Q&A for: 21-Jul-05
224. Q:
how do i get rid of my man boobs
A:
Please read this
225. Q:
Is hydrogenated vegetable oil unhealthy? I eat peanut butter and it has HVO. Is it better to eat pure peanut butter that only has peanuts?
A:
Yes! And I should've mentioned this last time I was talking about peanut butter... Hydrogenated oils / partiall hydrogenated oils / trans fatty acids are all just about the worst thing you can put in your body. They increases the levels of LDL cholesterol ('bad cholesterol'), decrease levels of HDL cholesterol ('good cholesterol'), clog your arteries, increase risk of type II diabetes and a host of other problems. The reason they're used is because they're cheap, taste good, and store for the long time (they're essentially already spoiled fats, so they don't spoil any more). But they are anything but good for you! Be careful because they're used in many products you might never think of as containing them. Besides baked and fried foods, they're often used in breakfast cereals. Read the nutrition label fine print carefully!
As you guessed, natural peanut butter which contains only peanuts and maybe salt is what you should be eating. Even better, try natural almond butter! Almonds have a lot of healthy monounsaturated fat (same as olive oil) while peanuts are mostly omega-6 polyunsaturated which most people get too much of already.
In general I have a very simple yet very effective rule of thumb as to what foods to buy and what foods to avoid. Look at the food's nutrition label ingredient list. If there's more than 2-3 ingredients listed and especially if you can't even pronounce some of their names, then put it back on the shelf :)
226. Q:
Hi Mike, for your chest routinne, u said to work MWF, isnt that overtrainging if u only give yourself 1 days rest in betrween? also, im on ur fatburning diet. how much milk should i drink a day, normally i drink like 36oz of skim milk.
A:
If you're talking about Q&A #199, then no, it's not overtraining. The reason is because on almost all of those sets (all except 3 sets on Mondays of weeks 5 and 6) you will stop each set pretty far from failure. In fact, most of the time you'll feel like it's a fairly boring warmup routine :) If you remember I also recommended stopping all other chest, shoulder, and tricep work while you're on the 6-week program to further decrease the chance of overtraining. If you took all of those bench press sets to failure, then yes, absolutely, it would be bad overtraining. But that's not the case. You may feel close to failure in week 4, in which case you should reduce the number of reps in a set to 3-4 and take longer breaks in between sets.
My fat-burning diet lists everything that you should be eating and milk isn't on there :) Milk, even low-fat or fat-free, is not a good choice of food especially when trying to lose fat. It does have protein, but it's got even more sugar which is NOT what you want. You need to find other sources of protein and drop milk from your diet or at least minimize it as much as possible. 36oz is way too much.
227. Q:
how do u eat flax seed, cook it? or eat it as if it were peanuts
A:
My favorite way to eat ground flax seed is to mix it into the oatmeal after it's cooked as part of my breakfasts. You can also sprinkle it on salads and steamed veggies (along with other herbs and spices). However do not cook with flax seed since high heat destroys polyunsaturated fats such as the omega-3 in flax, creating ugly trans fatty acids in its place.
Also note that you should eat ground flax seed only. Whole flax seed (which you can also find in stores and even in a couple of breakfast cereals) will just pass through your system undigested and thus carry little to no benefit.
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