“The Physics of Fitness”

Since 1991

Integrated Nutrition: A Catch Phrase

- But what is it...really?

The human body burns fat and carbohydrates exactly like a hybrid car selectively uses electricity or gasoline. For example, a Prius driven mainly on city streets or consistently below 40mph utilizes much more electricity - while conserving gasoline; the percentage of each energy source used while driving is displayed on the Prius’ energy flow monitor screen. Analogously, the body conserves carbohydrates when resting and during low to moderate exercise intensity levels – and thus burns a comparatively far greater percentage of fat - in terms of the whole. Hence, the ‘speed’ at which you work and the resistance of your workload, together, determine the percentage of each macronutrient your body depletes. Imagine always driving over 65MPH all day long or flying like a humming bird; muscles only ‘guzzle’ carbohydrates when we exercise at high intensity levels – which humans literally feel as the ‘muscle burn’. Therefore, eating a so-called ‘high carb’ diet is only correct for people who exercise like hummingbirds (at high intensity levels, often) simply because they must replace a greater amount of lost carbohydrate energy. Obviously, sedentary people or those who only exercise at low or moderate levels burn much less carbohydrate and so require much less carbohydrate as a percentage of the whole ‘macronutrient pie’. Thus, sedentary people require a greater percentage of fat and protein - in terms of smaller wholes, i.e. less absolute total calories. The only tricky part is learning the science and believing the body needs a higher percentage of fat when you exercise less. Carbs become primary fuel ONLY at exercise intensity levels above approximately 50% of VO2 max. Moreover, the only time the body will burn carbs at a super-high rate is when we exercise around 65% of VO2 max or higher. Thus, science and sensibility tells us that if and when the body burns less carbohydrate as a percentage of the whole, then by de facto, fat and protein intake must comprise a larger percentage of the ‘whole pie’. This means we eat less carbs (percentage-wise) AND less calories overall. This concept is so simple, and so is overlooked by even the best minds. Please see: Carb Continuum Volvelle in the video. Therefore, balanced and healthy nutrition (calorically speaking) is a matter of specificity of adjusting the macronutrients. We do not balance micronutrients against the loss of energy per se’ because vitamins and minerals don’t provide energy. Therefore we consider balanced nutrition a matter of examining macronutrients separately from micronutrients for the sake of clarity. In quality foods, micronutrients ‘come along for the ride’ with macronutrients. Protein is akin to the engine; it (i.e. muscle) is not preferably burned. But you will burn protein and lean muscle mass ‘more so’ (and undesirably so), if you are starving, very stressed-out, ill, over-training and/or undernourished. Now, because humans selectively burn fat and carbohydrate, the only way to know how much of each is burned is through the lens of examining energy depletion during real-life human physical activities – e.g. resting, walking, and up to maximum exercise intensity levels! And without using a physical basis for adjusting the intake of energy from carbohydrates or fat – teaching principles of ‘caloric balance’ tantamounts to a crapshoot: a sloppy and bungled affair. Indisputably, educating people on these principles of nutrition, physiology, and health cannot be achieved by using foods groups or food pyramids as teaching aids. We must individually examine the three energetic elements contained in foods in context of a functional relationship. I am not speaking of eating ‘healthy foods’ in a casual sense (by assuming the mythology that fruits and vegetables and low fat foods are ‘healthy’), but rather, eating food in a way that promotes healthy function by first arranging only three elements just as an artist would arrange the three primary colors separate from one another before mixing the paint on a palette! Food groups and the food pyramid obviously represent mixed up palettes. And if each element is not presented discretely and separately, then we cannot teach either qualitative or quantitative characteristics of food in terms of how the body uses energy/calories from macronutrients. Worse, if we present the macro-picture out of focus, then it is nearly impossible to fit details into the picture coherently; it’s like trying to hang art on walls that do not exist. Thus, macronutrient and micronutrient nutrition - i.e. nutrient dense food principles - must be taught independently from one another in order to gain this awareness. Further, since the word ‘calorie’ denotes an energetic relationship to the body it is lame to teach people how to eat a ‘healthy balanced diet’ by explaining what calories are in terms of food’s heating effect on water, as measured in a bomb calorimeter. Such knowledge taught by nutritionists and health professionals may sound like scientific intelligence to the layman, but provides no tangible, useful reference. For without using the body itself as the referent, people will continue struggling to understand food, calories, and health. Finally, we come to what Physiologics is about: teaching all audiences how the body works - through the use of metaphor, physical props, and intelligent research. Learning our physical relationship to food ensures we are truly integrating our diet, health, and any type of physical training, and hopefully creating a less stressed mind. Let us disabuse the word ‘energy’ and instead perceive how the body uses calories through the light of what we already know, i.e. physical experience. Parting shot. In the 1906, W.O. Atwater and Francis Benedict scientifically measured (accurately) the hybrid nature of how the body burns food. You can see an amazing picture of a guy on a stationary bike in a couple of videos on this website. Thanks for reading all the way down!

Meterologist Bruce F. Watson: My First Science Teacher (my Dad)

A meteorologist, writer, weather historian, and also the keynote speaker at the global warming conference in 1999 at the Minneapolis Convention Center - my dad, Bruce F. Watson loved weather. He was known throughout Minnesota for his popular Weatherguide Calandar, and countless speeches and interviews he gave on weather. He also used a variety of visual props for teaching all audiences the fundamentals of meterology, physics, and nature in general. For example, he would spin water into a whirlppol inside a flat-bottomed glass bowl - placed on top of an overhead projector - so people could see how low-pressure forms in water at the center of the vortex the same way it does in the air above our heads. We are standing below whirlpools 24/7! High-pressure is like standing at the edge of the whirlpool where either more water or air is overhead. Low-pressure is where our bodies stand at the center of the vortex! Pretty cool, huh? So much better than a lot of today’s boring power point presentations, in my opinion.