fat vs media culture

fat has long been villafied by the popular media and diet/food industry. Because it has been condemned to a shamefull post in the fitness/diet profile of the culture we have a society terrified of the rammifications of fat food.

strange how we find fat (in food) scarier than cancer in cigarettes..

the sad, horrible truth is , fat is not evil. fat is necessary. fat is good for you.

we need fat for a mirade of bodily functions. fat is our information transport system and our in house chemistry set as well as an important energy system.

even the often maligned saturated fat we get from animal products has an important role in our health profile.

like everything in our lives, we need balance. an out of balance life is a chaotic life full of frustration and stress.

our diets need balance as well. for years now (thank you food lobby and popular media) we have had our diets being pushed further and further out of kilter, where we flood our system with carbohydrates and deny it protiens and fats. then a fad will come along and we will unbalance the other way reducing carbohydrates way too low in favour of fats or protiens.

we need balance. we need fats.

lucky for us, most of our diet will provide us with the fatty requirements we have. think, steak, fish, nuts, avacado, olives.

beware of fast foods-not fat foods

weiders curse

i recently came across the hardgainer, compound vs isolation exercise comment on facebook. who ever asked this question recieved a bit of ridicule. most people with knowledge in the industry these days are so tired of this and similar comments that their patience can understandable run short. on the flip side, those inundated and brainwashed by the pro quo of the "fitness" industry are usually unopen to hearing, understanding or accepting the truth.

Weider and his empire, stole, canived, lied and did what ever they had to and wanted to, to make sure they were the one undisputed source of information for any part of the physical culture that involved the lifting of weights. They single handedly controled and monopolized the field for decades.
for years they were the only source of ideas and information available and their influence still dominates the thought process towards weightlifting and training of the general public.

Now the flip side of the coin is that they opened the door (through their books and media) for everyone to become exposed to the idea of physical fitness in areas not related to tennis or marathon running. . so along with the bad they did some good. However there was only one door.

Now there is a lot more information available and a lot of good coaches out there who know a bit more about real physical culture, but weiders hold on the media and cultural mindset is still strong. Its time to escape from the weiders mind control paradigm. train hard, train basic.

there is not one machine in my gym. there are 2 power racks, weights and bars, ropes and sleds and tires and bags and rocks.

if your a hard gainer, god bless you for your fast metabolism. eat more peanut butter and lift some heavy $#j!+. forget about what you've read in muscle and fiction and start investing in milo.

weiders curse has enslaved the minds of young trainers for decades, break the curse and become a free thinker.

when i was a kid

when i was a kid i used to love running and picking up heavy $#!+. when i say running, i mean running fast and long distances. if i ran, it was a sprint from start to finish. if i rode my bike, it was a sprint. have to go fast to get any air time. if another kid picked up something heavy i found something heavier to pick up. as i grew up running became a structured activity. picking up heavy stuff and working hard became a character trait.

i spent years in the gym trying to develop an awesome character full of strength and power and was moderatly successfull.

i still like running fast(ish) (even though i breath a lot harder) and picking up heavy $#!+.

now when i pick up heavy stuff its still bars and bells, but its also rocks and bags and cars and trees. and when i run its racing with the dog and the son (and he's starting to win) and its fun.

its hard work , but its fun. i don't have to do what i do,

i could sit around and drink beer, watch tv, put the kids in their room and kick the dog and be sad, but i have a good time running fast and picking up heavy stuff.

my son runs fast and picks up heavy stuff and hangs off the power rack and climbs trees and sand dunes. his pushups are coming along and as they do, so does his character. he learns to push himself, he learns not to give up, he gets the satisfaction of success and hard work.

fit kids are happy kids.

i see a lot of kids around and they are not happy. they don't run and play and climb. they sit in front of the tv, they play video games. and when they do go out they can't keep up with an old man and his dog. instead of running over hill and over dale they're hanging at the mall buying clothes that force their muscles into poor movement paterns.

put your kids outside,

join a baseball league

a soccer league

a gymnastics team.

jog, run, climb, pick up heavy $#!+

dieting fallacy

is your diet scientific or is it more like science fiction, or is it so scientific that you need seven more years of advanced, applied, multi doctorated degrees to understand it let alone implement it?

For most of us diet is a four letter word and who can be blamed when we are constantly bombarded from every directrion by conflicting information from as many sources as you have late night tv channels available to you.

The truth is most of these diets will work. The sad fact is, most of these diets work along the same lines and principals as starvation.

If your starving you're depleating muscle (mass). if you depleting muscle you may get skinny, you will lose weight, but you will not be healthy and you will not have the appearnace of health or beauty. You just won't look good naked.

dieting for a six pack:

you gotta move! having said that-you have to think about what you eat. You need good sources of protien with each meal. eggs, red meat, fish, poultry. And each meal should be complimented with fruits and vegetables. And you shouldn't be drinking anything but water.

stay hungry: when you eat don't eat until your full. you should be able to leave the table and wrestle with your kid or at least throw the ball around. eating until your stuffed stretches out your stomach and intenstines even if your eating healthy.

rules to live by:

if it comes in a box-its garbage

try to eat seasonaly

eat plenty of protiens with each meal ( meat, fish, eggs, poultry)

eat a lot of fruits and vegetables

drink a lot of water

stay hungry

once you learn these rules and you habituate them, then you can begin "tweaking" your eating style and learning to "carb cycle" and what foods "burn" fat .

more eggs, less bread and lots of water.

fit kids

do i need to say more. fit kids are happy kids.

back pain

Back pain runs rampant in society today and many people are limited and even disabled by it.
Hard men just keep on going with it, relegating it to the back of their mind and gritting their teeth to get through the day, but why should they endure this?
the first thing you need to know about acute back injury is, after you catch your breath, move, work.
Walk, and when you can, as soon as you can, jog. jogging activates the spinal muscles and gets them moving in a coordinated fashion that puts them in proper sinc with your bio mechanics.

Work over head. Working overhead stretches the muscles and works all the small supporting structure. You get to stretch under tension, safely. Find a house painter and do the overhead sanding for him. This is the quickest way to a cure.
Driving with back pain:
I have found that placing a soda can or coke bottle in the lower back while driving can ease a lot of driving pain.
if you live near the ocean wading chest deep in water and going for walks also has a rehabilitative effect for the back (and hips/legs)
When sleeping, try sleeping with the knees elevated.
Training the lower back after injury:
My favorite tricks for training and retraining the lower back after injury are as soon as possible start doing reverse hypers. at first don't use any weight. As soon as you get accustomed to the movement start ding the normal three sets of ten. (nothing scientific about that) After a week or so of three sets of ten move on to heavier weights with less reps .
jogging is one of the Best ways to get those spinal muscles in synchronicity. forget about everything else and go for a 10-15 minute run. You can easily handle 10-20 minutes a day without fear of overtraining or overuse.
Drugs and sleep will not heal your back . sitting or stationary standing for prolonged periods will aggravate even a healthy back. you must move. you were built to move. your body must move to be healthy and whole.