“Metabolic Syndrome”

Posted on May 2, 2012 by admin

I often state bluntly in these blogs that we, as a society are surrounded by and immersed in the problem that is causing us to be increasingly fat and sick. Unfortunately, most of us have no idea just how deep, complex and pervasive the real roots of our problems really are. The vast majority of the public is not aware of exactly “why” this is happening to us. Thus, we are unable to stop it. I write this blog as an attempt to correct that.

Back in 2006, Wired magazine published a ground breaking article called “The Thin Pill”. This article strongly re-enforces and exposes our lack of understanding regarding the underlying reasons for our body fat and ill-health problems. It provides a rare glimpse at some of the perpetrators and mechanisms of our problems at work.

Read the Wired article here

This article outlines the movement to have five common conditions recognized as one disease. These conditions are: high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high triglycerides (fats in the bloodstream), low HDL (“good”) cholesterol, and last but not least, obesity. The name of the proposed disease embodying these 5 symptoms is now commonly known as “Metabolic Syndrome”. This collection of symptoms is also referred to as “Syndrome X”. You may have heard this term before because in the ensuing years it has definitely joined the growing lexicon of contemporary medical conditions that are increasing at alarming rates. This great piece of journalism exposed the motivation and ongoing progress to have “Metabolic Syndrome” accepted as a legitimate disease by the FDA, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the medical community in general.

This is a dangerous notion to many. Here is why – there is overwhelming evidence that our modern diet, especially with the changes introduced in the last 30 or more years has created the huge rise in these co-related symptoms of disease, especially obesity. So, if our medical community gives their consent to this newly named malady that is actually a collection of preventable conditions – one has to wonder where this new method of diagnosing disease will end. One also has to wonder about the integrity of our medical establishment if this happens. This is especially true since there is overwhelming evidence that we know exactly how to prevent these conditions.

We have all noticed the proliferation in recent years of drug advertisements for all kinds of common issues many or all of us experience in life. You see them on television continually. There are drugs for sleeplessness, for low libido, low energy, depression and even the most common states everyone experiences on occasion, such as anxiety. The next condition in line is obesity along with the other four risk factors, all under the umbrella of “Metabolic Syndrome”.

To me and many others, this would be no different than naming a new disease after the practice of jumping off of 20 foot cliffs. We could call it “Acute Cliffitis” and the symptoms would be unmistakable; broken ankles, and shinbones among other specific leg and back injuries. The medical industry would then prescribe drugs to strengthen bones, drugs to make our tendons more elastic and perhaps special boots to cushion the fall – everything but the simple advice to stop jumping off of the damn cliffs!

If the medical establishment were to accept “Metabolic Syndrome” as a legitimate disease, they may just as well also accept any other such ridiculous idea as a disease. You may ask; how could they possibly consider this course of action? What would cause such a seemingly irrational decision? The answer is money – the root of all evil when it comes to this topic. There is an enormous amount of money to be made in the anticipated treatment of this new disease. It is no surprise that the biggest proponents of the acceptance of “Metabolic Syndrome” as a bona fide disease are those with the most money to gain – the pharmaceutical industry.

In the drug industry finding new disorders to treat with their products is known as “developing new disease markets” or “branding a condition” The pharmaceutical industry has spent millions of dollars developing an arsenal of drugs aimed at this new malady and are lobbying hard for the FDA to formally recognize Metabolic Syndrome as a disease. At the time Wired published this article the industry had over 350 obesity drugs under development, many under clinical trial. The market potential for these drugs in 2006 was over $18 billion – that’s quite a motivator. So, the drug companies have over 18 billion reasons to convince – lobbying, and enticements also work really well – medical institutions such as the American Heart Association and the National Institute of Health that we are dealing with a new and authentic disease here. Then they get the nod from the FDA; then the HMO’s and insurance companies fall in line and voila, a multi-billion dollar industry is born. Updating, in February of 2012 I called the FDA and received verification that thankfully, they have not yet granted “metabolic syndrome” official status as a disease.

Here is where this story gets really scary how it relates directly to the true originators of our problems of being so fat and sick. You see, they are pushing for a situation where there is a new and general acceptance of the idea that “You’re not fat – you’re sick”. People like me who don’t accept this condition as a legitimate disease worry that doing so constitutes “medicalizing” a lifestyle condition which we already know how to treat; with the correct diet and some exercise. Okay, in previous blogs I have strongly put forward that our obesity and health problems are pushed on us by industry and they are not entirely our fault – I wasn’t kidding. Stay with me here, I promise I am going somewhere really important with this.

Clarifying, those of us who don’t agree with defining obesity as a medical condition consider it to be a lifestyle issue. By that, we mean that prevention of this so-called disease involves nothing more than personal choices regarding diet and exercise. Now this seems to be a simple enough position and one which is relatively easy to defend, but here is where things truly go off the rails.

In the late 1990’s the CDC (center for disease control) initiated an experiment called the Diabetes Prevention Program in the hopes of proving that lifestyle changes, namely diet and exercise, can work as a weight loss strategy and prevent the obesity and health issues in question. Diet and exercise have always been standard, common sense approaches to these problems and should work just as fine now as they always have in the past, right?

In this experiment 3000 overweight participants received gym memberships and were given personal trainers. They were also provided with their food and were coached daily by nutritionists for 2 years or more. The net result was a 7% loss of body weight. With all of the time and attention the 3000 study subjects received it is very difficult to look upon this experiment as anything but an abject failure. Worse – especially for the sake of comparison to the general public – these test subjects were administered the anti-diabetes drug “Metformin” during this study. This is hardly something the public in general would self-administer.

The dire conclusion here: traditional diet and exercise simply don’t work anymore. Given the dismal results it would be impossible to think that our commonly accepted diet and exercise programs are going to help obese people in general. This is especially unlikely in that they would not get the personal attention and support that those on the study received. Allow me to re-iterate: our popular diet and exercise ideas for losing fat – even when the subjects have their own personal nutritionists and personal trainers – ARE ABYSMAL FAILURES!

Now this is exactly why I am constantly criticizing conventional advice on diet and nutrition along with popular fitness industry ideas for “getting into shape”:

THEY DON’T FREAKING WORK!

That is precisely why I promote the hell out of uncommon, iconoclastic diet and exercise ideas in this blog and in this book that in fact DO WORK! They are absolutely proven, effective ideas that are distinctly different alternatives.

Note: Because of my strong convictions on helping people lose fat and get healthy, I sometimes get asked by registered dieticians and trainers who defend our modern diet and fitness industries: “Hey Wise-guy, if you are so down on our government nutrition guidelines and our fitness industry, why don’t you prove that they don’t work? Where is your research?” Aside from the obvious answers of simply looking at rocketing obesity and disease statistics or witnessing the ballooning size of average people at your local grocery store, my answer is: “I don’t need to do any research, the American Center for Disease Control (CDC) did it for me!”

My point here is that our commonly accepted methods of diet and exercise have been proven to be useless. They are no match for our ubiquitous modern processed foods – addictive and hyper-dense with fats and sugars – even when consumed according to our government food guidelines. Consequently, our general population is becoming more and more overweight at astounding rates. That means most of the public are about to be caught in a trap where they are clinically diagnosed as untreatable with anything but drugs or perhaps surgery. Regarding losing fat, this is why the odds have been stacked against you right from the start. This is exactly why it seems so inescapably difficult to get lean, strong and healthy.

The food industry and our own government are making us fat and sick and now the pharmaceutical industry wants to make us pay for drugs and medication as the only real alternative to treat our condition. Why? Again, traditional diet and exercise programs have simply not been effective. This has been demonstrated clearly in studies like the one conducted by the CDC. It is also clearly shown in the statistics showing obesity rates rising simultaneously with our wildly desperate expenditures on diet and fitness products. The very governmental establishments and institutions we depend on for the truth are getting closer to officially approving this ugly, expensive and dangerous cycle which they have allowed to exist.

So, let me get this straight. We will ignore the overwhelming and demonstrated proof that our modern food industry’s food products are making us fat and sick. We will then admit that our common, popular methods of diet and exercise are now useless weapons against this cause of these problems – our modern foods. Instead, we will treat its consequences of obesity, chronic disease and often pre-mature death with expensive drugs. Worse still, these drugs will never be as effective as simply not eating the awful processed foods which are causing the problem. So, even though they may make some of us slimmer, we will still be stuck with ill-health caused by not completely removing the cause. We will pay for these new drugs and will also be exposed to all of these drugs’ side effects.

We will now be herded into the solutions provided by the pharmaceutical and medical industries – drugs, gastric bypass surgery, catheters for our failing hearts, more drugs for the drugs’ side effects and on and on. These are all imperfect and expensive treatments for symptoms of a problem we know exactly how to cure completely – but refuse to. By the way, these medical solutions pose some other statistically proven risks. Many people are unaware of the fact that physician error, medical error and adverse events from drugs or surgery kill well over 200,000 people per year in the United States. That makes the health care system the third leading cause of death behind only cancer and heart disease. This is hardly a confidence booster. If it’s any consolation, they are making an enormous amount of money from us.

Summarizing:

We know precisely what the problem is: Our modern food supply
We know who created the problem: Our modern food industry
We know who allowed this to happen and actually helped the problem and its perpetrators grow wildly out of control: Our governments, medical, and educational institutions
We know exactly why this happened: Money and power
Finally, we have a PROVEN solution to the problem – Stop eating dangerous processed food from our modern food industry, and instead eat primarily our original, unprocessed, evolutionary foods – naturally raised animals, fruits, vegetables and nuts & seeds. These foods are proven to keep us lean, strong, and exceedingly healthy

Hallelujah! Finally! NOW we know what happened to us! Great news! We also have a clear solution! Okay – all together now! …AND OUR OBVIOUS NEW COURSE OF ACTION WILL BE…?

Uhhhmmm….. we’ll keep eating more and more of our modern crappy foods and just take expensive new drugs and have surgery or whatever else we can think up as dismal attempts to deal with the dire consequences of our obesity, chronic illness and death.

WHAT THE &%!?


…..REALLY?

Yup! The vast majority of your friends and neighbors will do just that. Unfortunately for them, the “Paleolitic eating lobby” is very small…scratch that…it doesn’t exist. The power and influence and monetary, educational, and cultural hegemony of modern food will continue rolling right along. This will be assured by our own government. Further, the simple truth about exercises and muscle relating to fat loss will also be drowned out by overwhelming cacophony of useless misinformation from our modern diet and fitness industry. Why? Because the wonderfully simple and easy to apply solutions to get us slim and healthy…

….WON’T MAKE ANY OF THESE INDUSTRIES ANY $ MONEY!

On the contrary, the truth will in fact cause them to lose huge amounts of money. Therefore, it won’t be common public knowledge any time soon. Because money drives everything – even our collective chronic ill-health!

This is a classic case of treating the symptoms – ineffectively – instead of the cause. Worse still, we know the cause and we know the exactly how to stop it completely. What seems to be preventing these truths from becoming government sponsored is a grand compromise for the sake money and industry. To me, treating the public this way is insidious. For the folks making all the money it’s a little like shooting fish in a barrel.

I would love to suggest that this is some form of mass hypnosis or some kind of grand spell we have been cast under, but it really isn’t. Once you see all of the pieces of the puzzle come together and realize what the underlying force behind this really is (money) you begin to really understand our dilemma. You also understand that it really isn’t our fault for getting fatter and less healthy. Is it our fault for trusting our elected officials, our food guides, our registered dieticians? Is it our fault for trusting the large companies and huge industries that many of us work for and rely on?

While we were living in a faster and faster world; where food was concerned, we became asleep at the wheel. All the while these industries and our governments literally created this problem. Like some kind of a bad dream this dilemma has crept further and further into our lives especially over the last few decades. Unfortunately, things are only going to get worse for the unenlightened.

It’s wonderful thing that the truth always seems to set you free. I believe the reason this information is so arcane and fractious is that to really figure out the scope of the problem one needs to read at a lot of clinical books and additional research. The truth about our chronic health and fitness problems is certainly not readily available nor is it common information. Nor is it exciting reading. Further, it is from completely different and often unrelated areas of study. Nonetheless, the facts bluntly lead to the inescapable conclusions and subsequent solutions to our problem. This blog and the book it represents are attempts to summarize those facts and solutions.

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Overpriced Nonsense

Posted on April 17, 2012 by admin

“Chicken breasts for $12.00 a pound? You’re $%&@ing kidding me right? Tell me you are $#%@ing kidding me!”

This is a small part (my part) of a recent conversation I had at a small boutique food store in my neighborhood. I apologize for the obvious foul language, but honestly, sometimes there is a need for foul language.

This small store is part of a city wide chain and is representative of a huge lie that is making some people a ton of money, at the expense of their less than enlightened but obviously wealthy customers. That illusion is that healthy, farm-direct foods are extremely expensive and so we should pay much, much, more. This idea was started and propagated by companies like “Whole Foods”, but has been capitalized on and made worse by small expensive stores like this.

This store even has the word “farm” right in the name, giving it even more pseudo-credibility. Now this store “looks” really good. It is adorned with beautiful floors and earth tone colors, small bins full of perfectly placed fruits and vegetables, smiling and professional staff, perfect packaging…and of course really, really, really, REALLY, expensive food.

There is an uncomfortably strange communication in this store that all things pastoral are clean, clinical, pleasant and perfect. For anyone who has actually set foot on a real farm though, this is about as ridiculously artificial as plastic flowers. This ambiance of this store strongly suggests that the Gabor sisters or Kardashians would be right at home standing in a muddy field watching the hogs root for insects and grubs. Obviously, it’s important to keep their wealthy customers comfortably bathed in this warm illusion.

So, their chicken breasts were $12.00 per pound. Yet, I can get real, pastured (that is chickens wandering around OUTSIDE eating stuff off the ground that chickens naturally eat – insects, leafy greens, lush plants, dropped fruit, etc) from at least 3 other stores within the same neighborhood for about $5.99 a pound. These small, family run stores proudly tell you all about the farms that their chickens come from and exactly how they are raised. Now, because the chickens from these other places were actually raised in their natural environment, not only are they cheaper, but…

THERE ARE MUCH HIGHER QUALITY &%#@ING CHICKENS!!!!

Sorry, I know, I swore again. It’s just that this stuff makes me so angry. It should make you angry too if you have been shopping at overpriced stores like this. Not only are they ripping us off, but they are also calling us stupid as they take our money.

It gets better (worse)! So I asked the lady “why on earth the chickens at this store were so expensive when the other 3 stores were half the price for truly farm direct, naturally raised chickens?” Her reply was “well, these chickens had really expensive chicken feed, so that must be reflected in the higher price”. I replied that Chicken feed should basically be free because a pastured animal wanders around foraging for its natural food which was provided by nature and the last time I checked all that stuff was in fact – FREE!. Her reply: “Oh no, these birds were never allowed outside. They were kept penned up their whole lives because if they went outside, they might get bird flu, so they had to be fed the expensive feed in-doors, all year round”

WHAT THE &%@#!???

Okay, let me get this straight, you are selling me chicken breasts for $12.00 per pound that are basically industrially raised and from a confined animal feeding operation. It may sound like the “room and board” is top notch for these birds, but I highly doubt the chickens would agree. So, these chickens weren’t even from a small farm. They were from a confined animal feeding operation! That’s not a farm. That’s a livestock factory. So, name and misrepresentative bucolic imagery aside, the reality is that this store sells overpriced food from tortured animals that were not even raised on a real farm!

It gets worse. She told me that they weren’t even certified “organic” and that those chickens “were even more expensive so that their price was actually a really great deal.”

A Side note. Well, it’s obvious that the term “organic” has gone to hell in a hand basket. If the word organic were a person, it would be getting gang raped by the food companies comprising our modern industrial agricultural industry. Sorry, but this has to be said. Please, hang your heads and lament for the word “organic” because it’s true meaning is long gone where public perception is concerned. It still exists in the hearts and minds of the small farmers who continue to struggle against modern agriculture. Unfortunately though, for most of the uninformed public it’s a grand illusion created to charge you exorbitant prices, the true meaning long dead.

I was speechless. I hung my head and headed for the door in anger and despair. I quickly high-tailed it over to my favorite neighborhood farm store where real chickens and other great stuff sell for half the price. This store doesn’t look quite as “perfect” and its location is not as central as the first one. When I got to that great store, the family members who own and run it thought it was odd that on that particular day I thanked them about 7 times for opening such a great business and feeding grateful customers like myself. They started to laugh after the 5th “thank you” wondering what had got into me that day.

 

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Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS)

Posted on April 10, 2012 by admin

“GRAS” is an acronym for the phrase Generally Recognized As Safe. This term applies to all of the long, mostly unrecognizable chemical ingredients on our processed cakes, cookies, frozen pizzas or snack food and fast foods. All of those ingredients making up that processed food item must get GRAS approval before they are allowed to be sold by the FDA. Specifically:

Under sections 201(s) and 409 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act), any substance that is intentionally added to food is a food additive, that is subject to premarket review and approval by FDA, unless the substance is generally recognized, among qualified experts, as having been adequately shown to be safe under the conditions of its intended use, or unless the use of the substance is otherwise excluded from the definition of a food additive.

Under sections 201(s) and 409 of the Act, and FDA’s implementing regulations in 21 CFR 170.3 and 21 CFR 170.30, the use of a food substance may be GRAS either through scientific procedures or, for a substance used in food before 1958, through experience based on common use in food.

  • Under 21 CFR 170.30(b), general recognition of safety through scientific procedures requires the same quantity and quality of scientific evidence as is required to obtain approval of the substance as a food additive and ordinarily is based upon published studies, which may be corroborated by unpublished studies and other data and information.
  • Under 21 CFR 170.30(c) and 170.3(f), general recognition of safety through experience based on common use in foods requires a substantial history of consumption for food use by a significant number of consumers.

Now, quite obviously this acronym has never needed to be applied to the following examples of naturally raised foods: an apple, a steak, pork loin, chicken breast, an egg, oyster, a pineapple, tea leaves, coffee beans, brussel sprouts, berries, spices, a lobster, almonds, pistachio nuts, venison, celery, rutabaga, rhubarb, tuna, watermelon, cantaloupe, lemon, lime, Kiwi, lettuce, brisket, onion, a pineapple, carrot, avocado, lamb, grapes, etc.

The idea of applying GRAS to these or any other highly nutritious and natural foods would be totally absurd. Almost (but not quite) as absurd as actually eating the processed, crappy, industrial foods that comprise most of our modern diet and that continually require GRAS certification for their ingredients.

 

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Who The $#@! Cares?

Posted on April 3, 2012 by admin

There are literally thousands of novel “fitness” alternatives out there that are marketed to us every day. Working in the fitness industry I see them all of the time. We are all bombarded with these offers just by turning on the television or checking our mail. When I was 40 pounds heavier, the question of which one of these activities to choose was as confusing as picking one of the thousands of diet books available. We are told that these activities are solutions to our physical problems. Whether they are some form of aerobics, new type of fusion fitness class, a new type of treadmill, elliptical machine, spinning classes or some new fitness “program”; each one screams out to us that they are the promised way to get us slim and attractive. These activities rarely if ever address the underlying problem of our excess fat which is: THE FOODS WE ARE EATING! As such the idea that these activities and their promises will solve our problems is an illusion. So, it’s like you have a bad leak in your ceiling. Instead of fixing your ceiling and permanently stopping the problem, when it rains someone just keeps handing you attractive buckets of different styles and colors that you keep putting under the leaking water. Each bucket quickly overflows and you need to keep using new buckets because the damn leak hasn’t been fixed! I want to move my body! I want you to move your body. Constantly putting these mostly trivial and silly alternatives in front of us tends to obfuscate our view of the far more useful, rational and effective exercise choices available. By that I mean sports or activities in which you will actually enjoy participating. How is it that these other choices are more effective?

BECAUSE THERE IS A CHANCE IN HELL YOU WILL KEEP DOING THEM WITHOUT REQUIRING WILL-POWER OR DISCIPLINE.

Why would you keep doing them? BECAUSE THE BENEFITS OF DOING THEM OUTWEIGH THE COSTS OF DOING THEM. I would ask you to answer the following question (start by answering this yourself) when you are considering engaging in some form of exercise:

WHO THE @!%#% CARES IF YOU ARE ENGAGING IN, OR IF YOU ARE GOOD AT THIS PARTICULAR FITNESS INDUSTRY ACTIVITY?

Do you care that you just did an hour on the elliptical machine at your local gym on the “fat burn setting”? You just did that yesterday. You also did that the day before yesterday. The day before that you did an hour on the stair climbing machine and the day before that you attended the spinning class. Do you really care that you completed any of these activities? Other than generally burning less than the caloric equivalent of 3 Oreo cookies for an hour of your hard work and valuable time, what else was accomplished here? Did you get better at the activity? Does it even matter if you get better at it? Did you enjoy it? Honestly? Was there a new and useful skill learned? Were there people involved who were equally excited and passionate about this activity? Please consider the following examples:

  • I was at an Argentinean steak house one night a few years ago. I noticed the staff was moving tables and chairs off the floor and I figured they were getting ready to close up and start cleaning. Actually, the owner of the restaurant was clearing a space on the floor and encouraging one of the patrons to do an impromptu performance. Suddenly, a slender lady in a red dress stood up with her partner and began to dance. She and her partner danced the Tango – exquisitely. The owner turned up the music a little and everyone who remained in the restaurant was fixated on these two people; completely awestruck. Watching this woman dance was like experiencing liquid, physical poetry. When the dance ended everyone in the restaurant erupted in applause. I will never forget that evening or that woman. Her fitness activity was dancing, specifically the Tango. I cared; everyone at that restaurant that night cared and by the look of elation on her face I’m quite sure she cared.
  • A friend of mine’s father one the World Hockey championship in his division in a huge international “old-timers” tournament in Denmark. He was almost 60 at the time. There were actually some ex-NHL players in this league. He was now a “world champ”. His team cared, his wife and kids cared, his friends cared, the fans cared, and he absolutely cared.
  • A friend of mine named Dianna volunteers at an inner city homeless shelter 3 times per week. She has been doing this for many, many years. Despite the season, the temperature in this place is always high and it can get very hot for the 2 hours required. Close to 400 people per day are served a free meal. The work is very physical and very fast paced. It includes cooking, preparing and serving lots of food and the constant cleaning of the premises. As a long term volunteer, Dianna is not only appreciated, but truly needed for her exceptional philanthropy. Over the years she has made hundreds of friends associated with this shelter who look upon her humble, saintly behavior with great reverence and respect. Regarding her work – they all care, the thousands of homeless people she has helped care, the other volunteers care, and Dianna most definitely cares about this important form of exercise. She is over 70 years old and never misses a day.
  • A friend of mine’s brother, after many years of practice and learning recently achieved his black belt in Kenpo Karate. His brother and family cared, his girlfriend cared, the other members of his dojo cared, and he absolutely cared. Anyone who tries to pick a fight with him in the future will likely also take notice.

In these and thousands of other examples the activities have meaning. They have relevance on so many levels. Of course, this relevance is most dear to the person undertaking the sport or activity. Remember, as long as the person’s diet is under control then the activity – like all the other fitness activities relentlessly pushed on us – is burning off the same fat calories! Earlier I posed the question as to whether we or anyone cares if we are undertaking any of the mundane fitness activities we are typically offered by the fitness industry. If you can honestly answer “yes” then you have indeed found your way. I know there will always be some people who will really find value in these activities. For other folks they will represent valuable assistance work for endurance sports. I honestly believe though, that for the majority of us, the answer will be a resounding “NO!”

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Please Summarize the Underlying Reason Our Society is becoming So Fat and Sick!

Posted on March 20, 2012 by admin

Sure!

No problem…here ya go!

The food and agricultural industry, the diet and fitness industry, and the medical and pharmaceutical industries all REQUIRE YOU TO BE AS FAT AND UNHEALTHY AS POSSIBLE. Otherwise, they will have fewer “customers” and will make far less money. Unfortunately, these immensely powerful industries highly influence – they pretty much buy, sell and control – our government. They also fund and highly influence most of our major schools, universities, colleges, and health related institutions and organizations. The result is that YOU and your children are going to be as fat and sick as they can possibly make you.

That’s right, our government – laws, regulations, and guidelines, the media, schools, many of the institutions we rely on for facts and advice, and even our cultural norms all work to ensure that we will continue to be fat and sick. Even most of our confused dieticians and fitness and health professionals (many of whom actually wish us well) unknowingly keep us fat, sick, and confused by promoting foods and ideas that simply perpetuate our problems.

I can promise you that this is the underlying reason we are so fat and sick and getting worse every day. I can also promise you that if you take the time to tediously uncover the facts you will reach this same, sobering conclusion. It’s just money – your money! It’s nothing personal. This situation isn’t going to change any time soon. In fact, based on statistical estimates regarding diet and disease it’s going to get much worse. Our society will become increasingly fat and ill with diet related diseases because these industries employ a huge percentage of our population, are a massive part of our economy and have immense global power and influence.

THAT is the underlying reason why we are becoming so fat and sick.

 

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Working Out, Micro-Economics, & A Couple of Beautiful Women

Posted on March 6, 2012 by admin

A buddy of mine introduced me to his friend the other day. You couldn’t really miss this lady. Joan was definitely physically striking, with what most people would consider a perfect body. She was wearing a summer dress and you couldn’t help notice the perfect feminine muscle tone of her arms and back – she simply exuded health and vitality. More importantly, she was absolutely charming and just a pleasure to chat with.

We were at my friend’s restaurant and it didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to food and then to fitness. Joan loved to eat, loved to workout and kept very busy trying to take care of her two infant sons. She described her workouts and the “cardio” program her trainer had recently put her through. This cardio exercise consisted of water skiing and wake boarding, beach volleyball, and just splashing around in the water swimming. There was no real time limit, these were just the activities her trainer put her and a small group of other ladies through daily during their previous week of training. They loved every second of it. She told us how “it was so much fun”. This guy also had the ladies doing short, intense bouts of resistance training with free weights a few times per week on an ongoing basis. Prior to all of this though, he had changed their dietary philosophies for the better.

 

When she told me who her trainer was I quickly realized why she loved working out and why she looked so great. I know him and he’s a fantastic personal trainer. He’s also a really nice guy, former Olympic athlete and I completely agree with all of his philosophies. He goes against the grain relative to workout regimens broadly prescribed in the fitness industry. I think the biggest difference with respect to the results his clients achieve is that they actually pass a finish line. Most people struggle with these issues, lost in confusion and effort, never achieving their physical goals. With this trainer though, there is no carrot and stick, just enlightenment. His clients actually reach their goals and are able to just maintain their great condition permanently. Joan was a perfect example.

 

I strongly believe the key is to introduce people to the basic physiological truths behind diet, exercise, and building muscle. Having a person fully understand the simple unity between all three areas and then applying them always delivers success. The key seems to be the successful explanation and then comfortable exposure to these principles. People then experience success without hardship, pain or sacrifice. The benefits always highly outweigh the costs. They soon become autonomous and are able to control their own physical destiny for good.

Joan reminded me of one of the ladies who started at my gym about a year ago. That was the first time she ever did free weight strength training exercises. Recently, she approached me with a question. Her dilemma was what to do now? She explained that she was now squatting, dead-lifting and bench pressing well over her body weight for repetitions. Her body had responded very well over the previous year and she had quickly become very strong. Like Joan, she couldn’t look much better. She is a physically stunning girl, tall, lithe and gorgeous.

My strong suggestion was to simply get out of the gym and do other physical activities that she really enjoyed. After a break from the gym, and to maintain her excellent condition and tone, I suggested one or two workouts per week at the most. I also suggested that she take off a week or even a month every now and then to do other stuff she liked. She had no plans on changing her dietary philosophy which was seminal to getting her into such great shape and health. Much like Joan, she too had achieved permanent control over her physical state.

In our conversation, Joan had also lamented, “I wonder, where do I go from here?” She had read in a fitness magazine that for her height and weight she should be at 12% body fat and that perhaps she should try and attain that. My buddy and I looked at her and just laughed. We knew very well that there was no additional “traffic she could stop”. She was already “turning every head” in the room. In other words, she shouldn’t give something as inconsequential as a body fat percentage a second thought. The mirror, her radiant health and vitality and anyone who laid eyes on her told her everything she needed to know. We strongly suggested that she simply maintain her healthy diet and active lifestyle and ENJOY HER LIFE! (Including taking occasional time away from the gym and enjoying cheesecake every now and then)

So, from a practical standpoint, both of these ladies had quite obviously “arrived”. No one I know would question it if they were told that either one of them had posed for Playboy. Regarding getting as toned, lean and healthy as possible – they had demonstrably achieved permanent victory. They had won.

 

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Personal Training – Muddied Waters

Posted on February 27, 2012 by admin

Many folks who go to big gyms have bought personal training packages. This is a major revenue generator for the big fitness gyms and the packages they sell can include 50, 100 or even more one-on-one sessions. At often $80.00 per session or more, you can see why the fitness industry tries to sell the hell out of these one-on-one personal training sessions. They even finance them.

What exactly are they selling though? What is the real value of this proprietary knowledge and its dispensing at close to $100.00 per hour? It is true that the science behind the best information on physical improvement is painfully scientific, clinical, and voluminous. As such, for the uninitiated much trust is afforded to personal trainers and their expertise. Unfortunately, these clear waters are often unnecessarily muddied.

I know for a fact that the correct knowledge is really quite elegant to communicate. Instructing someone on exactly what to do for great results can be surprisingly straightforward. As such, if you are trying to lose body fat and you are paying for personal training, I would strongly suggest you get a new personal trainer if any of the items on the following list prove true:

  • Permanent dietary change has not been thoroughly addressed
  • The dietary advice involves total/daily caloric restriction (this won’t work)
  • The dietary advice is meant to be followed temporarily to get you to a target weight
  • Workouts are boring
  • Workouts are well over an hour
  • Workouts are very difficult
  • Your trainer abides by the adage “no pain – no gain”
  • You are told to work out for hours on cardio machines or running – “like it or not”
  • You don’t see any results after at least 2 weeks, but have followed all instructions
  • Their long term plans for you invariably involve you giving them more money
  • Your trainer is not training you to train yourself (After about 10 sessions you should have a good idea of exactly what to do, and also exactly why and how)

Please remember that our contemporary fitness industry has one primary goal – to make as much money as possible. You succeeding and finally reaching your health and fitness goals would in no way be conducive to their goal because you wouldn’t need to buy any more of their crappy fitness training or products. In short, you wouldn’t need them anymore. Ever wonder why every day there are new books, programs and fitness gadgets that absolutely promise success? It’s strange though, how we just keep getting fatter and unhealthier.

It gets even more confusing because even the nutritionists and trainers with good intentions are taught, programmed and borne out of this same industry – their incorrect methods and information doom us to failure.

Please, discover the true, elegant solutions which are the product of real science and human evolution. These truths have nothing to do with making other people money and everything to do with solving your diet, fitness, and health problems – for good!

 

 

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Fitness Nonsense

Posted on February 20, 2012 by admin

I’m sure you have heard the old “take the stairs” adage. How about, “walk to work”, or “don’t take the car, ride your bike”. To me this advice is well intended, but rarely realistic and not an answer to your problem. It’s part of the idea that you should squeeze in physical activity whenever possible in your regular daily routine. The problem here is the implication that hardship and discipline, even in little bits should be sprinkled into your life to help solve your fat loss problems.

Running a mile on a treadmill will burn approximately 100 calories. 3 little Oreo cookies contain of 210 calories. So, you would need to run on treadmill for over 2 miles just to burn off those 3 little cookies. Worse, if you are hungry from the run, depending on what you eat afterward you may actually end up adding more calories than you burned off.

These realities show clearly just how negligible the effects of taking the stairs or walking to work really are (especially without first correcting your diet). Yet, they weigh on your mind every time you step into an elevator or get out of your car. Guilt – you’ve been bad, you are lazy. Nonsense! Sorry, but I am not climbing the damn stairs! I have a hot coffee in my hand, I’m carrying a briefcase and I’m wearing a fresh pressed suit, why the hell would I climb 5 flights of stairs? Furthermore, I always run into my friends on the elevator. I love seeing who will be on the elevator every morning, joking around and saying hello. I will not climb stairs for the same simple reasons will not take my 10 speed bike to work. I just got up and I have a meeting. I am going to get in my comfortable car, turn on my favorite jazz station, stop at Starbucks for a coffee and collect my thoughts for the day.

Don’t get me wrong, I always take a walk at lunch. I never drive anywhere for lunch. The difference is that at lunch I long for some fresh air, to move my body a little, get outdoors and say hello to some people other than those that I work with. It’s simple, effortless joy, not work or denial that gets me to move my body.

A great part of this answer is to simply move with your natural harmony and flow, not against it. Almost every ill-conceived thought on exercise involving work, denial and discipline breaks this rule. Even worse, these negative thoughts thwart your natural longing to exercise by falsely causing your mind to associate moving your body with hardship. Punishment as a method for getting anyone to repeat a task breaks all rules of behavioral psychology. This is one of the underlying reasons for our repeated failure to exercise regularly. Please do not fall into this trap. Find the things you naturally enjoy doing that move your body and you have found the answer. You must apply this philosophy to everything you do.

 

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Why I Love My Job

Posted on February 13, 2012 by admin

Imagine living in a world filled with disease. This is horrible, chronic debilitating disease with seemingly no escape. Worse, imagine that endless promises to set you free from this illness just cause you more hardship and make things even worse.

Okay, now imagine that in this sea of despair, you found a solution that permanently cured you. Then, you were able communicate this cure and free others from the same disease that you were stuck with. Imagine that you were able to do this over and over and over again. That world is, unfortunately North America. The disease I am speaking of is the collection of related, chronic health maladies caused by the generally accepted North American diet. This is the diet that is making us so fat. This is a diet actually sanctioned by our health professionals, institutions and even our government.

It’s really fun being iconoclastic, but also having science and the truth on your side. It’s also really satisfying being able to prove these convictions every day. So, am I some kind of genius? Nope. I really wish I was, but I’m afraid I am simply a messenger. On the other hand, the great doctors and scientists responsible for the wonderful principles I communicate would very likely be considered geniuses. Every day, I pass on a simple plan that invariably unshackles those who embrace it. The folks I talk to are tired, confused, and desperate (just like I was). I ask them to do 3 things:

1. Eat primarily (at least 80% of your calories):

  • naturally raised meats
  • fruits
  • vegetables
  • some nuts and seeds

2. Move your body doing something you love

3. Build some muscle via the most efficient, proven successful methods possible

I tell them that to control the speed and intensity of their fat loss and improvement in health – simply do more of the above 3 things. I wrote a book to provide the scientific proof and detailed instructions on exactly how to do these 3 things. I wouldn’t know anything about failure, because it’s never happened. This plan has only resulted in success.

Sometimes when I tell people about this plan, the conversation goes like this:

“That’s it?” “Yup”

“You are kidding, right?” “Nope”

“Can you prove it?” “Absolutely!”

“Wait a minute….no pharmaceuticals, no boot camps, no “no pain, no gain”, no hardship, no yelling, no starvation, no calorie counting, no surgery, no dietitians, no expensive pre-packaged food plans, no diet drinks, no secret herbs, no fitness gadgets, no running, no aerobics, no treadmills?”

“…an emphatic NO to all of the above. Try it, for 3 days to a week. You’ll see.”

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What A Coincidence

Posted on February 7, 2012 by admin

Money and greed consistently come up as the main underlying drivers behind why so many industries thrive on the public being increasingly fat and sick. To completely avoid this predicament, here is a quick summary of the advice I give anyone on how to become exceedingly lean, strong and healthy:

  1. Follow a human evolutionary diet<(70-80% of your total calories). Avoid dairy and grains as much as possible. When eating non-evolutionary foods, make sure they are as unprocessed as possible
  2. Move your body ONLY in ways that make you happy– we’ll call that “exercise”
  3. Build muscle via the fastest, most productive, efficient and beneficial method known. That is, strength train using the most scientifically advanced principles available.

What a coincidence that practicing these truly effective ideas will provide practically NO $ revenue for:

  • Fast food and chain restaurants for their low quality food
  • Expensive diet plans and books or programs with expensive meal plans
  • Expensive gyms with ideas that exhaust us but get us nowhere
  • Expensive, repetitive personal training that provides us with no permanent success
  • Expensive exercise plans or gadgets that work temporarily or not at all
  • The pharmaceutical industry for their drugs to treat diet-related chronic diseases
  • The medical industry for treatment of the same preventable diet-related chronic diseases

Let’em starve!

…just like we used to, by trying to undo the damage of their horribly fattening and unhealthy food and tortuously ineffective but expensive ideas that did nothing but keep us fat and sick.

We are talking about $ trillions of dollars here – literally! It’s your money, not theirs. Now some of that money would no doubt instead go directly to small farmers and their local farmers markets. Some of it may go towards some equipment, lessons or travel for fun activities or sports. Some of it may also go towards proven training methodologies that actually build functional muscle and keep us fit and healthy. Most of it though would stay right in your bank account – right where it belongs.

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