Revisiting Vitamin D Supplements

So about 3 weeks or so ago, I listened to an episode of Underground Wellness Radio with Chris Kresser and a caller asked/informed about the possible side effects of synthetic vitamin D supplementation. So that got me thinking…

Now, I take Now Foods Vitamin D3 5000 IU capsules almost daily. And I’ve been doing that for well over a year or more. I haven’t seen any issues but, sometimes you can’t see them because you get used to them. Fair. I did a bunch of research when I first decided to take vitamin d3 and I had concluded it is probably safe and beneficial.

So I started taking them.

After I listened to that show I decided that I should try an experiment and stop taking the vitamin d3 and see what happens. So, at first nothing seemed different and that should be about what would happen since my body would have stores of vitamin d3 to tap into. I was just not replenishing it.

Work got a little stressful last week since I was juggling two projects that both needed to be done soon. And then my sleep suffered for some unknown reason. All in all, stress went up. I’ve certainly read in many places that vitamin d helps with stress. So now that I wasn’t taking any vitamin D and I am not in the sun much at all—I work with computers and I live in NYC, it’s Autumn now—I suspect my stress tolerance was lowered.

When my body doesn’t like something, my skin is first to complain. And complain it did. So that’s always a sign that something is wrong. Yesterday, my throat bothered me. I don’t know from what. I do know that vitamin D also protects from getting colds and things like that. At this point, my vitamin D levels are probably not optimal after weeks of no supplementation, no sun, and extra stress.

The real difference maker is that I didn’t notice any positive difference when I stopped taking vitamin D3. So, this morning I decided to do some more research and see where these studies where that showed vitamin D supplementation was possibly bad. I couldn’t find any conclusive studies. There was one in the ’30s that said it caused birth defects. I couldn’t find the study just someone talking about it and they were not specific about it being D2, D3, or some pharma grade version. Of course, vitamin D3 is given now to PREVENT birth defects so?

The Vitamin D Council points out that D2 is not natural to us so they do not recommend D2 or pharma prescribed versions. Fair enough. I knew that already. I was taking D3. I then did some more researching and remembered that the D3 we synthetically make is biochemically identical to what our bodies make. So if there’s a negative, it would be from the difference in how our body gets it. Eating vitamin D3 bypasses the body’s natural mechanisms to regulate the amount of D3 so there’s some danger of overdose there BUT, oral consumption of D3 isn’t foreign. Cod liver oil and other foods do contain D3 and we eat it.

So I thought about it. Thought about it. And then popped a 5000 IU capsule.

My conclusion is that it’s probably better to take it than to not take it at this point. Unless I’m out in the sun all day, this is the better alternative. I also feel a lot more chipper—might just be a placebo effect—today after taking, in total, 35,000 IU of it. haha! I’ve been off for weeks so I’m going to go for a big dose. Scaling back tomorrow and the day after, obviously.

UPDATE!

So I did some MORE looking around and I really can’t find a single study that shows dangers of vitamin D supplementation. There’s a few that say D2 is not as good as D3 but whatever, I don’t think anyone really takes D2 over D3. Every vitamin D supplementation recommendation I’ve ever seen says to take D3.

The closest I got was this singular PDF from a medical doctor talking about the dangers of all kinds of synthetic supplements like Vitamin E, B, etc. The little snippet on D mostly talked about the dangers of overdosing—which in my crawl through scientific papers found that 10,000 IU/daily has 0 adverse affects so that’s a safe upper-limit, I’d stick to 5000 IU if you’re squeamish about it.

That PDF does state:

Vitamin D3, called cholecalciferol, is from animal sources, and is the active form, like the vitamin D obtained from sunlight.

and that there’s these pharma versions:

A variety of synthetic vitamin D compounds have been developed, the most common being calcitriol, doxercalciferol and calcipotriene.

The Vitamin D Council notes that calcitriol in high doses has been shown to cause hypercalcemia. They also don’t consider D2 or D3 synthetic like calcitriol and friends.

All other random web sites spouting about the dangers of vitamin D supplementation didn’t look credible. One was really just trying to push you to buy their line of products so there has to be skepticism there.

2 Days a Week Works like a Charm

So I’ve been doing this minimalist training now for about 5 or 6 weeks. It has evolved some what. It evolved a little today. All good. It has stayed only 2 gym sessions a week. There has been numerous times that I’ve wanted to go just another day or restructure my workout to fit in 3 days instead of 2.

But I managed not to do any of it. I stuck to the 2 days. And it’s totally working.

I made a point to get more sleep this week since I didn’t last week. I also did some vitamin d3 supplementation experiment in the last few weeks that I’ll talk about in another post. I also took extra rest days between gym days because of poor sleep and extra stress at work.

I tweaked my workout this morning a little. I added Pendlay Rows—or strict barbell rows—and swapped out the flat bench press for the inclined bench press. Otherwise I did a complex of hang snatch, overhead squat, military press, hang clean, and front squat for 5 reps each with 65lbs as a warm up.

Then 4 x 5 front squats that ends with 1 max rep set at a solid weight. I did over 3000 pull-ups, push-ups, and box jumps in 30 days prior to starting this 2 days a week plan so I had to work to wake up my CNS for lifting heavy. Today, my 4th set of front squats was with 185lbs. I’ve always been about doing 3 or less reps so I’ve never actually done 5 reps of 185 before. I also bumped my max rep set weight to 165lbs today. All in all, I’m getting stronger. This workout IS working.

Next was 5-3-2 with dead lifts. I’ve been upping the weight consistently on this one every week. My 1RM is 335lbs. I wasn’t able to lift 275lbs coming off the 3000 in 30. Today I did 185 x 5, 275 x 3, and then 1.5 x 295. lol, I lost my grip on the last .5 but, I let it slide. I thought about using mixed grip but I didn’t. I should have. Either way, I’m getting stronger here too. This workout IS working.

I don’t have much to say about the Pendlay Row or the Incline Bench since I just rotated them in today. However, my bench press has been going up as well. My pull-ups are still there and improving; I got to 21 straight on a straight bar—my last max rep pull-ups was 21 on hammer grips.

All this is from lifting twice a week only. I’m sure that if I was working more and eating more and resting more—basically if it was my job—I’d make gains even faster. BUT, this is not my job or the only thing in my life. I’ve been able to fit a bunch other things in my life while still making solid gains at the gym. Seems like an awesome formula so far.

I’m also experiencing none of the mild overtraining issues that I used to when I went to the gym more. They aren’t big deals and you don’t even notice them until they aren’t there but, it feels better to not have them at all. I feel optimal—or very close to it—every time I’ve been at the gym with this plan.

I really can’t say enough good things about it. I’m also still lean and still look pretty good naked. Although I credit my diet—a paleo-esque one—with that more than my gym time.

Now I wonder how far I can go with this..

Raw Milk

I had my first ever glass of raw milk yesterday! It was different. I haven’t had any traditional milk for well over a year—I’ve had half and half in coffee here and there. Raw milk is richer and slightly sweet. It’s also not entirely white. It’s got a bit of a yellowish shade.

I live in NY. The laws here don’t allow for the commercial sale of raw milk. You can’t find it in the refrigerated section of the supermarket. However, raw milk isn’t banned outright. From what I understand one is allowed to buy direct from the farmers or through a private co-op or club.

I had been looking into raw milk for a while. It’s hard not to come across these things when you get elbows deep in all things paleo, whole/real foods, and everything associated. I’ve been particularly interested in raw milk since I saw the movie, Farmageddon.

A friend of mine told me about this co-op that services the area in and around New York City. I looked into it and signed up almost instantly. They actually deliver it to your door. Their delivery schedule isn’t particularly convenient especially since I’m used to services like FreshDirect. But, this is a small family operation and they seem like good people. All their products are from small farms in and around New York and New Jersey. The cows are all grass fed, no grains, and pastured. The way cows should be raised.

I read an update on their site and it appears they are also supporters of Ron Paul so that’s a positive in my book. :) Granted, Paul is the only Congressman and Presidential Candidate who wants to get rid of all the raids and laws against raw milk and small farms. Food freedom is important even if you don’t agree with anything else Ron Paul presents—although if you truly think it through, you can’t be for food freedom and then be against other freedoms!

So, I ordered from them once a few weeks ago and I had no idea if they were going to show up or not so I pretty much forgot about it. They ended up showing up but I wasn’t home. Oops! So I ordered again this weekend and they came and I was home. So I have a gallon of whole fat raw milk, a pound of butter derived from raw milk, and sauerkraut. All of which are not commercially produced. The sauerkraut came in a mason jar!

Right now, I’m drinking a cup of organic, fair trade coffee with raw milk in it. It tastes better than half and half. It may actually be richer tasting if that’s possible. I believe half and half in the US is around 10% fat. This raw milk I have is 6.8% or something like that.

The butter is also different. I normally get Organic Valley’s brand of organic unsalted butter. And from what I understand, their cows are grass fed and pastured. However, their butter is not derived from raw milk. So this butter from raw milk actually smells different when I cook with it. I cooked a steak last night with this butter and it seemed to be more heat resistant or something that threw off my cooking time. It just didn’t happen like I normally expected.

The steak still ended up delicious.

Now I wonder if this raw milk is going to help with muscle building. I’d love it if it was a superfood for muscle growth and recovery from workouts. I did some mild Googling last night to see if raw milk spiked insulin like commercial milk and it appears to not cause an insulin spike—at least not from anecdotal accounts. I couldn’t find any scientific studies on it but, I also didn’t look that hard.

I’m aware of the GOMAD—gallon of milk a day—program. I’m pretty sure it’s a bad idea. I’ve never tried it and I wouldn’t try it with commercial milk. But, milk—especially the raw variety—is supposed to be nutrient dense since it has all or almost all of the essential amino acids. Logically, raw milk seems like it would be a fantastic post-workout food.

But, there is also evidence to show that high amounts of insulin actually blunts the body’s ability to absorb nutrients post-workout. Yup, that’s not what you normally hear. Folks have been suggesting that we should spike insulin post-workout to help shuttle nutrients into muscles. It makes sense logically if we assume insulin’s job is to store things. It clearly does but, I’ve been reading about how that might not be the traditional or original purpose of insulin. It just happens to also be able to do that on the side since humans had never had the need to have a hormone designed specifically to store massive amounts of dietary glucose since that almost never happened—food abundance is a very modern thing and food abundance in the form of glucose is even more modern.

Ori Hofmekler points out some of this in his new book, Unlock Your Muscle Gene. I’m going to have to re-read that book and look into some of the studies he references. He’s a smart guy so I have trust in his research and conclusions but, never hurts to double check.

Anyway, so this raw milk excursion actually marks my further fall down the rabbit hole of whole/real foods, holistic approach to health, nutrition, and fitness. I know a lot of my friends think I’m crazy. :)

Life Outside the Gym

I almost only post exclusively about health and fitness here; that’s why I signed up for a Tumblr account. I wanted some place to let my ideas on health and fitness percolate and grow and see what others were doing. And my posting frequency is about as often as an eclipse.

Quality > quantity?

Probably not. But, this is one place that most of my friends are totally unaware of. I’m generally easy to find on the Internet and everyone knows I exist on Facebook, Twitter, and my blog. So even though I don’t censor myself much, there’s some things that I don’t want everyone to know.

In this Facebook-world of minimal privacy and maximum connectedness, there’s little places to hide! Well, I could just take on another Internet persona but, I really, REALLY like me. :)

Firstly, my training twice a week program is working pretty well. There’s really no down side to it except that I keep wanting to go to the gym more because a voice inside keeps trying to tell myself: more = better! I’m pretty sure that’s not necessarily the case and I’ve done “more = better” since forever and I can’t say going to the gym more has resulted in any quicker gains than going twice. So, I’m gonna stick to it and see what happens.

This twice a week also makes life easier so I really can’t logically justify going to the gym more for no more benefit and to make life more difficult. I’m also seeing someone in a more serious way than I have in years and years and this gym protocol makes things easier.

I’m also not justifying my twice a week a plan because I need to make time for this other person since I started seeing her when I was doing my crazy 3000 in 30 and I went to the gym every day—I missed 3 days and two of them were her mostly her fault but, I’d miss them again if I had to do it over. The gym shouldn’t take over your life just as work shouldn’t and I’ve been guilty of both for periods of time.

I think I really like this girl and I’m generally highly skeptical in this department. Life experience tells me so. Some people fall head over heels every new person they meet and I’m the opposite. I am extremely picky. Almost ridiculously so but, it’s not about physical features as much as mindset. The health and fitness part matters, someone who isn’t into taking care of themselves is not going to last long with me. In fact, since I found and have been on paleo for over a year, receptiveness to those ideas matter a lot. And this girl found primal on her own accord. I like that.

I also rule people out on things like political views, exercise choices—yup, just exercising isn’t enough in my very strict book, chronic cardio-ers fail, personal finance—not that one is rich or not but, how they handle their finances, drive for success, distaste for mediocrity, ability for independent thinking—I really take issue with clones and folks who repeat what others say and are speechless when asked why? how? tell me more?, not clingy—I have a life, you have a life, we don’t need to combine our lives to make 1 life, confidence—which to me involves have a strong sense of self and relates to being non-clingy, strength—mentally and physically, and general intelligence—that ranks really high.

And this girl hasn’t failed a single thing yet. To which I’ve told her that I think she’s really a spy. I say a lot of critical things about the US government so, I wouldn’t put it past them to waste tax dollars on such an endeavor—ok, I’m really just kidding but, in case it turns out to be true: I called it. :)

I’ve had Facebook since the mid 2000’s and I’ve never once contemplated changing my relationship status to anything but Single because I’ve been nothing but single. Girls come and go and none have really interested me that much. I’m sure I’ve added to the universal problem women have with “those guys” who won’t commit or want to have sex with every lady on the planet but, I’m really also not that open to just having sex with anyone. I know the culture is supposedly all about super casual sex, I’m really not. And I don’t give two shits what everyone else is or supposedly is doing, I do what I want to do. Everyone else can do what they want. It’s my Libertarian side.

So I really don’t have a point to make, lol. It’s almost like I found a dinosaur on a lost island somewhere and I’m not entirely sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. hmmm…

So, I’ve been peeing like a mad man today and I haven’t even drank that much! Strange. Hmmm..

I guess I’m incredibly hydrated? I guess I’ve had a lot of liquids earlier this week but, what’s with the exodus now?!

Weird. 

Training Twice a Week. Only.

Crazy. It’s a crazy idea.

I’ve heard it many times. Less is more. Quality over quantity. I believe in all those things. Except I have a hard time following through in the gym.

I’m trying. Right now. I’ve done 2 gym sessions in the last week. I am dying to do more. This is after going to the gym for 30 days in a row which resulted in doing 3305 pull-ups and a hundred or so more of push-ups and box jumps. 

Now I’m consciously trying to stop myself from going to the gym more than twice a week. It’s hard.

I long for squats and dead lifts almost as much as a good roll around in the bedroom. I’m not sure what that says about me. hmm…

Here’s the plan, it’s evolving as I go but the idea is to hit all the big moves twice a week and call it a day.

Start with a warm-up complex of:

• hang cleans
• front squat
• military press
• overhead squat
• bent over rows

I did 1 set of 8 reps each and it was killer last work out. I might bring it down to 5 reps instead. Increase sets/reps as it gets easier is my plan. It is just a warm up!

And then the main course:

• front squat (5x5)
• dead lift (5-3-2)
• bench press (5x5)
• pull-ups (as many as I want; at least 50 with as many sets as I need)

Go home.

This whole thing takes me about 40 minutes.

I stole this idea from Dan John. His plan is cleaner than mine. I feel obligated to do all the big moves if I’m only going to lift twice a week. His plan looks like this:

Day 1: front squat, bench press, extra upper body work

Day 2: dead lift, bench press, extra lower body work

Go home.

As usual, a 99% strict variant of the paleo diet underlies all this training. :) Variant being I eat cheese, tubers, drink wine and coffee—possibly other things that I can’t remember.