I just received a copy of the latest "Detox Diet". And like the countless other 'Detox Diets', it contained the exact same emotive language and pseudo-scientific, non-specific justifications and prescriptions.
The basic premise is always the same: if you ever feel less than amazing its because your system is bogged down with toxins which need to be removed by specific fruits and/or veggies in a highly specific pattern.
To prove you need 'detoxing' they provide a broad list of toxic 'things' that ensure you MUST be doing/eating/drinking something bad. Things like 'breathing air', 'drinking water', 'absorbing invisible radiation' or 'having bills to pay'. They use trigger points that everybody has so we feel a connection with their argument. Its the most basic form of NLP - get the audience to agree with something - ANYTHING - and you open them to agreeing with the rest of your arguments.
And the arguments for Detox Diets aren't necessarily wrong. Many people look and feel awful primarily because they are both overfed and malnourished all at the same time. The popular diet of convenient, high-sugar foods - completely lacking in essential nutrients - is causing myriad, well-documented health problems.
The thing is, the solution to the malnourishment of a poor diet is NOURISHMENT! In fact, a richly nourishing diet should form the foundation of any attempt towards helping the body heal itself from any sort of stress or ill-health. And the foundation of a nourishing diet is the provision of a rich supply of the essential amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals that your body unarguably needs. Anything else is, by definition, inadequate and malnourishing!
But despite the emotive language, detox diets don't believe in nourishing the body. They don't see the body as self-resorative and therefore needing the resources essential to self-repair. Detox diets see the body as a clogged sewer in need of a thorough scouring. They ignore that their completely unfounded prescriptions are always completely void of the critical quantities of essential amino acids and fatty acids required by our bodies. They believe they can fix malnourishment with brutal starvation.
Detox diets have no basis in science or common sense. They are like cults; of biblical stupidity. Don't be fooled.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Cholesterol Revisited: Somebody Elses Word
I've previously written about the public health scam that is the Cholesterol Myth. If you haven't read it, you can find it here.
But don't take my word for it! Here is an article by a Doctor, about other Doctors, all explaining the same thing: Your Cholesterol isn't a problem! There are no 'good' or 'bad' varieties. Cholesterol doesn't kill you; it actually keeps you alive. Its very good but very misrepresented stuff.
But don't take my word for it! Here is an article by a Doctor, about other Doctors, all explaining the same thing: Your Cholesterol isn't a problem! There are no 'good' or 'bad' varieties. Cholesterol doesn't kill you; it actually keeps you alive. Its very good but very misrepresented stuff.
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Crossfit
'Crossfit'! is the latest craze in 'fitness' and we have been receiving a lot of queries about how it compares to what we do and what everybody else does.
For those who haven't heard of it, Crossfit is a brutal program comprised of an incredibly wide variety of exercises from olympic lifting to running to boxing and absolutely everything in between. It is designed to cover every aspect of endurance, strength and conditioning. It is described on the Crossfit website as being the "principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units..." etc. They even say that their "specialty is not specializing"!
So how good is it? Well, that depends on the context in which that question is being asked.
Is Crossfit 'good' in terms of creating an incredibly rounded athlete who could take on almost any physical challenge and do it better than average? Obviously yes!
Is Crossfit 'good' in terms of developing the base strength and endurance capability necessary for serious ass-kicking as a martial artist, police officer or soldier? Obviously yes!
Is Crossfit 'good' in terms of helping a person develop a better figure or physique than the hopelessly ineffective rubbish that consistutes 'training' in every gym across the world these days? Absolutely yes.
Is Crossfit the most efficient and effective exercise program for the most rapid and/or extreme improvements in body composition? Absolutely NOT!
Is Crossfit the best choice of exercise for a person who doesnt want to spend almost every non-working hour of their week performing sickeningly painful, yet totally arbitrary exercise that has no direct relevance to how their body looks? Absolutely NO!
Crossfit is DESIGNED to create very broad athletic ability for people serious about broad athletic ability. And for this it is AWESOME. And people who become awesome athletes tend to have pretty awesome bodies, generally!
BUT Crossfit is not DESIGNED to create a great LOOKING body! So if a great LOOKING body is your priority, Crossfit is NOT the BEST choice. Compared to a proper body recompositioning program Crossfit will waste huge amounts of your time, effort and comfort for a much lesser result.
That said, if you don't 'like' the best way of creating a good body (ie strict dieting with measured, planned, HEAVY weight training), then proper application of Crossfit SHOULD wind up creating a far better body than any easier, softer and less demanding exercise program. The real question is: if you are willing to work THAT hard on that MUCH stuff, why wouldnt you just focus the same effort on just training for the body you want?
For those who haven't heard of it, Crossfit is a brutal program comprised of an incredibly wide variety of exercises from olympic lifting to running to boxing and absolutely everything in between. It is designed to cover every aspect of endurance, strength and conditioning. It is described on the Crossfit website as being the "principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units..." etc. They even say that their "specialty is not specializing"!
So how good is it? Well, that depends on the context in which that question is being asked.
Is Crossfit 'good' in terms of creating an incredibly rounded athlete who could take on almost any physical challenge and do it better than average? Obviously yes!
Is Crossfit 'good' in terms of developing the base strength and endurance capability necessary for serious ass-kicking as a martial artist, police officer or soldier? Obviously yes!
Is Crossfit 'good' in terms of helping a person develop a better figure or physique than the hopelessly ineffective rubbish that consistutes 'training' in every gym across the world these days? Absolutely yes.
Is Crossfit the most efficient and effective exercise program for the most rapid and/or extreme improvements in body composition? Absolutely NOT!
Is Crossfit the best choice of exercise for a person who doesnt want to spend almost every non-working hour of their week performing sickeningly painful, yet totally arbitrary exercise that has no direct relevance to how their body looks? Absolutely NO!
Crossfit is DESIGNED to create very broad athletic ability for people serious about broad athletic ability. And for this it is AWESOME. And people who become awesome athletes tend to have pretty awesome bodies, generally!
BUT Crossfit is not DESIGNED to create a great LOOKING body! So if a great LOOKING body is your priority, Crossfit is NOT the BEST choice. Compared to a proper body recompositioning program Crossfit will waste huge amounts of your time, effort and comfort for a much lesser result.
That said, if you don't 'like' the best way of creating a good body (ie strict dieting with measured, planned, HEAVY weight training), then proper application of Crossfit SHOULD wind up creating a far better body than any easier, softer and less demanding exercise program. The real question is: if you are willing to work THAT hard on that MUCH stuff, why wouldnt you just focus the same effort on just training for the body you want?
Protein Bars
Protein bars are a delicious and convenient way of getting a good dose of very bad protein plus all the mysteriously textured, flavoured, colourised and perservatised toxins a healthy diet avoids. Unfortunately, many people are fooled by the very clever nutritional panels that present protein bars as a source of quality nutrition.
Really, I shouldnt even have to blog about how bad these bars are. And nobody should be surprised to hear that whenever any of our clients have substituted quality nutrition in their diets for the exact same nutrition from a protein bar, the diet immediately stopped yielding fat loss or muscle gain results.
You'd think that "Snickers bar" appearance would tip most people off that protein bars CAN'T be good dieting tools? If not, then surely the mysterious dry but slimy texture these bars leave on the roof of your mouth might suggest that something is amiss? No? How about reading beyond the nutritional panel to discover that 'Soy Protein' is the first listed ingredient in the 'Proprietary Protein Blend' section with 'hydrogenated' stuff almost invariably listed somewhere in the middle of the misleading label? Or maybe you'd think people would notice that the 'chocolate coating' is, in fact, the same basic, garbage chocolate you find in the nastiest chocolate bars in the supermarket? The nuts in protein bars are always peanuts which no serious dieting person ever chooses. Even worse, the 'peanuts' are often listed in the 'protein blend' as a source of protein!
Then there are the 'sugar alcohols' which are listed as "non-impact carbs" because the body... can't use them like carbs. Quite honestly, I cannot find an intelligent explanation of how sugar-alcohols are metabolised or what mess they make on their way through your body? It appears that nobody really knows. You'd have thought people would ask: "if they aren't like carbs then what does the body do with them then"? But it seems nobody asks obvious questions anymore. Nobody asked about the Gaussian copula function; they just swallowed it whole and next thing you know we had the greatest financial crisis in over 70 years!
In recent years, protein bars have come to resemble some of the most amazing chocolate indulgences imaginable while their nutritional profile still resembles something that you might think belongs in a quality diet. But like so many things these days, the headline specifications belie the garbage you are actually buying. Protein bars are to food what those fake chinese iPhones are to the Apple iPhone. They look the same, the memory is the same, the screen is the same size; but every element of the functionality is awful to the point of being unusable!
The fact is, protein bars are something you HOPE you can GET AWAY WITH. No matter how limited your dietary knowledge, you KNOW you would never design a diet of sugar-alcohol, hydrogenated oil, chocolate and soy protein to create a lean, healthy, athletic physique. But that IS the nutrition a protein bar is providing and that is the reason it absolutely should not make up a part of anybodies diet!
Protein bars are no better for you than any other junk chocolate bar from the supermarket. In fact, a properly made chocolate bar based predominantly on cacao would be much, MUCH better for your health and physique than any protein bar you will find in a supplement store!
Really, I shouldnt even have to blog about how bad these bars are. And nobody should be surprised to hear that whenever any of our clients have substituted quality nutrition in their diets for the exact same nutrition from a protein bar, the diet immediately stopped yielding fat loss or muscle gain results.
You'd think that "Snickers bar" appearance would tip most people off that protein bars CAN'T be good dieting tools? If not, then surely the mysterious dry but slimy texture these bars leave on the roof of your mouth might suggest that something is amiss? No? How about reading beyond the nutritional panel to discover that 'Soy Protein' is the first listed ingredient in the 'Proprietary Protein Blend' section with 'hydrogenated' stuff almost invariably listed somewhere in the middle of the misleading label? Or maybe you'd think people would notice that the 'chocolate coating' is, in fact, the same basic, garbage chocolate you find in the nastiest chocolate bars in the supermarket? The nuts in protein bars are always peanuts which no serious dieting person ever chooses. Even worse, the 'peanuts' are often listed in the 'protein blend' as a source of protein!
Then there are the 'sugar alcohols' which are listed as "non-impact carbs" because the body... can't use them like carbs. Quite honestly, I cannot find an intelligent explanation of how sugar-alcohols are metabolised or what mess they make on their way through your body? It appears that nobody really knows. You'd have thought people would ask: "if they aren't like carbs then what does the body do with them then"? But it seems nobody asks obvious questions anymore. Nobody asked about the Gaussian copula function; they just swallowed it whole and next thing you know we had the greatest financial crisis in over 70 years!
In recent years, protein bars have come to resemble some of the most amazing chocolate indulgences imaginable while their nutritional profile still resembles something that you might think belongs in a quality diet. But like so many things these days, the headline specifications belie the garbage you are actually buying. Protein bars are to food what those fake chinese iPhones are to the Apple iPhone. They look the same, the memory is the same, the screen is the same size; but every element of the functionality is awful to the point of being unusable!
The fact is, protein bars are something you HOPE you can GET AWAY WITH. No matter how limited your dietary knowledge, you KNOW you would never design a diet of sugar-alcohol, hydrogenated oil, chocolate and soy protein to create a lean, healthy, athletic physique. But that IS the nutrition a protein bar is providing and that is the reason it absolutely should not make up a part of anybodies diet!
Protein bars are no better for you than any other junk chocolate bar from the supermarket. In fact, a properly made chocolate bar based predominantly on cacao would be much, MUCH better for your health and physique than any protein bar you will find in a supplement store!
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Can You Grow Muscle & Lose Fat Simultaneously?
The latest issue of a certain Fitness Magazine claims - like most Fitness authorities and Personal Trainers these days - that you cannot build muscle and lose fat at the same time.
Lets test that theory with a hypothetical situation. Imagine a 180kg man with 60% bodyfat. He's eaten nothing but 'fast food' and hasnt exercised in 10 years. He used to be an elite athlete who weighed 120kg with 15% bodyfat. If you do the math, that means he's now got 30kg less muscle than he used to have; and 90kg more fat.
Now, don't you think that maybe its possible, if you cleaned up his diet and got him back in the gym, that this man might be able to regain some of his lost muscle while losing some of his new fat? Do you REALLY believe, as Personal Trainers would try to have you believe, that its just absolutely 100% impossible for that to happen? That there is no way this giant, fat man couldnt get back into the training he once did and regain some of his former condition?
Of course he could! Its happened time and time again in the public eye with boxers, football players, wrestlers and all sorts of athletes. Its not an unusual phenomenon for an athlete to get back in shape; building muscle and losing fat at the same time. Thats just the normal process of EFFECTIVE TRAINING AND DIET!!! Fat people can turn into athletes simply by training for it!
But maybe you are thinking "thats muscle memory" or "its different when they've been there before". Really? Then lets say my hypothetical fat-man hadn't been an elite athlete previously. Does that really change the argument? Is it really so hard to believe that getting a sedentary person to train with weights and eat a clean, nutritious, high-protein diet might result in some muscle gain with some fat loss? Of course it will! It regularly does.
Maybe you are thinking "but its different for a really fat person". No its not! Yes its easier; but it doesnt change human physiology. The fact is, its either biochemically possible to simultaneously drop fat and build muscle, or its not! And as it happens, it IS biochemically possible to reduce bodyfat and build muscle. As proven by every athlete that got out of shape and then got back into shape. And as proven by every sedentary person who decided to fix themselves up by training hard and eating well. Its not that it CAN'T be done; its just that most people FAIL!
The only reason someone won't be able to simultaneously lose fat and build muscle is because they aren't training and dieting appropriately! As you get leaner and more muscular it does get harder and eventually your options get more and more limited and unhealthy. But it is biochemically POSSIBLE.
So any Trainer who tells you that you can't lose fat and build muscle simultaneously is really saying that THEY DON'T KNOW HOW because they've FAILED to ever achieve it! Which also means: the advice they are offering is WRONG!
Simultaneously losing fat and gaining muscle CAN be done. It regularly IS done. And now you know why you need to ignore every word spoken by any person who says it CAN'T be done!
Lets test that theory with a hypothetical situation. Imagine a 180kg man with 60% bodyfat. He's eaten nothing but 'fast food' and hasnt exercised in 10 years. He used to be an elite athlete who weighed 120kg with 15% bodyfat. If you do the math, that means he's now got 30kg less muscle than he used to have; and 90kg more fat.
Now, don't you think that maybe its possible, if you cleaned up his diet and got him back in the gym, that this man might be able to regain some of his lost muscle while losing some of his new fat? Do you REALLY believe, as Personal Trainers would try to have you believe, that its just absolutely 100% impossible for that to happen? That there is no way this giant, fat man couldnt get back into the training he once did and regain some of his former condition?
Of course he could! Its happened time and time again in the public eye with boxers, football players, wrestlers and all sorts of athletes. Its not an unusual phenomenon for an athlete to get back in shape; building muscle and losing fat at the same time. Thats just the normal process of EFFECTIVE TRAINING AND DIET!!! Fat people can turn into athletes simply by training for it!
But maybe you are thinking "thats muscle memory" or "its different when they've been there before". Really? Then lets say my hypothetical fat-man hadn't been an elite athlete previously. Does that really change the argument? Is it really so hard to believe that getting a sedentary person to train with weights and eat a clean, nutritious, high-protein diet might result in some muscle gain with some fat loss? Of course it will! It regularly does.
Maybe you are thinking "but its different for a really fat person". No its not! Yes its easier; but it doesnt change human physiology. The fact is, its either biochemically possible to simultaneously drop fat and build muscle, or its not! And as it happens, it IS biochemically possible to reduce bodyfat and build muscle. As proven by every athlete that got out of shape and then got back into shape. And as proven by every sedentary person who decided to fix themselves up by training hard and eating well. Its not that it CAN'T be done; its just that most people FAIL!
The only reason someone won't be able to simultaneously lose fat and build muscle is because they aren't training and dieting appropriately! As you get leaner and more muscular it does get harder and eventually your options get more and more limited and unhealthy. But it is biochemically POSSIBLE.
So any Trainer who tells you that you can't lose fat and build muscle simultaneously is really saying that THEY DON'T KNOW HOW because they've FAILED to ever achieve it! Which also means: the advice they are offering is WRONG!
Simultaneously losing fat and gaining muscle CAN be done. It regularly IS done. And now you know why you need to ignore every word spoken by any person who says it CAN'T be done!
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
They Call It 'Lifestyle'?
Pretty much everybody wishes they could eat whatever they want without getting fat. Unfortunately, pretty much everybody knows that the human body doesnt work that way.
So society has been taught to 'pay' for dietary indulgences by 'burning it off'. In effect, for every TimTam you eat you are sentenced to a couple of hours of monotonous, soul destroying aerobic exercise while forgoing all other food. In essence, you try to fix your malnourishing indulgence by sacrificing nourishment.
Some people have embraced this methodology with a rabid tenacity. They so love their TimTams and wines and cheese and whatever other non-nutritious poison that their friends like to share, that they'll happily starve and spend almost every non-working hour of their day running, riding and doing aerobics classes just for the luxury of being able to semi-indulge.
This way of living is so popular that its been given a positive descriptor: 'Lifestyle'.
So to clarify, to many, 'lifestyle' means constant hunger plus exercising for 2-3 hours of every DAY so that they can spend 2-3 hours per WEEK poisoning themselves.
2-3 hours per DAY of mindless, purposeless, goalless punishment for 2-3 hours per WEEK of pointless indulgence...
Apparently thats a desirable 'lifestyle'.
Despite the countless hours of exercise, very few people wind up with good bodies as a result of their 'lifestyle' living. For all of the punishment, they still lose the battle against the alcohol and malnutrition. As time goes on, their 'lifestyle' ages them at an accelerated rate while affecting their mental and emotional function. Any sane person wouldnt be surprised at this. But 'lifestylers' just panic and push harder.
When occasionally these skinny-fat, depressed, malnourished people are shown Biologic Labs solution - just 2-3 hours per WEEK of purposeful exercise coupled with a diet so nutritious that they will never feel hungry with the result of measurable fat loss every week and a reversal of all of the systemic damage they have done - we always wind up with the same complaint:
BUT WHAT ABOUT LIFESTYLE???
Indeed!
So society has been taught to 'pay' for dietary indulgences by 'burning it off'. In effect, for every TimTam you eat you are sentenced to a couple of hours of monotonous, soul destroying aerobic exercise while forgoing all other food. In essence, you try to fix your malnourishing indulgence by sacrificing nourishment.
Some people have embraced this methodology with a rabid tenacity. They so love their TimTams and wines and cheese and whatever other non-nutritious poison that their friends like to share, that they'll happily starve and spend almost every non-working hour of their day running, riding and doing aerobics classes just for the luxury of being able to semi-indulge.
This way of living is so popular that its been given a positive descriptor: 'Lifestyle'.
So to clarify, to many, 'lifestyle' means constant hunger plus exercising for 2-3 hours of every DAY so that they can spend 2-3 hours per WEEK poisoning themselves.
2-3 hours per DAY of mindless, purposeless, goalless punishment for 2-3 hours per WEEK of pointless indulgence...
Apparently thats a desirable 'lifestyle'.
Despite the countless hours of exercise, very few people wind up with good bodies as a result of their 'lifestyle' living. For all of the punishment, they still lose the battle against the alcohol and malnutrition. As time goes on, their 'lifestyle' ages them at an accelerated rate while affecting their mental and emotional function. Any sane person wouldnt be surprised at this. But 'lifestylers' just panic and push harder.
When occasionally these skinny-fat, depressed, malnourished people are shown Biologic Labs solution - just 2-3 hours per WEEK of purposeful exercise coupled with a diet so nutritious that they will never feel hungry with the result of measurable fat loss every week and a reversal of all of the systemic damage they have done - we always wind up with the same complaint:
BUT WHAT ABOUT LIFESTYLE???
Indeed!
Friday, 14 May 2010
Bodybuilder FAQ: Supplements for Massiveness
QUESTION: I want to get massive and with so many prouducts on the market I'm not sure where to start?
ANSWER: Thanks for your email. I can answer you equally directly: the PRODUCTS on the market have absolutely nothing to do with your getting massive or not. Anything legal you can buy from a shop will make no difference at all.
Food makes you massive, period. Protein powders and weight gain powders are a source of food and nothing more.
Hard, heavy training can ensure your massiveness is massive muscle and not just massive fatness; but only if your training is successfully making you massively strong.
If you want to be properly, muscularly massive, your entire focus should be on achieving a 300kg-400kg deadlift. With that, you will probably have the back and legs for a 250-350kg squat and the chest and shoulder structure for a 180-240kg bench press. And anyone who can dead 350kg, squat 300kg and Bench 200kg is pretty damn large!
Supplemental pills and pre-workout drinks etc are irrelevant and unnecessary. Anybody who told you they got huge because of a legal product is lying or not telling you the rest of the story!
Hope that answers your question and saves you a truck load of wasted money.
ANSWER: Thanks for your email. I can answer you equally directly: the PRODUCTS on the market have absolutely nothing to do with your getting massive or not. Anything legal you can buy from a shop will make no difference at all.
Food makes you massive, period. Protein powders and weight gain powders are a source of food and nothing more.
Hard, heavy training can ensure your massiveness is massive muscle and not just massive fatness; but only if your training is successfully making you massively strong.
If you want to be properly, muscularly massive, your entire focus should be on achieving a 300kg-400kg deadlift. With that, you will probably have the back and legs for a 250-350kg squat and the chest and shoulder structure for a 180-240kg bench press. And anyone who can dead 350kg, squat 300kg and Bench 200kg is pretty damn large!
Supplemental pills and pre-workout drinks etc are irrelevant and unnecessary. Anybody who told you they got huge because of a legal product is lying or not telling you the rest of the story!
Hope that answers your question and saves you a truck load of wasted money.
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