INCURABLE DATA GEEK

Snorting caffeine: Get buzzed and ripped off all at once

I’ve had an obsession with the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive drug, caffeine, since I had to perform caffeine extraction in my 10^th grade chemistry club. In the last couple of years this obsession has turned into a frustration for two reasons:

1. shopping caffeine FREE products has become increasingly difficult, and;
2. too many people are getting ripped off by ridiculously over-priced caffeinated products that are marketed as magical innovations when in fact they only “work” due to their caffeine content.

First, for reasons I don’t understand, FDA does not require listing caffeine content in any products. It is enough to mention “caffeine” or any of the sources, such as cola nut, green tea extract or guarana in small print and most people don’t even know that means a source of caffeine. I was hoping we had reached the limits of imagination with caffeinated soda, energy gels, energy bars, mouth spray, lip balm, “5 hour energy”, chewable sheets and caffeinated beef jerky.  But no. Today I stumbled on a product to snort caffeine called Turbo Snort. Yes, snorting caffeine. It must be easier to profit from Turbo Snort than from selling a good night sleep.

Most of these products are obvious buzz generators and marketed as such, but many other (sports) drinks and snacks have purposefully hidden caffeine. The immediate buzz and feel-good that comes from ingesting the product creates a quick feedback loop: “this works!”. When in reality you are just paying for ridiculously over-priced commodity product: caffeine. All the other ingredients and herbs, for the most part, are just for confusion. For example, 5-Hour-energy’s “2100mg Energy Blend” would do little pick up without the 138mg of caffeine the tiny bottle has. Go to any well stocked sports store and it is quickly clear that it is now harder to find a caffeine FREE energy gel, energy blocks or a bar than with doses of caffeine. The most recent addition to the list of caffeinated sports products: salt tablets with caffeine. Brilliant innovation.

Second, those who actually are proactively looking for more buzz, more caffeine, are increasingly getting ripped off financially. Case in point: SaltStick’s new salt tablets with caffeine, are a combination of table salt and caffeine (for the most part). Both are commodity products that cost nothing; however, this product has a 3,897% market-up compared to caffeine retail price sold at Walgreens. Similarly, 5-Hour-energy sells at a 8,575% mark-up.  The “snortable caffeine” tops the list though: 13,357% markup! Many Internet entrepreneurs dream of these kind of (gross) margins.

If you need a safe, strong and economic buzz: buy pure store-brand caffeine tables from Walgreens or any other convenience store. That “cup of coffee” costs less than 4 dollar cents. (Or: sleep more and better.)

Scary: How to spend less than $3/day on food and still live fat and happy (and die young)

I just had the pleasure to visit Europe and upon landing at one of the Middle-European airports,  I saw hundreds of people around me and something seemed off in the scenery. Soon I realized what looked so different from what I was used to in American airports:  I didn’t see a single truly obese person in sight, except one: a lady carrying an American passport in her hand on my right (for real). But that hardly is surprising; by now everyone knows that we’ve  become the fattest country (the U.S.)  in the world and by far the number one killer of Americans is obesity - either directly or indirectly.

Although the causality map of obesity is ridiculously complicated, the final gate for gaining or losing weight is practically always one’s mouth and the food that goes in there. And as I was shopping food after returning from Europe, I accidentally picked the wrong brand of Almond milk. This “milk” had water and sugar as ingredients and a cup of it had 190kcal – in comparison a cup of Coca Cola has only 100kcal. I thought this is so screwed up. Does it really make business sense to produce horrible junk and throw sugar and other needless ingredients into every product?

While grocery shopping, I decided to take a look at some of the typical products sold in super markets (Safeway in this case). I compared the daily cost of each product assuming a 2,000kcal/day diet and getting all energy from that single product.  The frustrating list of results is below: You can easily live on $1-$3/day, eating highly processed food and fill your fuel tank with them. The problem: it’s all horrible junk you should never be touching anyway = Oreo Cookies, Twinkies, RedVines, soda, chips and cerials diet? All easily less than $4/day on a $2000kcal/day diet. Rather disgusting. You would think highly processed food ends up being expensive, but no.

Ramen Noodles also makes the top of the list. I wouldn’t recommend it either, as it’s all refined carbs and comes with a long list of stuff you want to avoid (courtesy of Safeway.com): Ramen Noodles: Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Vegetable Oil (Contains One or More of the Following: Canola Oil, Cottonseed Oil, Palm Oil) Preserved by Tocopherols and/or TBHQ and/or Ascorbyl Palmitate, Contains Less than 2% of Salt, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Potassium Carbonate, Sodium Carbonate, Sodium Alginate. Seasoning Mix: Salt, Monosodium glutamate, Hydrolyzed Soy, Corn and Wheat Protein, Chicken Powder, Soy Sauce Powder (Wheat, Soybeans, Maltodextrin, Salt), Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Spices, Chicken Fat, Calcium Silicate (Anticaking Agent), Celery Powder, Sugar, Dehydrated Leek, Turmeric Color, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Disodium Guanylate, Disodium Inosinate, Natural Flavors, Artificial Flavors.

I’m waiting for the day when producing, selling and eating junk food is considered as bad (and is as expensive) as smoking today. I am sure that day will come, but it might be another 5+ years away. Junk food tax, anyone?

Getting fatter with more exercise? There is a way out

I recently had lunch with another entrepreneur, who was complaining how he’s again gaining weight after increasing exercise. Not all weight gain is bad; everyone knows that the same volume of muscle weighs more than fat and it’s possible to gain muscle weight with increased exercise, especially weight training. But now we are talking about fat! (I’ve yet to find a healthy person, who wants to gain fat on purpose)

I’ve now heard this same question so many times from friends, colleagues and recreational and more serious athletes. And, several times, I’ve fallen into the same trap myself, gained more fat especially after increasing exercise intensity. But I’ve found an easy way out of that cycle.

First, why is this happening? Exercise burns more energy, no matter what is the intensity of exercise. Higher intensity exercise burns more glycogen (i.e., carbs) – both in absolute energy and relatively(%) speaking - from the muscles and liver, which are the limited fuel tanks we carry. I’ve noticed anecdotally from myself (and my wife and other people around me) that when the glycogen stores get very low, our normal appetite picks up significantly. Even a short (say 45min) high intensity workout during which you can burn ~1000kcal and mostly carbs, can empty most of your glycogen stores (most people carry about 2000kcal of glycogen in muscles when fully loaded).
I don’t have scientific proof of this, but appetite (and especially carb cravings) pick up VERY significantly in the following 24hrs to “force” you to refuel that lost glycogen. 2-3hours of hiking or very easy cycling that also burns that 1000kcal (but mostly from fat, which is pretty much unlimited energy source for 99.9999% of us), doesn’t have that impact on appetite.
So the bottom line is that appetite increases and I believe it increases much more if you’ve depleted your glycogen stores during the exercise. This is obviously a good thing, but gaining fat in the refueling process is not.

Second, why are we then gaining fat? Everyone knows that you gain weight when you eat more than you burn. The more nuanced version of this is that when you eat, that energy can be stored in different parts of your “fuel stores”. Optimally, all the carbs are packed into your high-octane glycogen tanks (muscles) and NONE goes to your fat stores. Then you can hit hard in your exercise session and have the energy to work out at high intensity, while further burning your fat too.

The best way to ensure that food is not stored into fat, is to only eat moderate amounts of carbs (And food in general) at any one sitting and leave the fast carbs (sugar, enery gels, bread, drinks etc.) for just before/during/after exercise. On the other hand, the best way to GAIN fat is the sumo-wrestler diet, in which you skip breakfast and then eat massive amounts of food (mainly carbs) in a rested state, and mainly just before going to bed. Your body tries to get rid of all the sugar traveling in bloodstream and with the help of insulin, that sugar is transported to fat cells and muscles as rapidly as possible.

Most people who gain fat while exercising and/or increasing high intensity exercise, tend to skip food during or right after exercise. They may exercise in the morning and think “I just had a great workout and burned 700kcal, why would I eat it back when I can just drink a cup of coffee and go!” and have their first real meal at lunch. Then eat lightly and eventually the (carb) cravings get so bad that you gorge bread, rice, bars, candy, etc. And after eating all those carbs, great majority of them are quickly transported to your fat cells. This is the sumo wrestler’s diet here. Congratulations!

So what is the solution? You need to break two things:
1) Get rid of the hunger that follows from depleting your glycogen stores
2) Make sure the fueling carbs are transported to your muscles, not to your fat cells.

The solution is simple: Eat 300-400kcal of carbs (glass of juice and a typical 250-300kcal bagel will do it) immediately or within 20minutes of finishing your workout (do not wait for 1-2hrs). Two things will happen: you’ve curbed the carb cravings for good. Secondly, right after exercise, certain enzymes (and processes I don’t even understand) transport the carbs from your blood to your muscles, NOT to your fat cells.

I’ve tried this approach and helped others to do it as well and it works very very well.

If you’re exercising for 2+ hours (e.g., bike riding) and doing high intensity exercise, that 300-400kcal is obviously not enough. In that case, it is important to eat carbs even during the exercise and eat more during the hour(s) following the workout. I’ve witnessed (with myself and others) 48hr long massive carb cravings after big workouts that totally deplete glycogen stores if I haven’t re-fueled quickly after the exercise. The net results of eating massive carb meals 6 hours after the workout and just before bed time is very often gaining more fat.

So my simple recommendation: Never finish a workout without an immediate carb snack or meal.