Hey Everybody!
Someday the ‘bag might get back to its weekly format but as long as we keep crankin’ out products like we are I’m too busy to do any extra writing. My latest little project is working with Chalene Johnson—you know, Turbo Jam, Turbo Kick, Chalene Extreme—and Beachbody producer Heather Church to come up with a Chalene-ized version of P90X. We’ve designing a program that’s off-the-charts, so far as “next-generation Chalene” is concerned. We’re trying to get this out before the end of the year. In the mean time, some of you heard Shaun T and I on the radio a while back talking about his new Insanity program, and we have a new kid on the block as well, Brett Hobel. He’s a Paul Chek trained (Chekians are sort of the pinnacle of functional training knowledge) Caporera instructor and his Rev Abs program is friggin cool. Both are slated to launch in the coming months.
On the educational front, there’s a new blog that y’all should add to your favorites:
http://thefitnessnerd.blogspot.com/It just launched this week and will be covering the latest fitness and health news with savvy commentary. Here’s an example:
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In a report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, over half a million AARP members were surveyed, only to discover that those who ate more red meat and processed meat had a 22% greater risk of dying of cancer and a 27% greater risk of dying of heart disease.
Boy, I didn’t see that coming. No, wait. I did see that coming, because I’ve been told how saturated fat clogs arteries and excess salt causes hypertension since I was five-years-old. Had this article been written in 1954, Ward and June Cleaver might have been blown away, but this is 2009. Come on!
Oddly enough, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association has taken exception to the findings. Yet another hard blow for the American cowboy.
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And then we’ve got Shakeology. So far, it’s been flying off the shelves and we want to keep it that way. Last time I answered the top 20 questions we were getting about it. Today I’ll begin with another.
www.shakeology.com=================================
I see that you have some fructose in Shakeology. You also have stevia, fruit extracts, and yacon, which I’ve heard is a sweetener. What’s the function of the fructose?
Bobby, Norco, Ca.
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Bobby, have you ever tried to drink a greens formula shake for dessert?
This story goes way back. The official Shakeology story begins with Carl get together with his wife, Isabelle, who chided him about “eating like a second grader.” Indeed, that was probably the catalyst for it to move into development but I’d been working on Carl for years prior. The first time I put a green concoction in front of him he just sat there looking at it. After a long pause he said, “I’m supposed to drink this?” I don’t think he bothered tasting it.
You see, it’s pretty easy to throw a lot of healthy ingredients into the same container. The trick is getting these things to be appetizing. If they tasted great, and were easy to prepare, we’d already be getting plenty in our diet. But up until Shakeology it seemed like anybody making an all-inclusive meal in a bottle was happy enough to fill it full of nutrients and let the taste fall where it may. The resulting formulations tended to taste like sand or—wait--Carl did try one of my concoctions. He said it tasted like he got dumped into a swamp.
Of all the obstacles we faced creating Shakeology by far the biggest hurdle was taste. Yes, Bobby, yacon is a sweetening agent. It’s also the most potent prebiotic known to man. The fruit blend is also sweet, and loaded with polyphenols as well. And stevia is 300 times sweeter than sugar. But any chef knows the importance of not just adding ingredients but balancing them, and that’s what we had to do with Shakeology. The few grams of fructose powder used is to balance the flavor, and we went through many rounds of development before we got this right.
As for the results; I challenge you to pick up a “superfood” shake at the local holistic market and whip it up side by side with Shakeology. The only downside is that you may end up wasting money. I’ve still got a couple of jars of that stuff in my fridge that hasn’t been touched since we finalized the Shakeology formulation.
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What’s your take on Agave sweetners. I try and avoid sugar, because I feel I am addicted to it, but I do have to have some form of sweetner in my tea or coffee, so I use a ½ to 1 teaspoon of Agave syrup. It tastes as good as sugar without the aftertaste of artificial sweeteners.
Thanks,
Lisa Jones
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Highly popular with vegans and raw foodists (because it’s processed at low-temps so the enzymes aren’t destroyed—like Shakeology incidentally) it’s also still just sugar. At over 90% fructose it scores low on the gylcemic index as well.
However, because its fructose level is so high, excessive consumption can trigger fructose malabsorption, metabolic syndrome, hypertriglyceridemia, decreased glucose tolerance, hyperinsulinemia, and accelerated uric acid formation.
No matter how you slice it, sugars should be used in moderation and with some strategy. They can be fine but also have no place as a major component of your diet.
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That’s all I have time for today. To keep up on my latest news check out my blog at:
http://steve-edwards.blogspot.com/and you can find all of the Mailbag Archives here:
http://forums.teambeachbody.co...s/a/frm/f/8082987037Until next time, don’t just train hard, train smart,
Steve
References:
1. ^ Basciano H, Federico L, Adeli K (2005). "Fructose, insulin resistance, and metabolic dyslipidemia". Nutrition & Metabolism 2 (5). doi:10.1186/1743-7075-2-5. PMID PMC552336.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.g...centrez&artid=552336.
2. ^ Mayes, PA (1993). "Intermediary metabolism of fructose". Am J Clin Nutr. Nov: 58. PMID 8213607.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8213607.
3. ^ Buemann B, Toubro S, Holst JJ, Rehfeld JF, Bibby BM, Astrup A (2000). "D-tagatose, a stereoisomer of D-fructose, increases blood uric acid concentration". Metabolism Aug (49): 969-76. PMID 10954012.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8213607.
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