"The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall." - Vince Lombardi

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Day 134 - Udo's Oil

Today I ran out of flax seed capsules. Luckily though on the weekend I picked up a bottle of Udo's Oil to meet my EFA needs. Well, I just had a taste of it in my bedtime casein protein shake, and I must say...I think it might take a bit of getting used to. The capsules are great because you can't taste it, but they aren't the most cost efficient way of getting enough of your EFA's.

A serving of Udo's oil in a protein shake seems to be a pretty standard thing in the health circle, but I guess it's one of those things where you sacrifice your taste buds a little for the sake of your health. In time, I'm sure I'll get used to it though. I thought celery would be one of those healthy foods that I just wouldn't give in to, but I've just gone through a few bunches of them lately. They go great with natural peanut butter, or my latest indulgence, almond butter! I did the same thing with oatmeal. I thought it was one of those healthy meals that I just wouldn't sacrifice my taste buds for, but now I've been eating steel cut oats almost every day.

So you never know what healthy foods you're going to end up enjoying. They say that babies have to try a food up to 20 times before they realize they like it. I don't think it'll take me that long to learn to love the Udo's oil. So, I pledge to try it everyday for the next 20 days. If I can't stand it by then, I guess I'll go back to swallowing capsules.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden


M2 Day 16

2 comments:

Michael said...

Udo's Oil tastes kind of nutty. I think you'll get used to the taste. I personally love it now. I use it 2 times a day. Just curious why you put it in your bedtime shake. I thought I read that adding fat right before bedtime was a bad idea.

Raiden said...

Hey Mike, sorry if I got to your comment late. I've already gotten used to the taste of it. I haven't generally heard of fat before beddtime being a bad idea. Starch and Sugar are the evils to avoid at beddtime.

The reason fat might be good at bedtime is that it slows down the digestion process and lines the stomach walls. Even though casein is perhaps the slowest digesting protein, a little bit of fat with it drags it out even longer.

If you look at the BFFM baseline diet, the essential fat serving is in meal 6 and says for a smaller serving of starch. It's also mentioned in Brink's Bodybuilding Revealed (another Tom Venuto approved resource) that a good beddtime snack is casein, which can be slowed down even more with a little bit of fat.

There haven't really been any scientific studies that examine what really is the optimal nighttime nutrition for building muscle, specifically looking at casein and fat, so I don't know if there's a definitive "fat is good" or "fat is bad". I think the consesus is though that it leans a bit more to being better than worse.