Milk: It does a body good?

I never really liked milk all that much. (Especially when the neighborhood kids drank it on pizza night…gag me with a spoon.). Maybe I have just been a super-genius since forever? Eh, since I spelled it ‘genious’ until last week,  willingly played the french horn, and Family Matters was one of my favorite TV shows, that probably is not the case. But perhaps I was on to something, after all. Today, we talk about why you can ditch milk in all of it’s lovely forms (I vote cheese as the superior form of milk), get all the calcium and nutrients you need, and still do your body just as good.

Fact #1: Milk Mustache Not Required for Calcium Intake

SPOILER ALERT: your paleo diet is affording you way more calcium than you thought. Not only is eating paleo reducing the ever-evil-inflammation in your hot bod, but all of that protein, fat, and vegetable matter is introducing fantastic and much-needed vitamins and minerals into your system. Since your gut lining is healthy (read: low inflammation), you are able to soak up all the good stuff:  Voila! Strong back squats AND strong bones!

Fact #2: Bones are Alive, and Yours are Stronger Now than Before CFR

I think it is a common misconception that bones are old and dead (thanks, Halloween). Bone is a living tissue. It breaks down, is absorbed, and builds back up (super elementary description, BTW). And lifting heavy is making yours happy: You get stronger, your bones get stronger. I don’t care if your kids or those smart a$$ coworkers think you are old as dirt: it’s never too late to start picking up heavy shit. Check out this abstract from pubmed. Incase you don’t, I’ve extracted my favorite sentence: Strength exercise seems to be a powerful stimulus to improve and maintain bone mass during the ageing process.

Oh no! Boss or traffic caused you to be a little late to your preferred classtime at CFR…you only made it just in time for the WOD? Turns out box jumps aren’t just magic to the ear…but also to bone formation! How about a little more science for good measure: studies show that resistance training can maintain or even increase bone mineral density. 

Fact #3: Osteoporosis is Not Really About Lack of Dietary Calcium

It IS about a whole host of things, which the SAD more or less takes care of in one fell-swoop. Vitamin deficiencies, consumption of processed foods, lack of vegetables (poor quality foods in general), and being sedentary. If you have been paying attention thus far, you see that  we have all but cleared that sad SAD list up (pun intended!). Check this out for a great recap. As Robb Wolf and his mounds of research so eloquenlty put it, “the short-hand reasons why a paleo diet is beneficial for osteoporosis is that (calcium) absorption is improved by healing the gut lining + improved hormonal state from increased protein intake”. Lastly, as we have dicussed previously; do NOT forget to take your Vitamin D3. Without proper Vitamin D levels, Calcium is more likely to be blocked from entrance into the pearly-white gates. (LOL. Get it?)

Fact #4: If Beau recommends you drink milk; It is not because he thinks you’ve got soft bones.

This isn’t a link, but it is probably the best summation of today’s topic, and it comes from Beau himself:

“Milk makes you grow. The problem is this growth is indiscriminate (bone mass, muscle mass, and fat mass).  If you are looking to get big and strong AND you are not concerned with fat gain, drink your whole milk. If being healthy and having strong bones are what you’re after, then screw milk: just eat your broccoli and squat”.

The aim of this post is to give you plenty of cold, hard, ammunition to throw back at the ever-present peanut gallery (word bank, people!), who tell you your bones are going to crumble into piles of dust or your spine will start curling up if you don’t get your milk mustache on, stat. (More info from the brains at Whole9.)

There may be a place for dairy in some of your diets. If you reintroduce a high quality (read: grass-fed. Heck don’t shoot me (or turn me into the state police), but perhaps even grass-fed and RAW) dairy and find that you have no ill-effects, then it may be a feasible addition for you. Alas, this is another topic altogether.

The point here is to reassure all of you fine folk at CFR that you are not, contrary to conventional wisdom-belief,  ’doing your body bad’ by eliminating dairy. Fear not, CFR. You remain…awesome sauce.

Until next time…

Mallory

 

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