Tuesday 25 February 2014

Modern-Day Men Are Wimps Fitness, Nutrition, Self-Improvement, and How to Become the Best Version of Yourself

Modern-Day Men Are Wimps Fitness, Nutrition, Self-Improvement, and How to Become the Best Version of Yourself

|






It is pathetic how men of the 21st
century fade in comparison to the idealisitic ancient Greek image we
have of a male human being: strong, sturdy, decisive, ambitious,
courageous, and mentally robust. You can add your own adjectives that
best describe an alpha male in your opinion. I am not suggesting that
every modern-day man needs to display the traits I listed above but too
few of today’s men fall into the category of “Real Men”. If you don’t
know what I’m talking about, let me give you some omnipresent examples
that can be seen in today’s modern male population:


1. Modern-Day Men Are Physically Weak

Most of men these days live in cities
(especially 20-40 year-olds), have never had any experience of working
physically on a daily basis, constantly rely on their cars (or public
transportation) to get from A to B, sit all day long on their butts in
front of a screen, engage in mindless and potentially self-desctructive
cardio (e.g. long-distance running or cycling endlessly), are physically
weak and probably could not protect their families from harm.
These and many more shortcomings result
in men just being weak as fuck! They wouldn’t know how to protect
themselves or anybody else if things got really rough.


2. Modern-Day men Are Fat and Have “Man Boobs” (=moobs)

Walk around any mall or simply sit on a
park bench and watch men pass by, it’s hard not to notice how incredibly
obese men have become over the past few decades. I am too young to know
what men looked like in the past but I am assuming that most of them
were mostly lean and relatively well-built due to a good amount of
physical labour and a solid diet devoid of modern-day refined goodies.
It is shocking that some men are so fat
nowadays that they can’t even play with their own kids without being out
of breath after 5 minutes. Men have started to grow “moobs” due to the
aromatising conversion of testosterone to estrogen. This is largely
caused by a shitty diet largely based on pizza, breads, sodas, and other
prominent “Frankenstein pseudo-foods”. But the environment also plays a
huge role with  Men’s obesity causes structural anatomical changes to
their bodies and alters their biomechanics in a negative way. Many can’t
move efficiently because their bodyweight distribution is so imbalanced
leading to pain in the back, neck, hip and knee.


3. Modern-Day Men Wouldn’t Know How To Survive In Nature

This ties in very closely with point no.
1. If modern-day were forced to live out in nature due to their city
being destroyed by a natural catastrophe or similar, many of them would
simply perish. Most of them would have absolutely no clue on how to
provide for food, shelter and safety. The over-reliance on
supermarket-bought foods has led to a dramatic disconnect between the
food we consume and where these foods actually come from. We are about
to face a generation of modern-day men who have never in their life
slaughtered an animal to provide nutrition for themselves and their
family.


4. Men in their Prime Have a Libido of a 90-Year Old

Unless you are on steroids, most men’s
testosterone levels are usually below average. As you might guess, low
T-levels are responsible for a decreasing libido in today’s
males. Youporn and other erotic internet providers are hyperstimulating a
man’s brain and imagination beyond what men have been used to in the
past few thousands of years. Gary Wilson talks about this phenomenon in
great detail in THIS entertaining
Ted Talk. Many young guys are exposed to too much sex-related content
early in life which probably has a detrimental effect on libido and
fertility in later years.


5. Modern-Day Men Die Childless

I don’t necessarily have a problem with
somebody deciding not have children. But when men wish to have children
but suffer from infertility and are unable to make a woman pregnant,
that’s a whole different story. Unlike in the past where for a man not
to have children was virtually unthinkable, today’s males don’t seem to
care so much about having descendants. Personally, I desperately want
children later in life. For me, having children means that once we die,
some part of us becomes immortal as it lives on in the generation of our
children and our children’s children. And there’s probably no emotion
more satisfying than knowing that (with the help of a woman) you have
created a human being.


6. Modern-Day Men Are Sick

 This is directly related to men being
obese and weak. Modern-day are dying en masse especially from
cardiovascular-related disease at a rate that is unprecedented. Men in
the past were sick, too. But the prevalence of modern-day diseases was
not nearly as high as today and they were able to withstand the
hardships of disease more easily. They had to man up or else they could
not return to work which was mostly physical.


Don’t get me wrong – not all modern-day
men fall into one of the above categories. They are always exceptions to
the rule. But generally speaking, most modern-day men (particularly in
Western countries) can simply be characterised as wimps. Obviously, I
myself also have some real manly deficiencies which put in one of the
above wimp category. However, I am trying really hard to counteract
these “wimp factors” by pursuing the following actvitities:
  • Lift heavy weights
  • Walk as much as I can
  • Get out into nature and hike, camp etc
  • Stick to a clean diet
  • High-quality sleep
  • Plan to have children
  • Keep a healthy sexual relationship
  • Avoid mental stagnation


Future For Males ?

What are the chances that modern-day men
can leave their wimp status behind and start living like real men in
the near future? In my opinion, this is very unlikely to occur given
that technology is bound to make our lives even more convenient. This
will lead to even less physical activitity and more male obesity. In
1800, only 3% of the world population lived in cities. In 2050, the
proportion may move up to 70%. This means that we are increasingly
becoming dealienated from experiencing nature. Negative epigenetic
factors affect modern-day men as much as they will affect their children
(if they have any in the first place). 

This implies that due to the
harmful lifestyle of their fathers, forthcoming children will be worse
off than their counterparts from say 100 years ago. I mean, don’t even
get me started with the disastrous state that modern-day children are
already in. A growing proportion of them are obese, sedentary, and
addicted to electronical devices. This is not likely to become better
but rather worse.

Much of my critique of modern-day men is
also quite applicable to modern-day women who are also obese, sick,
inactive, and wouldn’t know how to provide for themselves or their
family if nature decided to turn against us. I don’t want to finish on a
gloomy note but the reality is that modern-day men and women are
performing way below their optimum. The way to change others is to start
with yourself. Get going!

"Once You Hammer in the Nail, All You're Doing is Damaging the Wall" - Technorati Lifestyle

"Once You Hammer in the Nail, All You're Doing is Damaging the Wall" - Technorati Lifestyle



"Once You Hammer in the Nail, All You're Doing is Damaging the Wall"

Author: Jean-Luc Boissonneault


Published: June 10, 2011 at 10:37 am













A
long time ago Mike Mentzer -popular for high intensity training- gave
this statement in one of his seminars that really stuck with me:


"Once you hammer in the nail, all you're doing is damaging the wall"



After more than 10 000 hours of training people, I can tell you he was
right on. There's really two ways people are currently over doing it. It
can happen with volume, which is the amount of work for a given muscle,
and it can happen with intensity - using too much weight that
compromises form.




The way many people exercise today is that they tell themselves they will workout for an hour a day. Unlike the TUT
of the set where the focus should be on the duration of the each set.
The duration of the workout itself should not be the goal. The emphasis
should be on the overall volume of work you accomplish, and if that
means your workout is 15 minutes, that's okay. As a beginner or anyone
for that matter that has taken more than four weeks off of training,
you should start with no more than four sets per muscle group. Once you
have done those four sets you will have accomplished the goal of the
workout.




On the other side of the spectrum there's crossfit training where
people do full body exercises to pure exhaustion in the shortest amount
of time possible often compromising form to reach the desired goal. This
is the opposite effect. As little to no rest is taken, intensity
increases and form is compromised under  heavy loads. Do you really need
to suffer like that in order to lose bodyfat, build muscle and be
healthy?




Absolutely not.




Now don't get me wrong, I've tried both these methods with great
results and they have their place when you're working towards a
conditioning goal. One can get 80 percent of the benefit of the
conditioning while still getting just as lean, muscular and healthy,
while not having to deal with the psychological stress that happens
before even starting the workout.




For the person that simply wants to lose body fat, get in shape,
build muscle and be healthy without feeling like death, all you need is
moderate strength training that focuses on manipulating volume combined
with a good nutrition plan.

Running Up That Hill - Sprinting Salvation For Tall People - Critical MAS

Running Up That Hill - Sprinting Salvation For Tall People - Critical MAS



There was a time when I really loved running.
Well I loved it during those rare times when my body wasn’t in pain,
which was not as often as I would have liked. By the middle of 1995, I
gave up running. It was just too hard on my 6 foot 2.5 inch body.

My first clue that I probably shouldn’t be doing distance running
came in 1992. The USA Olympic trials for the Men’s Marathon came to my
hometown of Columbus, Ohio. I clearly remember flipping through the
program which highlighted the 125 runners that were invited. Only one
runner was over 6 foot tall and he didn’t place in the top 3. If 14.5%
of all men in America are over 6 foot tall, why were less than 1% of
our elite distance runners that tall? Some of us gravitate towards other
sports that reward height, but the rest of us just experience too much
pain when we run.

Sprinting is Superior

The past few years I’ve been a regular reader of Conditioning Research, which has had numerous articles on the benefits of sprinting and high intensity interval training. Here are a few examples.

A few months ago I got fired up to start sprinting. Right from the
beginning I was having pain issues. I adjusted my warm-up and tried to
improve my stride. It helped, but whenever I tried to dial up the
intensity, something would happen and I’d be sidelined.



I understood why distance running was hell on my tall physique, but
why was sprinting a problem? Thankfully, the search engines were able to
answer this question for me. From the article Taking Sprinting to New Heights by Edward McClelland:

Traditionally, height has been seen as a detriment to
sprinting. The formula for speed is stride length times stride rate. If
the longest legs always won the race, then Yao Ming would have the world
record in the 100, and lions wouldn’t eat giraffes.
And:

Big guys have physics working against them. According to
the Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, “[T]he acceleration of the
body is proportional to the force produced but inversely proportional
to the body mass, according to Newton’s second law. This implies an
inverse relationship between height and performance in disciplines such
as sprint running.” In other words, it’s hard to produce enough power to
overcome the drag of a big body.
The article discusses how 6-foot-5 Usain Bolt became an amazing
sprinter only after he shortened his stride. But I have no interest in
working on my technique or becoming a great sprinter. I just want the
health benefits without feeling pain.

Running Up That Hill

The problem with running for tall people is the long stride. One way
to shorten the stride is to wear minimalist shoes. That is a good start,
but the best way I discovered is to just run uphill.
Unlike my first two hometowns of Columbus, OH and St. Petersburg, FL,
which were were flat as a pancake, Seattle has some amazing hills inside
the city. One of those hills just happens to be less than 100 meters
from my front door.





My uphill running course.



I’m not the first to figure this out. Conditioning Research also did a post on hill sprints titled The single best exercise. For the past month or so, I’ve been experimenting with just running uphill.
My body loves it. My stride is shorter, the intensity is much greater
than flat ground sprinting and my body doesn’t take a pounding when my
foot lands. And it is time efficient.



I’m using Phil Campbell’s Peak 8 protocol
as a template. Go all out for 30 seconds and then rest for 90 seconds.
Repeat this 8 times. For me this means sprinting uphill and then slowly
walking back downhill to ready myself for the next sprint. I’m easing
into this program and expect to be at 8 sets within two weeks.



I’m running again. Only this time I feel great.

Saturday 22 February 2014

Fast exercise' is even more powerful than experts thought | Mail Online

BBC's Dr Michael Mosley says 'fast exercise' is even more powerful than experts thought | Mail Online



Can exercising for just 60 seconds a week transform your health? The BBC's Dr Michael Mosley says 'fast exercise' is even more powerful than experts thought

  • Last year the Mail revealed a revolutionary quick-fix fitness plan
  • Radically different approach to exercise called High Intensity Training (HIT)
  • Idea is you can get important benefits of exercise from just 3 minutes a week
By
Dr Michael Mosley
13 January 2014

Dr Michael Mosley says his insulin sensitivity had improved with HIT
Dr Michael Mosley says his insulin sensitivity had improved with HIT


The men in my family are not long-lived. My grandfather died in his early 60s (though the fact that he was a Japanese prisoner in Burma during World War II can't have helped), while my father passed away at the relatively early age of 74.
When he died, he was on a dozen medicines and suffering from a range of diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart failure, prostate cancer and what I suspect was early dementia.
At his funeral, a number of his friends commented on how similar I am to him. This was both flattering and disturbing, because I fear, along with his prominent nose, that I've inherited many of his more unhealthy tendencies.
But I also believe that although genes play a significant role in how well we age, lifestyle is just as important.
Down the centuries there have been lots of anti-ageing therapies, from injecting monkey glands to  mega-doses of vitamins. But only a few things have consistently been shown to influence how well we age.
These include not smoking, moderate drinking, eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, doing exercise and keeping your weight down.
I've never been a smoker or a heavy drinker and I like fruit and vegetables, so that's not a challenge. But when it comes to doing more exercise and staying slim, well, that has been far trickier.
I found the standard advice - eat less and be more active - largely ineffectual. I kept trying and failing.
Then, a couple of years ago, I began looking into a radically different approach to exercise called High Intensity Training (HIT). The idea is that instead of trying to shed weight and get healthier by jogging for hours, you can get many of the more important benefits of exercise from as little as three minutes of HIT a week.
Everyone agrees that getting more active will add years to your life (around 2.2 years, to be exact). 
But, more importantly, it will significantly reduce your risk of developing a range of chronic diseases, from cancer to heart failure, dementia to diabetes.
Exercise will also help you sleep better, improve your mood and even perk up your sex life, according to the well-regarded Mayo clinic in the U.S.
But how much should you do? In 2008, a committee of U.S. scientists recommended 150 minutes of  moderate exercise a week, while cautioning the necessary amounts 'cannot yet be identified with a high degree of precision'.

'In trials, most people say they prefer HIT to conventional exercise, not least because it is over so quickly'
This 150 minutes a week remains  the recommended level despite the fact that less than 20 per cent of us  do anything like that. The  most common excuse is a lack of time. That has certainly been mine - which is why the idea of HIT appeals to me.

Roger Bannister was a 'fast' exerciser

The principles behind HIT are not new. In Fifties Britain, a young medical student called Roger Bannister was determined to become the first person in the world to run a sub-four-minute mile. 
He didn't have lots of spare time for training so he would go down to the track and do interval sprints. 
These consisted of running flat out for one minute, then jogging for two or three minutes before doing another one-minute sprint.
He would repeat this cycle ten times, then head back to work. The whole thing normally took less than 35 minutes.
In May 1954 he became the first person in the world to break the four-minute mile. Since then almost every middle-distance runner has done interval sprints as part of their training.
Jamie Timmons, professor of systems biology at Loughborough University, has spent many years researching the benefits of what has come to be known as HIT in normal people.
He assured me that three minutes of HIT a week have been shown to improve the body's ability to cope with sugar surges (i.e., your metabolic fitness), and how good the heart and lungs are at getting oxygen into the body (your aerobic fitness).


Just three sessions of HIT a week for four weeks (12 minutes of intense exercise in total made a difference
Just three sessions of HIT a week for four weeks (12 minutes of intense exercise in total made a difference

These two measures are great predictors of future health.

You'll want to eat fewer calories

Intrigued, I had blood tests taken and went through some baseline tests to assess my  starting point fitness-wise. Then I began to do HIT.
I got on an exercise bike, warmed up by doing gentle cycling for a couple of minutes, then started to pick up the pace.
At the same time, I increased the resistance on the bike by setting it to the hardest level and then went flat out for 20 seconds.
I cycled gently for a couple more minutes to catch my breath,  then did another 20 seconds at  full throttle.
Another couple of minutes' gentle cycling, then a final 20 seconds going hell for leather and that was it. In no more than seven minutes my exercise for the day was complete.
I did three sessions of HIT a week for four weeks (12 minutes of intense exercise in total) and then went back to the lab to be retested.
The first surprise was the effect it had on my insulin sensitivity. This is a measure of the amount of insulin your body has to produce in response to a sugar surge to get that blood sugar back down to normal.
The less your body has to produce, the better. After 12 minutes of intense exercise, my insulin sensitivity had improved by a remarkable 24 per cent, something you would be unlikely to see after many hours of conventional exercise.
But although I was able to cycle longer and harder, I didn't see the 10  per cent improvement in aerobic fitness that typically happens when people do this regime.

Why not? Well, it turns out that when it comes to aerobic fitness, I can blame my parents. 
I've had a genetic test which reveals that, like 20 per cent of the population, I am a so-called  'non-responder' when it comes to aerobic fitness. This means that however much exercise I do, in whatever form, I will never become incredibly fit.
Despite this, I have continued doing HIT because of the other benefits, which include improvements in my mood, metabolic fitness (sugar surges) and appetite control.
I've found (and numerous studies support this) that doing HIT has a significant effect on the number of calories you eat over the following 24 hours following the session.
An Australian study involving overweight men in their 20s and early 30s found that the men ate fewer calories after doing very high-intensity workouts (594 calories) than after moderate exercise (710). 
Furthermore, they reported eating fewer calories on the day following the high-intensity workout (2,000 calories) than after a moderate session (2,300).
This helps explain why, although HIT is so short, it seems to be more effective at helping people cut their weight than conventional exercise.

Nine

The number of days New Year's resolutions, such as doing more exercise, last on average

Even two 20-second bursts help

Just three 20-second 'workouts' a week is not the least amount of exercise you can do that has been shown to be effective.
In 2011, Dr Niels Vollaard and colleagues at Bath University did a study in which they asked 15 healthy but sedentary young men and women to try something they  called REHIT (reduced exertion high-intensity training) for  six weeks.
He started them off in the first week with a couple of minutes of gentle cycling, then one ten-second burst of intense cycling followed by a couple of minutes of cool-down.
In weeks two and three each exercise session consisted of a warm-up, 15 seconds of all-out sprinting, a couple of minutes of recovery, another 15 seconds of all‑out sprinting, then the gentle cool-down.
For the final three weeks they cranked it up so each exercise session consisted of two 20-second flat-out sprints separated by a couple of minutes of recovery.
Despite the fact that over the six weeks the volunteers had done less than ten minutes of hard exercise, both the men and the women showed significant improvements in their aerobic fitness. 
When it came to insulin sensitivity, there was a gender difference: the men's improved by 28 per cent while the women's did not improve.
Niels is keen, at some point, to see if a single burst of 20 seconds done three times a week makes a measurable difference.

Your muscles will be more powerful

So how can you get so much change in such little time?
Part of the explanation is that HIT makes your muscles produce new and more efficient mitochondria, the tiny powerplants in your cells that convert glucose into useable energy.
The more mitochondria you  have, the more power they  produce and the more fat and sugar they consume.
The stress caused by HIT also leads to the release of large amounts of catecholamines - which are hormones such as adrenaline and noradrenaline - that target fat cells, particularly those in the abdomen.




A day's exercise could simply be a couple of minutes' gentle cycling, then 20 seconds going hell for leather. No more than seven minutes
A day's exercise could simply be a couple of
minutes' gentle cycling, then 20 seconds going hell for leather. No more
than seven minutes
In trials, most people say they prefer HIT to conventional exercise, not least because it is over so quickly. And the good news is that scientists like Jamie Timmons have developed a gentler version: the 60-second workout.
The basic principle is to alternate 60-second bursts of activity with 90-second recovery periods - i.e. one minute on, 1½ minutes off.
It can be done cycling or running, though it helps if you are able to adjust resistance. In the case of running or cycling outdoors, this means finding a hill to run up.
You might think that 60 seconds of HIT has to be tougher than the 20-second bursts of standard HIT, but this version is not.
The key difference is that you don't push yourself quite as hard. Instead of going flat out, you exercise for a minute at about 90 per cent of your best effort, aiming to push your heart rate up to around 150 beats per minute. Beginners should start with two bursts of one minute (three times a week, that's just 24 minutes of exercise a month if you stick to the very basic rate), going up to ten bursts of one minute if you are really fit.
I now combine one-minute HIT (going at 100 per cent) with a very simple strength and flexibility regimen which, though it takes less than ten minutes, three times a week, has led to some impressive biceps and the beginnings of  a six-pack.
Could it be dangerous?Many
people will wonder, however, if HIT is safe unless you are really fit.
A  year ago, the popular BBC broadcaster, Andrew Marr, had a
debilitating stroke some hours after doing an intense workout on a
rowing machine. So did the exercise cause the stroke?


'If you are frail or extremely unfit it would be wise to have a medical  check-up before starting any form of exercise, but don't use that as an excuse not to start'
It is certainly possible that the prolonged and vigorous movement involved in working out on a rowing machine could have torn previously weakened blood vessels in his neck.
But it is also possible that his stroke had nothing to do with the workout.
Studies on people with blood vessels weakened by a previous condition, such as stroke, or who were born that way, show that something as innocuous as sneezing or a turn of the head can trigger a stroke. Andrew had had at least one silent stroke (with no obvious symptoms) before and was under a lot of stress; stress is a significant cause of stroke.
The forms of HIT that I've tried do not involve prolonged exertion and have been extensively studied to ensure they are safe.
These studies include trials done with nearly 5,000 patients who have a previous history of heart attacks and strokes.
If you are frail or extremely unfit it would be wise to have a medical check-up before starting any form of exercise, but don't use that as an excuse not to start.
You can get a dose of HIT while walking or even from climbing the stairs. The benefits greatly outweigh the risks.
Fast Exercise, by Dr Michael Mosley with Peta Bee, is published by Short Books in paperback (£7.99).

Michael Mosley's five biggest health myths

Michael Mosley's five biggest health myths

Comments 183


No need to slog it out at the gym: Michael Mosley discovers the benefits of the fast fix.
No need to slog it out at the gym: Michael Mosley discovers the benefits of the fast fix. Photo: act\karen.hardy

Michael Mosley is arguably the most famous human-health guinea pig on the planet.

The BBC journalist, doctor and author of the best-selling 5:2
diet has been studying health and the human body for the past 20 years.

But for all his knowledge and self-experimentation, the self-confessed "sugar addict" has not been particularly healthy.

Michael Mosley.
Michael Mosley

"I needed to be told I was diabetic to change, despite everything I knew," he says.

Instead of resorting to medication, Mosley decided to get drastic with his diet and see whether he could effect any change.

Turns out he could.

The Fast Diet.
The Fast Diet.

Through intermittent fasting, upping his greens and shifting
the way he exercises, he has lost 12 kilograms and his blood sugar has
returned to normal. "I can fit into a dinner jacket I haven't worn since
I was 25 and I'm enjoying life," says Mosley, who was in Australia this
week to promote the release of his book in Australia as well as his new
BBC documentary series, What's Your Body Hiding.

The basic concept of intermittent fasting,where for two days of the week you restrict your calorie intake toabout 2500 kilojoules a day, is that it gives your body a break from processing food and a period where your blood is not filled with glucose.

The diet, which Mosley insists he was initially sceptical
about, is not the only interesting discovery he has made through his
research for the series.

Some of the others relate to fairly common knowledge, for
instance, that we have to drink two litres of water a day or that eggs
raise your cholesterol: "Now we know that's absolute rubbish," he says.

Other discoveries are more surprising.

We need five small meals a day

This is "completely, awfully, terribly false," Mosley says.

The idea behind eating regularly is that we speed up our
metabolic rate and prevent the body from going into starvation mode. But
the body does the opposite, he says.

The origins of this myth come from a study done in the 1950s,
when a group of young men survived on approximately half their normal
calories for six months.

They lost significant amounts of weight, but while their body
fat went down to 5 per cent they also started to experience significant
problems.

Relatively short periods of going without food, however, is a
different story, Mosley says, and can have a positive effect on us -
physiologically and psychologically.

Doctors know it all

While he was studying to become a doctor, Mosley was
surprised to hear that, within 15 years of completing his six-year
degree, half of what he had learnt would be out of date.

For this reason, he says, exempting those who are specialists
or make a concerted effort to keep abreast of the latest science, many
doctors lack knowledge in certain areas.

Nutrition and weight loss is one. In fact, he says during his
years of training he was required to attend just one class on
nutrition.

Despite this, and although some doctors are open-minded about
the latest research, "some are happy to pontificate about subjects they
know nothing about".

He mentions one study comparing various methods of weight
reduction where the group who received advice from their GP actually put
on weight.

Sugar is the devil in disguise

In a media briefing this week, Mosley said he disagreed with the stance of I Quit Sugar author and host of the event, Sarah Wilson.

"Sugar is one of my greatest addictions," he acknowledges.
"Pretty much every tooth in my mouth has been drilled and replaced. If
there's chocolate or biscuits in the house, I'll eat them."

In this sense, he says: "I do generally agree that we eat far too much of it."

That said, he feels sugar has become a "massive thing" and is wary of being "evangelical" about it.

"Do we know that fructose is as demonising as we say? No, the evidence is contradictory."

Besides, he believes it's not about completely avoiding
foods, but forgiving yourself when you do falter, being aware of the
impact of certain foods and "knowing you'll be constantly tempted and
finding strategies around it".

Mosley's strategy involves no longer keeping biscuits or chocolate in the house.

Exercise is the best way to lose weight

"Exercise is a bad form of weight loss," Mosley says, pointing to research on compensatory eating and relaxing, where "basically you're knackered, so you sit down" for the rest of the day.

The problem with people believing that exercise is a good way
to lose weight is that they get disenchanted and stop doing it, he
explains.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't exercise.

According to Mosley, the real benefits are the effect
exercise has on insulin sensitivity and aerobic fitness. "Which means a
longer and healthier life," he says.

There's "preliminary" research that high-intensity interval
training burns more fat, so "you will look more gorgeous at the beach".

But for those who don't do the recommended daily amount of
exercise – about 80 per cent of Australians – Mosley wanted to know
"what's the least you can probably do".

"One of the gurus I spoke to said you can get most of the
benefits from three minutes a week," he says. "I was absolutely
sceptical about it."

Mosley now does a short, sharp workout, pushing as hard as he
can for 20 seconds, taking a break and repeating. The entire thing
takes him a measly four minutes.

The effects of these quick hits of exercise persist for up to 36 hours after, he says.

Mosley has also increased his incidental activity. Just
taking the stairs and getting up regularly has a surprising impact on
fat and blood sugar levels.

"We need to move every 30 minutes," he says. "Get off your arse and go for a short stroll."

Everyone needs to eat breakfast

Not true, Mosley says.

He mentions studies where some people, when they are forced
to eat breakfast, actually put on weight. "It depends on what your body
likes to do," he says.

Which is why Mosley ultimately believes in becoming your own
guinea pig. Depending on our own physical make-up and routine, we reap
benefits differently. It's a matter of absorbing the information and
trying it on for size.

But if you're making a change or trying to break a bad habit, don't expect to be transformed within 21 days.

"That's completely made up," Mosley says. "I've looked into it."

What’s Your Body Hiding? season, from October 6 on BBC Knowledge



Eat light, pedal fast - Michael Mosley: The Science Show - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Michael Mosley: eat light, pedal fast - The Science Show - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Michael Mosley: eat light, pedal fast

Saturday 19 October 2013 12:47PM
Michael Mosley is a journalist, physician, producer and television
presenter. He has produced television programs where he is the guinea
pig. In Eat, Fast And Live Longer, he experiments with a simple
diet which has people eating lightly 2 days each week. For him, it
worked well, perhaps too well. He lost 12Kg and has now modified the
diet to eating lightly 1 day each week. But there are other benefits in
addition to weight loss. The diet helps cholesterol and can eliminate
diabetes. In The Truth About Exercise, Mosley discovers the
benefits of exercise can be found in short bursts of high intensity
exertion, rather than hours slogging on treadmills or running.

A few short, intensive bursts of exercise each week can bring dramatic benefits.

Michael Mosley is on the fast track to fitness | The AustralianThe Australian
January 18, 2014
    Michael Mosley says a few short, intensive bursts of exercise each week can bring dramatic benefits.

    Michael Mosley says a few short, intensive bursts of exercise each week can bring dramatic benefits.

    A YEAR ago I wrote a book that changed my life. A middle-aged
    medical journalist, I found myself the unlikely author of an
    international bestseller, The Fast Diet, and the recipient of a lot of grateful emails. 


    Now I'm hoping to do it again with Fast Exercise. Fast Exercise is
    based on a surprising and radical claim - that you can get fitter,
    healthier and better toned with just a few minutes of intense exercise a
    day, three days a week.


    For those who missed it, the Fast Diet - often known as "the 5:2" -
    is based on the idea of intermittent fasting,
    also known as IF. Instead of aiming for slow, steady calorie
    restriction - the approach recommended by sensible dietitians that most
    people find impossible to stick to - with IF you slash your calories,
    but for only a couple of days a week (hence the catchphrase the 5:2).
    Although it may sound faddish, intermittent fasting is based on careful
    scientific studies (mainly animal, but some human) that suggest it not
    only leads to weight loss but has multiple other health benefits.

    I was convinced enough by the science to make a documentary and then
    to write a book. I remember, shortly after we delivered the manuscript a
    year ago, pointing out to my co-author, Mimi Spencer, that there are
    about 50,000 diet books available online and the odds of us making an
    impact were, to say the least, slim. Mimi, who is an incurably
    optimistic Tigger to my Eeyore, was convinced we would succeed because
    our approach was offering not just a science-based diet but a modern
    take on an old tradition. Fasting, after all, has a long history. "It
    will be huge," she announced, as we sipped our calorie-free tea. She was
    right. As well as numerous doctors, politicians and a Nobel
    prizewinner, there have been endorsements from the likes of food writer
    Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and actor Benedict Cumberbatch.



    One of the most striking things about the Fast Diet is how many men not only
    embrace it but are happy to tell the world they are doing it. I think it
    helps that "fasting" sounds challenging. It is also simple and
    straightforward, which again seems to appeal to men. Mimi's father is
    certainly a poster boy for this approach. Over the past few months he
    has lost more than 16kg and has had to buy new trousers. This is
    something I can identify with as I have lost 10kg, a few inches around
    my middle and found that most of my clothes no longer fit. I hate
    shopping but fortunately I have sons whose clothes I can now borrow (I
    haven't told them). I'm also wearing suits from 20 years ago that I
    never got around to throwing out.

    Although I'm pleased with the weight loss, for me intermittent
    fasting was never about getting slimmer.

    Eighteen months ago I went to my GP with a suspicious mole and
    she suggested I have my blood tested. The mole turned out to be benign
    but the blood results were not. I had a fasting glucose of 7.3 mmol/l,
    which made me diabetic, and a "bad" cholesterol (LDL) of 5.5 mmol/l (the
    recommended level is less than 3). I shouldn't have been surprised
    because my father, who struggled with his weight all his life, died of
    complications from diabetes in his early 70s. I'd never felt the need to
    diet because I had never seen myself as overweight. Yes, I weighed in
    at 85kg, but when I looked in the mirror I saw someone slim, ageing
    well, almost athletic. This wasn't simply a case of middle-aged
    delusion; the surplus fat really was invisible. My fat wasn't sitting
    under my skin, bulging out in unseemly places. It was visceral fat,
    buried deep inside my body. I went for an MRI and saw not just the odd
    dab but litres of the stuff inside my abdomen, coating and clogging my
    internal organs. Visceral fat is particularly unhealthy because it is
    metabolically active, increasing your risk of diabetes and heart
    disease. It is surprisingly common, even in people of normal weight.

    Rather than start on a conventional diet, I decided to try intermittent
    fasting. Unlike proper, hardcore fasting where you live for days or even
    weeks on few if any calories, IF involves a few days a week when you
    eat about a quarter of your normal calories. Being a television
    presenter with a taste for self-experimentation, I naturally made a
    documentary about my adventures. In the course of making Eat, Fast, Live Longer I
    came across different ways you can do intermittent fasting. The
    best-studied approach and the one that is likely to lead to the most
    rapid weight loss is ADF, alternate day fasting. As the name implies,
    you cut your calories every other day. I tried ADF but found it hard
    going and settled instead on a 5:2 pattern, cutting my calories two days
    a week. If you don't splurge on your non-fast days then this should
    lead to a weight loss of almost half a kilogram a week.

    Dr Michelle Harvie and Professor Tony Howell of the Genesis Breast Cancer
    Prevention Centre, who have done proper clinical studies comparing two
    days a week of calorie restriction against a standard diet, found that
    those on the two-day diet lost nearly twice as much fat (about 4kg) as
    those on a standard diet, as well as seeing greater improvements in key
    biochemical markers such as insulin sensitivity. Intermittent fasting
    won't suit everyone, but it worked for me. Not only did I lose a lot of
    fat (10cm off my waist, 5cm off my neck) but I also saw huge
    improvements in my fasting glucose and cholesterol levels, both of which
    are now in the healthy range.



    Yet even when I was doing IF I knewit was not enough.
    I realised that if I was going to maximise my
    chances of living into a healthy old age then I needed to do more
    exercise. The trouble is I hate running, jogging or going to the gym.
    Instead, I've taken up a very different approach, pioneered by (among
    others) Professor Jamie Timmons of Loughborough University. Jamie
    introduced me to HIT, high intensity training. Like IF, HIT is a radical
    solution to a modern problem, in this case how to get the most from a
    workout in the least possible time. HIT also eschews the "moderation in
    all things" approach. Instead of plodding away on a treadmill or cycling
    at a steady, sensible pace, with HIT you do a few extremely short
    bursts of exercise, intense enough to get your heart rate soaring,
    interspersed with a couple of minutes of recovery. A few such bursts
    (lasting anywhere between 20 seconds and one minute) done three times a
    week can produce dramatic changes. Numerous trials have shown that HIT
    not only makes people aerobically fitter in a remarkably short time but
    also metabolically fitter. In particular, it improves the body's ability
    to process the glucose surge you get after a meal. As someone with a
    genetic propensity to develop diabetes, this is particularly important.


    Early versions of HIT were tough, best suited to those who were already
    athletic. Modified versions have recently been tested on people who are
    older, heavier and in less good health, such as those with heart
    disease. Done properly it is safe, effective and surprisingly enjoyable.
    It burns more fat than conventional exercise and, best of all, it's
    over in less time than it takes to drive to the gym. A self-confessed
    couch potato, I've been doing short versions of high-intensity training
    for almost a year, with impressive results. During that time I teamed up
    with journalist Peta Bee. Despite the fact that we have very different
    attitudes to exercise (she loves it, I loathe it) and she started out
    super-fit (I wasn't), we bonded over a mutual enthusiasm for HIT. We
    hope HIT will be a hit.

    Too Much Sitting After 60 May Lead to Disability

    Too Much Sitting After 60 May Lead to Disability - Everyday Health














    For each extra sedentary hour per day, researchers found a 50 percent increased risk.
    Regardless of physical activity, the more time spent sitting, the greater the risk of disability.







    Thursday, February 20, 2014

    Too much sitting has been linked to increased risk for health problems such as heart failure and earlier death. Now, a new study finds older adults who sit too much are more likely to be disabled -- regardless of their exercise habits.



    "Sedentary behavior is its own separate risk factor [for
    disability]," said study researcher Dorothy Dunlop, a professor of
    medicine at the Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
    She evaluated the exercise habits of more than 2,000 men and women, aged
    60 and above, and their ability to perform normal everyday activities.



    "Regardless of how much time they spent in moderate physical activity, the more time they spent being sedentary, the more likely they were to be disabled," Dunlop said.



    However, another expert wonders if the relationship may occur in the
    opposite way -- that the more disabled people are, the more sedentary
    they are due to inability to exercise.



    The study was supported in part by the U.S. National Institute for
    Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases. It was published online Feb. 19
    in the Journal of Physical Activity & Health.

    Dunlop and her colleagues evaluated responses given to the U.S.
    National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The men and women
    answering the survey wore accelerometer devices to measure their
    activity on at least four different days between 2002 and 2005.



    RELATED: Don't Just Sit There: Sedentary Lifestyle Increases Type 2 Diabetes Risk



    Few met the guidelines of getting moderate activity for 2.5 hours a
    week, Dunlop said. Only about 6 percent met that goal, and the other 94
    percent did not, the study found.



    On average, the men and women spent nine hours a day being sedentary
    during waking hours. About 4 percent reported being disabled. Disability
    was defined as having much difficulty (or inability) in performing
    activities of daily living, such as getting out of bed, dressing and
    walking.



    For each additional daily hour of being sedentary, the odds of disability rose about 50 percent, Dunlop said. For instance, a woman aged 65 who was sedentary for 13 hours a day was 50 percent more likely to be disabled than a woman who was sedentary for 12 hours, she explained.



    What is it about sitting? Dunlop can't say for sure, but said experts
    think that sitting for an extended period causes muscles to burn less
    fat and blood to flow more sluggishly. Idle muscles and sluggish blood
    flow can contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease, swollen
    ankles and diabetes.

    Dunlop's study found a link, not a cause-and-effect relationship.



    The connection may actually go the other way, said Andrea LaCroix, a
    professor of epidemiology in family and preventive medicine and director
    of the Women's Health Center of Excellence at the University of
    California, San Diego School of Medicine. She recently found a link in
    her own study between higher amounts of sedentary time and higher risk
    of death in older women.



    RELATED: Fear of Exercise Keeps Heart Patients Sedentary



    In the new study, however, the disability may be driving the
    inactivity, she said. "The more disabled people are, the more sedentary,
    because they are unable to exercise," LaCroix said.



    Among the study's limitations, she noted, was that it looks only at a
    snapshot in time -- four days of tracking over a few years. A better
    approach would be to follow people over time and see if being sedentary
    leads to disability, said LaCroix, who is also an affiliate investigator
    at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle.



    The take-home message, study author Dunlop said, is that older
    adults, regardless of how much they exercise, should decrease their
    sedentary behaviors. So, she's still encouraging exercise. But if that's
    difficult, decreasing sitting time is another goal.



    How to do that? Stand up when you talk on the phone, she suggested.
    Park in a far-away space at the mall or market when you shop. At work or
    home, walk around a bit when you get up for coffee or water, she
    advised. Walk to nearby errands instead of taking the car. If you're
    able, take stairs, not elevators. You can use a pedometer to track your
    activity.

    Sunday 9 February 2014

    Biggest Loser "Winner" Starves Herself to Oblivion

    Biggest Loser "Winner" Starves Herself to Oblivion - Lose Stubborn Fat!



    Biggest_loser_640



    Even Bob and Jillian were horrified

    Bigest-loser


    https://twitter.com/maxwelltielman/status/430938274702438400/photo/1

    So lets talk about that - what went wrong?

    Obviously, she lost too much weight.  And, on a show where the only measure of success is scale weight, that was bound to happen at some point.



    Unlike many today, I'm actually a big fan of measureing scale weight
    with my clients - it tells us some very valuable information - how much
    food my client is eating, relative to how much they burn.



    In fact, I use this handy scale to figure out calories for my clients:



    Losing 3+ pounds per week: Calories are too low
    Losing 1-2 pounds per week: Calories are right for fat loss
    Scale weight stays the same: Calories are at maintenence
    Gaining pounds: Calories are too high


    On the biggest loser ranch she lost 110 pounds in 14 weeks, meaning
    she was losing just about 8 pounds per week.  This is actually pretty
    normal for biggest loser contestants, being starved and over-trained the
    entire time.



    This may sound odd - but I'd actually rather she lost that 110 pounds
    in 37-55 weeks.  I'd rather she made smaller, lifestyle oriented
    changes in her diet, and created for herself a really steady, life-style
    oriented weight loss.



    Workout wise, I would have made sure she got stronger the whole time,
    little by little.  At the end of 55 weeks, she'd be doing pull-ups for
    reps and deadlifting her bodyweight for reps.

    Weak, Starving and Skinny Fat

    For starters, she looks sick.



    But secondly, it looks like her fitness level has decreased.  Barring
    the obvious impact on health and metabolism, I have another reason for
    wanting to make sure she gets strong and fit - she would look ten times
    better.



    Man.  With her looking that sick, it's actually hard to ignore the
    obvious health consequences - both mental and physical.  But I'm going
    to try to stick to how it looks, because that's what my clients pay me
    for.



    She'd look awesome if she had 15 pounds more muscle.
     Now, for a perspective on how much muscle she starved off of herself,
    it would probably take her 15 months solid to gain that muscle back if
    she wanted to.



    Unfortunately, we've seen guys lose The Biggest Loser because they
    got lean and muscular, instead of just continuing to lose scale weight
    and get weirdly skinny.

    Why BMI Makes Sense, Even Though I Always Talk about Body Fat Percentage

    Again, there is a lot of good information you can get from someone's scale weight.



    As trainers, we always talk about how body fat percentage is a more
    important number - But for anyone with less than a year of working out
    under their belts, BMI is going to be pretty accurate also.

    In this case, it tells us a couple things:



    Rachel leaving the ranch at 150 pounds: BMI of 25 - meaning she was still overweight.
    Rachel at the finale at 105 pounds: BMI of 18 - meaning she was underweight

    Again, going back to the 15 pounds more muscle point - with 15 pounds
    more muscle, at 120 pounds, she'd be at a healthy BMI of 20.



    She really could have left the ranch and lost another 20 pounds,
    instead of 45 pounds.  She might not have won the show, but she would
    have been healthy and looked awesome.

    Don't Lose Muscle, Don't Get Skinny-Fat, Don't Look Gross

    Scale weight tells us how much total food you've been eating, but that's it.



    Body fat percentage is how lean, hot, sexy, and fit you look.  Body
    fat percentage is a little more complicated than scale weight, and there
    are three factors that influence body fat percentage, at any given
    scale weight:



    1.) How strong you are in your workouts
    2.) How much protein you are eating
    3.) The quality of carbohydrates and fat you are eating

    I love getting body fat percentage readings for my clients, because
    it tells me if we have good news: They are losing fat and gaining or
    holding on to muscle.  Or bad news: They lost fat and muscle.



    If a client loses fat, the first thing we do is add protein.  Next
    thing we might do is increase calories, especially if they've lost
    muscle from losing weight too fast (more than 3 pounds per week).



    When I don't have their body fat percentage to work from, I use an
    even easier measure: Are they getting stronger?  Are they doing more
    pull-ups than they were a month ago?  Are they deadlifting heavier than
    they were a month ago?  I can't imagine someone losing muscle and
    getting stronger....  so if you're getting stronger it's a pretty safe
    bet that you haven't lost muscle.



    You've got to have enough protein to hold on to muscle.  You've got
    to get stronger in your workouts.  That's how you look hotter, leaner,
    and sexier.

    The Biggest Loser is Broken

    The shows premise is intrinsicly flawed for two reasons:



    1.) It only measures winning by one metric: Weight loss. 
    2.) More weight loss isn't always better.  There is a time to stop.

    We know that a smart trainer takes a look at scale weight, body fat percentage, strength in basic barbell movements, even BMI.



    And, a good trainer will tell clients when it's time to stop losing
    weight and focus on something else.



     Like a fun movement skill, or a
    strength goal, or a mud run.  Or even just chill out and focus on other
    parts of their life.



    It's ok to be done.



    by Josh Hillis



    P.S. Do me a favor: If you liked this post, pease share it.  Besides
    just knocking The Biggest Loser, we can use this as an opportunity to
    educate people.
    You might also like: 
    xhttp://www.etonline.com/dailyfirst/143214_Biggest_Loser_Scandal_Rachel_Frederickson_Deemed_Too_Thin_By_Audiences/index.html