Home / Articles / Q & A / Going Postal / Jul 26 2002

Going Postal
We respond to the good, the bad, and the ugly of this month's mailbag.

Hey John, awesome website. I like the layout; it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Wait a minute, *slaps cat off lap*… Any way, enough of my sucking up, I was wondering about fruit juice. I read your article on T-mag, on how it has fiber removed and other good stuff too. I'm trying to get the old man to stop drinking Pepsi and he works pretty hard, but he's not a food nazi like myself and likes to drink stuff other than water. Would 100% pure orange juice (with lots of pulp) be a good choice? If not, do you have any recommendations?

(Letter abbreviated due to more scary pussy references).

P.S. Is Eric E. Noreen related to Cosmo Kramer by any chance? Im loving the hair.

You're a scary guy and since I'm so frightened by your mail, I feel compelled to respond!

Eric Noreen, or Eee as he's known around here, is not related to Cosmo Kramer in any way. However, since he's a member of the Van Buren Boys, whenever we go out to toss back a few Junior Mints he likes to recount the story of when he met Kraemer "on the streets". I think it changed Eee's life.

Getting back to your juice question, 100% natural fruit juices that do not contain added ingredients such as fructose, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, and other additives are ok in moderation. They're just really hard to find. If your pop is really concerned about his health and wants to drink fruit juice why not encourage him to make his own. That way he'll get the fiber, the nutrients, and avoid all the other diabetes inducing crapola.

John - That [last month's] Large Professor was a magnificent column! Totally struck home with me, as I too was a "loner" growing up. Funny though, I always felt guilty as well for not joining the crowd, or going out to party with my friends. Don't get me wrong; I would do other stuff with them, but mainly just things that went along with my own interests. As soon as it was time to go out for the night, or something that just didn't interest me, it was "see yah later guys." You touched on another good point, I always felt guilty for not doing what everyone else was doing. Even now with my girlfriend who likes to socialize a lot more than I do, I sometimes feel guilty when she stays home with me rather than going out. I feel like for some reason what I'm doing is wrong, and I'm holding her back from doing what is right. Not to say that we don't have a great relationship, it just ties into feeling wrong for not doing what everyone else seems to think is normal. Great article, I really appreciated it, and it set me up to take a good look at myself.

Did people actually believe that story? Wow, I just made it up as something to bitch about. I didn't think anyone would actually…

No, I'm just joshin' ya. I feel your pain bro. No, more correctly, I understand but no longer feel your pain because that type of thing no longer bothers me. The guilt fell by the wayside a long time ago. Nowadays, since I don't apologize for who I am, people come to respect that and enjoy my company anyway. And when it's time to go home for the night, it's usually not alone, if you catch my drift.

Hey John, I have just finished reading your latest column in T-Mag, about caffeine intake and it's deleterious effects. I have never really thought about that much, but when you think about it, if something allows you to release FFA's into the bloodstream, then surely it will blunt another mechanism i.e. insulin sensitivity. Furthermore, it never occurred to me that I would be doing such harm by having a coffee after a meal! I find this quite funny, because my ex-training partner always advised people to drink coffee after a meal "to speed things up". Wow, how wrong could he be!! So if I were doing a ketogenic diet, would consuming caffeine be ok in the absence of carb intake. In fact, wouldn't it add to the benefits of a ketogenic diet?

Feel free to head butt your ex-training partner in the Adam's Apple for me. Once you're finished with that task, pat yourself on the back for figuring out that just because caffeine intake may be detrimental in some circumstances, it can actually be of benefit in others. You're way ahead of the curve, my friend. As you'll read about in an upcoming article (Coffee Buzz - The Caffeine Roundtable) at www.t-mag.com, caffeine intake is probably useful right before training as well as during very low carb diets.

Hello, my name is Buffy and I am 20 years old. Right now I am training on a 2on/1off schedule, and I am on a strict, high protein, low carb diet. I eat extremely clean and am very dedicated to being fit. I have lost about 20 lbs of fat and leaned up tremendously from when I started. I hope to compete sometime in the near future. I have worked very hard to get where I am and learn all I can and read all I can to find what works best for me. My dilemma is that there seems to be little information for girls on gaining size. Most every article I read for women says, " Eat lots of fruits and yogurt and do yoga twice a week, do a few sets of abs and you'll be on your way to a lean healthy body." I am a girl but I am not afraid to go hard, train hard and bust my ass to look my best. I guess what I am saying is do you think that the Massive eating or other diets could be adjusted for female use? Or do you have any training/diet suggestion to gain size. I would greatly appreciate any advice or web sites that I could go to for REAL training, nutrition, and supplement advice for women who are serious about what they do.

Buffy, darling, as indicated in my FAQ section, "and remember, if you're an especially attractive woman, Phil, Steve, or I will have to evaluate your needs in person". Did you think I was kidding? Ok, I know, I know, I shouldn't use this section to flirt with girls but I don't care. It's my web site and I can do what I want (said in my best 6 year old, the world is an extension of me - voice).

Seriously though, much of the training information on this web site as well as on www.t-mag.com can be applied to women. There aren't a lot of training differences between men and women. However, nutritionally, the ladies have a few things to keep in mind. Read my Appetite for Construction column (it appeared June 2002 at www.t-mag.com) for more information.

Yo, JB! I heard you like to ride motorcycles. Well, go and get yourself an outlaw biker name at www.ratbike.org/motorcycho/outlawname.php. I'm Titty Squeezer and I ride with Satan's Barbers MC.

Titty Squeezer of Satan's Barbers MC, meet Ironhorse of the Dirty Drunkards MC. Sometimes it's cool being an outlaw biker.

I have a question for you regarding fat loss and milk. My girlfriend pointed out an article to me in the July 2002 Reader's Digest entitled "Holy Cow! Look what makes you thin", that stated that dairy products help lean you out. Supposedly the chairman of the nutrition department, Michael Zemel, at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville has found that milk, hard cheeses like cheddar, yogurt, etc., reduces the body's tendency of your fat cells to store calories. Supposedly it takes quite a bit of dairy products in order to see this leaning out effect. Somewhere along the lines of four servings of dairy a day are required. I always thought that milk was bad for leaning out, as it is very high on the insulin index. I was just wondering if you know of this Zemel's work, and whether or not you think there is any merit to his findings. If there is then adding more dairy to one's diet might be a way to lose a little bit of extra fat. Any input you can provide would be appreciated.

While Readers Digest has a few witty little comedy sections and a couple of interesting columns to expand your vocabulary, Im not sure they're always a reliable source of good nutritional information!

However, if you search pubmed for "MB Zemel" you'll find 80 abstracts that the man has helped to create. Not too shabby. If you narrow those down by adding the term "dairy" to your search string, you'll find 5 references demonstrating that "high calcium diets (provided by dairy in these studies) can attenuate adipocyte lipid accretion and weight gain during periods of over consumption of an energy-dense diet (can prevent fat gain during overfeeding) and can increase lipolysis and preserve thermogenesis during caloric restriction, thereby markedly accelerating weight loss." While these data were collected in obese subjects, perhaps they indicate that dieting bodybuilders/weightlifters should supplement with calcium to accelerate fat loss while weightlifters/bodybuilders trying to bulk up should also supplement with calcium to prevent excess fat gain.

As I've written about before, lots of dairy might not be a great idea for weightlifters/bodybuilders because of the disproportionate insulin response generated with dairy consumption. Therefore my first response would be to recommend calcium supplements over dairy. However, in one of the Zemel studies, it seemed that dairy alone outperformed calcium supplements for promoting weight loss in obese subjects.

For now I maintain that the supplemental route may be best way to get your excess calcium. However in the future Dr Zemel's work may show that I'm completely wrong.

John, you have to update your site more often. Perhaps weekly.

The long answer:
Well, if you were the boss of me I might consider it. Since you're not, I've got an idea. Why don't you submit an article or two to help me fill content space? Weekly updates mean lots of articles. And while I consider myself quasi prolific, no one is that prolific! Besides, I write for 2-3 other mags, am running a business, am designing supplements, and am trying to get a PhD. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of balancing the multi tasking. UNTIL your e-mail, that is.

The short answer:
If I could update it weekly I would.

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