Santa is Coming to Town and You Better Beware of His Gifts: Fat Gain, Muscle Loss and Increased Mortality Rates.

Image 1: The "modern" image of the Coke-drinking Santa. Do you really believe he is one of the good guys?

Finally, December 24th is there! The day we have all been waiting for, to get together with friends and relatives and wait for the portly, joyous, white-bearded man in the red coat to deliver "his" gifts. Interestingly enough, the word "gift" in German designates "poison" and while those of you who have been following the SuppVersity news earlier this week may now be speculating that this could in one way or another be related to the millions of iPhones Santa is going to be dropping down the chimneys in the night to come (cf. Mobile Contraception), it seems unlikely that the electromagnetic radiation from the gadgetry could explain the statistically significant +4.65% increase in cardiac and a + 4.99% increase in non-cardiac deaths during the holiday season. After all, the data based on which David P. Phillips, Jason R. Jarvinen, Ian S. Abramson, and Rosalie R. Phillips conclude that "the Christmas/New Year’s holidays are a risk factor for cardiac and noncardiac mortality" is from the pre-iPhone era (Phillips. 2004).

Is Santa not the good guy, the Coca Cola ads made us believe?

So, if its not the radiation, what else could it be? Could it be Santa Claus himself? Is he haunting us, just as his robotic counterfeit in the distant future of the year 2999, where an evil Santa robot is after the blood of the protagonists of Matt Groening's and David X. Cohens TV series Futurama? Or is it a result of the consumption of too many of the Coca Cola bottles Santa is supposed to have in his bag?

Image 2: One really has to marvel at how the soft drink producers dissolve the enormous amount of sugar on the right in the small amount of dark brew on the left.

Did you know that the Coca Cola company alone sells 1.6billion (!) servings of Coke per day? With 27g of sugar per serving, this equals 43,000 metric tons of pure sugar. The average American, who consumes an average of 150 to 170 pounds of sugar each year, would have to live into his/her 558th year of age to eat or drink her way through this sugar mountain. And while I have no doubt that there actually are people out there who would do that withing 100 years, I am not quite sure which of the ailments of our sweet convenience society would strike him / her first and put a spoke in the sweet-o-holic's plans: diabetes, cancer, heart failure or stroke? What would you say?

Phillipps et al. who report in a follow-up study based on the same dataset from the holiday periods between July 1, 1973, and June 30, 2001 that there was an "excess of 42,325 deaths from natural causes above and beyond the normal winter increase" (Phillips. 2010), exclude the possibility that the increased mortality rate was simply a result of the bad weather conditions and related respiratory diseases:

Respiratory diseases. Respiratory diseases increase during winter, and patients weakened by respiratory diseases can die from cardiac diseases. The respiratory hypothesis is undermined by 2 considerations: (1) People dying from cardiac diseases with respiratory disease listed as a secondary cause of death produce a smaller holiday peak than do people dying from cardiac diseases alone: 3.51% versus 3.77%. (2) Interaction between cardiac and respiratory diseases cannot easily explain the twin mortality spikes on Christmas and New Year’s.

So, in view of the latest headlines related to "holiday weight gain" here at the SuppVersity and elsewhere on the web, the next best plausible explanation (which would in fact come back to the "Coca Cola < > Santa Connection" ;-) would be gluttony, right?

Holiday weight gain: Distinguishing fact from fiction

Before we jump to any premature conclusions, here, let's initially have a closer look at how much body weight Santa actually has in his bag for you.I mean, the perceived weight gain is enormous, right? Well, science is however not about perceptions and feelings and it should thusly not really surprise you that, according to a US study which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (Yanowski. 2000), the "average" American (in this study represented by 195 US adults with a mean age of 39 +/-12 years) gains no more than 0.37kg, or, expressed in terms of the mean weight of the study participants, 0.5% during the holiday period from from mid-November to early or mid-January.

Figure 1: Percentage of normal weight, overweight and obese subjects with "major weight gain", as defined in absolute or relative terms (data adapted from Yanowski. 2000)

And while the average weight gain hardly is something to speak of, there are two other particularly intriguing findings of this study I do want to draw your attention to. The first one relates to the the data in figure 1. As you can see, the number of overweight subjects among those study participants with major weight gain (as defined as >3% of the initial weight) is particularly high. While only 7.9% of the normal-weight (American normal weight ;-) subjects gained more than 3% of their initial body weight 11.1% of the already overweight subjects did. Interestingly, the number of obese subjects was slightly smaller (7.5%). The latter is yet a physical necessity as there simply is a phyiscal limit to the amount of weight you can gain in a given period of time and 3% for a person with BMI>30 is obviously way more than 3% for someone who is only "overweight" (25 < BMI < 30).

The real problem is: The weight does not magically disappear

The real culprit is however that the weight people gain during last weeks of the year "is not reversed during
the spring and summer months", so that he researchers' concern that

[t]he 0.48-kg weight gain of the subjects in this study between September or October and February or March might not appear to be  clinically important and could easily go unnoticed by both the subjects and health care providers [and that] the cumulative effects of yearly weight gain during the fall and winter are likely to contribute to the substantial increase in body weight that frequently occurs during adulthood.

A 2006 by Hull may not only provide a hypothetical explanation for the non-reversibility of the (minor) weight gain (Hull. 2006), it also provides some insights into the true fallacy of "holiday weight gain": The minor increase in total body weight goes at the expense of concomittant increases in body fat and reductions in lean tissue mass.

Figure 2: Relative changes in anthroprometric measures over the holiday season; left axis - overweight / normal weight, right axis + figures - all (data adapted from Hull. 2006)

In the 82 college students from the Hull study, this fat promoting, muscle reducing "recompositioning" effect of the holiday season (Thanksgiving to New Year) was even so pronounced that the study participants actually lost -0.1kg of their total body weight. This was unfortunately a direct result of a +0.8 increase in fat mass and a -0.4kg decrease in lean mass. And what's more, the effect on fat mass was again more pronounced in those subjects, who were already obese.

Beyond candy, coke & co: Five additional reasons why Christmas is potentially deadly

In spite of the fact that these highly unfavorable changes in body composition are certainly not beneficial for anyone's overall health, it stands out of question that their effects would be cumulative and can thusly hardly explain the empirically validated increased mortality risk during the holiday season. In a 2004 comment on the aforementioned paper by Phillips et. al., Robert A. Kloner thusly proposes five additional hypotheses which could explain the potentially fatal side effects of the holiday season (Kloner. 2004):

Image 3: If you do not want to be treated by "beginners" and unexperienced hospital personnel you'd better not get sick over the holidays; and in case you do, please make sure to "postpone your death" in order not to ruin everyone's holidays ;-)

1. Inappropriate delay in seeking medical attention - best way out: don't wait until all the presents have been wrapped out, when aunt Mary chokes over her food
2. Reduced levels of healthcare staffing or fewer staff members who are familiar with individual patients during holiday on-call schedules - best way out: better avoid getting sick in the first place if you do not want to be treated by the SCRUBS staff
3. Increased emotional stress - just ignore your nephew when he starts crying because he did not get the Nintendo Wii he wrote on his wish list
4. Decreased our of daylight - make sure to get as much of the little light there is during prolonged walks with the whole family (may also help cool down any raised tempers ;-)
5. "Postponement of death" - tell your 127 year old uncle that he has been waiting so long now that it would be very inappropriate to die now and ruin everyones' Christmas celebrations

Well, I guess, now that you know about all the terrible things that could happen and the best ways to avoid them, it is about time to wish you, your family, friends and loved ones a happy (death-free) holiday season! And in case you need a break from the festivities, there is no Christmas break, here it at the SuppVersity ;-)

Adelfo Cerame - Road to Wheelchair Nationals '12: Getting Ripped For Christmas! Plus, Taking a Week Off Takes Some Courage, But Believe Me - It Will Pay Off!

Image 1: Adelfo at the Buckeye Classics, last year.

Actually, I wanted to start this installment of Adelfo's weekly contest-prep blog along the lines of "another Thursday, another ...", ... well, I guess that won't work out, because exactly those lines were the first words in the email with the weekly write-up Adelfo just sent me. So, I guess, I will just take the chance to sneak in a last-minute tip for a gift. Assuming that you have a friend or family member who really wants to make a change to the way he looks, feels and performs in the coming year, I think Adelfo is still taking new clients... but before he gets mad at me again, because I am pimping his services way too much for his liking, I better shut up now and let Adelfo tell you how he has been preparing for Christmas and his 12-weeks out mark on Christmas Day ;-)

Another Thursday, another blog…  

Damn! Aren’t you guys and, of course, girls ;-) getting tired of reading these Thursday write-ups? Well I hope not because there’s going to be about 13 to 14 more Thursday segments from yours truly ;-)

As you all know from the last installment of this series I am using this week as sort of a benchmark or test run for the show. With Christmas Day I will be hitting my 12-week mark and hopefully make myself an awesome present in terms of just about as lean and mean as possible before, ... well, before I will cram myself with every- and anything my little heart desires. What? You think that sounds stupid? Why would one diet down, just to ruin everything within one day? Well, I guess you have not read the previous installments of this series then. As I've already mentioned repeatedly, if you stay lean year round, keep your body accustomed to burning off extra calories by carefully planned cheat- and refeed-days and don't skimp on your workouts, the occasional holiday binge is not going to have any long-term detrimental effect on your physique. Enjoy your holidays - you have done your homework. It's the lazy rest of the world that's got to feel guilty, not you!

Image 2: No reason to feel guilty! I guarantee, "My 5 Simple Tricks For Guilt Free Thanksgiving Celebrations" will work for every holiday ;-)

How to minimize damage or even progress over the Christmas days? If you have not read them already, I strongly suggest you go back to"My 5 Simple Tricks For Guilt Free Thanksgiving Celebrations", where I describe in some detail how intermittent fasting and keeping your diet in check in the days before and after the holidays will help you to not only compromise your progress, but how you can even make use of a holiday binge as a strategic way of refueling your body and soul ;-) That being said, a related resource you may enjoy are the first issues (esp. Part 2 and Part 3) of the Intermittent Thoughts series, in which Dr.Andro digs into the physiology of intermittent fasting, which - as you all know - has helped me tremendously during this first half of my prep.

With only two more days to go, I am very pleased with how things are working out for me. It looks like I will be hitting my mark… As for the water retention issue, I have been seeing improvements in my physique this week, as in vascularity and separation within my shoulders, forearms, triceps and upper abs. I’ve been pounding at least 2 gallons of water a day to try and flush out as much water as I can. We will see what the end-result on Sunday will look like. I know that I will not be hitting my full potential in conditioning - if I did, the chances that I will be both as muscular, as well as as ripped as possible, on the day of the show, in 14 weeks would decrease, anyways.

Nevertheless, I do feel that I look now about as ripped as when I did the Buckeye Classic last April (cf. image 1). With another 13-14 weeks to improve, I am pretty damn sure that time (and obviously consistency as far as diet and training goes) will take care of the water retention and stubborn body fat I am still carrying. But enough about my 12-week mark! I’ve been bumpin’ my gums about it for the past two weeks, and I’m pretty sure you’re tired of it too. Note: I’ll have pictures up next Thursday on how my physique turns out this Sunday - promise ;-)

Rest, Rest, Rest... and? Well, I guess REST!

Rest, or what some people simply think of as "doing nothing", is in fact one of the most valuable training tools you have. More often than not, it is however taken for granted even by professional athletes and even I commit guilty of taking it for granted in the past, because I had that “gung-ho”,  “rest is for the weak”, or “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” type of mentality. Don’t get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with having a “gung-ho” mentality, but you should be aware of when your body is already "dead" and you begin to take steps back- not forward with every heavy lifting session... train hard, but train smart! Rest, when it’s time to rest, and learn how to listen to what your body wants.

Image 3: A brief update on my initial experience with Slinshot, Recycle and D-Pol by Purus Labs

Quick PurusLabs supplement update (Recycle, D-Pol and SlinShot): For my liking it is still too early to draw any conclusions, but as I promised to keep you up-to-date as far as my newest supplements are concerned, I thought I'd mention that I’ve been getting some pretty decent pumps in the gym, lately. While much of this could obviously be just in my head, I want to remind everyone that this is my deload week, so I’m basically just doing sissy workouts and lifting real light - still, the pump is really noticeable. And when I am practicing my poses, I feel like there was a major improvement in what people like to call the "mind and muscle connection", which is the ability to contract and flex individual muscles intentionally. As with every N=1 experiment, it is however difficult to judge how much of that can be ascribed to Recycle and D-Pol and what may be due to other parameters. With regard to the tarragon based insulin-sensitizer SlinShot, of which I told you that I'd save it for my refeeds, I will probably be able to tell you next week, whether or not it is working. I mean, the plan is to EAT BIG on Christmas, so we’ll see how much "damage" I can do, and whether or not SlinShot can help in repartitioning some of the "damage" into muscle glycogen ;-)

For me the incorporation of carefully planned rest days before it was too late, was the key to what I think is the most profound growth-spurt I have undergone in the past couple of month. Before, I did not only train 6 days a week, I also totally overlooked - or I should say - ignored the value of rest or deload weeks. Not hitting the gym for more than one day? Taking it easy, when you are not hurt? Impossible... no wonder I always felt burned out and sometimes even utterly unmotivated.

Taking more than a day off and the irrational fears of muscle loss, fat gain & co

At first I feared taking too many rest days, especially during contest prep, would hamper my progress. That being said, rationally, I was not even sure what the exact reasons for this gut feelings were. Maybe the fear of...

• losing muscle, when the latter was not constantly challenged during my diet
• not being able to get the most out of my body, or
• not having enough training days to help burn body fat, since I rarely did cardio. 

And, yes, I was one of those guys who used to lift weights constantly thinking about how that would help him burn off body fat, how many calories he would have "left at the gym" and what foods he was now "allowed" to eat after burning X amounts of calories in the course of his last workout. Thus, rather than focusing on increasing my strength and trying to build some lean muscle or at least maintain it, all my efforts in the gym were aimed at simply burning calories - a futile concept, as I have eventually come to realize.

The thought of not having done enough, alway hampered my progress

I know this may sound somewhat ridiculous, especially for the lazy guys out there, but it actually took me a whole lot of courage to finally incorporate more rest days into my training regimen, to take a week off or tick to a pre-planned deload week every 6-8 weeks. The results, however, were well worth it. Adequate rest alone, helped me to ...

• continously increase my strength on all major lifts
• make greater and more consistent muscle gains
• be able to hit the gym motivated and refreshed
• lift really heavy and not just heavy as my exhausted body would allow
• keep injury free

The latter, i.e. the ability to avoid major (and minor) injuries, may in fact be one of the most fundamental benefits you will get if you allow your body to fully recuperate. After all, what could be worse than not being able to hit the gym at all (look at Branch Warren with his torn quads!) For someone like me, who always seems to attract nagging aches, pains and tweaks during long hauls in his training, it was like a revelation, when I noticed that by just taking the necessary week off , I could totally avoid those tedious injuries.

Recipe of the week: In the good spirit of the Christmas Holidays & the birthday of Jesus Christ… I have put together a classic holiday recipe for you: Eggnog, but with an anabolic twist. Cheers!

Image 4: Eggnog - a classic recipe with an anabolic twist!

Anabolic Eggnog - ingredients:

• 4 whole organic eggs (blend in blender till frothy) 
• 1 c. non-fat milk 
• 40g of vanilla whey protein 
• 2 tsp. organic vanilla extract 
• 1 tsp. stevia 
• powdered or ground cinnamon (sprinkle to liking) 
• nutmeg (sprinkle to liking)
• Sailor Jerry’s spiced rum is optional ;-)
  
  Macros: 71g protein / 12g carbs / 20g fat

After blending the eggs till frothy, add all the other ingredients and blend till frothy, and you can add a couple more sprinkles of cinnamon on top to make your drink look fancy. ;-)

And just to make sure, you are getting the message: The type of Rest, we are talking about, here is not the time it takes to take a nip from your water bottle in-between sets (even if it has BCAAs in it ;-) It also does not mean hitting on the beautiful girl on the stairmaster instead of finishing you HIIT session. Rest, is the time you are spending out of the gym. A day, you spent with friends or family, where you treat your run down body with good nutrition and extra sleep. A day, where you get yourself a massage, take the dog for an extended walk and take your girlfriend out to a fancy restaurant that also carries bodybuilding friendly foods. And of course a day, where you have lot's of time to go and check out mine and Dr.Andro's posts, here at the SuppVersity, to learn new things about exercise and nutrition and to join the discussion... so, what are you waiting for, then? Go for it and rest... Merry Christmas, everyone!