Ramblings

People think that they can get away with eating whatever they want if they are training hard. That is simply not true. Many of you are not professional athletes and do not have the time nor the desire to train that hard. Don’t feel bad, training at such intensities and volumes is not healthy anyways. Hard training can actually stress the body and become catabolic which means your body’s tissues and organs work in overdrive and breakdown. The heart gets stressed. Not good. 

The whole calories in versus calories out is nonesense. Maybe, MAYBE, body weight fluctuation and maintenance works like that (and I doubt it), but body composition certainly does not. 1000 calories of white bread is not the same as 1000 calories of salmon.

On Sundays, sometimes I will play in two soccer games. That is the day that I burn the most calories of the week, however my eating on Sundays has often been the worst day of the week. Come Monday, I have usually gained weight in both fat and glycogen/water weight. Other days when I do less overall amounts of activity but at high intensity (think weight training and intervals) and I eat Paleo (see below) I lean out incredibly fast. You cant out train a poor diet.

The best way to train for health and weight loss is mixture of high intensity and low volume training with very low intensity training for higher volumes. This means you are either busting your butt for brief intervals or doing long and slow work like walking and yard work. Anything in between will burn calories but it is also in a way, junk training that makes you slower, stiffer, and weaker.

The best way to eat is like our ancestors aka the Paleolithic diet. Like world renowned strength coach and health expert Charles Poliquin says, “if you can’t kill it or you can’t grow it…don’t eat it!” That basically means eat meats, fish, eggs, nuts, vegetables, and fruits. Two great resources are www.marksdailyapple.com and www.arthurdevany.com on eating like this. It works like magic eliminating gluten, gains, and refined sugars from the body and watching the difference in total body inflammation, digestion, body fat, mental clarity, and energy levels. Of course foods like pizza, hamburgers, pastas, breads, and candy taste great and they are now part of many cultures. It should be obvious enough by now our food culture is far from optimal and is killing us. Simple sugars and starches actually work like drugs releasing opiates in your body when you ingest them which temporarily elevates your mood but then also creates a pattern of addiction (not in everyone). What goes up must come down and that includes blood sugar. Mood gets altered. Real hunger is hard to percieve. America is fatter. Lazy. Tired. Chronic fatigue syndrome???? Please. It is our poor diets, dehydration, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, and they all go hand in hand. Eat a bowl of pasta and what do you want to do? Sleep. Eat a well put together salad and feel the sharpness. We are complicated beings and society (big food and pharmacy) is messing with our systems. We have to fight back. Education and awareness have to come first.