Antioxidants, Recovery and Performance

Yesterday I went to see a chiropractor that claimed he had a way of checking your bodies antioxidant levels by using a laser. It's called a Biophotonic scanner.

Here's how it works.

There are certain molecules, like antioxidants, than can be excited with a certain wavelength of laser light. The molecules then begin to resonate in very particular ways, releasing a very specific light signal of an altered wavelength that then can be measured. By simply placing the palm of your hand in front of a low-energy blue light laser, you obtain an immediate, accurate reading of your antioxidant levels within your cells. Then you get a print out of your skin carotenoid score and where you rank in relation to over 1,000,000 other scans. The scanner records your score between 10,000-50,000+. The higher you score, the higher your antioxidant status. The lower your score, the lower your status

Here are some factors that will influence your score:

1. Your diet
2. Your supplementation
3. Your body fat percentage
4. Your lifestyle
5. Your genes

I was very curious to see what my levels were because the more someone trains the more free radical damage can occur due to the stress that is put on the body. And I train a lot.

I scored at 37,000. Much better than average but not as good as it could be. One of my clients was with me and she scored at 75,000. This was the highest the chiropractor giving us the test has ever seen. When my client aked me why I thought my score was much lower than hers I have to admit I was a little embarrassed. I had to be honest with her. "Apparently, I've gotten a little to laxed with my diet. Since I train so much I stay pretty lean. Because of this I haven't been making the best food choices (which should be thought of as fuel by the way)". This just goes to show that even though I get paid to get people to perform optimally through sound training and dietary protocols I myself fall victim to the same habits and behavioral problems as anyone else.

I have no doubt that once I go back to eating the way I know I should be I'll recover better from my training. Remember this. You do not improve from training. You improve by recovering from training. You recover by eating foods with high phytonutritents and by resting. So here's some diet related tips you should be implementing if you're not already:

1. Eat protein at every meal with a vegetable or/and a fruit.
2. Vary your vegetables and fruits by eating different colors.
3. Besides water, drink green tea.
4. Take a multi vitamin. Make sure it's Albion mineral chelated unless you like paying for expensive urine.
5. Take 9 grams of fish oil in divided dosages with your meals or take 6 grams of krill oil (krill is like fish oil on steroids).
6. Have a post workout meal immediately after training (not after driving home 20 minutes later), preferably a liquid meal.

Here's the bottom line.

Don't think that just because you're lean and look good you can get away with eating garbage. Think of your body as a high performance sports car. What kind of gas would you put in a ferrari. If you put in 87 octane when it should get 94 octane it will still look like a ferrari. It just won't perform like one.

Chris Grayson
graysotrainingsystems.com