El consumo de frutos secos por Raúl Carrasco

The consumption of nuts by Raúl Carrasco

What about nuts? Well, Raúl Carrasco, our IFBB Pro athlete and professional coach, tells us about some realities.

Although nuts are excellent—and everyone thinks so—they are not always beneficial depending on the specific diet, including a bodybuilder’s high-protein diet.

The critical compound in these nutrient-dense natural foods is phosphorus, a mineral that can cause imbalances in your body if you consume too much. In short, if you follow a specific diet for hypertrophy, it is generally better to stay away from almonds or macadamia nuts or, failing that, control your intake.

Nuts: why avoid them?

In general, nuts are a good source of fat, fiber, and protein. Most of the fat is monounsaturated, along with omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fats; however, they also contain some saturated fat (1).

They also contain a range of vitamins and minerals, including magnesium and vitamin E and, of course, phosphorus.

  • Most of them are good sources of phosphorus, but Brazil nuts top the list: just a small 1/2 cup (67 grams) provides more than 2/3 of the Recommended Daily Value (RDV) for adults.
  • Other nuts that contain at least 40% of the RDV include cashews, almonds, pine nuts, and pistachios.

Raúl, one of the most internationally recognized coaches, will tell you that nuts are healthy (but it depends). In reality, they are excellent: they are alkalizing and contain essential fatty acids, minerals, phosphorus, magnesium, and potassium.

But when nutritional knowledge gets the better of nutritional logic, this can be viewed from another perspective:

  • A typical athlete’s breakfast of 100 g of whole-grain oats, 2 egg yolks, egg whites, a yogurt, and 30 g of walnuts or peanuts—is that a healthy breakfast, right?
  • Well, this first meal of the day already adds up to around 1,300 mg of phosphorus, exceeding the 200 mg maximum amount needed to prevent severe acidification of the blood and an imbalance with calcium.

And look: the first meal! If you add four more meals—brown rice, whole-wheat pasta, meat, or salmon, one of the meats or fish richest in phosphorus—you can reach the staggering figure of 4,000, 6,000, 7,000, or 8,000 mg of phosphorus.

nuts

Nuts: what happens on a high-protein diet?

If you follow a high-protein diet, you should not eat them because, by themselves, 5 or 6 meals containing a moderate amount of protein from fish, meat, and eggs (the yolks also contain phosphorus) are already enough.

Every day you triple the amount of phosphorus; if you add whole-grain foods and nuts, you go overboard.

Why do many athletes or professionals not eat brown rice or whole-grain foods with every meal if they are always better than the white versions? …Precisely because of this: the excess phosphorus creates a significant renal load that this can entail.

This does not mean that you should give them up completely; you can eat 20 g of peanuts or almonds… nothing will happen, but some people eat a handful of nuts three times a day… including nut butters.

Like us, Raúl Carrasco mentions in an explanatory video on this subject that we should not create confusion.

At the end of the video, it is explained that one solution used by high-performance bodybuilders to compensate for this is to take phosphorus binders, as a tool or kidney protector that should be added to certain measures to protect the kidneys.

Protect your organs on a high-protein diet

Phosphorus: why control it?

Several nutrients need to be kept under control, especially when it comes to caring for kidney function and the kidneys.

In particular, phosphorus is an important mineral for many bodily functions. It is found mostly in your bones, helps your body build cells, and contributes to energy transfer through the cells.

When the kidneys function normally, they remove excess phosphorus from the blood; otherwise, it accumulates in the body, which can cause negative effects.

Having too much phosphorus, such as that found in nuts, can affect the balance of other minerals in your blood, so it is vital to maintain a specific balance, especially with calcium.

If excess phosphorus cannot be removed from your body, it will accumulate in your blood, causing calcium to be extracted from the bones in an effort to restore the necessary balance (2).

In addition to nuts, there are some foods whose intake you can limit to avoid phosphorus-related problems, such as dairy products, beans, lentils, bran cereals, oatmeal, or phosphate additives.

Phosphorus-Calcium: what is the relationship?

Phosphorus and calcium are closely related and are found together in blood serum throughout all the body’s systems.

To maintain a proper chemical balance, twice as much calcium as phosphorus is needed; a deficiency or excess of either mineral, such as occurs when you overconsume nuts, disrupts the storage and utilization of the other.

For example, when you increase the amount of phosphorus you consume, the supply of calcium decreases. In this regard, as Raúl Carrasco explained, bodybuilders have high phosphorus levels because:

  • It is found in almost all foods, especially protein-rich foods.
  • The phosphorus absorption rate is 70%, compared with 25% for calcium.
  • Hard training can affect calcium reserves much more than those of any other mineral.

Calcium: why is it important?

Weightlifting not only stimulates adaptations that lead to increases in muscle size, but also in bone mineral density.

If you consider that bones are primarily responsible for supporting your muscles and transmitting the forces produced during movement, it would not be very beneficial for your muscles to become stronger while your bones (ligaments and tendons) did not also increase their ability to handle the load.

nuts

Although calcium is tightly regulated in the body, it can release calcium from its primary storage form, calcium phosphate in the bones, to help maintain blood pH levels and keep you healthy, especially when there is a high acid load in the diet (3)

Beyond its structural functions in the bones and its role in buffering any acid load in the body, calcium—which becomes unbalanced when you consume too many nuts—also plays an essential role in muscle movement, acting as a secondary messenger that transmits nerve impulses to the muscles and allows your muscles to contract, including the heart.

References

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