"thinkThin" bars exposed

Often enough, I find myself rushing around throughout the day. Whether it’s taking care of my daughter, running the gym or training myself, it’s way to easy to let good nutrition slip through the cracks during the day. When nutritional/food organization and planning fail, I find myself turning to a protein bar to help fill in the “gaps” between meals. This is far from ideal and as “Paleo” athlete, not very smart either. Every time I eat one of these damn things I usually feel worse off than when I started. It’s a good reminder about the importance of caloric intake and how in the end, there’s really no good replacement for real food. But, this isn’t a post about real food. It’s a post about the “Black death in a fuzzy feel good wrapper” I happened to consume one day while whizzing through my life’s activities…

I originally came across these bars while shopping at Trader Joes. Josslyn was waging a “screeching” attack directed right at my ear canals and I was trying my best to get the hell out of the marketplace zoo. On the way to the cashier, I made a touch n’ go grab for the TJ’s molecullary distilled fish oil pills when a “nutritional” bar on the next row next caught my eye. At first I saw “0g of sugar, 20g protein, gluten free” and thought, “Damn, not bad!” Hook, line and sinker. I looked at the name, “thinkThin” and immediately thought about the berating I would get from all of the guys in the gym if they were ever to see this in my possession. Josslyn continued her frontal attack at which point I said, “F , it” and threw them in the cart.

Fast forward. I’ve been coaching at the gym for 2 hours. My last meal was 3+ hours before. I’ve got 2 more classes to teach and I’m starting to get hungry again. For the moment, no dudes are in the gym so I grab a bar and down it. I didn’t even take time to look at the wrapper which is something I obsessively do with everything I buy. (It’s true, ask Jillian.)…

5, 4, 3, 2, 1…that’s almost literally how long it took for me to feel sick. What am I drunk? Within 10 minutes I felt dizzy and had a wicked f’ing headache. I drank lots of water. I even did 20 burpies as fast as I could to help jump start my system into taking whatever huge amounts of sugars I just ingested. But I thought it said 0g sugar? WTF?? The rest of the night was busy. I didn’t get home till 9:30 and crashed into bed almost immediately upon arriving. I didn’t get a chance to really reflect on what had happened earlier.

Fast forward one week. I’m caught in the exact same position. Nothing to eat in the gym, long night of coaching, hard workout previously that morning. I’m reaaally hungry and energy levels are starting to fall off. My body needs some calories. I immediately think of those damn thinkThin bars and dread the thought of eating one again. Of course, the fist response my frontal cortex comes up with is, “Maybe it was a fluke. Give it another shot.” It was like Heathcliff with an angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. Of course, like Heathcliff I popped the angel and went straight to the bar. Maybe it’ll be different this time around….

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The countdown had once again begun. Within minutes I felt loopy, like I had just taken a shot of SoCo to the head (SoCo, abreviation for Southern Comfort for the laymen.) I was dizzy, headache and…what the hell was that taste in my mouth??!! Ahhhggggg. This was literally one of the worst and weirdest tasting pieces of manufactured crap I’ve ever had. It reminded me of something with sugar alcohols I had eaten once before. Sure enough, I look on the back wrapper. With a friendly hello, the sugar alcohols jumped from the bar onto my face, literally. If you don’t know about sugar alcohols, now is the time to educate yourself. While sugar alcohols are touted as having low glycemic indexes, they still have a large negative effect on insulin levels. In this case, the preferred sugar sub was maltitol syrup and glycerin. Compared to table sugar (GI index of 70) maltitol syrup has a GI index of about 40-50. While it is a bit lower, the lasting effects of sugar alcohols is also problematic. Artificial sweeteners are already linked to 2  fold increase in Type II Diabetes. Because sugar alcohols are not fully absorbed, they can also cause gastrointestinal problems and headaches. In the end however, the problem isn’t in the caloric weight of the sugar. The reason behind increased weight gain despite low-cal sweeteners is that the body doesn’t know the difference between the two. When the body tastes something sweet it thinks “sugar”, plain and simple. It doesn’t matter if this sugar is from a natural or un-natural source. What really throws the body for a loop is when the artificial sweetener is “sweeter” to the taste than sugar. This causes a stronger insulin response and in the end the tendency to consume more calories to bring insulin levels back up.

If you do some research on maltitol, there are many conflicting posts on whether it does/doesn’t have a significant effect on insulin levels. However, if you are a paleo athlete/individual, then you have also established a high level of insulin sensitivity. Any sugar, processed, sweet, not-as sweet, etc will pack an insulin response. From my experience, protein bars are complete crap. They all contain soy lecithin, which is a highly processed emulsifier, a high use of soy protein and generally synthetic additives that are not naturally occurring.

So, what the heck do I eat if I’m in a pinch? Your first line of defense is to plan ahead. Try to keep hard boiled eggs, beef jerky, almonds, cashews and walnuts on hand. Beef jerky and nuts are especially easy when you’re in a bind. What about fruit, you say? Don’t do it. Picking up an apple, grapes or a banana is just the same as eating sugar and your body will respond in the same manner! It is undoubetdly what I find the most troublesome for new Paleolithic eaters. Remember, stabilizing insulin levels is THE MOST IMPORTANT precursor to establishing good health. It goes far beyond diabetes and obesity. Think more like Alzheimers, depression, mood swings, heart disease…the list goes on and on.

What’s disturbing is claim the manufacturer of thinkThin bars make. They state its a great choice for people with Celiac disease and diabetes. They’re also able to get away with the marketing ploy that it has zero grams of sugar while we now know that zero grams of sugar doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not sweet or won’t have an effect on insulin levels. This is a huge reminder of why we should be aware of the ingredients in our food.

Ok, so what if I’m really screwed and don’t have any of the above. What bar would be the best? In my experience, the bar of lesser evils is the Balance Bar. It contains no sugar alcohols, good amount of protein (15g) and a decent amount of fat. While they do employ soy protein, it’s also mixed with whey, which gives me a false sense of security. That said, if you buy these things as an emergency, chances are you’ll end up eating them everyday as part of your diet. That’s not an emergency!

If you really thought about it, it’s amazing the crap we put into our body. Do we really know the side effects of it all? Choosing good health doesn’t have to be hard. Make one conscience decision every day. Maybe save the triple pump caramel machiatto for a special “cheat” day. Start with the big meals. Plan our your dinners for the week before visiting the grocery store. Stop by your local farmers market. Before too long the little steps turn into big mileage and we all know there’s no better time to start than the present.

See you in the gym,

Coach B