Nutrition for Athletes: Bottom Line

By Michael Colgan, Ph.D.

Your cells are limited in function by the nutrition they receive when they are formed.

Your blood cells replace themselves every three to four months. Your muscle cells replace themselves about every six months. Brain cells can take a year or more to replace themselves.
Right when each of these types of cells are formed, they use the nutrition the person is giving their body at that time. In other words, the cells are limited in function for their whole lifetime by the nutrition they receive when they are formed. If you eat garbage proteins, you cannot help but grow a garbage body. And you are stuck with that body for the next six months.
Once formed, the cells can make only small variations in their performance throughout their lifetime, because their performance is strictly limited by the nutrition they received to build their initial structure. To make large variations in health and performance, we have to wait for these cells to die off and new cells to grow in an improved nutrition and lifestyle environment.
It is exactly like a neglected house plant whose yellow shriveled leaves and poor growth make it a sorry sight. When you first start to revive it with “T.L.C.”, regular water, and microbe–rich plant food, nothing much happens. It may perk up a bit, but it takes months for all the old leaves and stems to die off and new, vigorous, leaves to grow in response to the improved nutritional environment.
Anyone who says they “tried” Isagenix products and didn’t see “much difference,” is likely talking about using the products for perhaps a few days or a few weeks. Especially for athletes—who are tuned to their bodies more than most folk—basic physiology demands that they use the products consistently for at least three months. That is the minimum to show a significant improvement in their blood.
The complete structure of the new blood cells formed during those three months is made of proteins. Even the hemoglobin that carries your oxygen is a protein. If an athlete has been eating the usual eggs, fish, and meats, and one of the hundreds of poor protein shakes out there as their main protein sources, and then they switch to IsaLeanPro, after three months they will grow superior blood cells in the superior protein environment. (In the average American—who eats mostly junk food—a three-month change to a diet dominated by IsaLeanPro will produce spectacular results.)
Even in the most elite athletes, who are already at the top of their nutritional game, we see consistent improvements in hemoglobin, hematocrit, and red-blood-cell count (the three common indicators of oxygen uptake capacity) within just three months use of the Isagenix whey protein concentrate.
To get significant improvements in strength and power, however, you have to use the IsaLeanPro consistently (every day) for six months, so that the old muscle cells can die off, and be replaced by new muscle cells that grow in the improved protein environment.
To get significant improvements in balance, rhythm, coordination, and speed—all of which are dependent on changes in the brain—it takes longer. You have to go “IsaLean healthy” for 12 months, so the old brain cells can die off and be replaced by superior cells grown in the improved protein environment. Remember, the whole structure of brain cells is made of many thousands of different proteins. All the enzymes that work the brain are proteins too, every one. And every one is made from the proteins you eat.
I’m sure we would all like protein turnover to be quicker—and many people love to claim it is quicker than explained above—but that is the basic bottom line biochemistry of the way the human body works.
Even the “miracle” losses of body fat work the same way. The structure of the fat cells is all proteins. You can drain off some of the fat by exercise and intermittent fasting (i.e. 2-day cleanses); however, to be successful you have to stay consistently on the program for at least six months, until those fat cells die and are replaced by new, smaller, fat cells. Otherwise, the old cells will just fill up with fat again.
That’s why it takes a healthy, long-term, lifestyle change to be successful in changing your body for the better. Isagenix promotes that healthy lifestyle better than any other company on the planet. That’s why they are so successful. That’s why I support them.