Submitted by:  Bill Rogers, Athens, GA

I am about 2/3 of the way through reading NHE - just starting into the part that lays out the do's and don'ts of exercise. I hope it clears away as much fog as the dietary advice did.

Great book so far - I was already practicing what you preach to some degree - when I annually decide to clean up my diet and get back to the weight I carried in college, I cut out sweets and most starches in favor of green vegetables, usually a mixture that consists of onion, broccoli, cabbage, celery, garlic and a handful of green peas, intermingled with lean meet and a little curry powder. I drop about a pound a week until I reach my goal. I have never deliberately inserted a carb load into this dietary change, but looking back, I did "fall of the wagon" on Friday evenings pretty regularly. Maybe my body's plan was smarter than my brain's.

The interesting thing about the above dietary change is that after only a few days, I feel more limber on it, like I've given my circulatory system a chance to get "caught up" on removing accumulated junk from my bloodstream and joints. A lot of minor aches melt away, and I don't need much of a warm-up before I lift.

One question - I find it very easy to do without the starches and sweets during the long, warm days of summer, but experience an almost irresistible urge to tank up as soon as I feel the first cold breezes of fall. I don't resist with much vigor, because I know I can drop the 10-12% annual weight gain the next year when it warms back up. Is there any harm to cycling like this? It does permit me to enjoy all of the traditional seasonal treats, but I wonder if there are some permanent effects to yo-yoing like this on an annual basis. I avoid hydrogenated fats all year long.

One more question - what do you think of taking a couple of grams of GABA just before bed to increase the GH release that occurs during the first half of the night? It is effective, according to the writers at www.musclemass.com. They sell a product called GAMMA GH. I would appreciate your point-of-view.

The cycling pattern you describe is neither ideal nor injurious, so I’m not going to dissuade you from it. I would, however, recommend that you read the sunlight section in NHE as it offers a plausible explanation for why you experience wintertime carbohydrate craving and how better to deal with it. 

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) has shown considerable promise as a growth hormone release stimulator. It has long been known that food and nutrition are factors bearing upon hormonal release. The macronutrient most closely associated with growth hormone is protein. Specifically, growth hormone output can be affected by certain amino acids including arginine, ornithine, glycine, glutamine, tryptophan, lysine, and GABA. The doses found effective in the studies are typically much higher than the doses at which the consumer takes it (and sometimes the findings are based on intravenous administration which is not translatable to an oral dosage). Stomach upset is an issue when megadosing aminos, which can deter sufficient intake. Finally, I have reservations about taking megadosages of individual amino acids when they naturally occur in combination. A synergistic combination would allow a GH-boosting effect to occur at a lower dosage and would be a sounder approach than loading up on just one. Also, certain cofactors should be present particularly vitamin B6 in any such formulation.