Nutrition

Nutrition deserves to have a prominent role in all physical training.  Many results with regards to fitness can be obtained much faster when nutritional considerations are included.  Our nutritional programs range from very simple to somewhat esoteric.

One fact that we acknowledge up front is that none of our staff is a licensed dietitian.  While we do have affiliated licensed medical professionals, our nutritional recommendations are made from a background in physical training. We also like to introduce nutritional concepts from other cultures as

             "Food for Though"

Food Journaling

On the simple side of the range of techniques that we recommend is Food Journaling.  This simple technique has proven to be surprisingly effective.  Simply writing down everything you eat for a week can be enlightening.  Many people eat almost unconsciously.  Ask yourself now what you had for lunch 1 week ago.  Very few people can recall.  Simply writing down everything you eat for a week can give tremendous insights.  For example, suppose someone is overweight and wants to loose weight.  If they are eating 2 pieces of chocolate cake each night, simply eliminating this one thing can have great effect.

Most Americans have a diet that is deficient in fresh fruits and vegetables.  Only by food journaling can one establish their personal baseline. However, there is disagreement among medical professionals about what constitutes optimal nutrition.  Consider the following.

The Story of Scurvy and Vitamin C

Only recently did medical science even know about vitamins, but the effects of lack of vitamins have long been with us.  Vitamin C deficiency causes a disease called scurvy.  Scholars have speculated that scurvy became part of the human condition when humans changed for hunter/gathers to agriculture.  With the adoption of an agrarian lifestyle, people began surviving the winter months by storing grain.  Stored grain is very low in Vitamin C and scurvy was the probable result.  The first recorded description of the disease is in the Eber's papyrus from 1500 B.C.  When sailing technology developed enough for long sea voyages to be possible, scurvy became the plague of the seas.  For example, in 1497 when Vasco de Gama set sail down the coast of Africa, 100 of his 160 men died of scurvy.

The breakthrough in treatment did not come until 1746, when a British Ships Surgeon, James Lind, experimented with seamen afflicted with scurvy with various concurrent treatments.  He found that giving each man two oranges and one lemon cured severe scurvy.  Despite being published in the medical journals of his time and of being an easily repeatable experiment, his scurvy was not adopted by the Royal Navy for 40 years,

Thousands of horrible deaths could have been easily prevented by a little citrus.  When Vasco de Gama sailed down the coast of Africa his men sometimes went ashore for fresh water.  They could easily have gathered the tropical fruit that grew in many places and thus have avoided the scurvy that killed them.  Instead they died.  Much of the resistance to accepting Lind's cure for scurvy was that it was not supported by the traditional and theoretical bass of medicine at that time.  Many of the medical authorities believed that eating fruits and vegetables was harmful to humans.  For example, in 1832 the Board of Health of Washington D.C. banned the importation of most fruits and vegetables into the city believing that they contributed to cholera.  These were educated, well meaning men who were trying to protect the public, but they were wrong.

Bay Area Center Program

The founder of the Bay Area Center is a scientist.  He has often stated that most scientific discoveries have occurred by someone performing some experiment.  Only after something new has been found are the theories elaborated to explain the observations. When we share nutritional and health beliefs from around the world, they are usually based upon observations.  Items such as,

"It was been observed that in cultures that eat a lot of X, there is less incidence of Y"

With this sort of observation it's hard to isolate cause and effect.  Several items may be contributing to the effect.

Trophology

Some interesting set of beliefs concerning food are contained in Trophology.  Trophology teaches that different foods have different biochemical requirements for complete digestion.  Thus the sequence in which food is eaten is very important.  If food are simultaneously eaten that have very different requirements for digestion, the digestion process becomes very difficult.  Some of our staff are very knowledgeable about Trophology.  We are planning a group experiment this summer and invite curious members to enroll in our experiment and report their experience with daily reports to our blog site.