Pilates

3- if it’s your primary fitness modality.

6- if used as an accessory.

I think Pilates is great but it doesn’t tick enough boxes to be a stand alone, one shop stop for all your fitness needs. But Pilates does augment a well rounded fitness regimen. If you dig it, rad. But also lift weights.

Running

3- if you do it for fat/weight loss.

10- if you run to stay young and fit.

Most adults should be able to run- and run hard1! Most can’t.

Walking

10

Walk as much as possible. Burns calories without spiking hunger. It’s kind of a fat loss cheat code. Promotes insulin sensitivity. Great for thinking. The list goes on. Go for walks. Often. Daily, even.

Walking with Weighted Vest

2- for burning calories

5- for core/posture

2- for bone density

This one is going to need some qualification. Most of the weighted vests I see people wearing for walking weigh 12 pounds. That’s what we’re rating here. If you’re older and/or untrained or are coming back from injury, a 12 pound load could be enough stimulus for postural muscles to get some activation. A 12 pound vest can also function as a posture feedback device in that when your torso falls off of its axial plane, your body will instantly know and adjust. As for bone building- not enough stimulus. You’ll get more benefit from a weightier vest but at that point you’re into rucking, which is cool!

Cross fit

2

Injury factory.

Okay. Calm down. I’m kidding- a little. I don’t think the modality is necessarily bad. The culture promotes high intensity and high volume often with disregard to form. I’ve seen some great Cross Fit coaches. I’ve seen more no pain, no gain gyms though2.

HIIT

8

Make no mistake, HIIT workouts are awesome for getting effective short duration, high intensity training in to improve fitness and performance. It only gets an 8 though because they’re usually touted as massive calorie and fat burning sessions. Exercise is for fitness. Nutrition is for body composition3.

Lifting Weights

10

One of the best things you can do to live a longer, happier life. I’d say lifting weights is a top 3 intervention for longevity.

Lifting Heavy

8

Great way to get strong! But you can get pretty strong by lifting medium heavy weights. Gotta be intense though. No way around that. Get uncomfortable.

Electrolyte Supplements

2

Over priced and unnecessary for most people. Salt your food. Take a mg and a k supplement if you need to. The deluge of marketing we see is just that- mostly marketing. Most people don’t need help hydrating beyond just drinking enough water. Also, most Americans consume way more sodium than necessary and most electrolyte supplements contain 1000mg!4 Caveats: if you’re on a GLP-1, terzepitide, or some other weight loss drug, you might consider an electrolyte supplement as your lower food intake may not have enough sodium, potassium, or magnesium to provide adequate electrolytes. If you’re a high level athlete that sweats a lot, you may want extra electrolytes. Some issues such as POTS or dysautonomia could also benefit. But if you have a desk job you just need to drink water.

Collagen

2

There’s not a ton of data or evidence that support the cost. But if you don’t mind spending hard earned money on something that works a little bit- knock yourself out. If you like it, no harm. Just don’t expect much- though, anecdotally I hear plenty of positive skin, hair, and nail results. I’m a firm believer that if it’s working for you, let ‘er rip. I just don’t see enough evidence.

Lifting to Failure

5

I might get flack from a few- some will say I rated it too high, others the opposite. I think training to failure sometimes is a good idea, especially if it’s the last set you’re planning on doing for the lift or movement. Knowing what failure feels like is important so that one can gauge their proximity to it in order to know when to stop. Ie. 2-3 reps in reserve. No need to reach failure often. But train hard!

Pizza

10

Duh (unless it has pineapple atop, then 0. Also, duh.)

Gym Bros

2

Physique schmysique. Show me what you can do besides lift sort of heavy shit 10 times then pull your shirt up and look in the mirror underneath perfect overhead lighting. Boring.

BBLs

0

I just found out what these are. Biggest waste of money I’ve ever heard of.

Creatine

9

Would be a 10 if the effects were less subtle. That said, there’s no reason to not use creatine as the effects are repeatedly established through rigorous scientific research for a variety of indications from muscle to memory. Take your creatine. 5g-10g/day.

Protein

0- As an obsession

10- As a macro

You don’t need as much as social media would suggest. You do need more than the RDA, however. Get to 1.6g/kg of desired body weight of high quality protein and Bob’s your uncle. If protein is part of your personality, do some soul searching.

Caffeine

10

The best legal performance enhancing drug ever invented- unless you use too much, use it too late in the day, or it plays havoc in your guts. There really aren’t any downsides when used normally and responsibly. Next to creatine, it’s probably the most studied supplement of the last 30 years. Good stuff.

Fiber

10

Unless you have diverticulitis, Crohn’s, or some other gut issue, eat all the fiber. It feeds your gut microbiota, helps in digestion, and by all accounts makes life better. Seriously. 25g-40g/day. Every study supports this.

Sleep

11

Despite the fact that I have ongoing sleep issues, sleep remains at the top of the list for health and longevity. I can’t overstate this. Adequate sleep makes everything better.

So there we have it! Some hot and not so hot takes on our lovely world of health and fitness. Suit up and get out there. Summer is racing by!

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Q: What do deadlifts and brushing your teeth have in common?
A: Currently nothing.

Hahaha! Hilarious, right? What, you don’t get it?! Turns out it’s not a joke. It’s also not funny. It is true, however— and that’s why you’re not as fit as you want to be.

What is your morning routine? Do you have a morning routine? How many things do you do throughout the day that get done without thinking about them? Is one of them brushing your teeth? I bet it is. Probably twice a day if you’re like 70%1 of Americans. Why do you brush your teeth? Because you should and the evidence and data support that. Well guess what, habitual tooth brusher. The evidence and data support going to the gym too. The difference is- the gym isn’t a habit… yet.

Do you think I feel like training today? Shit, I’m typing this with my workout gear on completely prepared to train. Why am I not training yet? Because I don’t feel like it. I felt like training today yesterday when I planned today’s session. But guess what I’m doing as soon as I finish this sentence?

Okay, I’m back… Trained! What I did was capitalize on yesterday’s motivation to plan today’s workout! That’s how to utilize motivation, the elusive bastard that it is— coming and going as it pleases with no regard for our health and muscles.

There’s not a single person that is jumping out of their skin excited for every workout. In fact it’s actually rare to not face at least a small amount of limbic friction2 before sessions. Here’s why: you know that you’re intentionally going to be making yourself very physically uncomfortable3. It’s going to suck a little bit. It’s the good kind of suck— but it’s suck, nonetheless.

I understand that brushing one’s teeth for two minutes4 typically features way less friction than, say, running 5 miles. But it’s the same thing. I’m sure they exist, but I don’t know anyone that really gets into tooth brushing5. They sell parents silly character tooth brushes for this very reason. Brushing your teeth is boring. Yet you do it.

So what are we supposed to do?

Remember that Life on the Installment Plan edition called Motivation vs Discipline6? I wrote today’s workout yesterday when I was motivated for today’s workout. In doing so, I played a trick on myself. In the event that I struggled with motivation to train today, which I did, what could’ve happened had I not planned exactly what I was going to do in the gym is I could’ve skipped it! I could’ve come up with a reason. Hell, I could’ve come up with a VALID reason. But I had my workout planned. And it got done because the feeling of disappointment and let down I would experience within myself would heavily outweigh any temporary satisfaction I’d get from skipping my training session.

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I could’ve come up with a reason. Hell, I could’ve come up with a VALID reason. But I had my workout planned. And it got done because the feeling of disappointment and let down I would experience within myself would heavily outweigh any temporary satisfaction I’d get from skipping my training session.

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Here’s the point: you have to habituate exercise. It has to be like brushing your teeth7. It has to be like walking the dog. Or picking the kids up from school. You’re picking them up. Guaranteed. You’re not deciding whether or not to pick them up. Why is the gym different?8

How do you habituate going to the gym (or any other training modality you’re interested in)? By doing it over and over and over until it’s what you do. Until it’s a habit. But obviously that’s way easier said than done. What makes it worse is that until you’re in a bit better shape, working out doesn’t feel that good. Still gotta do it until it does. I promise. Stay the course. It’s worth it! People who claim to hate exercising usually quit before they’ve given it an honest chance to work its magic. I’m not saying everyone will eventually love it. But everyone loves what it does. And once some results start coming in, it’s very hard to stop. You just have to be patient and show up.

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People who claim to hate exercising just haven’t done it long enough or haven’t seen visible results yet. I’m not saying everyone will eventually love it. But everyone loves what it does. And once some results start coming in, it’s very hard to stop. You just have to be patient and show up.

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Here are a few tips to help get consistent until exercise is habituated:

1. Get a training partner. Find someone you can meet a few times a week at the gym. Or even once for that matter. If you’re consistent with 1 session a week, that second session will be easier to integrate. Then the third. But get a friend to train with.

2. Write your exercise program down. Have a plan. Have a goal(s). Don’t be arbitrary. Plan your week of sessions on Sunday. I promise this works. Better yet- maintain the same weekly training routine if your schedule permits that level of consistency. Ex. Mon: Strength. Tues: Jog. Wed: Pilates class. Thurs: Walk. Fri: Strength. Sat: Jog. Sun: Rest Day. Something like that. In perpetuity. Then: see #3.

3. Put your training sessions on your daily calendar. Block that time out. You’ll open your calendar. You’ll see it. You’ll do it. This might be the most powerful tool. It’s on your calendar. That means it’s real.

4. Hire a trainer. If you have the means, this is a no brainer. Take away the responsibility of managing your own fitness. This way it’s on the calendar and you’re paying for it. Unless you’re rich and you don’t care about money, I bet you’re not missing many sessions. Just find a good one9.

5. Good ol’ fashioned discipline. Just go to the effing gym (or get outside for a walk/hike, or really any intentional movement). Have a plan. Get dressed. And go. Every. Damn. Day. Until it’s a habit. Don’t find excuses. Don’t make excuses.

All of these tips have one thing in common and that is eliminating decision fatigue. Habits work because the debate is already settled. Nobody wakes up absolutely pumped to brush their teeth. But they do it anyway (70%) because it’s what they do. Make exercise the same as brushing your teeth. Hit me up. I’ll teach you to deadlift (provided you’ve brushed your teeth).

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Short Answer: It depends. Annoying, right?! You’re thinking- this guy never gives a straight answer for anything2. Rarely is anything that straight forward. The next thing you’re thinking is- well what does it depend on?

Here is the crux of the matter— Do you want to get maximally strong? That is to say, is your sole objective to absolutely maximize your strength- be as strong as you humanly can be. If that is your goal, then yes, you absolutely have to lift heavy. There is no way around it. You have to perform main sets in the 1-5 rep range to maximize strength. But who wants that? Unless you’re training for strongman (woman), weightlifting, or powerlifting, you likely are more concerned with being adequately muscled for health and longevity and more importantly, aesthetics3. You want to be strong for life and you want to be toned to look good, right? Great news! You do not have to lift ‘heavy.’

Now before you go skipping off to tell your training partner, husband, wife, dog, painted turtle, or whomever, that you no longer need to be lifting heavy because that dude who writes Life on the Installment Plan said so— save it. Not lifting heavy doesn’t mean what you think it means. This is where we get into the weeds.

Let’s define two terms.

Strength: Muscular strength is the capacity of the neuromuscular system to produce maximal voluntary force under specific conditions a single time.

Hypertrophy: Muscle hypertrophy is the increase in skeletal muscle cross-sectional area resulting from the growth of contractile and/or non-contractile proteins within muscle fibers.

Most people want a combination of both— though they’re not the same thing there is plenty of crossover between them that both can be achieved simultaneously provided neither is to be absolutely maximized. Strength is largely a neural adaptation to heavy loads, while hypertrophy is a structural adaptation of the muscle itself. A profound example of this is the case of bodybuilders vs. powerlifters. The world deadlift record for men in the 165 lb category is right around 800 lbs (793 to be exact). Ronnie Coleman, arguable the strongest bodybuilder to ever roam earth, had a record deadlift of right around 800 lbs. Here’s the difference: Ronnie Coleman weighed about 300 lbs when he deadlifted 800 lbs. Other dude (Oleksandr Kutcher) only weighed 165 lbs. That’s insane. The bodybuilder weighed nearly twice as much as the powerlifter while both had identical deadlift bests. That’s the difference between training for strength and hypertrophy.

So what does it all mean?

A tangent peppered with anecdote suddenly feels appropriate.

We’re trying to answer the question: Do I have to lift heavy to get results? Close your eyes. Picture your last strength training session. You had your plan ready to go. You’re warmed up and you get to your first main exercise. It’s Monday. Chest day. Bench press4. You’ve got 3 sets of 10 reps. First set of 10 is complete. Here’s my question: why did you stop? Did you stop because you got to 10 reps or did you stop because all your body had in it was 10 reps?

Now think about the people you observe at the gymnasium. When you watch people train, which ones look like they’re comfortable while they’re lifting? Let me answer that for you. It’s not the fittest people. It’s the Crocs wearing dude with pajama bottoms on the semi-recumbent. Pretty comfy looking. It’s Ol’ Android User©®™ sitting on the damn seated row for 35 minutes watching soccer between, occasionally during, sets. None more comfortable.

Here’s the misconception. ‘Heavy’ is not interchangeable with ‘hard.’ If you don’t want to lift heavy but you still want results you must train intensely. That is to say you have to get uncomfortable.

YOU HAVE TO GET UNCOMFORTABLE

If I had to choose the #1 reason as to why folks who regularly go to the gym yet struggle with making progress, this would be it5.

The meat of the matter: to make strength and hypertrophy gains you have to perform exercises in the range of 6-30 reps with the last repetition being very close to failure. What I am describing is training intensity. What I mean by failure is literally not being able to physically do another repetition without complete form breakdown. You’re not done because you got to 10. You’re done because you’re done. Physically. Not bored. Not a little burny feeling. Not because your training partner had some gossip. Done. Most people don’t get there and that’s exactly where progress lives.

You’re not done because you got to 10. You’re done because you’re done.

But, you don’t have to train to failure. You have to train to almost failure. There’s a term called Reps In Reserve (RIR). That basically means how many reps before actual, full-on, muscular failure. The current scientific literature says that completing most of your exercises with 2-3 RIR is perfectly adequate, and likely superior to training to actual failure. The reason is simple— training to failure is too exhausting to recover from between sets and furthermore training bouts. You get the benefits from leaving those RIR without the cumulative fatigue which allows you to get your ass back to the gym to make more progress. Just be honest with yourself. That last repetition should be pretty damn unpleasant.

To optimize strength, the rep range is from 1-5. To get the best of both worlds, which is what most of us want, the rep range is from 6-30. But I will tell you, I hate sets of 30. Hell, I hate sets of more than 10, if I’m honest.

You do not have to lift heavy to get strong. You do have to lift intensely. Getting strong and toned is uncomfortable. Get uncomfortable.

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I’ve done the heavy lifting so you don’t have to. Here’s your TOP 5 list of supplements that will get you right in 2026:

Best Muscle Builder:

This was a tough one because there are so many. I went through ALL of them and it turns out that research shows the best supplement for building muscle is going to the gym consistently and training hard while you’re there.

Best Weight Loss:

Again, this is a very popular supplement sea- so many to wade through. Again, I’m here for you. The best supplement for weight loss is burning more fat than you store by being in a caloric deficit by eating and drinking less.

*Honorable mention: lots of non-exercise daily activity1.

Best Sleep Aid:

Who couldn’t use longer, better sleep? Well here you go! Try these PROVEN supplements (So good, I couldn’t choose just one!): Stop scrolling before bed. Get morning sunlight. Limit alcohol. Go to bed earlier. Eat a healthy, balanced diet. Get regular exercise. Monitor caffeine.

Best Hydration Product:

Water

Best Stress Reducer:

All of the above.

*Honorable mention: Meditation.

You don’t need supplements. Some supplements are absolutely worth the money. But you don’t need any, despite what social media tells you. Obviously if you’re deficient in a particular vitamin or mineral2, get those up to par. But if you eat a balanced diet, exercise regularly, get adequate, quality sleep, and adopt healthy stress management practices you’re 95% of the way there.

Yes, this is tongue in cheek. But in my opinion, until you’ve got these bases above covered, save your money. Those are the big levers- not expensive supplements. Yank on those first- then let’s have a chat about what you can do to put the icing on the cake with some well placed supplements.

Bonus Supplements for General Well-Being, Democracy, and World Health:

Release the un-redacted Epstein files and abolish ICE. Fight fascism.

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You go to work. You get your paycheck. You buy essentials- food, clothing, a roof over your head, etc. Despite these absurdly ill advised tariffs1, you’ve still got a coin or two left jingling around in your pocket. What are you going to spend them on if you’re into this whole health and wellness business? There’s an odds on chance you’ll purchase one or more of the following nutrition products that are front and center in the wellness zeitgeist. These are the items that I see getting hammered down our throats each time we go on social media, listen to a podcast, or just generally exist while being vaguely interested in this kind of thing:

Protein Supplements

Electrolytes

Collagen

Creatine

Probiotics

Are these products worth the often wildly steep price tags? Are the benefits they claim realized by consumers? Are we getting fleeced into spending our hard earned money on things that are easily replicated in most kitchens?

Let’s have a look, shall we…

We’ll start with the big one:

Protein2

Holy smokes. Who could have predicted that in 2026 I could go into a 7-11 and buy protein pop tarts featuring 20g of protein for 180cal? Seriously?!3 There was a ton of other highly processed protein enriched foods available as well, but the tarts caught my eye. Protein is EVRYWHERE! Protein powders. Protein pancakes. Bars. Snacks. Drinks. And there are influencers who would like you to believe that you need 3 times your body weight in grams of protein every day or else you’ll die. Painfully. Tomorrow. And it’ll be your fault. Cause you didn’t hit your protein.

Is all this protein really necessary? Not really… but kind of.

Let’s start with the RDA4 for protein. The current standard is .8g of protein/kg (.36/lb) of body weight established in 1985. That amount was based entirely on something called nitrogen balance. Protein is the only macronutrient that has nitrogen, which plays an instrumental role in forming amino acids that are responsible for everything from neurotransmitters to, well, pretty much everything corporeal. So super important. The RDA was set so that you wouldn’t die as a result of not enough nitrogen5 to maintain normal functions.

Then what’s with this huge protein push we’re seeing? It turns out that the quantity of protein established for nitrogen balance isn’t enough for ALL systems to thrive, not the least of which is muscle protein synthesis (MPS)- the main chemical driver for muscle growth.

Yes, you need more protein than .8g/kg of body weight. Do you need the excessive amounts being advertised? Not in my opinion.

What the scientific literature says is that MPS is well established at 1.6g pro/kg of body weight per day. The benefits of more protein after that baseline are asymptotic- diminishing returns begin to mount.

So is it harmful to have more protein than 1.6g/kg of body weight? Nope. Not at all. In fact having more protein than that has some very real benefits. Protein is known for its satiety. If you’re trying to drop body fat, eating higher protein will keep cravings at bay and you’ll feel full longer after meals. Protein has the highest thermal effect of food (TEF)6. It’s very hard to over eat protein7.

Yes protein is very important8. You don’t need 2g/ pound of body weight. If you work out a lot- eat more protein. As we get older, protein requirements increase too. Our bodies don’t metabolize it as well after 40 or so. A good, easy to calculate goal is to shoot for 1g of protein for every pound of your goal weight- not necessarily your current weight. If you want to be more specific, use the 1.6g/kg of desired body weight. But you can eat as much protein as you reasonably want beyond the 1.6g. There’s no harm9. If you like it and it makes you feel full longer, let ‘er rip.

Don’t get bullied by Big Protein. But, make sure you get adequate protein, which is well above the RDA.

Electrolytes

WTF is an electrolyte? Is it really electricity shit? Yup.

They’re actually electrically charged minerals that do a host of things relating to cardiovascular health, muscle contractions, fluid balance and a bunch of other cool necessary bodily functions. These are the main electrolytes: sodium, calcium, potassium, bicarbonate, chloride, phosphate, and magnesium. The ones you’ll see in most supplements are sodium, potassium, and magnesium.

Once again, if you’re on social media or listen to podcasts you’ve surely seen them being advertised. The one I see the most is LMNT. At $45 per 30 pack box, that’s $1.50/day. Here’s what’s in it: 1000mg sodium, 60mg magnesium, and 200mg potassium. Their claim is that most people are under hydrated, and not because they’re not drinking enough water.

Hydration depends on not only water intake, but also electrolyte balance. Without adequate balance, fluid dynamics are compromised and a lot of negative stuff happens like muscle cramps, dizziness, weakness etc. In extreme cases real bad stuff happens, but that’s for a different post…

But do you need to spend $547.50/ year on electrolytes? Not in my opinion.

It is true that as a result of not eating nearly enough vegetables, most Americans are potassium deficient. A lot of folks are also magnesium deficient. In the case of sodium, however, most people get way more than needed10 given the standard American diet. More than protein, this electrolyte craze seems like another way to get us to empty our wallets on shit we don’t need. You likely already get more than enough sodium. Adding 1000g to the already copious amount most people consume isn’t necessarily problematic, but it can be if you’re salt sensitive. Salt causes blood pressure to increase in salt sensitive people. The American Heart Association has been trying to get us to eat less salt for decades. While I think their demonization of salt is absurd, for some, it’s a very big deal. It doesn’t make sense to take on that much extra sodium. If you’re magnesium and/or potassium deficient, get a specific supplement. You can get 5000 (!) servings of 200mg from www.bulksupplements.com for $27.95. From the same company you can purchase 200 servings of magnesium malate (the kind in LMNT) for $29.97. See where I’m going here? For well under $100/year, you can get the exact same benefit. And there’s a good chance you don’t need any of this at all. These electrolyte companies are a racket. I wish I thought of it. I lie awake at night trying to think of stupid shit I can package and sell. I need to do better…

Don’t get bullied by Big Electrolyte!

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Collagen

Okay. Here we go. This might be the most controversial one. Depending on whom you’re talking to, collagen is either the best thing since sliced bologna or it’s a bigger money sieve than snake spit. Let’s parse it out.

It seems like every week there’s another purported benefit of collagen supplementation. From what I’ve gathered these are the main beneficial claims:

• Hair

• Nails

• Skin

• Connective Tissues and Joints (Tendons, Cartilage, Joints, Ligaments etc)

• Protein Source

We’ll go down the list

Hair Claims: Better growth, thicker hair, and less shedding.

Current stance: Promising-but-not-proven. Compared to skin, hair outcomes have fewer high-quality human trials, and endpoints vary (thickness vs shedding vs “shine”). (Reilly et al. 2024)

• There are human trials appearing but the body of evidence is still thin and brand/ingredient-specific, and lack of replication is the issue.

• Mechanistic pathways exist, but mechanisms DO NOT equal clinical proof.

If someone has androgenic hair loss11, collagen appears to have no effect in terms of hair growth.

Nail Claims: Less brittle and more growth.

Current stance: Some evidence, limited depth. There’s one randomized, placebo-controlled trial showing improved nail growth and reduced brittle-nail symptoms that I was able to find. (Mori et al., 2017) The evidence base is small and the results were minimal. In my opinion there’s not enough evidence that oral collagen improves nail quality.

Skin Claims: Better hydration, more elasticity, fewer wrinkles.

Current stance: Probably helps —especially skin hydration and elasticity, and possibly fine wrinkles—but don’t expect miracles. It appears that in the case of skin health, collagen shows the most verifiably consistent promise.

• Multiple systematic reviews/meta-analyses of RCTs report statistically significant improvements in hydration and elasticity with collagen peptides vs placebo.

• A newer meta-analysis12 (23 RCTs) reports improvements in hydration/elasticity/wrinkles overall, but finds that when you split studies by funding source, the non–industry-funded subgroup shows no effect while industry-funded studies do. That’s a giant methodological eyebrow raise, in my opinion.

Connective Tissues and Joint Claims: Less osteoarthritis pain, stronger, less painful joints.

Current stance: Moderate evidence of symptom relief for some people. Several studies and meta-analyses suggest improvements in pain and function scores in knee arthritis with oral collagen preparations. Not every study is positive, products differ (type/processing/dose), and effect sizes vary. It appears collagen has a real, albeit quite small, effect of symptom relief.

Protein Source Claims: Good source of protein for building muscle.

Current stance: Not a good major source of protein for building muscle. Collagen isn’t a complete protein. It doesn’t have much tryptophan, but more importantly, it has very little leucine. As mentioned earlier, leucine is the amino acid that is the main chemical driver for MPS. Compared to whey, which is about 11% leucine, collagen is only about 3%.

I’m going to catch flack for this13, but in my opinion there are better ways to spend money when it comes to health and wellness. I believe it does have some marginal beneficial properties, but for the cost? Well…

Don’t get bullied by big collagen.

Creatine

This is another big one. Creatine is everywhere! What was once to be found in musty gyms, high school football locker rooms, and on your 44 year old uncle’s GNC shopping list from 1998 who still lives at home, the media is abuzz with the popularity of this decades old supplement. What gives?

Apart from caffeine, creatine is probably the most studied supplement the last 30 years. Here are the various beneficial claims: more muscle size, strength, and power. But wait, there’s more. Recently creatine has been studied for improving bone health as well as cognitive function! What?! It’s true.

Here’s what the science says. For strength, hypertrophy, and power- the case is settled. The studies show that creatine is effective. Similarly, for recovery between strength training sets as well as exercise bouts, creatine is effective. For cognitive function under stress, including sleep deprivation, creatine appears to be beneficial. (NCBI) There is also some evidence that creatine helps maintain and build bone matrix. This is still somewhat speculative as it’s not clear whether it’s the creatine itself or the effect of strength training, which assuredly improves bones, that provides the benefit.

Creatine is a supplement that I take every day. To me, if you’re into this stuff, you’re crazy not to take it. It’s cheap. It’s effective. There aren’t any real downsides except for the occasional gastric distress in some individuals. You’ll hear people say that it’s hard on kidneys, causes dehydration, or some other malady. None of it’s true. One can take 5-15 grams a day. You don’t have to front load it but you can- if you take 20g a day for a week it will saturate your muscles faster. You’ll probably gain a couple pounds, but it’ll be water in your muscles, which you want.

Go get your creatine!

Don’t be tricked into getting anything besides good old fashioned creatine monohydrate. The other creatine products, like creatine ester, offer no extra benefits. I promise.

Probiotics14

You’ve likely been hearing about probiotics. Maybe you’ve seen some at the grocery, perhaps in a fortified yogurt or a drink. They’re in anything that’s is lacto-fermented, ie. natural sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, kafir, etc.

Probiotic is just a fancy name for the microbes that live in our gut and are responsible for what appears to be an infinite amount of things- from vitamin production, to immune system modulation, to gut brain access, serotonin and other neuromodulator production etc. And as the research continues, even more things are being discovered that a healthy, robust gut biome provides. It makes sense that we should be guzzling down these little beasties like mad! But what does the science say?

The problem with probiotics that we buy at the store is that they aren’t specific. That’s the thing with being an individual human with your own genetics and your own lifestyle and your own eating sensibilities, and your own exercise patterns and, and, and… Every person has a unique gut biome. You have no idea if any of the cultures in the product you bought is even remotely what you need. There’s a good chance that some of it will be useful,—most people’s biomes overlap—but how much is completely in the wind. The challenge is that with current methodology, there’s no good way to know what you need.

What we do know is what probiotics ‘eat.’ They eat prebiotics. What are prebiotics? Soluble fiber. Your best bet is to eat fermented foods like sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, etc. They have to be real lacto-fermented foods, not vinegar. What’s really going to provide a healthy gut is what you give the bacteria to eat. That’s one major reason there’s been a huge push to spread the fiber gospel. In my opinion, someone should be hawking the crap out of a sexy fiber supplement. That’s the thing with fiber- not sexy15. Women should get 25g/day of fiber and men should get 40g. Those numbers are not set in stone, but they’re good guidelines. The point is, fiber is way more important than you might think.

Don’t get bullied by big probiotic! But, and this is a real big but, GET YOUR FIBER.

There you have it. If you disagree with any of this- come at me…

No but seriously, hit me up if any of this is confusing or you disagree. I love this shit. I’m happy to chat. I’m also happy to have my mind changed.

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The holidays are upon us. Here’s a navigation tool I posted one year and one day ago. See you next year! Stay healthy. Stay sharp. Hone your tools. Get prepared.

Halloween is behind us. Thanksgiving is so last month. You consumed copious amounts of turkey, pie, perhaps some other beige foods. Yet there’s still another entire month of extra calories to get through. Most Americans gain weight between Halloween and the new year. How much is up for debate. Some studies suggest it can be from 5-8 lbs, which seems like a lot! Others conclude a more modest gain in the neighborhood of 1-5 lbs. Either way, weight gain over the holidays is normal. After all there are parties and family gatherings. There are the seasonal novelty foods that seem weird to consume other times.1 It’s a festive time full of bonus, high calorie, delicious food and drinks!

But is that weight gain really inevitable? The answer is no. It’s not. There are plenty of things to consider as we approach this last phase of 2024 from a health maintenance perspective. After all, who really wants to lose extra pounds just to get to baseline before embarking on 2025’s fitness and wellness goals. Not this cat, I’ll tell you what. Also, I heard on a podcast recently, I don’t remember which, unfortunately, that most of the gradual annual weight gain (1 lb per year) in adults is attributed to holiday weight gain that didn’t get taken care of post holidays. I wish I could substantiate that with a citation, but alas, we’ll take it with a grain of salt knowing that that’s not going to matter to us because we’re taking this challenge of not gaining too much weight head on. Here are some tips.

Make a plan and stick to it

Look at your calendar and identify the opportunities for over consumption. This time of year is full of work parties, family events, etc. Put them on the calendar and know that those days are going to be hyper caloric. Then surround those events with a day or two of modest consumption. No one single day can ruin everything. What’s more important to consider is a week’s worth of intake. Balance it out over days. It works.

Keep your exercise routine

Whatever you’re doing for exercise currently should be maintained. It’s easy to contract a burly case of the effits2 this time of year. You’ve got all these goals planned to get started on in January. It seems like you can just bail and throw caution to the wind for the last month. Don’t do it. Again, you don’t want to lose a bunch of fitness you worked hard for in the previous months. January will roll on in and you’ll have to train for a month just to get back to baseline. Start the year fit. Then get more fit. That will feel awesome- way more awesome than whatever you did instead of working out.

Party time!

Don’t show up to a party starving. One of your planned calendar events has arrived. It seems logical to spare calories over the course of the day in an attempt to decrease the day’s count. That usually doesn't work. What typically happens is you starve yourself all day and then upon arriving to the party, you kind of, sort of NEVER LEAVE THE BUFFET. All those cookies, and sandwiches, and drinks, and cakes! Pies and prosciutto! Sweets! Savories! All sliding down your gullet with the lubricated ease of baby oiled slip and slide! Had you been less hungry, my guess is you’d consume quite a bit less. Eat meals that day. Focus on protein and fiber. Show up with a normal appetite, not a ravenous, binge inducing desire. And while you are enjoying some indulgent comestibles, make a visit to the veggie plate. You see it. I see it. We all see it. Yep, it’s 10pm and that damn veggie plate is still mostly untouched. Don’t be bashful. Step to the vibrantly colored tray of vegetables and effing eat them. They’ll fill you up. Trust me on this one. Seriously.

While we’re talking parties, let’s get some of that nog going. If you don’t like egg nog, cool! Have some Champagne or whatever your tipple. Here’s what though: have a glass of water after EVERY drink. You’ll drink less alcohol. I promise. Alcohol has 7 calories per gram. That’s a lot. Also, your next morning will thank you. It’s really hard to work out when you’ve got a rager of a hangover. Avoid it. Drink the water. H2O is your best friend.

Workplace pitfalls

Every office has them3- that one or two people who bring in ridiculous delicious snacks every day for the entire season. This one is a hard one. You’re trapped for 8 long hours amongst the most delectable treats you’ll see all year. You’re going to eat some. You should eat some. But BRING YOUR OWN SNACKS! Eat what you brought for lunch and the snack you brought too. Then, go try a bit from the break room. Like the party scenario, avoid hitting the buffet starving. Practice restraint. It’s hard, but you can do it. You can.

Weigh yourself once a week

This one might be controversial. I don’t recommend this for everyone. If you have an unhealthy relationship with the scale, consider skipping this. If you are a weigher, don’t stop. It might be tempting, once again, to skate through the season with no guardrails, thinking that it’ll get taken care of in January. Don’t do that. Weigh yourself once a week through the season to make sure you’re on track. If you’re not on track, make adjustments. Reset. Refocus. All is not lost. Stay with the plan. If you are on track, party on! Hell yeah. Good job.

Manage your stress

While for many, this is a festive time, it can also be a time of high stress. Our bodies recognize good and bad stress similarly. High stress can put major chinks in our armor. We tend to make less optimal decisions when over stressed, which can lead to over indulging on food and drink. Unmitigated stress can also convince us to skip workouts etc. If you have a mindfulness or meditation routine, keep that going. If you see a therapist, keep that going. Whatever tricks you have up your sleeve for stress management, make sure those don’t get kicked to the curb during the season.

Get Sleep

In line with stress management, adequate sleep will help you make better decisions. It will lower your stress. Prioritize sleep. If you get poor sleep for a night or two, no big deal. But try to get back on track. Get those cortisol levels in check. Your body and mind will thank you.

Here are seven proven tips to help navigate a healthy holiday season. Have fun. Indulge moderately. Be mindful. Focus on how you want to start the new year. You’ll be very happy if you can hit the ground running in January4. Trust me.

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Motivation is Monday. Discipline is Friday.

Motivation focuses on outcomes. Discipline focuses on processes.

Motivation is least important. Discipline is most important.

Motivation is comfortable. Discipline is uncomfortable.

Motivation is exciting. Discipline is boring.

Motivation is ephemeral. Discipline is permanent.

I worked at a gym many years ago in Oakland, Ca called The Courthouse Athletic Club1. CAC, as it was called by those in the know, was not a standard gym. It was truly a place for all comers- the most funky, accepting, welcoming facility I’ve known. Meatheads? Welcome. Gay folks? Welcome. Old? Young? Fit? Future fit? All welcome! That was until Jan of 1996.

There’s a well known phenomenon that occurs every January in the fitness industry. It’s the predictable influx of new members descending on fitness facilities like a plague of newly motivated locusts. I remember January of ‘96 like it was yesterday. I was still pretty early in my fitness career and I was a desk staff/service employee. I don’t know what got into people over 1995’s holiday season, but Jan ‘96 saw the biggest uptick in memberships anyone had ever witnessed at CAC. I can’t recall the exact numbers, but I’ll tell you, unequivocally, it was the biggest exemplar of mass motivation I’ve witnessed! Every single day we ran out of towels, lockers, and believe, it or not, equipment!2 Old members argued with new members about etiquette and courtesy. Our beloved gym was no longer the all-are-welcome love-fest we’d all been accustomed to. Utter madness, it was3!

We desk folk fought hard for weeks! Finally in February the noose loosened. We got some relief. We were still crowded, but there were plenty of supplies to go around. We could keep up on the locker rooms etc. Then by Valentine’s day it was even more halcyon. Come March, by god, CAC was back to its wonted ways with just a few of the new members showing great signs of discipline.

WTF happened?!

They were motivated. Something had inspired hundreds of people to snap into action to make big changes in their lives. They were going to the gym EVERY day. They were presumably eating more healthily EVERY day. These newbies were disciplined… for a while. But why?

All of these new members began the year with similar amounts of motivation. That was the easy part. Motivation feels fantastic. It’s during the motivation phase that one begins to visualize outcomes. Motivation is the direct result of inspiration. Inspiration feels fantastic. Inspiration is the result of witnessing someone or something extrinsic provide some grist to propel movement toward motivation. If enough inspiration and motivation are present it’s likely a plan will develop. Once that plan reaches maturity, the next step is action. That’s exciting!

“I’m starting my new diet and exercise program on Monday! BOOYAH!” -Everyone on the last Sunday in 19954

And go and go and go. Every day. For four weeks. Or six weeks. Or in rare cases continue going indefinitely. Why do most drop off though? That’s the age old question. What happened to their discipline? Why did it expire?

Lack of discipline is often considered a moral failing or lazy. The truth is much deeper and physiologically and psychologically involved. Furthermore, the line between the physiological and psychological is blurry.

We humans are hard-wired reward seeking animals. When we get inspired and our motivation is at its highest, we get these huge dopamine hits that move us forward. Dopamine gets the reputation of being the ‘feel good’ or the ‘pleasure’ hormone, which is a bit of a misconception. Dopamine’s actual function is as a neurotransmitter that signals one to seek, to move toward, to anticipate reward.

Let’s time hop forward six weeks . You’ve been going to the gym every day. You’ve been eating a ‘clean5’ diet without fail. You step on the scale and maybe it’s moved a pound or two in the desired direction. But the mirror says you look exactly the same- maybe even worse given how hard you’ve been working. So instead of getting your reward of a slammin’ beach bod, you’re exhausted, disappointed, hungry, and depressed- no closer to the original source of inspiration. As your motivation waned, so did your dopamine production and vice versa. The reward of a sleek physique went unrealized and with it went your motivation. There’s always next January. By then, surely it will be possible to attain impossible results in six weeks, right?

From an evolution perspective, our bodies are conservation machines! It’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do when it tells you to skip the gym, or eat the salty, fat, calorie bomb. We spent millennia trying not to starve. Why would our bodies suddenly stop doing their seriously amazing job of conserving resources? So what are you meant to do? Are you supposed to just white knuckle it- hope that the next time you try somehow your will power will be sustainable? Why would it be?

Not so hot take: it won’t be. You gotta verb up your life (and be patient).

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Step 1. Verb up your life.

What does ‘verb up your life’ mean? Simply, it means make actionable decisions and stick to them. Try this on for size:

“I want to get in better shape.”

Is there anything actionable in that statement? Maybe? Maybe. But not really. What does that statement really mean?

“I am going to the gym Mon, Wed, and Fri. I am going to go online, or hire someone, to figure out my nutrition macros by next Friday so by next Monday I’ll have a plan in place that will see me through the next 12 weeks wherein I’ll drop 12 pounds of body fat and put on a pound of muscle. Additionally, I’ve committed to walking 7-10,000 steps per day.”

What’s actionable in that set of statements? All of it. There’s even a timeline. Which one of these case studies do you think will see more success?

It’s pretty obvious. Case study: “I want to get in better shape,” has no guard rails. There’s too much room for wishy-washiness. Things like being too tired, or too busy, or too anything can easily dissuade the arbitrary and frankly, bogus, commitment of “getting in better shape.” All it takes is one fleeting thought, a moment of hesitation, a negative blip on the radar and your plan of “getting in better shape,” is out the window.

By contrast, the second case study, you know the one- replete with specific directives and timelines, is calendar ready. Is it Monday? If the answer is yes, go to the gym. Is it Thursday, or any other day that ends in the letter, ‘Y?’ If the answer is yes6, then look at the pedometer you bought to track steps. Is the number on it less than 7,000? If the answer is yes, put on your shoes and get that number to your goal. Did you hit your protein/macro goal for the day, etc. You get the picture…

If you have specific goals, a detailed daily plan, and a timeline to achieve the goals, there is no reason to fail. Removing decision fatigue is key to success. We make so many decisions every single day. Creating non-negotiable lifestyle commitments is how you eliminate decision fatigue surrounding your health and wellness.

Step 2. Reward yourself for small and large victories.

Not with food!

12 weeks is a long time. It’s a good idea to regularly reward yourself for benchmarks met. For instance, if you’ve hit a new PR for an exercise, or ran a new, longer distance, or you hit your macros every day for a week, maybe you get a lil something. Maybe you play hooky and catch a matinee. Maybe you treat your friends to an escape room7 on Friday. Reward yourself with something that does not interfere with your progress! These rewards are what keep your dopamine levels high and with it, your motivation, followed by discipline.

After 12 weeks, and you’ve met all your goals8, give yourself a week to celebrate your success (okay, maybe with a little food that ventures outside your macros). Get it out of your system, then GET BACK AFTER IT. This is where discipline often goes off track. Set new goals. Adjust macros if needed. Change up your workout plan. But GET BACK AFTER IT and write that shit down. Put that shit on your calendar.

Step 3. Do this in perpetuity.

Stay with me here. This is where we get down to it. Once you’ve habituated a version of yourself that is sustainable, do that forever. Habituate your morning routine. Habituate your eating style. Habituate your exercise schedule. It’s all about sustainable habits. Is your nutrition plan grueling to the extent that you’re always hungry9? That’s not sustainable. Take time and figure out what is sustainable. I know the prospect of ‘forever’ is daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be quite empowering.

Once you’ve established your lifestyle, you’re free to take some vacations and not fear the slippery slope. You can have pizza. You can have martinis or beer. A hearty Bolognese with a California Cab? Yes please. You know, though, that your routine and your discipline is sitting right there for you to pick up the very next day. After all, it’s what you do. It’s who you are. Your actions are exactly who you’ve become. Permanently- unless you make different habits.

Like most things worth doing, it’s simple, but it’s not easy. The good news is that everyone can make significant lifestyle changes. It just takes a little motivation and a lot of discipline. Sometimes, in fact often, you’re going to have to use your new found discipline in the absence of motivation. That’s right. If you wait to be motivated before you put on your running shoes or hit the gym, there’s a good chance it’s not getting done. Don’t worry though. If you’ve done your work, it’s now a habit. Find your discipline through understanding how your brain and physiology work and set it up!

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Greetings from Life on the Installment Plan! You may have noticed a void where this blog, newsletter, meandering missive, whatever this is, has been. Maybe you haven’t noticed. The point is, I’ve been preoccupied with some pretty big changes here at camp Scaglione/Lynn.

After 31 years living in Oakland, Ca, (well, 31 for me, 14 for Arrica), we’ve decided to pack it up and head south to the land of Arrica’s origin- sunny Los Angeles. The decision to part ways with NorCal was not made hastily. Oakland is very much my home and I will miss this place with all of my being. I moved here when I was 20 years old in my 1986 Chevy Celebrity station wagon with two guitars, an amplifier, two garbage bags of clothes, a couple boxes of records, a couple boxes of ‘things,’ a few boxes of books- armed with nothing more than the youthful exuberance of a life about to unfold. And unfold it did.

So if you’ve been missing LotIP, that’s where I’ve been- in the lab figuring out this next phase. I intend to keep the Installment going. I love doing it. But you know how I am constantly preaching balance, yeah? I am trying to maintain some and as a result, some things have had to be sidelined, including Life on the Installment Plan.

Big picture-Now it’s time to explore elsewhere, Los Angeles.

If you’re reading this, you know what I do. I’m a purveyor of all things health and wellness. I’m looking to bring the message of Life on the Installment Plan south. I’ll be setting up shop in LA doing all the things I do- you know, health, fitness, nutrition, mindfulness, wellness, coaching.

Though the exact timeline for the move remains uncertain, other than ‘sometime this fall,’ I’ll be looking for clients when we do arrive. Please feel free to contact me if you’re in the LA area and you’ve ever been interested in getting some coaching.

We’re excited for this change! I look forward to connecting with the health and wellness community in Los Angeles. Please reach out so we can connect!

And stay tuned for more of the regular programming you’re accustomed to from Life on the Installment Plan. We’ll be back!

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Science is dynamic. The true nature of all systems is that they’re constantly shifting; changing. Old ideas get replaced with new, better ones. The best case scenario is that the new ideas replace the old ones because there is new, tested, falsifiable evidence supporting the change of thinking. As someone who’s been in the health and fitness industry a long time, I’ve seen many a sea change over the years. I’ve seen trends come and go and then, occasionally, come back again. Many of these have been ‘backed by science.’ It turns out everything is a dynamic moving target. Here are five science supported topics that I’ve changed my mind about. These are in no particular order. Here we go.

Intermittent Fasting1 (IF)

The most common style of intermittent fasting could more accurately be called ‘time restricted eating,’ wherein a specific window of the day is considered feeding time and the rest is fasting time. The most popular version of this style is 16:8, which means 16 hours of every day is spent fasting ie. No calories are being consumed via food or drink. The remaining 8 hours is the eating window.

The original studies on IF were very promising. Here are a few of the benefits that were purported: Weight/fat loss, improved insulin sensitivity, which indicates better metabolic health, reduced inflammation, high rates of autophagy2, and better brain and cognitive function.

Sounds pretty great, does it not?

It turns out that IF does, indeed, promote all those things, but there’s a catch- so does regular, old fashioned, caloric restriction (Science Direct). Yes. It appears that all of the positive outcomes realized from IF can be seen with normal caloric restriction when the daily calories are equated.

This does not mean IF serves no other useful function. If one uses IF as their preferred style of caloric restriction, by all means, stay with it. For body fat loss, caloric restriction is necessary. Many people find the parameters of IF to be easy to follow and therefore reach their body composition goals. If I’m looking to get leaner, I’ll do a lil intermittent fasting. Think of IF as eating guard rails. But it’s not magic.

Cardio for Weight Loss

Let’s set the scene:

The 80s through the 90s were wild times for the fitness industry. If cardio was king (queen), the outfits were the jester. If you wanted to lose weight, you were told to log countless hours in aerobics classes, on the StairMaster, walking, running, anything to ‘burn calories.’ I, too, thought cardio was the answer to weight loss. So why didn’t everyone lose weight? The answer to that question is complex, but it sure as hell wasn’t because no one was doing enough aerobics.

Doing cardio most certainly burns calories. But the amount of calories actually burned is lower than once thought. The other, far more important factor that required many more human metabolic studies, is that our bodies have an amazingly uncanny ability to conserve energy if a bunch gets burned. My favorite study that so elegantly demonstrates this phenomenon is one that involves the Hadza people, a hunter-gatherer population living in Tanzania (NIH). Visit the study if you like, but here’s the gist.

Scientists tracked the daily caloric expenditure of the Hadza men and women who spent the better part of each day collecting food and water etc., that is to say moving quite a lot, far more than typical western populations. What the scientists found out was shocking. The average daily caloric expense was not statistically significantly higher in the Hadza people than it is in industrialized populations. What apparently happens, though all the mechanisms by which it happens are not entirely understood, human systems accommodate for the calories burned through movement by sparing energy allocation to other physiological functions. If you burn a bunch of calories running, or in aerobics class, or whatever, your body will find a way to limit your calories burned the rest of the day. You might move less. You might lean instead of standing. Your NEAT3 will decrease. The point is, our bodies have evolved for that long winter. It’s only since the industrial revolution that we westerners have absurd food surpluses. Our design suggests that energy storage is paramount in the event of a food shortage. As a result, we’re very clever at holding on to energy. Our favorite energy to hold onto is fat. Lucky us!

Relax. Cardio is still important. I love cardio. Here’s how to look at it from a health perspective. Cardio supports weight/fat loss. All movement will support a higher metabolic rate. Cardiovascular exercise has tons of health and heart benefits that are important for quality of life and longevity4. But it’s not the answer to weight loss. Exercise is for fitness. Diet and nutrition are for body composition. There’s no other way around it. Abs are made in the kitchen.

LDL5 Cholesterol

Here’s where we get controversial. I have flip flopped on this subject two times. There are basically two camps here.

In one camp we have the people that believe that high LDL is not, in itself, a problem. If other markers of favorable metabolic health are present, such as non-obesity, normal blood pressure, normal blood sugar, etc, then having high LDL doesn’t present an issue. Furthermore, proponents of disregarding LDL believe that a more important factor to look at is the relationship between HDL6 and triglycerides. If your HDL is on the higher side and triglycerides are low, then LDL is a non issue.

In the other camp, we have people that believe high LDL, on its own, is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

I belong to the latter camp. I have not always pitched my tent here, however. I initially believed that high LDL was problematic. Then sometime in the early 2000s new research was being conducted on dietary cholesterol absorption. It was determined that dietary cholesterol can not be absorbed7 and that the cholesterol in our bodies was determined wholly by genetics. That’s when my opinion changed the first time regarding LDL. At the time, the most reliable science suggested this to be the case.

More research was conducted and what was determined next was that the consumption of too much saturated fat had the potential to cause people to make a higher amount of LDL. This theory turns out to be true. Still, many folks continued to undervalue the affect of LDL on heart disease, saying that other factors are far more important.

In the summer of 2022 a meta analysis8 of a total of 14 independent reports, including 1,055,309 subjects and 9457 events, were analyzed (NIH). Here’s what it said:

“In our meta-analysis, high serum levels of TC (Total Cholesterol) and LDL-C increased the CVD (CardioVascular Disease) mortality above the reference level, and low HDL-C was associated with an increased CVD mortality.”

The study also said there is a near linear relationship between LDL level and cardiovascular disease risk. That’s enough evidence to change my mind.

Training to Failure

First, allow me to describe what training to failure is9. In strength training, training to failure simply means performing repetitions of an exercise until one can no longer perform anymore repetitions with proper form. Ie. Lifting to honest physical exhaustion.

Training to failure has long been the go to method for body builders. The theory is that all available motor units10 as well as all muscle fibers will be adequately stimulated to provide the most opportunity for muscle growth. Another claim is that it bathes the muscle in metabolites which stimulates adaptation. It sounds like it makes sense. It sure did to me. And technically it does.

The issue with training to failure is that the rate of fatigue is so high for each set that achieving enough training volume becomes difficult due to the fatigue, even with several minutes of recovery between sets. One has to decrease the weight if the lifter wants to continue the workout.

Here’s what the science says. In short, training to failure is unnecessary, and, actually counterproductive (The Conversation). One can achieve better results by stopping most sets of an exercise with two to three Reps in Reserve (RiR)11. Training this way allows the lifter to keep the intensity and volume high without accumulating as much fatigue which offers more opportunity for adaptation.

There is a time and place for lifting to failure. If one doesn’t know what it feels like to train to failure, there’s no way to gauge how close to failure one is. It’s important to understand what that feeling is like. It’s very uncomfortable. It’s so uncomfortable that most people think they’ve hit failure when actually, they’re more like three or so repetitions out. Once one understands what that intensity really feels like, it’s easier to perform at the appropriate intensity to finish the sets with two to three RiR.

Intentional Cold Exposure (aka Ice Baths) for Exercise Recovery

“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”- Economist, Thomas Sowell

The above saying has become a refrain that resurfaces frequently when considering all manner of health and wellness protocols. Ice baths are no different. What is an ice bath? It’s exactly what it sounds like. Sounds awful, right? They are. So why do fitness folk flock to ice baths like they’re about to be banned12? The purported benefits of ice baths are- reduced acute inflammation, reduced DOMS13, improved circulation, quicker recovery from exercise, mood enhancement, weight loss, immune system boosting, and improved sleep. Ice baths are great for reducing inflammation, temporarily improving circulation, and mood enhancement14. Ice baths may aid in better sleep and immune system bolstering. They do not directly aid in weight loss or recovery from exercise.

Wait a hot second! What?! If ice baths reduce inflammation, doesn’t that automatically suggest that they should also aid in recovery from exercise? Sort of…

Ice baths will bring down muscle inflammation associated with exercise. That may promote and speed up some aspects of recovery. I know it sounds crazy. But you’re gonna want that inflammation. Acute inflammation is a byproduct of the damage caused to muscle tissue during exercise. This specific inflammatory response is characterized by the recruitment of immune cells like macrophages and neutrophils. They help clear the cells of damaged tissue. Additionally, the exercise induced inflammation signals muscle stem cells, called satellite cells, to activate and proliferate. This process is essential for muscle growth as the satellite cells fuse with existing cells to form new, stronger muscle tissue. Inflammation also stimulates the proliferation of myoblasts15, as well as the release of growth factors16 and cytokines17 which are necessary for muscle protein synthesis.

So much for demonizing inflammation. It’s important to note, however, that chronic inflammation is bad. It’s the transient type we’re looking for. The kind that’s associated with an acute bout of exercise is not only beneficial. It’s necessary. Ice baths attenuate that response. Some studies show that ice baths hinder muscle growth and repair for up to 24 hours after a training session.

Ice baths have some benefits. For instance, if you are an athlete that needs to recover quickly for a competition18, by all means, get in the ice bath. Or if you’re doing it for the dopamine response, fantastic. But, muscle growth and development aren’t part of the benefit package. In fact, ice baths after training kill your gains, as they say.

So there you have it. Five things I’ve changed my mind about. Give it a minute. There will surely be more.

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I have to start this a bit unconventionally, that is to say, with caveats. Everything in this article represents the general protocols I follow 80%-90% of the time. I am not a robot. It’s true I tend to be regimented in most things that I do, but life is short and routines are meant to be broken.2 What’s salient is consistency. To make real progress with anything worth having involves doing the same thing…over and over…ad nauseam, with occasional departures to make sure we’re still human. Caveat number two- this article is not a recommendation. This is simply what I do. Also, I am self employed and my ‘kid’ is 27 years old. I truly recognize and appreciate the luxury of my schedule.3 Let’s start at the beginning…

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Morning Routine

Remember that pandemic? It sucked, right? There was one good thing that came from it though, and that is- I was afforded the opportunity to lift my head up from the bustle of owning two businesses and realize just how burnt out I had become. Pre-pandemic, I was at work at 7am, Monday-Friday. My morning routine consisted of getting up to an alarm at 6am, drinking coffee while checking email, shower, quick food while getting my day organized, then out the door by 6:50.4 No longer needing an alarm as a result of having both businesses shuttered, I woke when my body was ready and eased into the day. It was through developing a civilized and productive morning routine that the burn out caused by my former schedule became abundantly evident. Fast forward to the end of the pandemic- I made a promise to myself not to go back to using an alarm and going to work so early.5 That decision is one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. I had the time and desire to continue and expand the morning routine I had developed. I’ve always been a morning person but I no longer ‘waste’ that productivity window being at work. Here’s a rundown of my typical morning:

I usually wake up between 5am-6:30am, depending on what time I went to bed. I drink one cup of coffee while I do a few work things like my bookkeeping and preparing my clients’ sessions for the day. I do all this with my light therapy lamp6 (aka SAD lamp) situated in front of me. After I’ve finished the day planning and coffee I meditate for half an hour to an hour depending on how much time I have. Next I go for the second coffee and check email and maybe read some news. The order here is by design. I don’t want to be upset by anything before I meditate.7 If I still have time I do some writing.8 Lastly, depending on the day, I’ll go for a walk, a run, or get to the gym to work out before my work day starts. Oh yeah, my breakfast is usually a smoothie. What goes in that smoothie and when I have it depends on what type of workout I have that day.

Nutrition

I’ve been mostly vegetarian for over 30 years.9 Depending on what type/phase of training I’m doing, I try to consume 2200-2800 calories per day. I shoot for 130g-180g of protein per day, which comes out to around 520cal-720cal. As a vegetarian I lean heavily on whey protein powder.10

My other main sources of protein are high protein, low fat veggie ‘meats,’ low fat cottage cheese, no fat Greek yogurt,11 all manner of beans, PB Fit,12 low sugar, low fat protein bars13, eggs, high protein tofu, and as mentioned, isolated whey protein. I keep track of my protein consumption over the course of the day and if I haven’t hit my requirement, I’ll top off with a bit of whey protein.14

With protein calories accounted, that leaves 1680cal-2080cal to split between carbs and fat. Studies show that it makes little to no difference in terms of body weight, how carbs and fat calories are distributed provided protein and overall calorie standards are met. I choose which macronutrient to prioritize based on the type and duration of workout I have that day. If I’m going hard that day, I will over-index on the carbs. It comes down to preference, really. The main point is that I hit my daily protein and overall calorie goal.

My main carbohydrate sources are sprouted whole grain bread, potatoes, sweet potatoes, quinoa, high protein pasta, all manner of veggies and mushrooms, fruit (usually frozen in smoothies). Occasionally I’ll have some brown rice. Additionally I have a couple servings of sauerkraut daily.15 Fermented foods are great for the gut biome.

The fat sources I choose are primarily nuts16, olive oil, butter, avocado oil, and cheese. I also take an algae Omega 3 supplement, which I’ll get into in a bit.

Supplements

This topic is a bit tricky. I am especially reluctant to get into this, so before I do, note: no one needs to take supplements. Furthermore, when choosing supplements, make sure there’s a reason for any particular choice. Ask yourself why you want to use a supplement. Don’t ask yourself, “Why not?” They’re too expensive and too unpredictable to use willy-nilly. Most supplements are BS. Here’s what I use daily and why.

• Creatine Monohydrate- Promotes a robust phosphocreatine environment in the muscle for ATP (energy) production for muscle development and growth. It also promotes cognitive function. Next to caffeine, creatine is the most studied supplement of the last 30 years.17 It works.

• Caffeine- Unless you’re living under a rock, you obviously know about caffeine. I drink 2 cups of coffee a day and occasionally have a bonus shot of espresso at work. I use caffeine for the usual reasons. It’s awesome. Too much is, well, too much. But within reason, it’s a great stimulant with very little downside when used appropriately. Caffeine is also thermogenic. It works best if you don’t use it every day. But, alas, that’s not something I’m willing to do.

• NMN- Nicotinamide mononucleotide- This supplement is the only one I use that’s not proven. I almost don’t even want to talk about it because it goes against my approach to supplementation. I am so intrigued and compelled by the concept of it though. Here’s what it’s purported to do: NMN is a precursor to NAD+ (Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide). When taken orally, NMN gets converted to NAD+ which is a compound that supports metabolic function, DNA repair, and living cell robustness. NAD+ levels decrease as we age. NMN increases NAD+ levels.18 Among the longevity community, it’s pretty popular.

• Ashwagandha- Ashwagandha falls under the adaptogen19 umbrella. I use it to aid in recovery from workouts and to help limit and reduce stress. It’s also purported to increase or maintain testosterone levels.

• Rhodiola-Rosea- Also an adaptogen, rhodiola-rosea has some overlap with ashwagandha. Known for its use for stress and anxiety reduction, it also staves off fatigue, acute and chronic. It boosts mood as well as mental and physical performance. But wait! There’s more: it’s a natural anti-inflammatory and antioxidant.

• Vitamins D20 and K- Vitamins D3 and K2 work synergistically to support bone and cardiovascular health. D3 aids in calcium absorption and K2 ensures calcium is directed to bones, preventing its deposition in arteries.

• Zinc- I use zinc purely for its positive effect on the immune system.

• Whey Protein- See above.

• Algal Omega 3- Omega-3 fatty acids, particularly DHA and EPA, offer numerous health benefits, including supporting heart, brain, and eye health, reducing inflammation, and potentially aiding in mental health. Omega 3s are where it’s at.

Training

I try to do something every day. The specific routine varies depending on what my goals are for a given period. I come from an endurance sport background. Occasionally I’ll get a wild hair and do a ton of run training (running is my true love) and get in shape to do some racing. Other times I’ll go heavy with the strength training. Sometimes I’ll focus on more of a hybrid style wherein I’ll combine high intensity strength training and cardio. For the purpose of this article, I’ll give the lowdown on what I’m doing these days.

Strength Train 4 days/week

• Tuesday: 45min-1hr. Push or Pull.

• Wednesday: 45min-1hr. Push or Pull (whichever one I didn’t do on Tuesday)

• Thursday: 45 min-1.5 hr. Deadlift/Power/Legs. I’ll often do an intense Kettlebell program on Thursday. Thursdays are my favorite.

• Saturday: 45 min-1.5hr. Full body strength/power.

Run 3 days/week= 18-20 miles total21.

• Monday: ~6 miles. Usually my intensity/interval day

• Wednesday: ~6 miles. Usually easy or medium.

• Friday: ~6 miles. Very easy.

Walk22 2-3 days/week

• Tuesday: Typically 1hr 20min-1.5hrs. Or I walk to work.

• Saturday: Walk to the gym.

• Sunday: Walk for 2 or so hours. Lately I’ve gotten into weighted walking, or rucking. That’s still pretty new to me. I use a weight vest that has removable weight bars so I can modulate how heavy my ‘pack’ is. I think I love rucking. We’ll see. Stay tuned…

I do some mobility and stability training every day- either at work between clients or on my strength training days. My step goal is 10,000 per day. I accumulate about 8-11.5 hours per week of physical activity.

So there you have it- One 51 year old’s, health, fitness, and nutrition purveyor’s, wellness regimen. Feel free to ask me questions if you have any. I love this stuff.

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“I feel sorry for people that don't drink because when they wake up in the morning, that is the best they're going to feel all day.”-Frank Sinatra

Part IV- Alcohol

What is alcohol?

The chemical structure of alcohol, aka ethanol, aka drinking alcohol, is represented as CH3CH2OH which features a carbon chain with two carbon atoms, five hydrogen atoms, and one hydroxyl group (-OH) attached to one of the carbon atoms. The formula for alcohols is ROH, where "R" represents an alkyl group (a chain of carbon and hydrogen atoms). While the structure isn’t totally dissimilar to carbohydrates and fat in that they are all organic compounds containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, functionally they behave quite differently.

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The scope of this article deals with alcohol itself- not the passengers that come with a lot of alcoholic drinks-that is to say, beer, wine, and all the delicious mixers that make your cocktails contain a lot of carbohydrates in addition to alcohol. The body deals with those carbs the same way it deals with all the others ingested through other sources. Alcohol gets metabolized via its own specific pathways.

Alcohol absorption actually begins in the mouth due to its relatively small molecular size. It can cross the mucosal lining in both the stomach and the mouth. Most of the absorption occurs in the small intestines, however. From the small intestines, alcohol enters the blood stream where it gets shuttled to the liver via the portal vein. The liver is where the real action takes place2!

Once in the liver, specific enzymes get to work. The main one is called Alcohol Dehydrogenase (ADH)3. ADH breaks down alcohol into acetaldehyde, which is toxic. The body needs to deal with that special poison pretty quickly so another similar enzyme to ADH, called Aldehyde Dehydrogenase (ALDH) converts what remains into Acetate. Once in a nontoxic, stable state, the body converts acetate into water and CO2 then eliminates those through urine, sweat, and breath.

Why do I care?

“The only thing I like more than drinking is not drinking.”- Mark W Lynn4

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Alcohol has been consumed for almost as long as humans have been civilized. There are archaeological records from China dating back to 7000 BC showing the consumption of rice wine. Alcohol is featured in most human events, whether they are happy, sad, religious, or otherwise. It’s safe to say that alcohol is fairly culturally ubiquitous. Recently, though, alcohol has come under attack from the medical and health and wellness communities. Are the attacks warranted? Is alcohol as harmless as we once thought? Is abstaining completely necessary? What is moderation? Isn’t some alcohol considered healthy and beneficial?

Here’s the problem with alcohol: it’s insidious. When we drink, we get a hit of a serotonin and dopamine. That’s why it’s so pleasant initially. It gets a bit tricky from there, however. Those feelings of satisfaction and slight euphoria dissipate fairly quickly as those neurotransmitters are uptook. So the body has to produce more. Then more. Then more again as one continues to drink. Over time serotonin and dopamine get depleted leading to acute or chronic feelings of anxiety and depression depending on the level of depletion. To make matters worse, much of serotonin’s and dopamine’s production occurs in the gut by the gut biome. Alcohol decimates that too compounding the problem. If you’ve ever had a rager of a weekend and you find yourself still feeling inexplicably low come Wednesday, this is likely why. It takes a while after drinking for the body to replenish its neurotransmitter stores.

Here’s another problem. Alcohol is poisonous. Remember that stuff acetaldehyde? That byproduct of alcohol metabolism? Yeah, it’s a known carcinogen. In fact, one of the final acts of the last presidential administration was for the Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, to call for cancer warnings to be added to the packaging of alcoholic beverages in the same way they were added to tobacco products previously. Alcohol has been associated with at least six types of cancer (Northwestern Med).

Ready for more? Let’s have a casual chat about alcohol and the liver. The first thing that usually happens to the liver as a result of over consuming alcohol is what’s known as Alcohol-related Liver Disease (ALD). How long it takes for ALD to develop varies person to person. It usually takes several years but it can come on much quicker depending on the frequency and quantity of drinking. It’s usually asymptomatic in the early stages. If unchecked, the next phase is liver fibrosis. That results from actual scarring of the liver from overworking it. Finally, we get to cirrhosis, which is largely irreversible. Cirrhosis is characterized by the death of liver cells called hepatocytes. There’s not much to do once one reaches severe cirrhosis. Unfortunately, over time, cirrhosis will likely be fatal. Then there’s the higher likelihood of getting liver cancer as well.

Thought we were done? Want to know how alcohol affects the ol’ ticker?Here’s a quick list:

-cardiomyopathy

-arrhythmias

-hypertension

-increased stroke risk

While these cardiac maladies are not certain to occur, they’re not unlikely through chronic alcohol abuse. It appears there’s no positive outcome from drinking alcohol apart from the initial enjoyable sensations associated with it. Let’s keep going.

Ever have a hangover turn into actually getting sick? That’s because alcohol is known to damage the immune system. Inflammation is a necessary process the body gets involved with. Chronic inflammation, however, is not good. Alcohol consumption increases the production of inflammatory cytokines which can damage tissues associated with the immune system making drinkers more susceptible to infections. Alcohol also impairs white blood cell function. Finally, alcohol limits the production of antibodies, which exposes us to risk of being infected by pathogens.

Almost out of the woods! Where would this article be without mention of those pesky hormones. Yep! Alcohol is going after those too. It appears that alcohol affects the production of thyroid hormones, testosterone and estrogen, and insulin. To add gasoline to that fire, alcohol also appears to raise cortisol production resulting in feelings of stress, poor sleep, and weight gain.

Phew! That was rough. But is that an exhaustive accounting of all the ways alcohol negatively affects us humans? Not quite…

As mentioned, alcohol is poison. Because of this, our bodies desperately want to deal with it. The desperation is so acute that it becomes priority number 1, with a bullet, to get it processed and out of the body asap. In fact, most other processes get put on the back burner. The food you ate while drinking is getting stored as fat. Also remember that alcohol has 7 calories per gram. It’s incredibly hard to maintain weight or lose weight while drinking heavily.

That should do it for the major issues associated with drinking alcohol beyond moderation. There are more downstream problems with the over-consumption of alcohol, but for brevity’s sake, we’ll just stick with the glaring issues.

Alcohol Sources

It would be silly to list a bunch of booze. You all know what you like and dislike. Let me say this: some alcohol sources come with passengers. Others don’t. For instance, wine has quite a bit of carbohydrate in the form of sugars that add to its calorie count. The same goes for beers, ciders, and a host of mixers. Straight alcohols like whiskey, vodka, gin, rum, tequila, etc, don’t have carbs in them, but this leads to their very fast absorption. What’s important to know is that all alcohol, no matter the type or source, is going to be treated the same way inside the body.

How much do I need?

None. Zip. Zilch. The empty set.

Alcohol is considered void of nutrition, which is why it’s not technically a macronutrient. Furthermore, the latest research suggests that there is no healthy amount of alcohol that can be consumed. It was thought, until recently, that there were some geroprotective5 qualities of alcohol, possibly contributed by some antioxidants. Unfortunately those studies were confounded by further meta-analyses. It appears that the studies may have been flawed because many drinkers who identified as abstainers were not lifetime non drinkers and abstained due to former alcohol abuse. Furthermore, people who identified as light drinkers may have had over-all healthier lifestyles across the board. That led to the false conclusion that the modest alcohol consumption was the reason for the light drinkers’ longevity. This is to say, there is no identifiable mechanism associated with alcohol consumption that leads to a net positive health outcome. Bummer.

Conclusion

Wild ride, right? It looks like alcohol is not doing anyone any favors from a health and wellness perspective. It’s true. It’s not. But does that mean total abstinence is the only option? Not necessarily. The human body is a remarkably resilient, hedonic, adaptive, awe inspiring beast! Maybe the most impressively resilient part of the human body is the liver. Up to 90% of the liver is able to be regenerated, making it the only human organ capable of such a feat. This is great news for folks who tend to over-consume alcohol. Provided no permanent damage has been done, there’s no reason quitting or cutting back on alcohol won’t reverse the ill effects of drinking. If you are someone who has a few drinks every now and again, you should be fine. The guidelines are as follows: The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that men drink two drinks or fewer per day, and women drink one drink or fewer per day (NIH). The recommendations are general and they differ due to average body sizes; men are usually bigger than women.

Like all things related to nutrition: be mindful. Pay attention to the things you put in your body. Can you occasionally indulge? Absolutely! Just don’t do it thoughtlessly or habitually. As you would with ice cream, or any other junk food, practice drinking in moderation. And don’t pretend that drinking alcohol is in any way good for you.

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Part III- Carbohydrates

What is carbohydrate?

A carbohydrate's chemical structure is characterized by a ring of carbon atoms with multiple hydroxyl groups (-OH) attached, generally following the formula Cn(H2O)n, meaning it consists of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms (just like fat) where hydrogen is almost always twice as numerous as oxygen atoms (unlike fat). Essentially, a carbohydrate is just as its name- a "hydrate of carbon" with a basic structure of carbon chains with attached hydroxyl groups. 

The simplest unit of a carbohydrate is a monosccharide, which is a single sugar molecule. If there are two monosaccharides linked together, the unit is called a disaccharide. Three or more linked is called a polysaccharide. Some examples of these are glucose, sucrose3, and starch respectively.

When humans consume carbohydrates, their breakdown begins in the mouth via chewing and an enzyme called salivary amylase. As they make their way through the digestive system, the pancreas releases another dose of amylase. Ultimately, once arriving in the small intestines as a disaccharide, yet another enzyme reduces it to a monosaccharide thereby making it readily absorbed by the small intestines into the bloodstream and off it goes to all the things in the body that require energy production.

One other carbohydrate type that needs mention is dietary fiber. Fiber can not be absorbed into the bloodstream and passes through the body mostly intact. Fiber is quite important, but I’ll get into that in a future Installment.

Carbohydrate’s main function is an energy source. On a small scale, some carbohydrates aid in forming some structure in cells.

Why do I care?

Welp, here we go again. Introducing the current, heavy-weight, dietary boogieman champion of the world, carbs. Carbs dethroned fat as the macro-non grata at the end of the 90s. A book called The Zone, by Barry Sears, set the tone. Following that came the popularization of the Atkins diet as well as a host of others.

These low carb diets supplanted the low fat diets for weight loss because, clearly, low fat diets weren’t working4. As with the low fat trend of the 80s and 90s, the insatiable, gaping maw of capitalism revealed vast opportunities. Books were being sold. Diet foods and drinks that boasted low or zero carbs were flying off the shelves, and still are! I can’t tell you how often I hear people literally brag about how few carbs they eat. And how’s the obesity epidemic going? Not good. Decidedly not. Well, why? Because there are no dietary boogiemen. Here’s the thing, identifying a single culprit is attractive. It lends the appearance of ease. Who doesn’t love the idea that if one cuts out or limits a single thing, carbs, they’ll miraculously get skinny5? Yet, here we are- still talking about it!

Here’s why you care. It’s not the carbs6 making us and keeping us obese. THERE ARE NO DIETARY BOOGIEMEN. Glucose is absolutely essential for humans to survive. There are very few, if any, human processes that don’t require glucose either directly or tangentially. The most efficient way to get glucose to the cells is to eat carbohydrates. Our bodies can convert protein into glucose through a process called gluconeogensis, but it’s a giant, energetically expensive pain the ass. It highlights how important glucose is though. Here’s the thing with carbs- they’re not all created equal. Like protein, carbs are four calories per gram- whether they’re in the form of table sugar or brown rice. The problem is, as with fat, sugar makes everything taste better resulting in it being copiously added by major food companies to prepackaged, highly palatable, calorically dense, and nutritionally barren foods. High fructose corn syrup is cheap. Companies love cheap. Capitalism wins again at the expense of public health. The problem isn’t carbs themselves. The problem is the overconsumption of them. When carbohydrates are over consumed, ie. consumed beyond an individual’s caloric needs, through a process called lipogenesis, the body converts glucose to fat. In all likelihood, you’ve heard of the hormone insulin. Insulin’s job is to regulate blood sugar. Insulin helps shuttle serum glucose into cells of the muscles and liver as glycogen. Once those stores are full, there’s only one place to go and that’s fat.

There’s great controversy regarding insulin’s role compared to overall calories’ role in obesity7. I have this to say about that: when calories and protein are equated, the amount of fat compared to the amount of carbs ingested does not affect weight loss (NIH). Read that again. The entire point of the study referenced was to see if there was a difference. There wasn’t. What appears to be the case is individuals respond to the amount of carbs or fat in different ways associated with overeating. Often, higher carb diets lead to over consumption compared to higher fat diets8.

The key is to find something that works for you. There is nothing wrong with eating a low carb diet. There is nothing wrong with eating a high carb diet. There are many ways to achieve one’s nutritional and weight loss goals. I often quote: “The concepts are few. The methods are many.” What’s important is eating the types and quantities of carbohydrates that support your lifestyle and goals. If you’re an endurance athlete you can get away with eating more simple carbs because your overall caloric expenditure is relatively high. If you’re less active, eating fewer carbs probably makes sense because the energy production needs are much lower.

Simple carbs, ie. sugary foods and drinks, aren’t filling and are easy to way over consume. We burn through them quickly and because our primitive genetic proclivities love it, we seek out more, often right away9. We haven’t evolved away from a food scarcity problem. We’re designed for famine. Complex carbs, aka polysaccharides, are more satiating and won’t spike blood glucose levels. Really, it all comes down to what’s going to prevent a person from over consuming.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention glycemic index. Honestly, I don’t even feel like talking about it. So boring. So 199910. But here ya go: the glycemic index is a measure of how much and how quickly various foods raise blood glucose. The range is from 0-100 with sugary foods and drinks being on the high end and complex carbs on the low end. But this all becomes moot when you combine foods. Unless you’re consuming a single food or drink the glycemic index is modulated across all the items in the meal. That is to say, if you put some brown sugar on your oats the entirety of the meal gets its own glycemic index, which will be significantly lower than sugar by itself. Glycemic index really only matters if you’re eating a lot of a particular food by itself. Sure, it’s prudent to pay attention to this on some level. But we’re talking about balanced eating here. Common sense should prevail.

Carbohydrate Sources

As mentioned, all carbs are four calories per gram. The focus should be on eating complex carbohydrates due to their satiety factor and their nutrient density.

Some of the best sources of complex carbs are:

• Sweet Potatoes

• Corn

• Oats

• Whole wheat sprouted breads

• Legumes like beans etc

• Quinoa

• Brown rice

• Farro

• Buckwheat

• Lentils

• Peas

• Most vegetables

• Squash

• Most fruit (only when consumed as whole fruit, not juice)

• Whole grains

Carbs sources that should probably be limited:

• Fruit juice

• Sodas

• Pasta11

• White bread

• Any food or drink with more than 5g added sugar12

How much do I need?

Most people should consume about 40%-65% of their diet from carbohydrates. That’s a broad generalization. Because our bodies are so damn adaptive, far less can be consumed and one can still thrive13! We’ll always find a way to get/make glucose so long as calories are being consumed. And if that fails our brains and muscles can use ketones when glucose gets really depleted14. Activity level and preference should dictate how much carbohydrate gets consumed so long as protein and calories are accounted for.

Conclusion

Like fat, carbs are not the boogieman. Carbohydrates should be consumed by most people. What’s most important is to fuel our bodies with adequate energy to sustain our activity level. Focus on complex carbs. Don’t eat too much (carbs and in general). Eat protein and fat with your carbs. You can eat some sugar. Just know your brain is going to possibly tell you you want more. If that’s you, avoid it. Carbohydrates are awesome. Eat them without guilt. Choose the best ones that suit your lifestyle. As always, eat mindfully.

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Part II- Fat

What is fat?

A fat molecule, also called a triglyceride, is composed of a glycerol spine with three fatty acid tails attached to it- essentially, a glycerol molecule bonded to three fatty acid chains, where each fatty acid is a long hydrocarbon chain ending with a carboxyl group. Unlike protein, which has nitrogen, fat is comprised of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.

When humans consume fat, our bodies break it down into fatty acids which can readily be absorbed into the bloodstream. In the stomach, an enzyme called lipase begins breaking down the structure of fat. During its time in our digestive tracts, fat goes through a number of processes performed by the gall bladder, and intestines, etc, to ensure its absorption, not the least of which is its combining with water to form an emulsification that the body can use4.

There are four different types of dietary fat that we consume. They are saturated fat (SFA), monounsaturated fat (MUFA), polyunsaturated fat (PUFA), and trans fat (TFA). For practical purposes, fat is used by our bodies for energy, shock absorption, endocrine function, nervous system insulation, as well as nutrient absorption.

Why do I care?

Here we go. Let’s get into it. Let’s talk about the former, undisputed dietary boogieman of the 80s and 90s. If you were alive, you remember. Low fat food items were the absolute craze of the era. Food packaging often featured the grams of fat prominently displayed. Commercials boasted of the low fat content of their breakfast cereals5. It seems counterintuitive that the influx of low fat foods into the market coincides with one of the steepest parts of the slope of the obesity epidemic graph.

So why didn’t eating all that low fat food stem the spread of obesity? There are many reasons, but probably the main one is that all that fat in packaged food was replaced with sugar thereby maintaining, or often increasing, the calorie content of any particular food. So by making fat the singular nutritional pariah, all other metrics of dietary balance were neglected. People ate, ad libitum, all the low fat food they could cram into their carb holes.

Here’s why you care- low fat food didn’t stop the rise of obesity. Fat wasn’t, and isn’t the boogieman. There are no nutritional boogiemen6. Fat is an important energy source. Fat provides insulation. We need fat for our gorgeous hair and skin. Our endocrine systems rely on fat for hormone production. Fat soluble vitamins, A, E, and D are not readily absorbed in its absence. The membranes of all of our cells are largely comprised of fat. Our nervous system is lined with it. The stuff is important! You’re going to want some dietary fat. Here’s the thing with fat though- of the three main macronutrients, it’s the most energetically dense. There are more than twice the calories in fat than in protein or carbohydrates7. It is for that reason that it became the macro-non grata for that period of time.

Fat Sources

As with protein, fat sourcing is controversial. Remember there are basically four types of dietary fat: SFAs, MUFAs, PUFAs, and TFAs. We can eliminate the conversation surrounding TFAs because they are outlawed in the USA8. We'll focus on saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats. There’s a divide in the nutrition community regarding what’s considered ‘healthy’ fat.

The folks who tend to support a meat heavy diet claim that the relatively high amounts of saturated fat is of no consequence. Studies show that high amounts of saturated fat can cause an increase in LDL, (NIH). Studies also show that high LDL is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease (Johns Hopkins). Meat lovers claim that LDL can be off the charts so long as the other markers of metabolic health are favorable.

Another controversy amongst the nutrition community is the conversation surrounding seed oils, aka Omega-6 fatty acids, which are PUFAs. A few of the main ones are canola, safflower, sunflower, grapeseed, corn, soybean, cottonseed, and rice bran oils. Those that tend to demonize seed oils claim that Omega-6s are the main drivers of inflammation9. While there is a mechanism that supports this claim, meta analyses suggest that only .2% of Omega-6s gets converted to the substance associated with inflammation (NIH). We have to remember that correlation does not equal causation. In this case we have major packaged food companies selling cheap, hyper palatable, calorically dense, nutritionally bereft items. Seed oils are cheap. Companies love cheap, so they put these oils in EVERYTHING. One could make the leap that the seed oils in the foods is what’s causing inflammation. When tested, this simply isn’t the case (TUoQ). What’s more likely causing inflammation is excess body fat one accumulates from eating these foods. Adipose tissue releases cytokines which signal an inflammation response. Think of correlation’s relationship to causation this way: In the summer, ice cream sales always go up. In the summer, shark attack frequency also increases. Does that mean the boom in ice cream sales causes the increase in shark attacks? Obviously not. They happen in parallel. The same goes for many other things that show a relationship void of causality. With nutrition, mechanisms are important and need to be studied in order to ascertain whether there’s a causal relationship or a correlative one. But what’s far more important than specific mechanisms is outcomes. If we look at outcomes, seed oils appear to not be inherently dangerous.

Another type of PUFA is Omega-3 fatty acid. You’ve likely heard about these as they are generally accepted as the healthiest of fats. They’re associated with regulating blood pressure, blood clotting, and suppressing inflammation. In addition they’ve been shown to support all levels of cognition and brain function. Those in the longevity community swear by them for their overarching ‘healthiness.’

MUFAs are known for their heart health properties, blood sugar control, anti-inflammatory benefits, also their vitamin E content. You’ll notice that there is quite a bit of overlap with benefits and sources of MUFAs and PUFAs.

Here are some SFA sources:

• Beef

• Pork

• Butter

• Cheese

• Fried Foods

• Palm oil

• Hyper-processed meats

• Ice Cream

• Many pastries

• Cocnut oil

Here are some MUFA sources:

• Avocado

• Olives

• Dark chocolate

• Nuts

• Vegetable oil

• Cashews

• Peanuts

Here are some PUFA sources:

• Salmon

• Eggs

• Flax

• Mackerel

• Fish oil

To note: most, if not all, fat sources carry a combination of fat types. For clarity’s sake, I didn’t populate the lists with redundancies. Suffice to say that many food items have all three, SFAs, MUFAs, and PUFAs, in them. What’s important is the distribution. Read food labels.

How much do I need?

People should consume no more than 30-35% of their daily calories from fat. Of that, saturated fat should comprise equal to or less than 10% of daily calories. That leaves 20-25% from MUFAs and PUFAs.

For its health properties, many people take Omega-3 in the form of fish oils and other supplements. This can be helpful if you don’t like the foods that contain high amounts of it. I rarely see people reaching for that second helping of mackerel, for instance.

Conclusion

Fat is not the nutritional boogieman. Fat has high energy density, equal to nine calories per gram. It’s for its caloric density that it happens to be the culprit associated with weight gain and obesity. High amounts of SFAs can lead to high levels of LDL, which can lead to an increase in cardiovascular disease risk, so should be very limited. MUFAs and PUFAs are generally considered the healthy fats and should comprise most of your fat intake. Our bodies need fat for a host of important functions, like long term energy, hormone production, nervous system function, organ cushioning, nutrient absorption, etc. Fat makes food awesome. Use it. Don’t abuse it.

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Part I- Protein

What is protein?

Proteins are made up of one or more long, folded chains of amino acids called polypeptides. The sequence of amino acids in a protein is determined by the DNA sequence of the protein-encoding gene. Check out this cool representation of how polypeptides form protein.

When we consume protein, our bodies break it down into amino acids. There are eleven amino acids that we humans can manufacture on our own. There are nine that we can not make ourselves, thus the nine essential amino acids. These must be taken in as food.

There are seven different types of protein under which all proteins fall. These include antibodies, contractile proteins, enzymes, hormonal proteins, structural proteins, storage proteins, and transport proteins. For practical purposes, protein is instrumental in basically all of our life functions.

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Why do I care?

Why do you care?! Seriously? With the exception of fats and water, protein is the primary building block of every single part of the human body- from bones and teeth, to muscles, skin, organs, hair, and nails etc. In a pinch our amazing adaptive bodies can jettison that pesky nitrogen component of protein and leave the carbon to convert to energy. The process is called *gulp* gluconeogenesis. It’s a giant, energetically expensive thing for our bodies to do, and frankly a huge pain in the ass, but by god, we can and do use protein for energy! As mentioned previously, protein is heavily involved in our immune system, endocrine system, digestive system etc. Care about protein now? Bet you do. Pound for pound, protein is the most important of the macronutrients.

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Protein sources.

Sourcing protein has been the object of much controversy over the years. There are basically two types of protein: plant based and animal based. Within those two types, not all are created equal. You’ll recall that humans are required to consume nine essential amino acids. These nine2 can not be manufactured by our bodies, like the other eleven can. All animal sources of protein are considered complete proteins in that they contain all nine essential amino acids. With the exception of a few such as soy, buckwheat, and quinoa, most plant sources are incomplete, meaning they lack one ore more of the nine essential amino acids.

Does this mean you should focus on deriving your protein primarily from animal sources? Not necessarily. But much care needs to be taken in order to meet your protein requirements. Suffice to say that it’s far easier to consume enough protein if animal sources are considered. If one chooses to be completely plant based, it’s important to consume a variety of foods to meet the amino acid profile for adequate protein. For instance, there’s a reason that beans and rice has been a staple in so many cultures. Together, the two sources create a rather nice amino acid profile to complete a protein.

Here are some good plant based sources:

• Seitan3

• Soy4

• Lentils

• Beans

• Nutritional yeast

• Spelt and Teff5

• Hemp seeds

• Peas

• Spirulina

• Quinoa

• Nuts, seeds, and nut butters

One of the problems with getting all of your protein from plant sources is that it’s difficult to consume adequate amounts while keeping your caloric intake in check. Plant sources are usually much lower in total protein than animal sources. Many plant sources contain a lot of fat as well. You’ll often hear folks say that they get their protein form nuts and nut butters. Yes, there is protein, but realistically, they’re fat sources with a bit of protein. One can do it, but it’s challenging. Protein supplementation with protein powder is a good option. Try to find one that has at least 2.5g of leucine per serving. Leucine is the amino acid responsible for stimulating muscle protein synthesis6. It’s often advised to get a plant protein powder that has a combination of different sources to ensure a favorable amino acid profile.

One can be a bit more fast and loose when it comes to animal protein. As mentioned, all animal protein contains all nine essential amino acids. The thing to look out for when deriving protein from animals is avoiding consuming too much saturated fat. That is to say, for example, eating too much fatty red meat and processed meat. It’s been shown through study after study that eating too much saturated fat raises LDL.7 High LDL is known to be an independent risk factor for heart disease8.

Rather than listing a bunch of animals to eat, let’s just say choosing specific animals and parts of animals that are lower in saturated fat is probably the best bet. Things like chicken or turkey breast are great. Fish with high Omega 39 fatty acid content are also fantastic.

Dairy provides two main types of high quality protein- casein and whey. Low and nonfat greek yogurt provides quite a protein wallop. The same goes for cottage cheese. When consuming dairy for protein, as with other animal sources, be mindful of the fat content. Read labels.

Egg protein is a very high quality protein. The problem with using eggs as a main source is that there’s only about 6 or 7 grams per egg. The white is the part of the egg that contains the protein so using egg whites is a good idea. One can buy cartons of just egg whites.

As a vegetarian (not vegan), I consume copious amounts of isolated whey protein powder. Whey has a very high concentration of leucine which makes it an optimal choice for protein supplementation. Some people’s digestion doesn’t tolerate whey very well, however. If that’s the case, one can try hydrolyzed10 whey protein or egg white powder.

Lastly, choosing foods with a high protein to calorie ratio is a good idea. For instance boneless skinless chicken breast is about 1g of protein to 5 calories. On the other end of the spectrum A5 Wagyu beef. It has a ratio of about 1g of protein to 18 calories. It’s considered optimal to shoot for a 1:10 ratio or better for protein to calories.

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How much do I need?

How much protein to consume is somewhat controversial. If one were to go by the RDA, the formula to determine the amount is your weight in pounds x .36. That would mean a 180 pound man would require 64.8g of protein per day. Here’s the problem with that- when the RDA for protein was determined, the formula was based solely on maintaining nitrogen balance11. Most experts in the field suggest far more. A good rule of thumb for most people is to divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to get your weight in kilograms then multiply that number by 1.6. That same 180 pound man is now optimally consuming 131g of protein per day. If you’re paying attention, that’s more than twice the RDA. At this level, all of our body’s functions are being supported. Additionally, if you’re trying to put on muscle through strength training,12 having significantly more protein than what the RDA suggests is imperative. It’s very hard (read impossible) to put on muscle without adequate protein. If one is really into weight lifting and building muscle, even more protein is sometimes needed. But for most of us, our weight in kg x 1.6 should do the trick just fine.

Conclusion

Eat adequate protein, whether plant or animal sourced, to support, essentially, all of your entire living body. Make sure you consume a variety of foods so as to included all nine amino acids if you’re going plant based. Limit your saturated fats if you’re going animal based. Supplement with a high quality protein powder if you’re struggling to meet your needs. Don’t let anyone tell you that protein powders are inherently not good. They’re wrong.

Eat a balanced diet with protein as a cornerstone.

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Halloween is behind us. Thanksgiving is so last month. You consumed copious amounts of turkey, pie, perhaps some other beige foods. Yet there’s still another entire month of extra calories to get through. Most Americans gain weight between Halloween and the new year. How much is up for debate. Some studies suggest it can be from 5-8 lbs, which seems like a lot! Others conclude a more modest gain in the neighborhood of 1-5 lbs. Either way, weight gain over the holidays is normal. After all there are parties and family gatherings. There are the seasonal novelty foods that seem weird to consume other times.1 It’s a festive time full of bonus, high calorie, delicious food and drinks!

But is that weight gain really inevitable? The answer is no. It’s not. There are plenty of things to consider as we approach this last phase of 2024 from a health maintenance perspective. After all, who really wants to lose extra pounds just to get to baseline before embarking on 2025’s fitness and wellness goals. Not this cat, I’ll tell you what. Also, I heard on a podcast recently, I don’t remember which, unfortunately, that most of the gradual annual weight gain (1 lb per year) in adults is attributed to holiday weight gain that didn’t get taken care of post holidays. I wish I could substantiate that with a citation, but alas, we’ll take it with a grain of salt knowing that that’s not going to matter to us because we’re taking this challenge of not gaining too much weight head on. Here are some tips.

Make a plan and stick to it

Look at your calendar and identify the opportunities for over consumption. This time of year is full of work parties, family events, etc. Put them on the calendar and know that those days are going to be hyper caloric. Then surround those events with a day or two of modest consumption. No one single day can ruin everything. What’s more important to consider is a week’s worth of intake. Balance it out over days. It works.

Keep your exercise routine

Whatever you’re doing for exercise currently should be maintained. It’s easy to contract a burly case of the effits2 this time of year. You’ve got all these goals planned to get started on in January. It seems like you can just bail and throw caution to the wind for the last month. Don’t do it. Again, you don’t want to lose a bunch of fitness you worked hard for in the previous months. January will roll on in and you’ll have to train for a month just to get back to baseline. Start the year fit. Then get more fit. That will feel awesome- way more awesome than whatever you did instead of working out.

Party time!

Don’t show up to a party starving. One of your planned calendar events has arrived. It seems logical to spare calories over the course of the day in an attempt to decrease the day’s count. That usually doesn't work. What typically happens is you starve yourself all day and then upon arriving to the party, you kind of, sort of NEVER LEAVE THE BUFFET. All those cookies, and sandwiches, and drinks, and cakes! Pies and prosciutto! Sweets! Savories! All sliding down your gullet with the lubricated ease of baby oiled slip and slide! Had you been less hungry, my guess is you’d consume quite a bit less. Eat meals that day. Focus on protein and fiber. Show up with a normal appetite, not a ravenous, binge inducing desire. And while you are enjoying some indulgent comestibles, make a visit to the veggie plate. You see it. I see it. We all see it. Yep, it’s 10pm and that damn veggie plate is still mostly untouched. Don’t be bashful. Step to the vibrantly colored tray of vegetables and effing eat them. They’ll fill you up. Trust me on this one. Seriously.

While we’re talking parties, let’s get some of that nog going. If you don’t like egg nog, cool! Have some Champagne or whatever your tipple. Here’s what though: have a glass of water after EVERY drink. You’ll drink less alcohol. I promise. Alcohol has 7 calories per gram. That’s a lot. Also, your next morning will thank you. It’s really hard to work out when you’ve got a rager of a hangover. Avoid it. Drink the water. H2O is your best friend.

Workplace pitfalls

Every office has them3- that one or two people who bring in ridiculous delicious snacks every day for the entire season. This one is a hard one. You’re trapped for 8 long hours amongst the most delectable treats you’ll see all year. You’re going to eat some. You should eat some. But BRING YOUR OWN SNACKS! Eat what you brought for lunch and the snack you brought too. Then, go try a bit from the break room. Like the party scenario, avoid hitting the buffet starving. Practice restraint. It’s hard, but you can do it. You can.

Weigh yourself once a week

This one might be controversial. I don’t recommend this for everyone. If you have an unhealthy relationship with the scale, consider skipping this. If you are a weigher, don’t stop. It might be tempting, once again, to skate through the season with no guardrails, thinking that it’ll get taken care of in January. Don’t do that. Weigh yourself once a week through the season to make sure you’re on track. If you’re not on track, make adjustments. Reset. Refocus. All is not lost. Stay with the plan. If you are on track, party on! Hell yeah. Good job.

Manage your stress

While for many, this is a festive time, it can also be a time of high stress. Our bodies recognize good and bad stress similarly. High stress can put major chinks in our armor. We tend to make less optimal decisions when over stressed, which can lead to over indulging on food and drink. Unmitigated stress can also convince us to skip workouts etc. If you have a mindfulness or meditation routine, keep that going. If you see a therapist, keep that going. Whatever tricks you have up your sleeve for stress management, make sure those don’t get kicked to the curb during the season.

Get Sleep

In line with stress management, adequate sleep will help you make better decisions. It will lower your stress. Prioritize sleep. If you get poor sleep for a night or two, no big deal. But try to get back on track. Get those cortisol levels in check. Your body and mind will thank you.

Here are seven proven tips to help navigate a healthy holiday season. Have fun. Indulge moderately. Be mindful. Focus on how you want to start the new year. You’ll be very happy if you can hit the ground running in January4. Trust me.

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Don’t worry. This isn’t a full-on political post. Though I do feel it’s incumbent on me to say, throughout the course of humanity and civilization, the human condition has been punctuated by the ebbing and flowing tide of fascism. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say now is no different. Fight fascism when you see it taking hold. Fight fascism with your vote this Nov 5.

I digress…

What I’ve seen over the last few weeks, and especially this week, as the election approaches people are getting more and more anxious. Why wouldn’t we be? Every late night host is carrying on about the race. Every news outlet is in high output mode making sure they’re generating as much traffic as possible.1 The myriad political text messages. The commercials. The junk mail that doesn’t get read and clogs the recycling bins. It’s unavoidable. But here’s the insidious bit: it all raises anxiety and it’s meant to be all consuming.

This is not healthy, nor is it productive. In fact it’s the opposite. High stress can cause us to break our healthy routines- from exercise, to our eating habits. Our normal sleep patterns get interrupted. Our social interactions become strained2. It’s easy to become paralyzed by the anxiety. It’s times like these when it becomes even more important to maintain our health and wellness programming.

Exercise

Do it. Even if you don’t want to. ESPECIALLY IF YOU DON’T WANT TO!

Put down your doom scrolling device! Get out the door. Go for a walk. Hit the gym. Ride your bike. Hike your favorite trail. Run! Never, in the history of exercise, has anyone ever regretted working out3. If you really don’t want to, do it anyway. Just take the first step. The next step will follow. I promise. You will feel better. It’s chemical. The runner’s high people talk about isn’t just the righteous satisfaction of superiority4 (Science Daily ). You’ve got endorphins and epinephrine as well as norepinephrine. Throw in a little dopamine and you’ve got yourself some pretty powerful chemical soup coursing through your body. It’s free. It’s awesome. Take advantage.

Sleep

Put down your doom scrolling device and go to bed. There aren’t any news articles that reveal anything new that’s going to sway the election one way or the other. After all, that’s what we’re looking for. We’re hoping to find something that assuages our anxiety. Instead, the opposite happens. Reinforcing negative feelings makes it hard to fall asleep. Also, you don’t need to watch Colbert. Or Kimmel. Or that other dude with The Closer Look. Hilarious? Sure. Soothing. Doubtful. What’s going to relieve stress, reduce cortisol, bolster your immune system is good ol’ fashion sleep. Sleep will also help with making better decisions regarding other habits like choosing to exercise or whether to eat a box of Cheez-Its or not. Sleep strengthens willpower. Go to bed and shoot for 7-8 hours of solid sleep. All that stuff will be there in the morning. Or, maybe it’s time for a break from the cycle all together.

Break

Put down your doom scrolling device and don’t pick it back up. There’s nothing wrong with missing an article or two. The headline that reads: So and So Drops a Bombshell of an October Surprise is likely just another version of the same article you read earlier. Here’s what is most likely true. You know who you’re voting for. At this point nothing is likely to change that. You’re allowed to take a break. Take as long as you want. I bet you’ll feel better. I’m not saying to intentionally be poorly informed. I’m saying weigh the benefits of unplugging for a bit. Your physical and mental health are more important.

Eat

Put down your doom scrolling device and that box of Cheez-Its. Stress and anxiety can cause both over and under eating. More common is over eating. Being mindful about sticking with your nutrition plan is paramount! Poor sleep, lack of exercise, and unmitigated stress and anxiety are well known to derail a great nutrition plan. It’s tempting to fill the hole anxiety dug with a bunch of highly palatable, processed food. These foods are designed this way. They temporarily supply a very short-lived sense of well-being. Then the anxiety is back. Here come the Thin Mints! Stick to your nutrition plan. I promise. You’ll feel better.

Socialize

Put down the doom scrolling device and hang out with your friends and family. And while you’re hanging out, limit election conversations. In the short term it feels good to commiserate with like minded folks. Ultimately, however, a heated conversation, even when the parties are actually vigorously agreeing with each other, still causes stress and subsequent anxiety. Keep it brief. Then move on. Make it a goal to have social engagements be politics free for a while. I bet you’ll feel better.

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These are strange and trying times and this election cycle certainly supports that notion. Maintaining our health and wellness regimens will help mitigate the anxiety paralysis. This election will be behind us in two short weeks. As always, try not to assume responsibility for things you have little to no control over. Write post cards. Vote. Do some canvassing, sure. Do what you can. Please! Then put down the doom scrolling device and take care of yourself.

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You’ve made the decision. You want to start a strength training regimen because that last paragraph was so damn compelling. Well where does one start? Do you have to join a gym? Do you need to hire a trainer1? Can you train at home? What equipment do you need? How often should you lift weights?

Or, say you have a gym membership, but every time you walk into the gym you get overwhelmed by all the machines, benches, pulleys, racks, weights, bars etc. In the midst of your panic, you pick a machine that no one is using, do it a few times wondering if what you did was worth the energy expended2. Then you decide, “Eff it, I’ll just do the stupid elliptical for twenty minutes.” You leave the gym and don’t come back for another month. And when you do go back, you do the exact same thing. Your gym is expensive. You need to stop this. You’re wasting your time and your money.

In this Installment, I want to provide the fundamentals to get started on a strength training program. The concepts will be the same if you’re planning on training at home or at a gym.

Identify your goals.

I recommend setting some short term, medium term, and long term goals. These will look different for those that are true beginners versus those who’ve maybe done a bit of training. Either way, identifying tangible goals goes a long way when planning an effective program. Here’s an example of what that might look like for a true beginner. Remember, this is just an example, your goals will be exclusive to you:

Short Term- 1-3 months

-Get comfortable with equipment

-Get comfortable with the exercises

-Get past the fear of weights

-Become confident with movement

Medium Term- 3-6 months

-See visible changes in musculature

-Get quantifiably stronger with the exercises

-Begin considering strength goals for the next phase of strength training

-Continue building confidence with movement

-Get comfortable with the concept of progressive overload

-Begin considering the nuances of strength training, whether you want to be training for hypertrophy, strength, power, or endurance, moreover what that means

Long Term- 6 months - 1 year

-Be quantifiably considerably stronger

-See more visible changes in musculature

-Set specific goals and timelines for specific weights and exercises

-Become more confident with how to continue to progress

-Set new learning goals for exercise

Assess your availability.

Next step is to honestly assess your time availability for strength training. In my experience, this is where people can sometimes get discouraged. Social media would have us believe that nothing less than 2.5 hrs in the gym, 7 days a week is useful. I’m here to tell you that this could not be further from the truth. In fact, there is research that suggests that one can observe significant strength gains performing a single, full body session per week. I don’t recommend that for many reasons, not the least of which is that the intensity to see real progress has to be very high when the volume is so low. Also, it’s been noted that after initial gains are realized, further gains are much harder to come by. Instead, I’d recommend 2-6 days per week. Here’s the important part: Be very honest with yourself. It’s enticing to err on the high side when starting out. Your excitement is high. You’re inspired. More is better! But, you forgot you have a family. And work. And other commitments. Get out your calendar. Look at openings. If you have 2 days a week, Tuesday and Friday, for 45 minutes, that’s great. You can work with that. If you have every weekday morning for an hour, that’s great. If you have 20 minutes, 2 days a week, you can work with that. It’s all about efficiency. The point is, be realistic so that adherence isn’t stymied by over-ambitiousness. After all, consistency is easily the most important factor for achieving success.

Organize your training week.

The third step is to choose how to break up your workouts. This will largely depend on how you’ve identified your availability. If you have 3 or fewer days to train per week, I suggest doing a full body split, which means you do all movement patterns3 each workout. If you have 4 or more days to train each week, there’s some freedom to split up your movement types. An example would be, if you had Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday available for training, a good split would be to do upper body movements Monday and Thursday, and lower body movements Tuesday and Friday. If there are 5 or more days to train, a popular split is to do a push, pull, squat/hinge regimen4. The idea is to allow for ample time for recovery between sessions as well as be able to get each muscle group stimulated two times per week5. The goal is adaptation. Adaptation results when enough load is administered to the muscles to stimulate growth, followed by adequate recovery for the muscles to adapt to the novel stimuli.

Choose the appropriate exercises.

Here’s where it gets a bit more tricky. Choosing exercises is going to be determined by where you’re planning on training. If you’re going to be strength training at a large, chain gym, well the world will be your oyster. You’ll have access to all the equipment you could ever want, possibly to your detriment- sometimes too many options has a paralyzing effect6. My advice when starting out is- keep it simple. Just because a piece of equipment is fancy, or elaborate, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. If you’re planning on training at home, you’ll likely need to purchase a modest amount of equipment7. Don’t let that intimidate you. It’s not as hard as one might think. Retailers sell adjustable weights as well as elastic strength training bands that take up very little space. You don’t need much to get in a great workout.

Here are the essential movements with a corresponding example of a few exercises for that movement. This will be far from exhaustive, but it’s meant to be a primer on how to think about the movements:

Push8: Chest Press, Shoulder Press, Push-Ups

Pull9: Lat Pull, Seated Row, Pull-Ups

Squat/Hinge10: Bar Squats, Deadlifts, Romanian Deadlifts, Lunges/Split Squats

These are all compound movements, which means they use more than one joint to perform. The bulk of a workout should be comprised of compound movements for efficiency’s sake as well as functionality. The ones you choose are up to you and your preferences. Suffice to say, if one had little time and just a single dumbbell, one could get a fantastic workout with just three exercises: Push ups of some variation, dumbbell rows, and squats. If you know how to properly do those movements, do 5 sets of 10 repetitions each exercise, and Bob’s your uncle.

Choose the correct starting weight.

Now that the basic movement patterns are understood, figuring out what weight to start at is important. There are many ways to do this. The easiest and safest way is to start with a weight that seems too light. Do a set of 10 repetitions and assess how it feels. If you could have done a lot more repetitions, it’s obviously too light and you must increase the weight. You know you have the correct weight when you reach the desired repetition amount and you feel like you could do maybe 3 repetitions more at the most11. Adaptation occurs when the intensity is enough that when one finishes a set the proximity to failure is close. That said, contrary to what we were told for years, one doesn’t have to train to failure to make gains. One does have to get close though.

In terms of figuring out how many sets and reps to do, one has to consider the usual suspects- time and equipment availability, as well as specific goals. If you’re training for pure strength, keep the repetition range from 3-8 per set. If you’re training for hypertrophy, there’s a lot more wiggle room- 6-20 reps per set. The number of sets is up to you, again, depending on time and equipment. As a rule of thumb, each movement pattern should get 10-15 sets per week.

At some point, the weights will have to increase. Continued adaptation is the result of progressive overload12. If you continue to do the same exercises with the same weight after it’s no longer difficult, you won’t make anymore progress. That’s the thing with working out- it never gets easy, because when it does YOU MUST MAKE IT HARDER. Embrace that. It feels awesome. Make small increases, just enough to continue getting relatively close to failure.

Switching up your workout.

Many people love to change their workout each session. Many people like to keep their workout the same for long periods of time. Both styles have their merit. Changing the exercises often provides people who get bored easily the novelty of newness. Keeping it consistent for a while provides the opportunity to monitor progress- as one progressively overloads, the weights and repetitions will increase thereby showing, real time, the strength gains. There is no right time to change. One could keep the same routine forever. One can change exercises every session. The point is consistency. Do whatever gets you to the session, be it your house, or the local gym. Consistency is the cornerstone of progress.

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“It’s gotta be noon somewhere!”

“You ready for a drink already?!”

“Nope. I’m patiently, eagerly waiting to eat. See, I’m intermittent fasting.”

“You don’t say! How come?”

“Because…” -fill in the blank with vague, somewhat scientific sounding reasoning often including words like ‘autophagy,’ ‘insulin resistance,’ ‘metabolic syndrome,’ and my favorite, ‘inflammation.’

Have you heard this conversation? Have you had this conversation? If so, which person were you, the faster or the asker? If you overheard the conversation, what were your thoughts?

At this point Intermittent Fasting (IF) is fairly ubiquitous in nutrition, health, and wellness circles. Yet a clear definition of what it is, what it’s meant to do, and exactly how to perform it remain elusive. Here’s why: it doesn’t actually mean anything. Here are several ways one can intermittent fast:

5:2 fasting- which means fasting for 2 days a week with maybe 400-600 calories on the ‘fasting’ days either consecutive or not and eating normally the other 5 days.

16:8 fasting- which means fasting for 16 hours a day and eating during the remaining 8 hours.

Alternate day fasting- which means eating only every other day.

Warrior Diet- which means one eats raw fruits and vegetables during the day and then eats a normal, complete meal in the evening.

Eat-Stop-Eat- which means fasting completely for 1 or more days per week and eating normally the others.

I’m sure there are other ways to intermittent fast, but these 5 methods are the ones I hear about most often, with the time restricted eating style (16:8) being, by far, the most popular. The point is, there’s no right way to intermittent fast.

Intermittent Fasting has been around for a long time, since 1960 or so, but has gained popularity since around 2012 (Harvard). IF enthusiasts have made various claims- some of which have been measurable while others have been quite a bit more nebulous. Some measurable claims have been weight loss, insulin sensitivity (indirectly measured in terms of blood sugar), lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, etc. Other, non-measurable claims that have been made are more energy, increased autophagy1, clearer cognition, feeling healthier, less inflammation2 etc.

There are other claims too, such as reduced risk of cancer, improved longevity, reduced oxidative stress, reduced risk of Alzheimer’s, etc. The problem is, many of the purported claims are unsupported by evidence. What appears to be the case, as is with many health and wellness claims, is that it’s very difficult to tease out what is causal and what is correlation. Good science demands that we at least attempt to clear up this problem.

Here’s what the science says. In terms of weight loss, IF produces no better results than other forms of calorie restriction (NEJM) as long as calories and protein are equated. Additionally, it appears that IF produces no better results than other forms of calorie restriction for other metabolic associated maladies3. The jury is still out on whether or not IF contributes, causally, to better longevity, and healthspan. It does not appear that it does.

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But: DO NOT THROW THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATH WATER!

Intermittent Fasting can be a very powerful tool for controlling weight and body composition, thereby contributing to all of the benefits associated with those factors. Studies have shown that IF, specifically daily time restricted feeding over the other methods mentioned, can provide for better nutrition plan adherence. This speaks to human psychology. For many people, specific rules are far easier to follow than less strict options.

Here’s a scenario that will help illustrate this point. Let’s take two hypothetical individuals who are trying to achieve or maintain a favorable body composition. One is eating whenever they want throughout the day. The other is eating only between noon and 8pm. They both have similar lives in terms of work and family demands, including stress levels. The person who is allowing themself to eat whenever must rely, solely, on willpower to eat their allotted calories for the day. They’ve had a stressful day. They’re tired. They’ve made countless decisions over the course of the day. Most people can relate to this situation. Willpower is at an all-time low4. What’s happening? Someone’s heading to the kitchen for a snack, often despite not actually being hungry. On the other hand, the person who’s doing time restricted feeding and has set regular, specific, eating times for the day has mentally removed the option for more meals and snacks. If the option is psychologically off the table, there is no decision to be made. Someone is not heading to the kitchen.

I’m not saying this method works for everyone. But for those it does work for, it can be quite effective. For achieving or maintaining favorable weight and body compositions, energy balance is key. One has to have a plan. The levers that can be pulled are normal calorie restriction wherein one eats whenever but tries to adhere to a set calorie goal for the day. Another method for achieving the proper balance is to remove specific food types. Examples of that would be vegan, ketogenic diet, carnivore, etc. The final lever that can be pulled is eating timing. This is where IF comes in.

As stated previously, the science says that none of these is necessarily better than the other. I realize this is counter intuitive given the nature of our current culture. It’s common to find oneself gravitating to a certain camp. If you’ve spent any time investigating different nutrition strategies you’ll quickly find that people can get very dogmatic about what it is they’re doing, especially if they’ve had success with it. It’s easy to fall into the trap that there’s only one right way to eat to reach nutrition goals. There have been plenty of examples of people being on a ketogenic diet and having favorable health outcomes over extended periods. Same goes for vegan. You name it. Same goes. The key seems to be that whatever it takes to achieve or maintain a healthy weight and body composition is the thing that one should do, provided the plan adhere’s to the subscribers morals and politics5. The studies support this truth, despite what various nutritional warriors will tell you.

Here’s the takeaway: If Intermittent Fasting works for you, or you think it might work for you, conceptually, have at it! It can be a very powerful tool. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t include important caveats. One major problem that’s been associated with IF is not enough protein consumption. It appears that many adherents of IF fall significantly short. It’s thought that this happens because people tend to not account for protein specifically when planning their meals for the day6. A remedy for that is to set a daily protein goal and plan the meals accordingly. Another related issue is that people often neglect strength training when embarking on a weight loss plan. As I say ALL THE TIME, all plans for longevity, weight loss, and health should involve eating enough protein and strength training. Our skeletal muscles are giant endocrine organs. They’re the boss. Feed the boss with protein and weights.

One more caveat that bears mention applies to women7. There is evidence that, due to women’s typically smaller bodies and lower muscle mass, coupled with hormonal differences to men, earlier feeding might be important. Men have more energy reserves in the form of stored muscle glycogen and can workout before eating with no negative effects. There’s some research that suggests women should eat more often. That said, a modified approach could work. For example, a woman could have one or two ‘outside the window’ meals per day, especially if there is a workout planned. The pre-workout meal should have some carbohydrate with a decent amount of protein. The later one should be mostly protein. Otherwise, apart from those two ‘meals’ one can adhere to whatever time restricted rules that have been established.

Intermittent Fasting isn’t for everyone. But it can be a very effective tool for a specific goal. Just know what you’re doing and what you want out of it. If you have questions, feel free to message me.

You want to talk about prolonged fasting? Well there’s a conversation for another time. It’ll be a good one though…

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In considering the scope of this Installment, I was unsure of how much, if any, personal information to include. With the intent of conveying a useful message to the reader, it seems pertinent to include some detail so that a thread of importance remains intact throughout.1 That said, here’s my journey…

In 2015, I had a very close friend die by suicide. That same year my family was going through a period of extreme tumult. My career was going fine. I had a supportive 2partner, family, and friends that were present and helpful. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. I slid into a depression. It happened slowly, so slowly in fact, that I didn’t really know I was depressed until I was approaching the other side. This isn’t to say life was joyless- I still did many of the things that brought happiness. I exercised. I played music. Made records. Worked. Etc. But even when I made myself do those things, there was something powerful underneath that disallowed me to thrive in any meaningful way. Everything I tried to do was much harder than it should’ve been. If I wasn’t exercising or working, I was likely in bed watching TV. When my partner urged me to, I would ply myself with a couple drinks and go out into the world and enjoy myself. But I was depressed. Deeply.

This went on for about four and a half years- long enough for a global pandemic to come along and really seal the deal. Throw owning two businesses, neither of which were guaranteed survival, onto the heap. By this time I knew something was very wrong. It had been going on too long and it was getting worse, but I still hadn’t really identified that I was depressed. I’m still not sure why. My guess is hubris. I’m not one of those people. I didn’t judge others for depression, it was just something I thought I was above.

I needed something though. I wasn’t doing well.

I don’t really believe in signs. I’m not into mysticism. But I do believe that if one keeps vigilant, help shows up. I was having a particularly rough day when I mustered the will to go for a walk. Apart from long road trips, I only listen to podcasts while walking. I cued one up that seemed like a good listen. I love science pods. This particular one was with a neuroscientist named Amishi Jha who had released a book called Peak Mind.

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The beginning.

In the podcast she spoke of mindfulness from the perspective of a scientist. She referred to the science of attention as harnessing a superpower. If one is paying attention to where their attention is, moment to moment, one can be in control of their awareness. She called it meta awareness. Through experiments conducted on pre-deployed soldiers and other high-risk jobs, she was able to glean that through some basic methods, one can decrease their anxiety, improve their sleep, increase sense of well-being, stop rumination, and improve focus. It was compelling. I needed this. I got home from my walk and immediately bought the book. I read it in a couple days and began the practice she outlined. The science spoke to me. The time commitment was small- the minimum effective dose was a mere 12 minutes a day, 5 days a week. She referred to the practice of mindfulness. Not once did she mention meditation. At the time, I may not have been as receptive had she. I never had anything specific against meditation, but the notion of it seemed too woo-woo for me. I needed the science. She gave it to me.

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My journey.

The science makes sense. If one can put a halt to the brain’s propensity for circular rumination of ‘what ifs,’ by focusing on the present moment and affecting the things one actually has control over, that frees up a lot of space to be functional in the world. We spend an enormous amount of time thinking about the past and the future. Obviously we can’t affect the past. If one realizes they’re fixated on a specific negative thing that happened in the past, they can instantly stop- if they’re aware they’re doing it. Same goes for ruminating on the future. Yes, we obviously can affect what happens in the future, but only in so much as we have the power to do so. If one trains the brain to be able to identify the things they actually do have the power to affect, that saves a lot of wasted time and anxiety obsessing over things outside of one’s control. Take the pandemic for example. While we were in the thick of the lockdowns and businesses were shuttered, I found it impossible not to constantly be worried to the point of exhaustion. Yet there was absolutely nothing I had the power to do to change the situation. That did not serve me. The circular obsessing feels like we’re doing something about the situation. We are decidedly not. The point is, mindfulness training teaches the brain to focus on the present and allows the mind to be able to quiet down and assess what’s most salient.

I noticed some positive changes almost immediately. Within a couple weeks, I was able to be more aware of when I was not being productive with my thoughts. I developed the awareness to identify non-productive, and in fact deleterious, rumination and gently shut it down. I couldn’t believe how easy it was once I realized I was doing it. Though the program I was doing suggested that 12 minutes a day, 5 days a week was enough to inspire adaptation, more must be better, right? It turns out that with meditation, this is actually true. I increased the amount of time to 24 minutes, 7 days a week. I noticed I was becoming less reactive to stressful situations. I had more patience, which if you know me, I’m not exactly known for being easy going. I realized I was depressed and that I was coming out of it. I have always thought of myself as a relatively self-aware person. The degree to which I was made aware of just how much I was on auto-pilot was shocking. Mindfulness training was becoming my super power. I needed more!

I am a two feet, jump into the deep end, kind of guy when it comes to things like this. I wanted to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. A friend of mine previously told me about  a 10 day Vipassana silent meditation retreat she had done some years ago. The concepts of Vipassana intrigued me. My research educated me on the basics. One of the most attractive things was that Vipassana is non-religious. I think my reticence surrounding the word ‘meditation’ had to do with my errantly linking it with something close to religion. My reading assuaged this. I found a Vipassana center in the Joshua Tree area. Luckily I was able to do a course when it was being offered. Luckier yet, my application was accepted.

I told a few people I was going to do the retreat. Some of them suggested that maybe I should try to find something a little less intense than a 10 day silent retreat as I was still relatively new to this world. Ha! Right.

I completed the 10 day course. It was one of the most physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging things I have ever done. It was also one of the most important, beneficial, and fulfilling things I have ever done. In a later Installment, I’ll recount my experience. For now, suffice to say, the silent part was the easy part. Here’s the daily schedule:

Essentially, I went from meditating for 24 minutes a day to meditating 10 hours and 45 minutes a day. During the times when participants were meant to be practicing on our own, I suppose we could have been resting or sleeping, but I was there to have the experience as its prescribed. I followed the timetable as closely as I physically and mentally could. It was life-changing. That’s not something I say loosely. I struggled with the parts that rubbed up against dogma. I had many conceptual challenges. But I worked them out.

That experience solidified my commitment to the process. I never miss a day of meditation as a result.

Let’s talk meditation and the brain.

The term 3neural plasticity, or neuroplasticity, is a fairly popular topic amongst learning scientists. It’s also made its way into the zeitgeist of aging and longevity. It was once thought that the brain stopped developing after adolescence. It’s been proven that that’s not the case and, in fact, neural plasticity is something that never stops occurring so long as novel experiences and stimuli are sought. Essentially, neural plasticity refers to the rewiring of the brain, physically and functionally, as a result of neural stimuli (NCBI).

It is by this mechanism that meditation works on the brain (NCIB). By repeatedly practicing 4techniques, 5prefrontal cortex functions like cognition, memory, self-awareness are improved (NCBI). Studies have shown that conditions such as anxiety and depression have been improved through meditation as well as chronic pain, better sleep, and memory (Harvard), to name just a few. The best part is: THIS IS ALL BACKED BY SCIENCE.

I don’t know if meditation, or mindfulness, is for everyone. But I think it is. I would never say it’s a panacea for 6everything. I will say it saved my life. And if it didn’t save it, meditation helped make it much more worth living. This is not to say I am free from any and all suffering. I still lose my effing mind occasionally. Why just the other day I threw a full tantrum because of Tupperware. Not kidding.

My daily practice sets me up to approach each day with calm and acceptance. As difficult circumstances arise, I am able to (usually) calmly asses the situation and proceed in a way that is productive. I rarely react unconsciously and I am a better person as a result. I wish I had started meditating a long time ago. But I’m not going to ruminate on it.

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In the 1970s, a Danish fella by the name of Jens Juul Holst began research on hormones secreted while eating with the intent of combating duodenal ulcer disease.  In 1986, he and a Harvard professor, Joel Habener simultaneously discovered the hormone GLP-1, Glucagon-Like-Peptide 1. In 1998 a team of researchers at Novo Nordisk, led by the scientist Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, developed liraglutide, a glucagon-like-peptide receptor agonist that could be used to treat diabetes. In March 2021, 1,961 adults with a BMI of 30 or greater were randomly assigned a treatment with a once-weekly subcutaneous semaglutide1, a GLP-1 agonist, injection, or a placebo. The average percentage change in body weight at week 68 was −14.9% in the semaglutide group vs −2.4% with the placebo. WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?! The results were astonishing! In the past pharmacologic interventions for weight loss were focused more on the energy expenditure side of the equation as opposed to the appetite side2. We’re in the midst of a culture changing phenomenon on par with the invention of the telegraph!

Okay. Take it easy. My penchant for hyperbole might be showing. Even so, the efficacy of these drugs is undeniable. Are they a miracle drug that will solve America’s obesity problem? Are there risks in taking them? Are people supposed to take them for the rest of their lives? Are there side effects? Let’s take a look.

What is semaglutide? As mentioned, it’s a GLP-1 receptor agonist. It was originally developed to treat type II diabetes. For simplicity’s sake, glucagon can be thought of as the opposite of insulin. Insulin decreases blood sugar. Glucagon raises blood sugar. GLP-1 is a naturally occurring peptide hormone secreted by the gut while eating. Together, insulin works in tandem with glucagon to regulate blood sugar. GLP-1 acts on the glucagon receptor which stimulates the body to lower blood glucose. It also triggers the hypothalmus3 to slow gastric emptying and decease appetite. One might ask, “Well if it’s naturally occurring, why doesn’t it work the same as if taken as a pharmaceutical?” The GLP-1 that the body produces has a half-life of about 2 minutes (NCBI). For GLP-1 to be affective for weight loss, it would need to be available much longer than that. Scientists were able to create an exogenous4 , synthetic form in the lab that has a half-life of about a week. Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus, whatever the brand name- Voila! A weight loss drug that really works!

The most recent version of these drugs purport about a 15-20% drop in body weight, on average. The typical dose frequency is an injection once a week. It’s meant to be taken long term. Over the course of 68 weeks, the dose is increased over time until the maintenance dose is achieved. These amounts vary from person to person depending on tolerance and side effects etc.

There are some reported side effects. Here are some:

·      Nausea

·      Stomach Pain

·      Diarrhea

·      Constipation

·      Sulfur Belching

·      Heart Burn

·      Dizziness

·      Stomach Paralysis

·      Pancreatitis

·      Thyroid Cancer

·      Angioedema

·      Hypoglycemia

·      Blurred Vision

·      Bowel Obstruction

·      Gall Stones

·      Kidney Stones

·      Bloating

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It appears that most people experience mild side effects, if any. As with all drugs, side effects are always a risk.

Here’s the rub- most people who take semaglutide regain the weight, often more, when they go off the drug (NCBI). There are no known lasting effects once the drug is out of the system. What makes matters worse is that 35-40% of the weight lost is from muscle (NCBI). The reason for that is not the drug itself. It’s believed that what causes the loss in lean tissue is the caloric deficit one experiences as a result of the loss of appetite, coupled with the associated lack of adequate protein due to the relatively lower calorie intake. For the record, this is no different for people who lose weight through normal caloric restriction without the use of pharmaceuticals. Referring to the previous post, it can’t be overstated how important adequate muscle mass and muscle quality are. This reality does not paint a good picture for one’s longevity. Of course, the weight loss is extraordinarily beneficial in terms of improving metabolic health and other markers for longevity, but at the expense of all the benefits that adequate skeletal muscle provides (The Athlete Mind ).

Here's how I think these drugs should be prescribed:

Patients must fit the criteria for obesity. The prescription should be for 18 months. During the course of the prescription, the patient must undertake guidance for nutrition and exercise. It’s been shown that when adequate protein is accounted for nutritionally and a good resistance training program is implemented, the muscle wasting is mostly ameliorated. Taking semaglutide and making a lifestyle intervention that can be sustained permanently seems to be the best way to use GLP-1 agonists.

Ozempic, and similar drugs, might be just what is needed to stop and potentially reverse the obesity epidemic in America. I don’t think they should be used by fit people who’d like to be a bit leaner. I don’t think they should be used for a lifetime. While these drugs haven’t been around forever, they have been around for almost 30 years. They appear to be safe. There is always a chance that at some point a discovery could be made that finds a hidden danger we were unaware of. It happens. But as I heard on a podcast recently, “You have to shoot the alligator closest to the boat.” I don’t know why anyone is shooting alligators, but I get the point. The obesity epidemic is the alligator closest to the boat.

A former version of me thought that willpower and willpower alone should be enough to get people to make better decisions regarding dietary choices. That’s changed. With fear of getting political, this reality is unavoidable: as long as there is money to be made in selling highly palatable, calorically dense, non-nutritious, borderline addictive foods, for many willpower is not enough. These drugs might help break the cycle of eating those types of foods. If one decides to take a GLP-1 agonist, it doesn’t make much sense to continue eating the same food that led to obesity, just less of it. That’s why a lifestyle intervention is imperative.

All in all, semaglutide could be an enormous cultural windfall. It could be lifechanging for many, moreover life extending! There is a responsibility that must come with it. As stated before, it should not be a vanity drug. It should be taken seriously and it shouldn’t be taken forever.

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