma Testosterone Concentrations in Men. Endocrinology and Nutrition. 2011. 58(1), 3-8.

Lee, D, Tajar, A., et al. Association of Hypogonadism with Vitamin D Status: The European Male Ageing Study. European Journal of Endocrinology. January 2012. 166, 75-85.

Avoid Most Energy Drinks For Best Performance & Body Composition

Charles Poliquin posted this article today....

Monday, March 04, 2013 6:01 AM
Avoid energy drinks in favor of strategic workout supplementation for best performance and body composition results. The problem with the typical energy drink is you don’t have enough control over the ingredients.

For example, caffeine can significantly enhance performance, but most energy drinks have other stuff added that you simply don’t want pre-workout or when your goal is to boost energy. This tip will tell you why you should avoid energy drinks in favor of smart peri-workout nutrition.

The most obvious problem with energy drink is that they often contain competing ingredients. For example, taurine is a calming amino acid that is found in Red Bull and it should be taken post-workout, because it enhances activity of the inhibitory brain transmitters. You don’t want to take it when your goal is to elevate energy for training.

Two studies show that when subjects drank Red Bull, which contains sugar and vitamins along with caffeine and taurine, they had significant increases in blood pressure and heart rate variability, both of which indicate poor homeostasis. In the long-term changes in blood pressure and heart rate indicate altered circadian rhythms, put you at greater risk of inflammation, and may cause adrenal fatigue. All around, combining taurine and caffeine is a bad choice!

Of course, studies also show that the caffeine in energy drinks can be used to improve endurance and anaerobic performance. For example, a review of studies showed that energy drinks significantly increased run time to exhaustion and increased pain tolerance. However, researchers suggest that instead of using energy drinks, a straight caffeine supplement will provide more control over the ergogenic effect, without increasing cardiovascular health risk.

A second problem with energy drinks is that many contain sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, both of which have been shown to significantly increase blood glucose levels. Energy drinks containing carbs (sugar) should be avoided because it can decrease insulin sensitivity over the long run and raise your diabetes risk. Plus, you want to completely avoid carbs pre-workout, saving them for after training if you are very lean. If your goal is fat loss, avoid carbs completely in favor of protein post-workout. Increasing insulin during workouts is also known to boost serotonin, which you do not want because it will make you feel tired and will sap your strength.

The third problem with energy drinks is they often have artificial ingredients that will only increase your toxic load and should be eliminated. Finally, you simply don’t have enough control over the quality of the nutrients in energy drinks for them to be reliable.
Instead of using energy drinks, keep your workout nutrition simple with the following strategies:

Boost pre-workout energy levels by taking anhydrous caffeine in supplement form because it is the most effective fat burner, freeing up fat to be used for energy. Pair it with the amino acid tyrosine, which will help you feel alert and ready to train because it raises levels of dopamine.

Take 2 to 10 grams of vitamin C post-workout to help clear the caffeine and lower cortisol.

Avoid carbohydrates (and sugar) pre-workout. If you are very lean and your goal is building muscle, use a high-quality blend of carbs after training to enhance protein synthesis.

Take whey protein, or amino acids if you are allergic to whey, after training to enhance protein synthesis. Use BCAAs during training to prevent muscle breakdown.

Take magnesium threonate post-workout. This provides magnesium and threonine, and the pair will calm the nervous system and raise the neurotransmitter GABA. This will enhance recovery and sleep.

References
Franks, A., Schmidt, J., et al. Comparison of the Effects of Energy Drink Versus Caffeine Supplementation on Indices of 24-Hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure. The Annals of Pharmacotherapy. 2012. 46, 192-199.

Steinke, L., Lanfear, D., et al. Effect of “Energy Drink” Consumption on Hemodynamic and Electrocardiographic Parameters in Healthy Young Adults. The Annals of Pharmacotherapy. 2009. 43, 596-602.

Wolk, B., Ganetsky, M., et al. Toxicity of Energy Drinks. Current Opinion in Pediatrics. 2012. 24(2), 243-251.

A great solution is Solstic Energy by Nature's Sunshine.  It’s a fantastic alternative to Coffee, Tea, Fizzy drinks and other ‘energy’ drinks that provide a quick, sugar-fueled rush followed by an abrupt, vitality-sapping crash.  Helps energy release from carbohydrates, the main source of fuel for the body. Your body needs to constantly replenish water-soluble B vitamins to support energy levels and fight the draining effects of the day.


BENEFITS OF SOLSTIC ENERGY

• Yerba Maté, a powerful herb that has been used for thousands of years in the jungles of South America to increase endurance 
• Green tea extracts, rich in properties that help increase energy and vitality  
• Guarana seed contains a naturally occurring caffeine that promotes a gradual, sustained increase in alertness
• B Vitamins, the most important vitamins for helping release the energy you need to work all day
• Solstic Energy also includes sucralose, a sweetener created from natural sugar that has been proven safe through over twenty years of in depth scientific analysis
• Contains only 12 calories, no fat and only 3g of Carbohydrates.
• Low Glycaemic Index, and contains no pharmaceutical grade caffeine.

Health Benefits May Be Related to Its Sulfur Content

By Dr. Mercola

The clinical use of sulfur as an adjunct in our diet is becoming progressively more recognized as an important tool for optimizing health.
Certainly, diet is the primary tool for reducing your risk for chronic degenerative diseases. But the practical question becomes, how do you obtain the needed sulfur from food grown in depleted soils?
The nutrient MSM (methylsulfonylmethane), is a naturally occurring sulfur compound found in all vertebrates, including humans. MSM is already well-known for its joint health benefits, but it may be important for a whole host of other reasons as well.
Rod Benjamin is the director of technical development for Bergstrom Nutrition, the largest producer of the highest quality MSM that is produced by distillation purification.
MSM is a metabolite of DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide, an organosulfur compound), but DMSO is approved for use in veterinary medicine only, not in humans.

Are the Health Benefits of MSM Related to Sulfur?

I first became aware of DMSO decades ago, when I saw a 60-Minutes episode in which they revealed its therapeutic impact on race horses. It supported their soft tissues, helped with muscle soreness and soft-tissue injury. It also benefitted the horses’ lung function.
Dr. Stanley W. Jacob pioneered the use of DMSO and later MSM. Originally, he began looking at DMSO because it freezes at about 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and Dr. Jacob had been deeply involved in looking at cryogenic preservation of tissues and organs for transplantation. As a result of being investigated for its cryogenic uses, DMSO ended up being one of the most researched drugs on the market today.

“DMSO is classified as a drug within the United States. You can buy it at a lot of veterinary supply stores and things like that, but it’s not to be used for humans,” Mr. Benjamin says.

MSM, which is a metabolite of DMSO, and approved for use in humans, primarily impacts your health by reducing inflammation. It’s widely used as a supplement for arthritic conditions. Like DMSO, MSM also appears to improve cell wall permeability, so it can be used to help deliver other active ingredients. Perhaps most important, MSM helps protect against oxidative damage.
Within the last two years, at least four human clinical trials have been conducted on MSM and its ability to help with exercise recovery, and muscle injuries like delayed onset muscle stiffness or soreness (DOMS) and large muscle injuries like that from a heart attack—all of which is related to oxidative stress and subsequent cellular damage.

“In one of the studies, they were looking at the VAS pain scores. That’s muscle soreness due to exercise. There was a significant reduction in the MSM-treated group versus placebo. That’s directly tied to the muscle soreness,” Mr. Benjamin says.

The Importance of Sulfur

Furthermore, according to Mr. Benjamin:

“Dr. Stanley Jacob said DMSO – and MSM together with that – in his opinion is much more of a therapeutic principle. It’s similar to exercise or proper nutrition. Instead of that singular focus that is so prevalent within the drug or pharmas per se, it’s much more of a therapeutic principle, which is overall body wellness [opposed to treating a specific symptom or ailment].”

This suggests that MSM may be providing some kind of missing link, and that link appears to be related to sulfur. MSM is 34 percent sulfur by weight, but as Mr. Benjamin discusses below, it is more than just a simple sulfur donor. It affects sulfur metabolism in the human body, although it’s still not entirely clear how.
Sulfur is just now becoming more widely appreciated as a really critical nutrient, without which many other things don’t work properly, and most people are probably not getting enough sulfur from their diet anymore. For example, sulfur plays a critical role in detoxification, and also in inflammatory conditions. For detoxification, sulfur is part of one of the most important antioxidants that your body produces: glutathione. Without sulfur, glutathione cannot work.
The plethora of research that was done on DMSO and its therapeutic properties begs the question: How many of those therapeutic properties are due to the DMSO? Or are they due to its metabolite, MSM, once it’s been converted in vivo or within the body? (Approximately 15 percent of any DMSO dosage, on average, converts to MSM in the human body.) The answer to that question is still unknown. Sulfur is found in over 150 different compounds within the human body. There are sulfur components in virtually every type of cell, so it’s extremely important.

“Now, as far as MSM’s role within the body, it’s very complicated. And I will say that it’s not a hundred percent understood,” Mr. Benjamin says. “I’ve been working with this compound for 16 years to try and answer that question. We understand a part of the mechanism of action, but not all of it.

...In 1986, Richmond did a study, and it showed that it was taken up into serum proteins. That sulfur was actually incorporated in the serum proteins.

We also have done [something] like the pharmacokinetic study, which showed that radiolabeled sulfur was taken up into hair, skin, and nails. Keratin is a very high sulfur-containing compound, which is a building block for your nails and your hair. But it also showed up in almost all tissues, spleen, and liver. It went all over.

It’s complicated. We did a study where we said, 'Okay, let’s give it to healthy human volunteers.' We did actually three different dosages – one gram, two grams, and three grams. We measured urinary sulfur output by measuring sulfate, thinking that sulfate will be a waste sulfur product that would show up excreted in the urine. We did the different doses to see if it was in a dose-dependent manner that we’d be able to correlate back and, say, 'Yes, MSM is giving output of sulfur.

We found that they were indeed dose-related, but the interesting thing was it was inversely related. The more MSM you took, the less sulfate was excreted in your urine. What that says is it’s much more complicated than just a strict sulfur donor. It is a compartmentalization of sulfur and sulfur metabolism within the body. That suggests that MSM is actually allowing better metabolism, better incorporation of the sulfur throughout the body. It’s not just a simple sulfur donor...'”

MSM Improves Your Body’s Ability to Make its Own Antioxidants

As I mentioned earlier, sulfur plays an important role in the production of glutathione—one of the most important antioxidants that your body produces. Glutathione also serves important functions for detoxification. Without sulfur, glutathione cannot work. So, while not an antioxidant by itself, part of MSM’s action is to improve your body’s ability to make its own antioxidants.
It also provides support for all sorts of structural proteins, where sulfur is an important component. According to Dr. Benjamin:

“[G]lutathione has two different states within your body. There’s reduced glutathione and oxidized glutathione. The ratio of those two signifies the overall oxidative status or the ability of your blood plasma to address oxidative stress. MSM improves that overall ratio. In other words, you have much more reduced glutathione that’s able to deal with these free radicals. That’s, I think, kind of the key of how MSM really – and DMSO also does the same thing – by controlling that oxidative stress or protecting from the oxidative damage can have these therapeutic [benefits].”

Sulfur-Rich Foods

Ideally, you’d be best off getting your sulfur needs filled from the foods you eat. However, this can be a bit of a challenge these days. There’s been a transition away from many traditional foods that have been the big sources of sulfur, like collagen or keratin, which we just don’t eat much nowadays.
You can perhaps get enough if you cook down bones from organically raised animals into bone broth and drink the broth regularly (or use for soups and stews). The connective tissues are sulfur-rich, and when you slow-cook the bones, you dissolve these nutrients out of the bone and into the water. According to Mr. Benjamin:

“MSM is in almost all raw foods. It’s in leafy green vegetables. Interestingly enough, there’s MSM in beer and coffee. Actually, it’s been identified as one of the main flavoring constituent in port wines... raw milk has the highest naturally occurring content of MSM.”

One caveat is cooking and pasteurization. While MSM is stable to extremes of pH and temperature, it volatilizes and turns to gas very easily. It’s also very water soluble. So when cooked at high temperatures, it simply wafts off in the steam. That’s why it’s easily removed during cooking and processing. Pasteurization cuts the MSM content by approximately 50 percent. So, in order to ensure you’re getting the most MSM from any food, it must be either raw or as minimally processed as possible.

Toxicity and Dosage Recommendations

Toxicity studies have shown that MSM is extremely safe and can be taken at very, very high doses. Even if you have a very rich diet full of raw vegetables and MSM-rich foods, you can still supplement and not hit that toxicity level. Clinical research studies have found that the effective amounts range from about 1.5 grams to 6 grams, although at higher doses, potential side effects include:

• Intestinal discomfort
• Swelling of the ankles
• Mild skin rashes

These are likely detoxifying effects that can typically be mitigated or minimized by cutting back on the initial dosage, and slowly working your way up. In that case, you might want to start out with half a gram (500 milligrams) for a couple of weeks and then slowly increase until you get up to the desired dose.
MSM is approved for use in fortified food and beverage and gram quantities may be consumed when consuming raw diet and approved MSM fortified foods. The amount from the fortified foods that have been approved would be between 1.9 to 3.8 grams per day. For comparison, intake of MSM from natural sources such as fruits and vegetables would be in the milligram per day range of about 2.3 to 5.6 mg/day.

How to Select a High –Quality MSM Supplement

As with most other supplements and food, quality is a major issue when it comes to selecting an MSM supplement. Fortunately, with MSM it’s fairly easy to determine. There are two methods of purification of MSM:

1. Distillation
2. Crystallization

For MSM, distillation is by far superior. But crystallization is less expensive, and a lot less energy-intensive. According to Mr. Benjamin, only two companies that produce MSM use distillation. Mr. Benjamin explains why you should consider a product that has been purified using distillation.

“A lot of the problems with [crystallization] is you’re essentially crystallizing it out of a parent solvent or liquid. If there are any impurities, which could be salts of heavy metals, you could have aromatic hydrocarbons in that… It’s actually the parent solvent. It’s usually water. It is dependent upon water quality. ”

Is MSM for You?

As you know, I am very cautious about recommending supplements, as I believe you’re best off getting your nutrients from healthful, whole organic foods. But, I’m also realistic, and I understand a perfect diet is hard to come by these days, so some supplements I believe can be quite beneficial. MSM would fall into this category. It would make sense that, if you’re suffering from a decrease in normal dietary sulfur, supplementing with something that’s relatively safe and inexpensive would make a lot of sense.
As I’ve said, sulfur is an emerging stealth player in nutrition and for a variety of mechanisms, including the detox and anti-inflammatory pathways. Remember, if you don’t have enough sulfur in your diet, you’re not going to be able to naturally produce glutathione, which is absolutely essential for removing heavy metals and many of the toxins you’re exposed to. People who might want to consider using some supplemental sulfur sources such as MSM include those who have:

• Chronic inflammatory conditions
• Aches and pains / sore muscles and achy joints
• Premature aging symptoms
• Toxicity

Muscle Isn’t Everything: Other Protein Benefits

I lifted the below from an article by John Berardi, PhD CSCS, on how much protein you should eat at every meal....

"Beyond this very narrow view of protein intake (muscle protein synthesis vs. breakdown), there’s a much more important question at stake: why else do we eat protein?

You see, there are other benefits to eating protein beyond muscle building. There’s satiety, the thermogenic effects, the impact on the immune system, and more (see below). Plus, there are probably a few benefits science can’t measure yet. I say the last part because there’s so much experiential evidence suggesting that when you’re training hard and you up your protein intake, you do better. So maybe we just haven’t looked in the right places to notice the real benefits.

Other Protein Benefits

We shouldn’t look at the world through a straw (i.e. see one protein study on one isolated topic and make broad generalizations). So, to help us remember that, let’s review a list of benefits we get from eating extra protein.

Increased thermic effect of feeding – While all macronutrients require metabolic processing for digestion, absorption, and storage or oxidation, the thermic effect of protein is roughly double that of carbohydrates and fat. Therefore, eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding/muscle building.

Increased glucagon – Protein consumption increases plasma concentrations of the hormone glucagon. Glucagon is responsible for antagonizing the effects of insulin in adipose tissue, leading to greater fat mobilization. In addition, glucagon also decreases the amounts and activities of the enzymes responsible for making and storing fat in adipose and liver cells. Again, this leads to greater fat loss during dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.

Metabolic pathway adjustment –When a higher protein (20-50% of intake) is followed, a host of metabolic adjustments occur. These include: a down-regulation of glycolysis, a reduction in fatty acid synthesis enzymes, and an increase in gluconeogenesis - a carbohydrate “draining” effect where carbons necessary for ridding the body of amino nitrogen is drawn from glucose.

Increased IGF-1 – Protein and amino-acid supplementation has been shown to increase the IGF-1 response to both exercise and feeding. Since IGF-1 is an anabolic hormone that’s related to muscle growth, another advantage associated with consuming more protein is more muscle growth when overfeeding and/or muscle sparing when dieting.

Reduction in cardiovascular risk – Several studies have shown that increasing the percentage of protein in the diet (from 11% to 23%) while decreasing the percentage of carbohydrate (from 63% to 48%) lowers LDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations with concomitant increases in HDL cholesterol concentrations.

Improved weight loss profile – Research by Layman and colleagues has demonstrated that reducing the carbohydrate ratio from 3.5 – 1 to 1.4 – 1 increases body fat loss, spares muscle mass, reduces triglyceride concentrations, improves satiety, and improves blood glucose management

Increased protein turnover — All tissues of the body, including muscle, go through a regular program of turnover. Since the balance between protein breakdown and protein synthesis governs muscle protein turnover, you need to increase your protein turnover rates in order to best improve your muscle quality. A high protein diet does just this. By increasing both protein synthesis and protein breakdown, a high protein diet helps you get rid of the old muscle more quickly and build up new, more functional muscle to take its place.

Increased nitrogen status — A positive nitrogen status means that more protein is entering the body than is leaving the body. High protein diets cause a strong positive protein status and when this increased protein availability is coupled with an exercise program that increases the body’s anabolic efficiency, the growth process may be accelerated.

Increased provision of auxiliary nutrients — Although the benefits mentioned above have related specifically to protein and amino acids, it’s important to recognize that we don’t just eat protein and amino acids — we eat food. Therefore, high protein diets often provide auxiliary nutrients that could enhance performance and/or muscle growth. These nutrients include creatine, branched chain amino acids, conjugated linoleic acids, and/or additional nutrients that are important but remain to be discovered. And don’t forget the vitamins and minerals we get from protein rich foods.

(And lest anyone think I’m a shill for the protein powder industry, this last point clearly illustrates the need to get most of your protein from food, rather than supplements.)

Looking over this list of benefits, it’s hard to ignore the fact that we don’t just eat protein for its muscle synthetic effect. We eat protein for a bunch of other reasons too. Since a higher protein diet can lead to a better health profile, an increased metabolism, improved body composition, and an improved training response, why would anyone ever try to limit their protein intake to the bare minimum?

Take-home Message

It seems to me that whether someone’s on a hypoenergetic diet (low calorie) or a hyperenergetic diet (high calorie), the one macronutrient they would want to be sure to “overeat” (relatively speaking) would be protein.

But that’s not what people do, is it?

Instead, they look for the bare minimum of protein (whether it’s 20-30g/meal or 0.8g/kg/day), and then overeat carbohydrates and fats instead. That could prove to be a performance – and body composition – mistake.

So here’s my recommendation for men and women interested in losing fat, gaining lean muscle, and improving their health and performance:

Women – Eat 1 palm-sized portion of lean, complete protein (about 20-30g) with each meal, every few hours. If you eat less frequently, eat a bit more protein with each meal. If you eat more frequently, eat a bit less protein with each meal.

Men – Eat 2 palm-sized portions of lean, complete protein (about 40-60g) with each meal, every few hours. If you eat less frequently, eat a bit more protein with each meal. If you eat more frequently, eat a bit less protein with each meal.

This pattern of intake will make sure you’re getting enough protein to reap all the benefits that this amazing macronutrient has to offer.

Dr. John Berardi is the co-founder of Precision Nutrition and the co-creator of the Precision Nutrition Certification program."