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2010-02-25 Dave Scott - Nutrition for Exercise Performance and Preventive Health

An Interview with Six-Time Ironman Champion Dave Scott

KIRK HAMILTON: Hi, my name is Kirk Hamilton, your host of Staying Healthy Today, and our mission is simple: To provide you credible usable health information from interviews and our educational resources to help you Stay and Be Well in the busy modern world. Please take a few moments before or after listening to this interview to browse through the website Prescription2000.com,  the home of Staying Healthy Today Radio, for our free educational services.

Today's show topic is "Nutrition for Exercise Performance and Preventive Health - Pearls from the Master." Our guest today is Dave Scott, world renown triathlete, fitness educator and six-time Ironman World Champion in 1980, ‘82, ‘83 and ‘84, and ‘86 and '87, and the first inductee into the Ironman Hall of Fame in 1993. In 1994, at the age of 40 Dave came out of retirement and placed second in the grueling Ironman competition in Kona, Hawaii. Dave currently runs Dave Scott, Inc,. based in Boulder, Colorado.

So welcome Dave, and it's great to talk to you again. I haven't seen you probably, I think I saw you in an airport 20 years ago.

DAVE SCOTT: It's been a while Kirk. A long time.

KIRK HAMILTON: And the memory that came up was as I was interviewing Rip Esselstyn, I had the memory of you, and it's a complimentary one, so don't take it wrong. But in Hickey Gym (U.C. Davis), people don't realize that they used to have this old, I swear it was a wood paneled weight room and there was no air in it. And I remember you coming in with this tall, real tall gentleman and you were doing like a million sets of bench press and the guy goes "That's the Dave Scott. He does biathlons." And that was in like probably '77, '78.

DAVE SCOTT: It was way back. It was kind of the ground floor of when I first started in the sport and you know they actually really didn't have a name so he did quite well in calling it a biathlon.

KIRK HAMILTON: Yeah, and all I remember was "Man, that guy can do a lot of sets of bench press!" You know, a lean, ripped guy.

So tell me what does Dave Scott, Inc. do, or what does the business do in Boulder, Colorado?

DAVE SCOTT: Well it has lots of different facets, Kirk. I never really know exactly from year to year where I'm headed, but I still do some marketing and promotion and some product development with a few companies, that I've had alignment for years, you know being in the sport when you're the hot guy on the block, but they think you can do anything and everything. So it's something that I have kind of parlayed and worked on for a number of years. But you know those companies come and go. So that's part of my business. I do a lot of client consultations, so you know, just like a dentist I have athletes that have nutritional questions, have strength questions, training questions and so I set those up. And I do a number of things online. I have an online training program so you people can go to my website and there's strength and injury prevention programs, like if you're weak in your glutes or your rotator cuff or your upper quads. I've got select programs and I also custom design those as well. And I still travel quite a bit so the times when I'm not here I've got a good assistant that takes over.

KIRK HAMILTON: Are most of your clientele high-end athletes? I mean obviously you're an elite athlete at the extreme level, or do you see the everyday "Joe", so to speak?

DAVE SCOTT: No, I actually - the bulk of mine, I wouldn't say time-wise because I do have a stable of the elites and we have a couple of the best in the world right now, but most of them are really, just what I call developing athletes and fitness level athletes. Some that are just beginning. I'm the national coach for Team in Training which is for - Team in Training is for leukemia and lymphoma blood cancers and I run the triathlon division. All of those athletes are all beginners or developing athletes so I'm in charge of the coaches that coach these athletes, so I kind of see clients across the board.

KIRK HAMILTON: And is most of your focus, you're the endurance athlete guy?

DAVE SCOTT: Well I'd say, yeah, a lot of it is. I do get some where I've worked with track athletes and a basketball player and squash player and tennis player. You know people that have - need to have explosive routines built-in and also to have their strengths and weakness identified. And even at the elite level it is kind of ironic that you see athletes across the board that are very, very talented but quite often they're not necessarily balanced or symmetrical.

KIRK HAMILTON: Let me ask you. What came first? Your love of exercise or you thought nutrition was important, or what came first?

DAVE SCOTT: Oh, I think I was always passionate about exercise. As you remember, I mean way back in well before high school. You know I was kind of ingrained in the jock culture. At that time eating healthy, I mean that was kind of an oxymoron, and then I was bred on, you know, roast beef, meat and potatoes and the most tremendous bowl of ice cream every night. So I kind of gravitated when I was in college towards the end of it, I started to be a little more concerned about what I was eating and why I was eating it. And the biggest reason was that I had periods where I was really lethargic and it didn't dawn on me until years later when I really understood the biochemistry of it, and what I was doing to my system that I was taking these toxic levels of simple carbohydrates at night which was really catastrophic.

KIRK HAMILTON: Well let's stay with the things that would create some lethargy. What were the ‘misfiring' things that you were doing early on?

DAVE SCOTT: One of the big things I just mentioned was I'd finish a workout day and I'd burn a lot of calories and I think I could eat virtually whatever I wanted to. And in my early 20s I said well I am going to start eating a little bit healthier, but boy I sure liked that ice cream. I'm going to come home, and really, I could eat a half gallon of ice cream at night without even breathing and one of the side effects with simple carbohydrates, particularly at night when you're going to bed, is that it elevates your cortisol levels which is a stress hormone that we produce when we exercise. It actually can be a good hormone in short term, and we also produce it when we're under a lot of mental stress. Well, when it stays high it suppresses the ability to burn fat, burn excess free fatty acids, and also reduces the ability to rebuild protein tissues, muscle at night. And so if you're fueling yourself with simple carbohydrates before you go to bed it's really a double-whammy and that's what I was doing.

KIRK HAMILTON: Do you ever get concerned - sometimes I see these - kind of switching the professions, but big huge football players. And these guys are consuming massive quantities of protein and fat. And I just actually read the "All Pro Diet" by Tony Gonzales who kind of made a fairly dramatic shift in diet. And do you ever like look at those people and go "I wonder what they're going to be in their 40s and 50s?"

DAVE SCOTT: Oh, I look at that a lot, and statically I remember reading probably about 15 years ago that the average longevity lifespan of an NFL football player was 59. This was years ago and I think because they're obviously, their training table is a lot more refined than it was 15 to 20 years ago hopefully we're not going to see that. But yeah, you see guys that are have huge mass. They have to maintain that mass to be a great lineman, maintain that quickness. But when their playing days are over, boy you're looking at a cardiac case that's unfolding and you know every athlete should have their blood panels checked and done. And I think whether we're picking on NFL athletes or whatever, they're really liable. And I've seen a number of them that have gravitated obviously in endurance sports as you just mentioned with Tony Gonzales, that have made that change over and have cleaned up their diet.

KIRK HAMILTON: Well tell me, when did you - I mean there's stories, and I want to get it from the "horse's mouth", how much of a plant-based person were you? I remember - I think, I remember a buddy of ours who played football and you were up at Lake Almanor and he said that you were consuming these huge salad bowls, and then I've heard that you rinsed off your cottage cheese from others (Esselstyn). So what did you eat in the 70s and 80s in your early days?

DAVE SCOTT: Well in the early days when I was still in school, I remember going to the dining commons. This is when I was a freshman and eating 13 grilled cheese sandwiches. You know I really didn't want to be recognized, that was my claim to fame. And I went to this ice cream parlor called Farrell's and I remember I ate 8 ½ pounds of ice cream at one time and thought that's not terribly healthy. So I did start cleaning up my diet in my early 20s. I mean the last time I went to a salad bar, I guess sort of a - and I won't use the name of the company - and said you know I'm going to take a couple of ladle-fulls of that Thousand Island dressing and put it on top, and I realized I can eat a healthy plant-based salad and then just crucify it with salad dressing on top. And so I cut that out and I cut out white flour and I stopped eating beef. I haven't had a Big Mac, I haven't had any red meat since my early 20s, so it's been 30, 30-odd years now. And I've gone through cycles where I was a vegetarian at one time and I actually tried a macrobiotic diet for a short period of time. So I raced in the 80s with predominantly a plant-based diet and then in the early 90s, and currently I've kind of shifted, and said there are a number of nutrient dense foods that I am not getting. My omega-3s were really low. My total fat intake of the healthy fats was very low and I felt my protein absorption probably could be enhanced if I would eat fish and chicken so that's what I've done since the ‘90s and 2000.

KIRK HAMILTON: Do you feel that because you went to the fish and chicken, that you have better recovery that you weren't getting with the plant-based diet? Or is it because you ate the fish with more of an anti-inflammatory effect?

DAVE SCOTT: Well a little bit of both. I mean the anti-inflammatories, as you know with the omega-3s is gigantic. So I think that obviously enhanced my recovery, but I think the other thing that - you're not getting your calories in quite often a couple of streams. And as an athlete when you're hungry if you have a bag of healthy chips, well you're going to eat those bag of healthy chips. It's not really healthy, and if you're going to take in high glycemic sugars because you need those calories you're going to do that. Well I did that and I replaced that with a higher protein amount. And I'm not a huge protein advocate like we need more and more protein. But I felt as though my choices of protein, particularly salmon and tuna, which are the primary fishes that I do eat, and chicken, that my recovery was a lot better and when I continued racing after a five year hiatus in '89. I was 35 then and I came back in '94 when I was 40, I felt as though I was stronger than I had ever been in '94 and even '96 when I had raced again. I ended up coming in fifth in '96 in the Ironman race, but I felt even at that age and all the way up to about 47 I felt like wow, I'm as strong as I have ever been.

KIRK HAMILTON: So what role would - I'm assuming from listening to you that you would be eating only whole complex carbohydrates. So tell me the foods. Is it grains? Is it the potato family? Is it legumes? What part would that play a role in?

DAVE SCOTT: Well yeah, your question's a broad one. I mean for me I eat , I eat whole grains. You know the bread that I eat is always whole grain bread. One of the areas that I have increased and I always recommend to athletes in not only getting you know a better source of calories but more nutrient dense calories is to eat nuts, and you know I have kind of a - I say you know go to the health food store and make your own nut concoction. Don't get them roasted. Just get them whole and you know the king and queen of nuts are almonds and walnuts. Walnuts are the highest in omega-3s and almonds are very high in vitamin E and also protein by volume. And then you can add other nuts or seeds to that and Brazil nuts are very high in selenium so I put those in and pumpkin seeds are healthy and sesame seeds. But I always put them at one-quarter to one-half ratio of almonds to walnuts. So the nuts are kind of a staple in my life. I actually eat them mid-morning and mid-afternoon for a snack and it sort of quells your satiety center. In other words, you don't feel hungry and for athletes that are trying to maintain the leanest weight and/or anyone who is trying to drop weight, you know we think of nuts where they're really fat laden. Well they're a healthy fat and lots of studies have shown that if you're eating higher levels of monounsaturated fat that you'll actually access free fatty acids faster, particularly if you're exercising. So that's been kind of a big shift and advice that I give other athletes. But you know I'm also - I eat a tremendous amount of beans, particularly the darker beans. I mean I eat black beans and kidney beans, the garbanzo beans and I usually have that once a day and I still eat anywhere between four to eight servings of fruits and vegetables per day which you know is fairly high.

KIRK HAMILTON: Tell me about - I don't know where you go, but I go into a regular local gym here and so we've got all these whey and protein supplements stacked on the counter as you leave, and give me some comment on those.

DAVE SCOTT: Yeah. Um, what's interesting with protein, you know people think that protein is just to build my muscles and there's thousands of different proteins in your body. And we can look at almost any bodily function and proteins are part of that formula. Proteins are enzymes. They're hormones that are good for your hair, your teeth, your digestive system, your respirations and I think when we look at protein, the breakdown of protein are the amino acids, the building blocks of amino acids. And there's a term with protein as far as your utilization or absorption of protein because protein is made out of nitrogen, and the term is net nitrogen utilization, NNU. And so when you look at protein, let's just say you know a can of tuna that might have 25 grams of protein in it. The net nitrogen utilization of all proteins, whether it's beans, it's milk, it's cheese, it's beef, whatever it is, we only absorb so much that goes into the cellular level. The rest is either used as calories which it is, it's around 4 calories per gram, or it's excreted. And so the net nitrogen utilization of whey protein isolate which is the best biological available type of powder protein that is commonly in the body building supplements is, the NNU of whey protein isolate, is only about 18 to 20%. In other words, if we take in 25 grams of that, we're really only absorbing around 20% of it. I mean, it's amazing how small it is. But the problem, if we're not taking in the highest level of amino acids and really the highest NNU of any product that is out there is a product, and you can go to their website, it's called bodyhealth.com, and it's called Master Amino Pattern. The net nitrogen utilization of that is 99%. In other words, you're essentially absorbing all of it. So salmon is in the 40%. Eggs are close to 48% and they're actually about the highest. So you know when we look at whey protein isolate, yes we know it works, we know that we need the branch chain amino acids, leucine, isoleucine and valine, and we need eight essential ones, but we're not absorbing all of them at one time.

KIRK HAMILTON: So we're talking to Dave Scott, six time Ironman Triathlon champion and those were in Kona, Hawaii, the big ones. He runs Dave Scott, Inc., in Boulder, Colorado. And I want to ask you about some controversies. Soy. Do you use soy at all?

DAVE SCOTT: I used to be a big advocate of soy, Kirk. I mean, I think the soy rage was gigantic and yeah there is a lot of controversy about the amount of soy. You know soy and corn are virtually in everything we eat right now. And I've actually tried to cut back on the soy. I mean I used to eat tremendous amounts of tofu and I used to get soy yogurt and soy milk and I still do, but probably at about 25% less than what I did. There are some side effects from soy that have come up in research recently and certainly for men and women, women that are going through menopause it's a concern on how much soy they're getting.

KIRK HAMILTON: What about dairy products? What are you doing with dairy products these days?

DAVE SCOTT: I don't eat a tremendous amount. I mean, you know you start to look at cheese. I mean I like Parmesan cheese on some of the stuff that I cook but I don't use a lot. You know the hard cheeses I don't use. I use very little. In fact, I don't even know the last time I've had a piece of cheese or had it in any product. I drink nonfat or low fat milk, but in small quantities, but I do have a lot of yogurt. I eat, you know quite a bit of yogurt, cow's milk yogurt every day and I just buy organic because of my concern about nonorganic industry, the conventionally farmed industry.

KIRK HAMILTON: Tell me about the caffeinated drinks and the energy drinks. Do you see those involved in your type of exercise athlete or are those separate?

DAVE SCOTT: Oh boy! You see people sucking down all sorts of caffeinated drinks. I mean I give talks on what type of supplement you should take. Are these harmful? Is this going to cause a diuretic effect? And I think you know for a long time people were looking at the diuretic effect of caffeine .Well if you're a regular caffeine drinker and you're going to get it in a cup of coffee, you get 100 to 135 mg of caffeine, and you have a couple of cups of every morning, it's not going to weigh on your performance at all. In fact, you know the side effect is that you can access free fatty acids at a faster rate and it elevates adrenalin a little bit. So you know I tell people that if you normally drink two cups, go ahead and drink it. I think the caffeinated drinks that are out there, the bottled drinks or the canned drinks are dangerously positioned for an energy drink, and the energy, whether it is coming from caffeine or guarana or any of the caffeine stimulants, I think that's a mistake because you could take a big jolt when your body is under a lot of stress. It can have a sudden positive effect on it, but it has a similar like effect if you take in real simple sugars and that you end up crashing down. So I'm not a big fan of, you know Red Bull for example, that's out there that's permeated the market. I just think that that's a mistake. And a lot of athletes in my sport grab for a coke as they go through one of the aid stations, and you know if you're not dehydrated or terribly dehydrated it will give you a boost, but it's pretty short-term and you have to keep refueling with that coke but it's a - it is short-term.

KIRK HAMILTON: How about - I know it seems like your kind of athlete would be exposed to the sun a lot and I'm not an anti-sun guy. But do you tell people about being out in the sun too much or do you encourage them to get their vitamin D level done?

DAVE SCOTT: Yeah, you've always been tan, Kirk. I know you don't avoid the sun, okay.

KIRK HAMILTON: Yeah, like you've never - like you avoided the sun, too.

DAVE SCOTT: Yeah, you've got that year-around tan no matter where you are. Well, I live in Boulder so you know we're here at higher altitude so we swim outdoors year around ironically and everyone has a tan here year around so it's not good. You know as far as - I'm a big advocate. I'm probably 30 years too late because earlier on you know we just laid out in the sun. We put coconut oil on and then all of a sudden we realized some horrible things can happen with sun exposure. So I use it(sunscreen) all the time year around. I put it on my nose and my face and certainly my arms and legs when I'm exposed in the summer, and I advise my athletes to do that as well. You know you mentioned vitamin D and I think it's - you know what vitamin D is like - it's categorized as vitamins but it responds like a hormone and the latest information on the vitamin D is even to enhance cardiovascular health and enhance calcium absorption is that most of us need between about 1000 to 1200 international units of vitamin D per day, and this country is chronically low in vitamin D, so it's something that people should have checked.

KIRK HAMILTON: So if you were the health czar, and you got hired by the Obama administration to wield a big stick and you see the obesity issue. I gave you a little paper there that just came out in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In 1970, the average adult was consuming 500 calories less and the average child was consuming 350 calories less, which equates to about 9 pounds of greater weight in the 2000 child and almost 19 pounds more than the 2000 adult.

DAVE SCOTT: Yeah.

KIRK HAMILTON: How would you approach it? Diet, exercise? Give me some pearls of wisdom here.

DAVE SCOTT: Well you hit right on it. I just gave a talk to future coaches in Team in Training which I was talking about, and I had pulled up a number of slides just about our chronic overweight and obesity epidemic that we have in our country with kids and adults, and it is scary because it's siphoning off billions of dollars in our healthcare because people are too fat. The single biggest problem, and by far, is the percentage of calories that we're getting from sweetened drinks, and the sweetened drinks that are out there, from you know the simplest form of it where it just has a small level and seemingly has a few vitamins in it, to our caffeinated drinks which are just sugar bombs. 25% of or more with our kids are - they're getting their calories from that source. That's the biggest problem. The second one is that the amount of high fructose sugars that we're eating, and the fructose in these sugared drinks has to be digested differently than the other sugars. In other words it not broken down, and it created this problem that we're having a lot of people - it shuts down their insulin response and they get this condition called metabolic syndrome. And your statistics are just right. I saw one a while back and I showed an overlay of kids in our country that were 25% overweight or obese, and it showed the different states. Back in 1981 there was two states that were - had that percentage, and by the year 2001 every state did. So my biggest advice is that we've got to cut out the sugared drinks and we've got to take a look at the packaged foods that we have that are really, really high in high glycemic sugars and mandate legislation that we reduce those.

KIRK HAMILTON: A couple more things, then I want to close. I could ask you questions all day. One is you've obviously, as an endurance athlete, created a fair amount of oxidative stress of being out there pounding the pavement. How do these athletes fare? Now you're 56 if you don't mind me saying so. So I kind of cheated and looked at your age there, and I'm 52, and so now we're entering into different phase where the fastest growing population in the United States is over the age of 65 and that's the same actually for the world. So we're going to have all these older people, and do you have any concerns about your elite athletes being - doing that tremendous endurance challenges, kind of super physiologic almost in a way, having more chronic disease or what do you think?

DAVE SCOTT: Well I think the greatest deterrent for any type of inflammation or environmental stress, you know you look at antioxidant levels, you look at cell breakdown or vulnerability. I mean what I did doing Ironman races, that's not a great thing for your health. The training for it, less you know three months or four months, where it was really extreme, is actually good for your health. And I think when we're looking at old guys like the two of us and you know what happens in the next decade and the decade after, is that the best preventative medicine out there is to exercise consistently. Not necessarily hard, not necessarily long but to be consistent. And the consistent part, I mean there's been different studies out that that have shown that we can't just do it at a low or light level. Well for people that are beginning, doing anything is going to help. But once you're active you actually have to ramp up that work load a little bit. You have to tax your system, and I don't shy away in athletes that I coach, that are my age or older and saying, hey we've gotta bring up the intensity. I mean I have all of my athletes - you know way back when Kirk, we were talking at the outset that doing strength training, and we do higher intensity strength training for both men and women so that we enhance bone density and also elevate human growth hormone naturally and elevate testosterone levels which helps burn free fatty acids. So I like doing all those things because that's a preventative measure in the long run. It's not just about going out and doing light exercise. Yet we need to get a lot of people just off their butts to get started.

KIRK HAMILTON: Well you know you just answered my next question, is that I am a big strength training guy, and I actually, every time I talk to a patient it's - What aerobic exercise are you doing? What strength training exercise are you doing? And what flexibility exercise are you doing? And really push that. So, in that regard, are there any dietary things or lifestyle things or nutritional supplement things that your athletes take to protect them, or is it just more of a whole food diet type of approach?

DAVE SCOTT: Well I always try to dissect their diet first and make sure that they're eating a obviously solid nutrient dense meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner - but they're also having a substantial midmorning snack and a midafternoon snack, which that midafternoon snack sort of quells their satiety influence of overeating at night. Then just sitting on it (evening meal) which is a big problem in our country, that you know 60% of the calories are consumed after 6 o'clock at night, and 60% of the saturated fat calories are consumed after 6 o'clock at night which is a problem.

KIRK HAMILTON: Explain the term nutrient density. I use it all the time but I want you to say it.

DAVE SCOTT: Well I think when we're looking at nutrient dense foods, there's many, many things. One, you want to look at the vitamin panel that's in there and the mineral panel and if it has over 50% of the RDI that's in foods it passes the first test. The second thing is if it has 2 to 3 grams of fiber which simple carbohydrates have zero. That's the second one. And if you're looking at protein or fats or carbohydrates, if we're looking at fat we want to make sure that we have no more than 1 to 1.5 grams of saturated fat. We want to skew that to monounsaturated fat and if we have a protein nutrient dense food like a handful of nuts that are really high in magnesium and high in vitamin E and high in calcium and high in fiber and high in protein, they have 2 to 4 grams of fiber as well.

KIRK HAMILTON: Well that's excellent. So Dave tell us how the listeners can get a hold of you at Dave Scott, Inc..

DAVE SCOTT: Anyone can just send me a note, and then I do all sorts of consulting and chatting. I also meet with groups, so a lot of times I end up traveling so I end up doing clinics for groups. So if you're interested in having me come your way.

KIRK HAMILTON: What's the website?

DAVE SCOTT: DaveScottInc.com.

KIRK HAMILTON: That's pretty straightforward. Thanks a lot Dave. I know you a real busy guy and it was great to catch up and maybe I'll run into you some day again in live person.

DAVE SCOTT: We've got to get back in that gym again Kirk, alright?

KIRK HAMILTON: Actually I'd like to go back there. I'm an old gym rat. I don't need anything pretty.

DAVE SCOTT: Yeah, I don't either and it'd be fun to see what we can do. I'm in there every day. I lifted today as well.

KIRK HAMILTON: Well I've gotta tell you a quick story. As I was coming over here, I had 15 minutes so I ran into the fitness place and did my circuit training and ran over here because I only have so much time today and so it was like well, I'll get it in right then.

DAVE SCOTT: Yeah, I have that rule. You know if you can get in 15 minutes of strength training because you can rev up your system, you're generally going to feel better, if you get in 20 minutes of aerobic exercise you're generally going to feel better. So I always tell people, "Hey quit procrastinating and just do it!"

KIRK HAMILTON: All right. Thanks again Dave.

DAVE SCOTT: Okay Kirk.

KIRK HAMILTON: And I want to thank you, the audience today, for listening to this edition of Staying Health Today Radio. And until next time, Stay and Be Well.

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