We have both felt some difference, in particular with how rested we feel when we wake up each morning, even if we have to wake up early.  However, I’ve picked up in a few places that magnesium is also depleted much faster by stress, so last week was a bit of a test for Chris and me.  Not only were we dealing with increased stress created by our topsy-turvy living arrangements, but we were also unable to take our Epsom Salt baths (thanks to having no hot water).

The 25kg sack of magnesium in the form of Epsom salts which lives under the sink in our bathroom

This was our chance to find out, through removing it again, if the magnesium supplementation had been having any affect.

General observations from magnesium supplementation

Before last week’s break from magnesium, I had started noticing that the biggest change I was seeing as stress increased in my life was with my sleep.  I wasn’t able to get any more sleep than I was getting before and my dreams were as vivid and active as before.  The difference was with the way I felt each morning.

Previously a night of vivid dreams would leave me feeling tired and worn out the next morning with muscles sore as if I had been using them all night.  An article on Iron Man Magazine last week suggests there is some science behind this muscular exhaustion.  The article is about posing practice for a bodybuilding show increasing muscle size.  To quote the article:

“When your muscles are flexing, fibers are firing and working—and choking off the blood supply for 30 seconds to a minute as you hold a pose puts demands on the sarcoplasm, the energy fluid inside the muscle fibers.”

If you are tensing muscles in your sleep you are creating a similar demand on your muscle fibres.  This isn’t helpful when sleep cycles are meant to provide time for the muscles to rest and recuperate.

In comparison, for the last couple of months I have increasingly been waking up each morning feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.  Even when my night of sleep has been cut short due to an early start and I feel a little woolly-brained until I’ve been through the shower and properly woken up.

Observations from a week without magnesium supplements

It was a horrendous week last week.  Yes, I had a particularly bad week at work, getting home late most evenings, but even accounting for that, the characteristics and behaviours we saw could not be put down solely to the stress and normal behaviour we usually exhibit these days when we are stressed.

So here are the things we noticed:

• Feeling tired and physically drained after a night of sleep.
• Poor recovery from workouts with muscles still sore 2 days later.
• Gradual increase in length and frequency of bad tempers as the week progressed, with some impressive raging arguments by the end of the week about the most ridiculous things.
• Reduced ability to logically resolve issues or rationally analyse a situation.
• Poor performance at physical activity, worsening as the week progressed (most clearly seen through my commute bike ride home, slowing from 15.8mph to 15.0mph).
• Inability to control emotions with flare-ups or tears at the slightest thing – at work I would move from anger at one issue to anger at another, making me difficult and unpleasant to work with and resulting in some bad decisions during the week.
• Slower reactions to things (especially when cycling and driving).
• Slower ability to regain emotional control – such as ability to calm down again after someone cut me up when driving.

A lot of this is emotional rather than physical yet it all seems to link back to the quality of sleep.  They are all things that I have seen deteriorate in the past when I’ve had several consecutive nights of minimal sleep.

My best description of it was that it was almost like an out-of-body experience.  I could hear myself snapping at people and things, a little part of my brain could sense I was reacting poorly and could even understand what the rational interpretation would be, yet I couldn’t stop my emotions from coming straight out of my vocal chords or body language.  There was a disconnect where my brain should have been.

Frankly, I found the entire experience illuminating and also a little terrifying.  Behaviours that I had believed had been brought under control through coaching at work a few years ago were reappearing worse than ever before.  I’d been pleased to be seeing continued improvement, even over the last few months when I knew the stresses were getting worse.  Now I believe that I would have seen a reduction in my ability to control those emotions and reactions in the last few months if it wasn’t for the fact that I started dosing with magnesium at about the same time.

Instant improvement

On Friday night I came home to a warm house and took a half hour Epsom bath after ranting to Chris about several drivers who had tried to kill me as a cycled home.

I didn’t feel any better at first and Chris and I continued arguing as we did the shopping that evening, although I was now able to control myself sometimes when it was clear that the jibe Chris had made wasn’t really meant.  At this point Chris still hadn’t supplemented.

The next morning my alarm woke me up and I felt instantly alert and refreshed.  I got in a good workout in the gym, my clarity of thought was back where it should be and I felt completely in control of myself.

Learning points

So what did I learn from this experience?

Mostly I learned that the magnesium, supplemented through the use of regular Epsom salt baths, really is making a difference to me.  Epsom salt baths are now compulsory, not just an experimental optional extra.

It also made me think that Epsom salt baths should be compulsory for anyone in the western world.  Anyone who isn’t already horizontal and stress free at any rate!

Does this experience tempt you to try some magnesium supplementation too?  If so, I would be really interested to hear what things seem to improve for you.

Related posts:

1. Magnesium
2. Powerlifting progress 2011: week thirty-five

As with all games of word association, this game of links association is perhaps a bit tenuous in places with some dubious segues to get us from link to link but I was genuinely interested and surprised by some of the bits I’ve been putting aside and hope you will too.

We're even going to manage to find some links about sleep in here... is that how Jake stays lean?

• I’ve been intrigued by this review of Read my Hips by Kim Brittingham.  I think body image is a real issue for many women and it looks like this could be a fascinating look into someone’s battles with their self-image.
• Despite that comment on self-image I’m having a brief diet period.  My hips and thighs have got a bit out of control with the work lunches and dinners I’ve had recently and I feel uncomfortable in my clothes and skin now.  I don’t want to have to buy new clothes for only a couple of months in the office.  I know – it’s perhaps a bit hypocritical after a link to self-image.  Anyway, part of my “diet” involves plenty of sleep.  Especially now that I’ve seen reference to a study suggesting that those dieting and getting less sleep lose more of their weight as muscle loss and experience more hunger.
• Sleep is not just crucial for losing weight of the right type.  I was also interested to read that reduced sleep (four hours or less) can reduce insulin sensitivity.  Reduced insulin sensitivity is likely to impact on your weight management and your overall health.  By implication constantly missing sleep could lead to type 2 diabetes and other related conditions.  Though there’s a great suggestion in this article – intermittent fasting has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity so perhaps fast after a bad night of sleep (though personally I find I’m always ravenously hungry after a bad night).
• So picking up on the intermittent fasting theme in the previous link, the same site (Naturally Engineered) also had an article comparing calorie restriction and intermittent fasting, providing some nice simple explanations to squash the myth that the two are the same thing.  They might be – I certainly find that intermittent fasting can sometimes help with a highly calorie restricted diet since my one meal of the day feels like a sensible size – but it doesn’t have to be.
• Even if you don’t practice intermittent fasting on a regular basis like I do, Jamie Scott brought my attention to a study highlighted in Science Daily that suggests links between routine periodic fasting and improved general health (including heart health).  So even if you don’t need to fast to improve insulin sensitivity perhaps you might consider doing a fast every now and again anyway.
• Dietary fat has also been flagged by many people as providing some excellent health benefits so perhaps some fat in those meals would help?  Don at Primal Wisdom did a bit of a high-level meta-analysis of four studies looking at the effect of fat content on meal satiety.  After all, if you’re fasting you want to feel satiated before you start your fast.  I would have expected the overall conclusion to be that fat was much more satiating than carbohydrates so I was really surprised to see Don concluding that carbohydrates would be more satiating and that to replace carbs with fat and remain equally satiated would most likely involve a much higher calorie intake.  Not so good for weight loss!
• So we’re now thinking that perhaps we should eat more carbohydrate rather than fat when dieting to keep the calorie level down.  But are the carbohydrates good for our health?  Let’s turn to a study highlighted by Healthy Diets and Science, which I haven’t looked at in detail but the summary results seem to suggest that of the Italian women studied, those with the highest carbohydrate intake also had twice the risk of coronary heart disease.
• But wait!  Brian St Pierre spent two articles explaining why pointing the finger at carb misses the point.  In part two he uses the classic example of the Kitavans to show that there are populations who don’t have horrible health problems as a result of eating plenty of carbs in their diet.  To quote the article: “Dr. Lindeberg found that heart disease and stroke are absent or exceedingly rare in this population. They are completely unfamiliar with the signs and symptoms of heart attack and stroke, and the lack of these diseases was confirmed with their excellent ECG’s.”  So the lesson from this is perhaps that we should be careful of extrapolating one study on a specific population to all other populations.

So we started out at body image and dieting for our figures and ended up at the everlasting debate about whether carbohydrates are good or bad for us.  I wouldn’t have seen that one coming – certainly not taking the route I took on the way.

I’d love to know if you’ve enjoyed this game of links association and found some of the resulting links useful.  If you have I might do another one later this year on a different theme.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: diet and other health-related blogs
2. Blog-watch: paleo diet links
3. Blog-watch: pregnancy diet and exercise

RDA chart of beef curry and liver dinner day - only 50% of magnesium RDA

Why does magnesium matter?

Magnesium is essential to life.  If you really want to get into the science of it then you can find lots of details on the ever-helpful Wikipedia.

50% of magnesium in the human body is stored in the bones with the rest found inside the cells of tissues and organs except for a small 1% which is in the blood.  Despite this low level in the blood, the body works hard to keep these blood-magnesium levels constant.

Over 300 enzymes require magnesium ions to be present in order to carry out their actions.  Enzymes are crucial to the correct function of our bodies, including breaking food down into constituent parts that can be absorbed by the body.  As a result insufficient magnesium may hinder us from absorbing the other nutrients we need, causing additional problems.

Humans aren’t the only ones who need magnesium.  It is crucial to all living organisms, including plants.  Chlorophyll, which is the cause of the green colouring in plants, is a magnesium-centred compound.  Without magnesium a plant will turn yellow and can no longer extract and create energy from the sun.

Symptoms of magnesium deficiency

Magnesium deficiency has wide-ranging symptoms, including the following classic symptoms.

• Hyperexcitability
• Muscle weakness
• Fatigue
• Muscle cramps
• Foot pain
• Muscle ‘twitches’ (such as ‘restless leg syndrome’)
• Insomnia
• Migrane headaches
• Loss of appetite
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Retention of sodium
• Menstrual cramps (dysmenorrhea).

If the magnesium deficiency goes too far then more serious conditions can occur, including:

• Hypocalcaemia
• Personality changes
• Heart failure
• Hearing loss
• Osteoporosis and osteopenia
• Premature birth
• Diabetes (deficiency is thought to worsen insulin resistance which can assist in the development of diabetes).

More detail on some of the research behind these symptoms can be found on the Magnesium Supreme site and Poliquin has written eloquently on the things that can, conversely, be improved if you increase your magnesium levels.

How much magnesium should we have?

The recommended levels for daily magnesium intake vary widely, ranging from 200mg to 420mg.  Most recommendations are near the upper end of this range with recommendations for men being higher than women.  The higher recommendation for men may be because magnesium assists with maintaining testosterone levels.

Dietary sources of magnesium

In an ideal world we would obtain all of our magnesium from our food.  A reliably good source should be green leafy vegetables, thanks to the magnesium-based chlorophyll, so spinach and broccoli are often put forward as the best sources of magnesium.  However nuts are also an excellent source.  The Office of Dietary Supplements provides a list of some select foods and their magnesium content.  It’s not comprehensive, but it does give a good starting point.

Paleo ginger broccoli

Unfortunately plants may no longer be the best source of magnesium.  Studies are showing that, thanks to our use of fertilisers, certain minerals within agriculturally-grown produce are becoming depleted.  Among these depleted minerals is magnesium, so we can no longer look to our food as a reliable source of magnesium.

Interestingly tap water, thanks to its mineral content, can also provide magnesium.  I understand that hard water provides more magnesium than soft water.

Increasing magnesium levels

A good start in improving magnesium would be to increase dietary magnesium intake and reduce drugs that are known to deplete magnesium.  These drugs include alcohol, corticosteroids, caffeine and insulin.

After that it is necessary to look towards supplementing magnesium levels.  Unfortunately while it is quite easy to obtain oral supplements these are not absorbed effectively by the body (Fine KD, Santa Ana CA, Porter JL, Fordtran JS: Intestinal Absorption of Magnesium from Food and Supplements.  Journal of Clinical Investigation 1991; 88:396-402).

However, a really easy (and incredibly pleasant) way to increase magnesium levels is to take Epsom Salt baths which have been found to have excellent absorption levels.

Epsom Salt baths

Epsom salts are actually magnesium sulphate.

After dissolving the salts in hot water the magnesium is then absorbed through the skin directly into the bloodstream.  The recommendation is to have the water as hot as possible (without being uncomfortable) as this opens the skin pores so that more of the magnesium is absorbed (I definitely find I get more effective results with the same quantity of salts when the bath water is really hot).  Then dissolve the salts in the water  and sit in the bath for 20 minutes.  Soap prevents absorption, so it is best to just lie there in a bath which appears to be clean water – just don’t drink the water or it will bring on diarhhoea!

How much salt should be added to the bathwater?  Often I have heard recommendations of a tablespoon or two, but a hunt on the internet took these levels up to 450g and even 600g.  The deeper and fuller the bath, the more salt is needed since the extra water means the solution is weaker.

Important warning:

If suffering from magnesium deficiency, it is important to start with a low level of Epsom salts, perhaps a tablespoon, and increase levels gradually over time.  If you absorb too much before you are ready for it then it will actually bring on symptoms of magnesium deficiency!

I suffered from this just over a week ago when I found myself irritable, angry, twitching, unable to sleep, fatigued, frequently nauseous and showing dreadful muscle weakness – supported by my dreadful performance squatting in the gym that day.  I’d put 420g instead of 350g of salt in the bath and had the water hotter than previously.  It took 3 days for the symptoms to pass.

Humans aren’t the only ones to use Epsom salts either.  Gardeners are recommended to use Epsom salts when their plants start to turn yellow from magnesium deficiency too!

I hope this provides some useful information for a few people.  Do you think you suffer from magnesium deficiency?

Related posts:

1. Magnesium: a follow up
2. Powerlifting progress 2011: week thirty-five
3. Vitamin B

Liver - a great source of some of the B vitamins

Vitamin B Complex

Let’s start with the basics.  Vitamin B is not actually a single vitamin.  Unfortunately, when vitamins were first conceived in the early twentieth century, the similarities between the B vitamins, such as the fact that they are all water soluble and stored in the liver, meant that they were mistaken for a single vitamin.  That said, I do wonder how they clearly distinguished Vitamin B from Vitamin C, which is also water soluble and stored in the liver.

Once they started recognising the separate vitamins that make up the Vitamin B Complex, only a few years later, they allocated a number to each of the individual vitamins.  However, it seems that they got a bit over-enthusiastic and recognised a collection of things that are no longer considered to be vitamins, hence the gaps in the number sequence that we now have.  You can read more about the “vitamins” that are no longer recognised on Wikipedia.

So the Vitamin B Complex is now recognised as being made up of the following:

• B1 – thiamine
• B2 – riboflavin
• B3 – niacin
• B5 – pantothenic acid
• B6 – pyridoxine or pyridoxamine
• B7 – biotin
• B9 – folic acid
• B12 – various cobalamins or cyanocobalamin

Key benefits of the B vitamins

The B vitamins seem to have some key properties which apply to several of them and then some other health benefits which only come from specific B vitamins.  The main benefits include:

• aiding proper digestion, including assisting in the production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach lining;
• required for proper metabolism of carbohydrates, proteins and fats;
• synthesis of carbohydrate into glycogen;
• synthesis of fatty acids;
• cell regeneration;
• repair of hair, skin and nails, since these are essentially reliant on cell regeneration, and that includes helping you to maintain clear youthful skin, reduce wrinkles, delaying the greying of hair and preventing dandruff;
• synthesis of DNA;
• production of red blood cells;
• aiding the immune system;
• helping circulation;
• aiding proper function of the heart and other muscles;
• synthesis of certain hormones, including sex hormones; and
• maintaining health of the nervous system, including protection against memory loss and enhancing the effect of the adrenal glands.

Most often people comment on its beneficial effect for improving the strength and health of hair, skin and nails and for its role in improving the nervous system and protecting against memory loss.  However, I found the points about the metabolism of the macronutrients, aiding the muscular function, production of red blood cells and the synthesis of sex hormones to be of equal interest.

If you want to understand better which vitamins provide which benefits, I thoroughly recommend a detailed article on the NetFit website.

A few of the B vitamins are of particular interest to me, so I’ve gone into a bit more detail about these below.

Niacin (Vitamin B3)

Niacin is the vitamin which is present in every cell of the body.  Niacin dilates blood vessels, improving circulation, but is also important for the nervous system and is used for the synthesis of sex hormones – crucial for getting the most out of my workouts in terms of muscle and strength gains, among other things.

A deficiency of niacin brings with it a host of other potential problems, including dry, itchy and inflamed skin, muscle soreness, cramping, exhaustion, insomnia, indigestion, mental problems, mouth sores and loss of appetite.  I’m particularly interested in the dry skin, muscle soreness, cramping, exhaustion and insomnia since these are all problems I unexpectedly suffered from concurrently in the last two weeks of my diet last winter.  Perhaps my diet was low in niacin.

Vitamin B6

I wanted to pull Vitamin B6 out because of some research which has been done showing that it may relieve symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS).  Researchers did an analysis of nine studies which had previously looked at the effect of this vitamin on PMS and concluded that there was a strong correlation between Vitamin B6 supplementation and the reduction of symptoms like depression, breast tenderness and bloating.

Folic acid (Vitamin B9) and Vitamin B12

These two vitamins work together for the synthesis of DNA, the breakdown of proteins and the formation of haemoglobin, the element within blood cells which enables them to transport oxygen and carbon dioxide through the blood.  Vitamin B12 is, in fact, essential for creation of all of our blood cells. 

Many people will already be aware of the advice for pregnant women (or women who are trying to conceive) to supplement their folic acid levels.  This is because folic acid is essential for growth.  A deficiency occurring at anytime during pregnancy, especially when the foetus is in the early stages of development, could result in insufficient growth at those all-important early stages or some oxygen depletion (since oxygen is provided through the bloodstream).

Food sources of Vitamin B

The problem with trying to supplement your diet to increase your Vitamin B levels is that several of the B vitamins tend to be grouped together into a single supplement, meaning that you lose control of which of the vitamins you are dosing with.

The best answer is therefore to get your B vitamins from your food as much as possible.  The general rule is whole grains, meat (especially organ meats and chicken), fish (especially tuna) and green leafy vegetables, but here is a more comprehensive list of some of the most potent sources of each vitamin, mostly taken from NetFit.

• B1 – Brewer’s yeast, wheat germ, oatmeal, whole wheat, bran, whole brown rice, molasses, soy beans and meats.
• B2 – Principally cheese and milk, but also green vegetables and whole grains.
• B3 – Fish and chicken.
• B5 – Organ meats, brewer’s yeast, egg yolk, whole grain cereal, chicken, bran and nuts.
• B6 – Whole grains, potato, banana, chicken.  Worth noting that whole grains are the best source by a long way, provided they are in a fortified cereal – four times better than chicken – but the whole grain source is no use for those readers who follow a paleo diet.
• B7 – Brewer’s yeast and nuts.
• B9 – Liver and green leafy vegetables, especially broccoli and spinach.
• B12 – Liver, kidney, meats, fish, dairy products and eggs.  Note that this is the only B vitamin which cannot be sourced from plants and is therefore a required supplement for vegans.

A few Vitamin B reduction notes

A final point worth noting that there are a few things which can reduce the amount of Vitamin B in the body.  If any of the points below apply to you, you may want to consider increasing your Vitamin B sources to compensate.

• Coffee
• Alcohol (despite brewer’s yeast being a source of Vitamin B, apparently this is more than negated by the ethanol itself).
• Birth control pills.
• Sulfa drugs.
• Sleeping medications (recall that niacin deficiency could cause insomnia, so turning to sleeping medication could put you in a downward spiral if the insomnia is caused by niacin deficiency).

It’s been fascinating doing this bit of research, since I knew nothing about Vitamin B before I started.  Hopefully you’ve learned something new too.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: Vitamin D
2. Blog-watch: sunshine and Vitamin D
3. Blog-watch: Vitamin D controversy

Jake agrees that plenty of sleep is beneficial

• I’m going to kick off with a reminder from Cassandra Forsythe about why exercising more won’t necessarily help you sleep better.  Interestingly, Cassandra has focused on the fact that actually the exact amount of exercise doesn’t seem to be the affecting factor in itself, as revealed by a recent study, but rather our mindset and attitude towards our exercise (amongst other things).
• Chris on Zen to Fitness did a post recently to remind us all about those foods that can hinder a good night of sleep if you have them too late in the day.  It’s mostly the usual suspects, like caffeine, chocolate and cheese, but I was surprised to see valerian on the list as well.  Other than the valerian there wasn’t anything new to me on this list, but it’s always good to be reminded of those problem foods since some of them can easily slip back into the late afternoon or evening meals at times.
• I’ve mentioned in previous posts about sleep that one important factor is to make sure the room is completely dark to get a quality night of sleep.  Interestingly researchers at the University of Haifa have found a link between Light at night (LAN) and cancerous growths.  The study was done on mice with some mice being exposed to different amounts of light (“short days”, longer days with an interval of LAN and “long days”) with those getting the longest “day” showing the largest increase in cancerous growth with a link between the suppression of melatonin and the development of the tumour since those mice who were treated with melatonin managed to retain cancer growth rate that was more equivalent to the “short days” mice.  What does all this tell us?  I think that for starters if you live in a city with bright lights on all night, consider getting some blackout curtains.  Secondly, this is yet more evident that we should be making sure we get a decent length night of sleep.  It’s all well and good having a dark room but if you only spend five hours in it sleeping then you are still getting a short night.
• I’m going to return to Chris from Zen to Fitness.  Not only has he reminded us of the foods we should avoid to get a good night of sleep, but he has also helpfully summarised a few other things that should help get a good night’s sleep.  Again, I don’t think there is anything new in this post, but it’s always good to be given a bit of a “talking to” to remember the important things to ensure a good night of quality sleep in order to get all the mood, recovery and health benefits of a good sleep.
• I’ve known for some time that longer and better sleep helps me with fat loss.  It’s a tip I picked up from Dan John originally.  However there has suddenly been lots of news on the internet about a recent study which took this anecdotal evidence and hypothesis and carried out a fairly rigorous and controlled study to examine this very factor.  The results did provide some solid scientific evidence that good sleep really does help fat loss and it was picked up by both Chris at Conditioning Research and also by Stephan at Whole Health Source (who also goes into some detail analysing the study and has had to post a slight correction to part of his analysis).
• Following on from that last study here’s another, perhaps less rigorous, study which Chris at Conditioning Research found which concluded that “changes in BMI during puberty were inversely related to changes in sleep duration, independent of possible confounders”.
• If you weren’t already coming to the conclusion that getting to bed earlier is a really good thing then Precision Nutrition took the time to post up an article about sleep preventing muscle loss.  It’s looking at the results from a couple of studies and, in usual Precision Nutrition style, goes into plenty of detail.  The studies it is looking at are studies connecting sleep with metabolism changes as well as one linking it to fat loss.

That’s the lot!  Some of those were simple reminders of the all important points to ensure a good night of sleep while others may be new to people.  Whether there is new information for you here or you already knew all of this I hope it has been useful to you to put it all together in one place to help you get a really good night of sleep.

Sweet dreams!

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: sleep
2. Lessons learned: sleep
3. Blog-watch: weight loss diets latest news

When I started out on this series there were several key problems, such as poor hip mobility.  Having had some reasonable successes at the end of 2009 and some fantastic progress during the first half of 2010, fixing the remaining problems while also driving up the strength numbers are now the priorities of the program. 

I’m recording my progress in this series: powerlifting progress.  It is serving as a journal and makes me a bit more accountable to my goals. 

At the moment while I am also dieting for fat loss, since the progress on my fat loss is likely to impact my progress in the gym, I am also using this weekly roundup to record my figure progress as well.

This week

I’ve made it through the week.  With one more week of diet and workouts to go until I go on holiday I’m starting to struggle, although the main problem has been a cold.  I’ve noticed before that when I get a cold while taking Vitamin D my mood doesn’t drop like it used to.  This particular cold hasn’t really affected me since I’m fine during the day apart from a niggling sore throat that comes and goes.  However, the blocked nose appears while I sleep and wakes me up early.  As a result I only got 4 or 5 hours of sleep on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights.

I’m really enjoying being on a total body workout programme again.  My glutes are feeling the strain of doing weighted glute bridges at every workout and I think my body is responding well to having to work hard across the whole body at every workout again.

Despite the lack of sleep I’m not too unhappy with progress this week though and think I can hold it together for one more week.

Diet and figure improvement

Here’s the latest update in graphical format:

Progress to 30 Oct 2010

So I finally had my “week three” plateau.  You can probably see from the graph that only one measurement (mid-hip) went down significantly.  Meanwhile my weight went up slightly which I’m really pleased about.  I’m pretty sure that my weight is up because I hadn’t evacuated my bowels for about 24 hours when I weighed myself and had taken a client out for lunch in the intervening period.  I was getting bothered by the amount of weight I was losing every week since it was starting to suggest some muscle loss so I’m hoping this means my weight is actually about the same as last week despite the little bit of size I lost off my hips.

I got my diet completely wrong last Saturday night.  My diet is very high protein with low carbs and low fat during the week and then on Saturday night, when I carb reefed I try to get carbs very high, protein in the middle of the range (the focus is carbs so I don’t want to fill up with loads of meat or fish) but keeping the fat low still.  Unfortunately it went a bit wrong and I ended up with carbs in the middle of the range and fat and protein far too high.  It’s not a big problem except that I was stocking up (and storing) my primary energy source (fat) so I probably didn’t start burning my own body fat again until about Monday.

The only observation I have is that visually I started to see striations in my thighs and the gluteal fold has noticeably started to disappear this week.  As a result I’m suspicious that Friday’s lunch and my workout on Friday night (which I would usually have done on Thursday night) and which may have left some residual pump in the muscles early the next morning may have skewed my numbers slightly.  The poor sleep in the second half of the week will also have affected my fat loss this week.

Bench

Action plan

• Maintain – technique
• Develop – scapular stability and thoracic mobility

 Progress this week

So for five workouts my overhead press didn’t move much.  On my left arm I gained the odd rep but my right arm remained stubbornly on five sets of three reps when I was aiming for 5×5.  I’d carried on hitting the rolling, the resistance band pull-apart exercise (to build strength in my upper back and continue learning how to use my arms correctly) but I wasn’t really getting anywhere.  So imagine my surprise when I suddenly kicked out a set of five followed by four sets of four reps on my Friday evening workout!

Perhaps it was the extra carbs in my lunch that day, but suddenly the movement felt right which has nothing to do with having sufficient glycogen. 

My chins have also flown up this week so perhaps I’m starting to get somewhere.

Squat

Action plan

• Maintain – hip mobility and ab strength
• Develop – glute and lower back strength

Progress this week

I’m being brave.  I put another 4kg increase on my squat this week when I would usually put 2kg on it and again managed to complete with no follow-up soreness in my lower back.  I feel like the movement pattern is coming back and I’m feeling much less helpless about not doing heavy squats while dieting.  Based on my one-rep max from last time I tested I should be able to do a set of five reps with 72kg so I’ve still got a bit of a way to go to catch up with myself, but at least we’re moving in the right direction now.

Deadlift

Action plan

• Maintain – leg strength and ab strength
• Develop – hip mobility and lower back strength

Progress this week

There really isn’t much to say about the exercises I’m doing to help my deadlift.  At the moment my main focus is glute-ham raises and really heavy weighted glute bridges (really heavy for me anyway, I hit a PB this week).  When I get back from holiday I’m going to switch my glute bridges to hip thrusts and the glute-ham raises to Good Mornings so only a few workouts left to go to see if I can crack the lastest level of resistance to assist my glute-ham raises.  On Friday I nearly face-planted on the mat so I think my assistance is pretty minimal now!

Related posts:

1. Powerlifting progress 2010: week forty-seven (fat loss: week nine)
2. Powerlifting progress 2010: week forty-nine (fat loss: week eleven)
3. Powerlifting progress 2010: week forty-four (fat loss: week six)

Our bedroom is on the back of the house overlooking some fields so, with the addition of some very thick curtains, the only light we tend to see is natural light as it filters between cracks in the curtains in the morning.  Unfortunately for anyone who comes to stay with us, there is a street light just outside the front of our house which shines through the thin curtains of our two front bedrooms.

Why I’ve done this research

I’ve done posts about sleep before.  Sleep is hugely important to our general health and, specifically, to our mental and physical recovery.  Good sleep can make the difference between good and poor gym performance.

Posts I’ve done so far have been about ways to improve sleep, briefly touching on things like the disruption of sleep patterns by too much artificial light late into the night.  However, on a recent Robb Wolf podcast he mentioned that humans are sensitive to light even if their eyes are covered, so a room with light sources can still impact on your sleep, even if you are wearing a sleep mask.

This piqued my interest, so I’ve decided to learn more about artificial light and sleep.

How can we improve our sleep?

Circadian rhythms

Most people think of our reaction to the daylight phase as the circadian rhythm, however this isn’t strictly correct.  Circadian rhythms are actually a much broader category covering any roughly 24-hour cycle in the biochemical, physiological, or behavioural processes of living entities which, according to wikipedia, meet three criteria:

1. the rhythm persists in constant conditions (eg. constant dark);
2. the rhythm maintains the same period over a range of temperatures; and
3. the rhythm can be reset by exposure to external stimulus.

The most relevant impact on the last of those conditions is the way light can affect the sleep circadian rhythm.  The different pattern of light and dark when moving to a different time-zone will eventually trigger us to change our sleep pattern, but we suffer from jet-lag until all the circadian rhythms have adjusted.

Humans contain a “master clock”, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), a group of cells found near the hypothalmus.  Light received by the eyes directly affects the SCN and as a result it is the visual cycle of light and dark which primarily drives our systems.  However, we also contain numerous other peripheral oscillators found in places like the oesophagus, lungs, liver and skin which react to other forces, including food consumption, and send their messages back to the SCN.

Light sensitivity without your eyes

So why doesn’t covering your eyes stop your sleep being disrupted?  Despite significant amounts of searching, I’ve not found the answer to this.

However, in a study in which they exposed the skin behind the knee to light pulses (Campbell SS, Murphy PJ. January 1998. “Extraocular circadian phototransduction in humans”. Science 279 (5349): 396–9) they found that there was a systematic relation between the timing of the light pulse and the magnitude and direction of shifts in the human circadian clock responses, measured through body temperature and melatonin concentrations. 

This certainly provides some evidence that we are capable of “extraretinal circadian phototransduction” (reaction to light presented to something other than the eye) through the skin, even if not explaining how this happens.

Why is artificial light particularly problematic?

Search on the internet for artificial lighting and health and you open a world of horror.

Ultraviolet light emitted by fluorescent lamps seems to be the worst offender with a terrifying list of carcinogenic effects being noted as well as being associated with a long list of health problems that are exacerbated by exposure to these sorts of lights (including dyslexia and chronic fatigue symptom). 

Should we be surprised at the health problems of anyone with a job in this modern age then, when so many offices, hospitals and other buildings are constantly light, day and night, by fluorescent lighting?

In addition to the health issues from the UV-B, the wavelength of the light seems to be an important factor in health effects.  A study which looked at the melatonin production in humans exposed to light with different amounts of the shorter wavelength blocked out revealed a strong link in this area (Kayumov et al.  Aug 2007.  “Prevention of melatonin suppression by nocturnal lighting: relevance to cancer”.  European journal of cancer prevention : the official journal of the European Cancer Prevention Organisation (ECP).  16(4):357-62).

Relevant to both me and many readers of this blog was also an observation by a Commander Russell M. Jaffe, M.D., Ph.D, U.S.P.H.S., Senior Staff Physician at the U.S. National Institutes of Health in 1978, which seemed to suggest that frequencies in the 0.1-100 MHz range appeared to weaken muscle strength and proper shielding restored both tone and strength.  Unfortunately I can’t find any detailed reference to this research.

Street lighting is usually achieved with low-pressure sodium lamps in the UK and this has a wavelength of about 600nm which I understand is a pretty low wavelength, although I’d appreciate it if anyone reading this can confirm that.  So it seems that the pervasive light pollution could be slowly causing health problems not solely related to circadian rhythm disturbance.

Disrupted circadian rhythms

In addition to all the general health risks of artificial light, disruption of our circadian rhythm and environmental lighting can have a host of other health problems which, in 2007, were still largely unexplored and were certainly not fully understood.  Instead there was growing awareness of altered sleep or light affecting breast cancer, prostate cancer, obesity, depression and type 2 diabetes amongst other things.

A fantastic paper summarises a workshop of scientists, held at that time to consider how best to conduct research on possible connections between lighting and health.  It is well worth reading since it gives a lot of background as well as summarising the position as it was understood in 2007 and the areas of research that were identified for future study.

So where does this leave me?

Well, I’ve learned a lot.  I’m now a bit wary about all artificial light, but especially of things like sitting in my kitchen, lit with a fluorescent tube, for long periods of time.  I’m also now even more appreciative of the benefits of sleeping out in the wilderness on holidays in the National Parks, away from areas of significant light pollution.

More importantly, I’m going to sort out those front bedrooms and put some wood-slat blinds, or something similar, in them to block out all of the light at night.

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned: sleep
2. Blog-watch: latest sleep round-up
3. Blog-watch: the impact of stress

In February I wrote a post about why sleep is beneficial for us, the different types of sleep and the different ways in which they help us to recover, both physically and mentally.  Recently I had a rash of posts appear in my daily RSS feeds about sleep so I thought that, with the recent stress I’ve had a work which has detracted from my own sleep quality and recovery, it was time for an update and some more information about sleep.  And of course some gratuitous photos of the cat – asleep.

Cat-napping or something deeper?

• Mark Sisson kicked things off in my feed-reader with a series of posts.  The first was a post asking some general questions about sleep and contains an interesting tip on how to really lengthen the spine out to sleep.  However, the core focus of the post is bedding.  Do we need all these soft accoutrements to get some good sleep?  I know that after a week of sleeping outdoors with only a thin roll-mat I start to get sore on the last few days (unless we’ve found soft forest floors and mossy spots to pitch each night).  Mark seems to conclude that the bedding is, while not primal, not a bad thing either.  He observes that his dog by preference will choose to lie down on something soft but will also be quite happy on a hardwood floor.  I’ve similarly noticed that our neighbours cat will happily sleep on the gravel along the outside of our house (turning round when he wants to change side so that he can continue to have his back lying along the wall) but if there is an opportunity of a soft chair in the house it will get preference.  If there’s the chance of a warm lap then even the soft furnishings get given short shrift.  He revisited the issue of bedding a couple of posts later.
  

  Jake's preference is for something soft - even the post pile on the kitchen table is better than the floor

• Mark quickly followed this up with another article looking specifically into the issue of sleep posture.  I know that when I’m relaxed I can sleep quite happily on my back.  As my stress levels increase I naturally move onto my side (either side) and, at the height of misery and exhaustion, I find I can only get to sleep on my stomach, clutching a stuffed seal that my Mum made when she was pregnant with me (because I would just irritate Chris if I clutched him that hard).  As a baby I was put to sleep on my stomach which I think is probably why this is the position I return to when I’m feeling most exposed in life.  The only problem is that sleeping on my side makes the underneath shoulder ache and sleeping on my front gives me neck-ache.  Mark’s article is mostly focussed around a study by Michael Tetley and it is well worth revisiting the original article rather than just relying on Mark’s article.  I must say that I am seriously tempted to try out a few of those postures next week while I’m wild-camping my way across Yorkshire in order to avoid the customary stiffness and sore shoulders that tends to accompany the last few nights.
  

  The more appendages you have, the harder it gets to find a sleep posture that works - or so it seems...

• The NephroPal blog had a great post about the impact of our artificial light on both us and other wildlife (can I call humans ‘wildlife’?).  It covers the impact of the artificial light on humans and how it affects our own sleep patterns – something that I touched on in my summer sleep cycles post.  More interestingly though, it also covers how other wildlife, like migratory animals are being badly affected by our artificial lights.
  

  Even the cat objects when there's too much light

• Some recent research found that 30 minutes of daily meditation in the form of meditative yoga helped insomniacs to sleep more soundly.  Perhaps meditation is what the cat does when he gets into his Zen-like state of purring and then slowly settles into the position known as “ultimate relaxation”!
  

  The tail flick adds a good rhythmical aspect to meditation and the back paw is a good head rest

   

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z052IfwV_X8

• Seth Roberts wrote up some fascinating stuff about historical sleep patterns – apparently some people were trying to persuade us all that it is natural to sleep in two batches with a period of quiet wakefulness in the middle, based on historical information about Western European humans.  Seth reckons this is more to do with the poor diets of people in the last few hundred years than a sign of our true ancestral heritage (eg. looking back to our Paleolithic ancestors) since he’s found that he sleeps better than ever since he increased his animal fat intake.  My take-home point?  If you’re sleeping poorly, in addition to the usual “get some non-screen relaxation in before bedtime and get rid of the lights and noises in your sleeping room” also try eating more fatty meats.
  

  Sometimes it can be difficult to get comfortable of course

• And finally…  I have found an article that beautifully brings everything together.  Written by Professor Jim Horne who runs the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, just around the corner from here.  Professor Horne starts out by explaining why a walk is so much better at giving you a good night of sleep, rather than a tough workout.  It’s partly to do with the mixed and varied messages that your brain in getting at the end of the day, rather than the physical side of things, and ties in with the idea that sleep is as much about mental recovery as it is about physical recovery.  He also gives a bit of science behind why I seem to pass out within seconds of lying down if I’ve had a long hot bath as the last thing I did in the evening before crawling into bed.  Overall this article is short but fascinating and if you only read one of the articles that I’ve linked to on this post, I would make it this one.

My two favourite creatures catching a sneeky moment of shut-eye together

On that sleepy final note, I’m going to put the cat out, who is lying on the sofa next to me doing a very good version of ultimate relaxation, and have a clearly-well-justified hot bath with the last hour of the day before I crawl into bed.  At least I don’t have a tail to keep me awake…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yXRY01K658

Sweet dreams!

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: latest sleep round-up
2. Lessons learned: sleep
3. Lessons learned: summer sleep cycles

This is the ninth, and final, part in a series about weight loss including diet, exercise, measuring your success and keeping the weight off when you stop.

Over the last few months I have found out about all sorts of diet and exercise related issues that should help with weight loss.  However non of it is any good if you can’t effectively measure your progress or keep the weight off once you’ve reached your goals.

Sleep – the ultimate weight loss aid?

Before I start on the technicalities of measuring or maintaining weight loss I thought I should include a brief reminder about the benefits of sleep for weight loss.  Some time ago I did a post about sleep.  Something that I was aware of when I wrote that post, but failed to mention, was that sleep has been known to assist with weight loss.  Whether it is the improvement to cortisol levels, the reduced time to eat anything, or something else at work, sleep for weight loss is certainly something that many people have commented on (including Dan John).

Bodybuilding.com have done a great article looking at the issue of sleep for weight loss and they’ve got plenty of reasons for why sleep may help.  Personally I’m always up for another reason to sleep (even if it is harder to get plenty of sleep in the summer months) so this is definitely an avenue worth pursuing!

Keeping track of weight loss

So you’ve written your weight loss diet and exercise plan and you’ve set your goals.  How will you know if you are succeeding?

A problem I encountered was the inaccuracy of my callipers.  I had hoped that these would make a big difference to measuring progress, but instead I found that I quickly dropped off the bottom of their measurement scale.  I only had to look at myself in the mirror to know that I wasn’t below 12.6% body fat.  Callipers are probably very accurate if you are in the middle of the range, but if you are at the extremes the accuracy starts to suffer.

Similarly, my weighing scales get used in the shower since the bathroom has a carpet.  Unfortunately I get a range of readings depending on where on the shower tray I place the scales.  I usually do my best to put them in the same corner of the shower tray each week, but I know this isn’t an accurate measure either.

I rely on a tape measure instead.  It’s simple, effective and can measure in millimetres.  However, John Barban wrote an excellent post about measuring weight loss, reminding people that as they get closer to their goals and it becomes harder to remove those final little bits of fat they may find that even a tape measure is not accurate enough.

As John says, the best way to measure is to look in the mirror.  Personally I struggle to see the small changes and have found a photo record works best.

Find an effective way to measure your progress

How often to weigh and measure

As a general rule, when I am in a weight loss cycle I weight and measure myself first thing in the morning (before my morning cup of tea) once a week.  I try to go for the same day each week but this is obviously affected a little bit by where I’ll be that morning, so it sometimes shifts by a day or two.

Imagine my surprise therefore when I read that researchers at the University of Minnesota found that those who weighed themselves every day lost an average of 12 pounds whereas those who weighed themselves once a week only lost six pounds!  This is definitely something worth looking into when considering how often to weight and measure yourself, although there has to be a practicalities aspect here too.  Perhaps a quick hop-on-hop-off with the weighing scales every day and a full weigh and measure session once a week?

Keeping the weight off

An article in That’s Fit highlighted the problems that people face with regaining the weight after they lose it.  I wasn’t surprised to read that even people who lose weight through surgery regain the weight.

The problem is in the habits.  If you change your diet or exercise plan too drastically (or, in the case of surgery, don’t have to change it at all) then your habits will not change.  Those poor eating and exercise habits that caused the fat to accumulate in the first place will still be in place and the fat will quickly come back.

If you want long-term weight loss the lesson seems to be that you need to not only address the weight loss phase but think about making longer-term changes.  As a result I’ve rapidly become a fan of not only hitting the weight loss hard and fast, but making sure that within that I build in good habits and knock out the problem habits that had started to creep in.  Create sustainable habits, such as eating dense but lean higher protein foods that fill you up without adding in too many additional calories.

That’s the end of the weight loss series.  If you’ve made it all the way through the series then congratulations (and many thanks).  Best of luck with your weight loss plans!

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: weight loss mind-games
2. Blog-watch: weight loss diets latest news
3. Weight loss

Melatonin- why we wake with the sun

Melatonin is a natural hormone made by the body which is released into the bloodstream and causes drowsiness and lowers the body temperature.  The production of melatonin is inhibited by light and as a result melatonin should be produced when the sun goes down and then stop being released into the blood when the sun rises again.

Unfortunately, in the era of computers, televisions and light bulbs it is incredibly easy to upset the pattern of release of melatonin by exposing yourself to bright artificial light.  Unless you are completely exhausted the body will fail to get any signal to sleep and will stay alert, reducing the amount of time available to rest and recuperate, both physically and emotionally, through our sleep cycles.

Spring signals the start of the summer sleep cycle

Finding the dark

One of the greatest parts of our holidays is that we generally sleep outdoors, using a tarpaulin to keep the rain off and waking up to a view of the hills and moors without even having to open up the door of a tent.

Something that is wonderful (as well as potentially being a problem, but that’s not relevant for this post…) about the far north of Scotland is the complete lack of significant villages and towns.  You can go for miles without seeing anything.  In fact, we left the village of Lairg in the middle of Sunday afternoon and didn’t see another proper village (just a hamlet of a hotel and about ten houses) until we reached Bettyhill the next afternoon.  We weren’t even purposefully meandering round backroads to avoid the villages.  We were cycling up the only road that goes that way.

To those of you living in the US, Canada, or in fact anywhere outside Western Europe, this probably doesn’t sound particularly unusual.  However, take a look at a map of England and you’ll find that here you will struggle to cover more than 15 miles without passing through a couple of villages and the nearest big town is rarely more than 30 miles away.  All these conurbations result in an enormous amount of light pollution so wherever you go it’s rarely truly dark.

Being primal on holiday

With the lack of people and light pollution where we were last week it was completely black once the sun went down.  We were living on cold food, so we weren’t even cooking each evening.  We would stop when it was still light, pitch the tarp, crawl into our sleeping bags and read or chat (unless we were wiped out from tiredness) until it started to get dark at which point we’d promptly fall asleep.

Of course, the mornings were at the other extreme.  Without curtains the sun woke us when it rose at 05:00 each day.  I don’t think I ever woke when it was dark, instead waking up every hour or so after daylight came round and having that choice to either doze off again or stay awake and consider the day ahead.

The extreme darkness meant that we slept deeply and healed fantastically well each night, waking in a fit state for another day of cycling with many of the previous evening’s aches and pains miraculously cleared away.

Bringing the lesson back home

So, thanks to an enjoyable reminder while on holiday, I remembered that I need to apply my summer sleep cycle to how I live and work at home where artificial light allows me to work all night (if I really want to). 

I get longer days but I should be able to handle these well if I listen to my body.  In particular I need to make sure I don’t stay up too late after it gets dark otherwise I will end up compromising how much sleep I get since the intense morning sun prevents me sleeping to my usual time the next morning.  So I’m doing my best to remember to go to bed on time, no matter what excitement is happening. 

What’s earlier?  Theoretically about 9pm, with 15-30 minutes of book reading and then putting the light out and going to sleep.  Of course, when I was busy at work last week that crept to 10.30pm, but I’m back on track after a long bank holiday weekend.  It means I can sleep for 8 hours (which tends to be how long I naturally sleep if I’m not pumped up with cortisol or emotionally and physically exhausted) and still wake at 5.30am to the delights of sunshine and birdsong without feeling sleep deprived.

In fact, waking up to sunshine and birdsong should keep my hormones in check a little.  In itself that should mean I am less likely to get stressed too which would be fantastic!

Related posts:

1. Lessons learned: sleep
2. Blog-watch: latest sleep round-up
3. Impact of artificial light on sleep