What is Optimal (Part 2)

Welcome to part 2! Last time we talked about what optimal is and how it might look to set up an optimal approach when it comes to nutrition. While nutrition is a large part of the health and fitness equation, but it is only part of it. What about Exercise you say? I’m glad you asked!

EXERCISE

People’s opinions on exercise are just as entrenched as their nutrition principles. You have to do cardio to lose weight. No, you have to do “HIIT.” Actually your cousin Pauly said CrossFit is the way to go. However, your bestie loves spin. How do you know what to do? You might be surprised at the answer. (You probably won’t be, I’ve just always wanted to write that sentence).

First we have to ask ourselves what our goal is, because this will determine what kind of exercise is the most optimal. If you want to get stronger, lifting heavy weights will be the prescription. If you want to become a better runner, running and posterior chain development will probably benefit you the most. If you want to lose weight, moving more will be the basic tenet we are looking to accomplish with your workout. A combination of lifting weights and cardio will probably be the most beneficial for the most people.

Second we have to look at what you enjoy doing. I’ve only had one client who absolutely hated working out and was consistent. She showed up to every workout and told me how much she didn’t like working out, but knew she needed to do it. She still works out with me twice a week and has for a few years. Every other client I’ve worked with who didn’t enjoy at least something we did would inevitably start missing sessions sporadically and then cancel altogeter after a while. I’ve had a client work with me get great results, but hated it. He decided to try Orange Theory and loved it and has been getting great results from it! So you have to enjoy doing it before it feels like a chore, then your motivation craps out and you decide that “this whole fitness thing just isn’t for you.”

Next we have to look at how much time can you ACTUALLY dedicate each week to working out. So many people want to go from 0-100. No days working out to #TeamNoDaysOff. If you can literally only go to the gym two days per week, that is totally fine! Especially if you haven’t been active in a while. Can you honestly give 4 days per week and 90 min each time to working out, that’s phenomenal! Were you working out 5 days every week and now you have a new job/relationship/child and need to drop down to 3? Guess what? That will work too. Something is always better than nothing in the sense of exercise. We can argue all day about what is clinically/scientifically/anecdotally the best (COUGH-weight training-COUGH), but doing something that you can make harder over time (progressive resistance) will deliver results.

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You’re probably thinking that the last two entries seem pretty similar, and you’re right. At their core, nutrition and exercise success both boil down to about the same three things.

1)         What is my goal and what is necessary to get there?

2)         Can I see myself doing this until I get to my goal and after I reach it (unless you’re ok with looking/performing a certain way for a finite amount of time).

3)         What is best for ME?

Want to lose weight? Figure out how many calories you need, how you can honestly eat less than that for a while (guaranteed it’s longer than you think). Eat your damn vegetables. Now you are well on your way nutritionally. For exercise, resistance train 2-5x/week, add in some cardio, make sure you enjoy it a little bit, and do it as much as your schedule allows.

Answering these 3 questions honestly is a very basic way to get you to optimal for you. While the process is a bit more nuanced, this it is a great start. Everyone will have individual needs/preferences and a pretty big learning curve if you’ve never done this before, but that is where a coach or trainer comes in and can help out immensely. Are you ready to have someone help you figure out your optimal? Click JOIN THE TEAM above and let’s get started on your plan!

What is Optimal (Part 1 of 2)

We are always looking for the most optimal way to do something. It makes sense too; I mean who likes wasting their time? If there is a more efficient way to do something, why wouldn’t you do it that way? (I guess there is something to taking the scenic route, or maybe stopping to smell the roses, but outside of these clichés, there really isn’t any reason to make things harder on yourself). So when it comes to fitness how do we decide what is the most optimal?

Objectively speaking, there is a most optimal way to diet and exercise for a given goal. However, this is in a vacuum, and we don’t live in a vacuum. Even in tightly controlled scientific experiments, things go off plan. So, practically speaking, we have to look at this subjectively. This is where we run into some issues. Depending on who you ask, fitness and nutrition can be pretty polarizing. Dogmas abound. Everyone says that they have the best way for you to eat and/or workout. You have to eat a ketogenic diet. You have to do HIIT. You have to lift like a powerlifter. You have to avoid gluten. If you want to get really shredded you should do CrossFit. You should eat and train like a bodybuilder.  How do we figure out what actually is the “most optimal,” especially for you.

NURTRITION

When it comes to diet, adherence plays a large role in losing weight and keeping it off. So we really need to look at any nutrition protocol through a couple of filters to see if it is the one for us.

The first filter is the calorie filter. What are we trying to accomplish? Weight loss, muscle gain, or maintenance? Our caloric intake has to match what we are trying to accomplish. This can be high fat or time-restricted feeding, but the calories have to match.

The next filter is longevity. I’ve told everyone who’s asked me about this diet or that fad that if you can’t see yourself doing this forever, don’t expect the results to last much longer than the length of that particular diet. Long-term results come from long-term changes. Small daily habits that build up over time are the foundation of success. Listen nobody is perfect. (although, I’m pretty close) These habits are what we fall back on when we inevitably fall off track. People who jump right back on after a bad snack, meal, night out, etc., make it look easy because they fall back into the habits they have formed. This is absolutely key to long term success.

The last filter, which is most important to overall health, is your individual nutritional needs. Dietary intake affects things on a macro and micro level. If you don’t get enough fat in your diet it can lead to hormone imbalances. If you aren’t eating enough vegetables, you are missing out on a whole host of micronutrients (those pesky vitamins and minerals everyone is always talking about). Not to mention individual pathology/health issue related nutrition, which should always be decided in conjunction with your health care provider. Then we have athletic performance and nutritional needs, which can be very different depending on the sport/activity demands.

Take Aways

Can you do keto? Sure! If it passes through all three of these filters, a keto diet can be very beneficial for certain populations. What about Intermittent fasting? This can be a great way to limit calories if you aren’t prone to overeating when fasting. While no one dietary protocol is right for everyone, asking yourself these questions and being able to answer yes to all of them should set you on the right path of finding the diet perfect for you.

What is passion?

For almost 12 months, between 2013-14 I lived in Las Vegas, NV. I quit my decent paying job as a funeral director and embalmer and took my quarter life crisis sabbatical in the desert. There were many things that lead up to the move, but the driving factor was being tired of a 24/7 job taking away my time. Being on call as a funeral director in Illinois means you can’t really have a life outside of work because you can’t control when people die. It can be in the middle of the new Avengers movie, your anniversary dinner, or a set of heavy squats going down and up like butter.

I got one too many death calls and decided enough is enough. I was never going to accomplish my fitness goals if I couldn’t plan my work outs and make them happen. After some discussion with my girlfriend at the time (now wife), roommates, and family, I made the enormous decision to quit the funeral industry and join two of my best friends and move to Vegas. I wanted to play more music and finally get under 200 lbs. I knew if I got under 200, I would be jacked, ripped, cut, and all the desirable adjectives Men’s Health magazine uses to describe the perfect man (*cough* Ryan Gosling).

However, I was in for a rude awakening. Powerlifter, Pro Bodybuilder, and coach Ryan Doris (@thenattypro) said it best when he said, “Don't fake passion. One day you'll meet someone in your field who is truly passionate and you'll be fucking embarrassed”.  Well, I met that someone and I was fucking embarrassed. I faced the harsh reality that my friends were better than me, plain and simple. In no small part this was because they had more passion for the craft. They practiced every day. They created pieces, changed what they created, started all over. They did this over and over again and never gave up. The difference between us was they loved the process; I just loved the outcome. I loved playing in a band and being on stage, but I didn’t love the work that went into creating music in the same way they did because I just wasn’t passionate enough about it.

While my friends were honing their craft, I was reading bodybuilding.com message boards trying to figure out why I wasn’t losing any more weight even though I was strict with my diet and “clean eating” just wasn’t working like it used to for me. I played a little bit of music and created a couple of pretty bomb mash-ups, but my focus started to gravitate towards nutrition and training. To make ends meet, I got a job at a supplement store. My curiosity about the fitness world really started to take off. I decided to get more serious about fitness and got certified as a personal trainer. I had my fun playing around and it was time to choose a career path. So, my friends and I moved back to the Midwest where I promptly got a job as a personal trainer at a chain gym and began my career.

Being a new trainer at a chain gym is great for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones is the people you meet. You have those people who become trainers because they have a long history of experience in the gym and know what it takes to succeed. We’ll call them “the passionate”. Then, you have those naturally gifted athletes who are used to succeeding in everything involving physical activity and think that personal training will be an easy paycheck. Let’s call this group “the apathetic”. The apathetic have the shortest-lived training careers. My theory is that it’s because they realize pretty quickly they don’t have the grit and stamina it takes to get their clients through the highs and lows of their fitness journeys.

There is nothing wrong with these trainers. In my experience, the apathetic do want to help, they just don’t have all the tools yet. Just as I had thought my greatest passion and purpose in life was to make a career out of playing music, the apathetic also realize their true passion isn’t what they originally thought. Don’t get me wrong, music will always hold a special place in my heart and I wouldn’t trade my music degree for anything. Just like these trainers will continue to be active throughout their lives – it’s a part of them.

If you’re looking for someone who has the passion it takes to inspire you and keep you going, you need to find one of the passionate. Find a trainer who knows not only the “what” and “why” of your training program, but also understands you as an individual and knows what exercises and nutrition plan will work best for you, specifically.

Anyone can Google a fat loss plan or prescribe cookie cutter circuits that make you want to die. But someone who is truly passionate about training will listen to you. They will make you believe that you can achieve your goals and will eagerly help you get there. They won’t tell you what to do but they will show you how to do it and they’ll show you in the most optimal way for you. The passionate don’t know everything and will be honest when they don’t know. Their passion will drive them to research, read studies, listen to podcasts, attend fitness summits and conferences, and continually learn more.

I wish I could’ve told myself during my quarter life crisis to be more flexible. Life happens and you have to accept that you aren’t going to be perfect all the time. You will have to re-arrange your workouts and you will have times where you can’t eat perfectly, but you learn to adjust. Currently, I work fitness into my life, not work my life around fitness. I give myself two flexible rest days in addition to my 5 working days. If something comes up and I can’t work out that day, I’m able to prioritize what’s more important in that moment and still reach my goals in the long run.

The moral of the story? Be consistent, but be flexible.

P.S. My friends are still making some pretty sick music, and you should check them out!

Polterguts - STL Hardcore - Polterguts Spotify

Filibusta - Funkified EDM - Filibusta Spotify

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 Fitness is something that I found when I was over 300#. It changed my life, my hobbies, and my career. I want to help as many people as possible fit fitness into their life.

Do you need some guidance on how to best make fitness work in your life? Email me and we can set up a time to go over what will work best for you to reach your goals.

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You MUST do this exercise?

veryone trying to sell you a fitness program, myself included, says they have a way to get you success, and their way is obviously the best. Many of these trainers/coaches/gym goers have seen great success with their chosen method, which is why they say it is the best. There is objectively AND subjectively a best method, but is there one exercise you MUST do to achieve the results you are looking for?

Note: I am going to use the example of a barbell back squat. Any mention of squat is referring to a BBS, unless otherwise noted. The following CAN be said about any single exercise.

Everyone MUST to Learn to Squat to Get to Their Goal

Do you sit down on the couch after then end of a long day? How about at work? Do you ever go #2? Unless you don’t have a couch, have a standing desk, or poo standing up, the answer is yes. Do you want to do these things for as long as possible? Then you need to learn to squat properly, and get progressively stronger. One of the easiest ways to do so is with a barbell on your back. Using a squat as your main squatting movement allows you to add weight in the smallest increments (I have .25lb weights!) Learning how to properly perform this lift will strengthen all of your lower body and core, while having a direct benefit to everyday life for a long time.

When talking about efficiency, most would argue that it doesn’t get more efficient than learning to squat properly. It utilizes so many muscles, and focuses on the largest muscles of the body, so from a energy usage standpoint it doesn’t get much more economical than squatting properly. If your goal is muscle size, the squat takes your quadriceps (the four main muscles that make up the front of your upper thigh) through a huge range of motion utilizing both knee extension (straightening out the leg) and hip flexion (a secondary function of the rectus femoris, 1 of 4 quad muscles). Because of the large range of motion (ROM), the ability to load the movement relatively high, and the necessity of control to complete the movement safely, it has the ability to accomplish all three of the ways to cause muscle growth: mechanical tension (Heavy weight), metabolic stress (the burn throughout the whole movement), and muscle damage (a controlled negative, or eccentric contraction).

Plus, it just looks cool to lift a ton of weight. AmIrIgHt?!

So, to achieve your goal, Barbell Squat.

Squatting isn’t a necessity to achieve your goals.

Everybody must squat is probably the thing I see the most thrown around on the internet. But why? It is efficient and does have transferable skills to “real life.” Does this mean you have to do it? What if you have knee issues? Or back or shoulder issues? What if the barbell hurts the skin on your neck? Well, the last one, I would probably say deal with it. However, all the other ones are legitimate issues that people have! So if these prevent you from squatting should you forgo working out? Maybe you should just do cardio? Again, with the last one I would probably avoid as it could cause more problems (and cardio is my least favorite activity, ever! haha)

Working around injuries, discomfort, or general/localized pain is a very common thing. The advantage of being in a gym is there are usually multiple ways to stimulate a muscle to grow or get stronger. In this instance, a leg press accomplishes a similar movement. What about squat variations? Goblet, split squat, rear foot elevated split squat, front squat, safety bar squats, landmine squats, even, *GASP*, smith machine squats. The horror!!!  There is also a leg extension, hip thrusts, and step ups, that when combined achieve a similar ROM. While this might not be the best use of time, if you can’t squat, this is certainly a viable option.

It Depends

Do you HAVE to squat? No. SHOULD you squat? Probably. Like I said in the beginning, there is objectively AND subjectively a best exercise for a given outcome. However, they aren’t necessarily the same exercise and that is where the nuance comes in here. I truly believe that everyone CAN and SHOULD squat (and deadlift. and press. and pull), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to use a barbell. I like to think in terms of movement patterns. A squat pattern, or knee dominant movement, is all that needs to be accomplished. The most easily overloaded version, a barbell back squat, is something that should be learned and done as part of most workout regiments. However, when there are confounding circumstances (injuries, mobility issues, etc.), bodyweight squats, box squats, high and low step ups, leg presses, or even lunges (performed with a shorter stride for a more knee dominant movement), in addition to those squat variations mentioned above, can be subbed in for a squat. When done properly, all of these are accomplishing close to the same outcome, strengthening the knee flexors (quads) in a compound movement (utilizing more than one joint). These can all be loaded, in various ways, to get progressively harder leading to the results you are after.

Being able to perform a squat pattern movement in a safe and controlled manner is the basis for sitting down. It should be a goal of everyone who trains to be able to do this pain free. That doesn’t mean that you must squat 500lbs, but there are few, if any, movements that will affect your lower body on a rep for rep basis. Do you have to squat you get stronger or have huge legs? Absolutely not. As long as you are working your lower body, and training some sort of knee flexion in a progressive matter, your quads can grow. (Confession, right now my quad training involves Smith machine squats, front squats, leg press, and leg extensions)

Is squatting objectively and subjectively the best exercise for your desired outcome?

What is your desired outcome?

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Still unsure of what to do? Want to find a plan that is subjectively and objectively the best for your desired outcome? Email me and we can get a plan together for you!

Cleanse your toxified body!

The beginning of the year brings out all sorts of different protocols to help people achieve their goals. When it comes to weight loss people are promised, or think they can get, accelerated results from doing cleans or detox. Is it worth it to starve yourself for a weekend? Does a detox that sends you to the bathroom every 30 minutes help reset the body to prime us to lose weight more efficiently?

Cleanses and Detoxes are a waste of your Money

Does your body need to detox? Do you have a liver? If the answer to the second questions is yes, then the answer to the first is no.
Do you need to do a cleanse? Can you eat a diet high in fruits and fibrous veggies for the same amount of time as you plan on "cleansing?” If the answer to the second questions is yes, then the answer to the first is no.

The supplement industry (will dive deeper here in a following blog post) is full of people who use cherry picked data and a general sense of fear to drive you to buy their products. Our body is really good at it’s job. Like really good. So good in-fact, that if you do have enough toxins in your body where you would need to detoxify, you’d be really sick and probably in the hospital. Most of the supplements that are billed as detoxes/cleanses have little to no scientific backing their safety, efficacy, or value. Save your money!

A Cleanse/Detox is a great way to accelerate fat loss

“I feel so great after I do my cleanse!” “I need to get a jumpstart on my diet by doing this detox.” “Karen’s selling this awesome detox/cleanse package and she lost 15lbs in a week!”

Change is hard. Sometimes we do need a kickstart, a way to initiate the mindset shift that is necessary for success. A laid out plan, where you spend a lot of money, is a simple way to get buy-in. Literally and figuratively. Buy-in is imperative for any play to succeed. If this is a way that gets you to go all in on your goals it can be a great way to get started.

A nice by-product of most cleanses is that they are high in fibrous veggies and packed with nutrients that most diets lack. This leads us to feeling better and usually lose weight by consuming a more nutrient dense diet than we typically do. This typically include more satiating/less palatable foods and therefore we unknowingly eat fewer calories. Eating more fruits and veggies is never a bad idea. And cleanses/detoxes can be an easy way to get them in.

Andrew’s Final Thoughts

Outside of some initial motivation, I think that cleanses and detoxes are a giant waste. Waste of time, money, and effort that could be used somewhere more effective. Time is wasted by not learning how to eat properly. It’s wasted by not learning how to think objectively and doing your research. Money is wasted by buying products that could be put towards real food, teaching you real lessons on what you like and don’t like. Money that can be put towards qualified people teaching you strategies that will work for longer than a week (or however long the cleanse lasts). Effort is wasted on a strategy that is doomed to fail. Detoxes are selling you a magic bullet, one that says this is an easy way to achieve your goals. This effort could be put towards developing a plan that will work for you and your tastes, habits, and lifestyle.

The quick and easy way is always attractive. We feel as though the task at hand is too big for us to really accomplish. There aren’t any obvious harsh negatives to doing this cleanse or that detox. Maybe you’ve “tried everything,” or the monetary investment isn’t that big, or you can do anything for three days. However, these are all based on fear. That little voice that is saying “you’re not really going to accomplish your goal,” so you resign to trying the latest fad. The actual way to accomplish your goal isn’t sexy, or really all that cool, but it works. You have to do the work, everyday, to get better. Will a detox accomplish that? Maybe, but I think you’d be better off learning how to properly fuel your body, no matter your goal!

Check this out for more detailed information on cleanses and detoxes!

Have you had success with a detox or cleanse? Have you every done one before? Sound off in the comments!

New Years Resolutions

“New Year, New Me!” “This is my Year!” But is it really? Are new years resolutions actually a viable strategy to reach your goals? Let’s dive in.

Point: New Years resolutions are a great way to achieve your goals

Confession: I was a New Year’s “resolutionist” as I’ve found we are called by gym bros. During my senior year of college, I was over 300 pounds and was tired of people telling me I wasn’t fat. I knew I was and so did they. They were trying to tell me that they didn’t care what I weighed or how I looked, but it came out as I wasn’t fat. I appreciate that about my friends from back then. They allowed me to have a great college life, but I wanted more. Then came my opportunity. It was late December, so why not set myself a New Year’s Resolution. I was embarking on my fist real spring break that next March. My roommate and I decided to join one of his friends’ “90 Day Transformation Challenges” on Facebook, because, well, I wanted to look hot on the beach for my trip. Not fully realizing what could be accomplished in less than three months, I went in full force. I exercised 5 days a week and spent 30 minutes every day on the elliptical. First I cut out out fast food (except Subway, because in 2008 Subway was still considered healthy by pretty much everyone). Then I started progressively eliminating more from my diet (I finally decided even a 6” Subway sandwich had to go). By the time we left for my trip, I was down into the low 270s. Since then I haven’t taken more than 5 days off from lifting. I’m not telling you this to tout some sort of superiority, but to say that a resolution I made 10 years ago sparked my journey into a career and passion to help others.

New Year’s offers us the ultimate fresh start. A new month. A new puppy picture atop the calendar. We can use this fresh start to set fresh new goals. Everyone needs a push to get started, and while I would always argue that there is no better time than now, now is currently the New Year. So use that momentum and get started on the new you! Whether it is reading more, spending more time volunteering, eating less fast food, or whatever it is that will make you the best you possible, get started now! Pick a goal, set a date to accomplish it, have progress goals along the way, and you can make 2019, the year that you finally stick to your resolution. Who knows? You may make a change that impact your whole future.

Counter-Point: New Year’s Resolutions are designed to fail

Have you had a New Years Resolution? How did it go? According to Statistics Brain Research Institute, only 8% of resolutions are successful. 80% of them fail by February. Our innate belief that we are different tells us we won’t be like those other 92%, we’re going to succeed. It’s why we play the lottery and why we take chances that are 1 in a million. The human mind is amazing because it can drown out the negative and let you focus on the positive outcome, however unlikely it is.

That is why we continuously set New Year’s resolutions, but at what cost. What does it mean for our mental state if we continuously set these goals (which are often far out of our tangible range) and fail to accomplish them? It destroys your willpower. It makes you feel like you aren’t good enough. Every time you fail to reach a goal, it makes the voice in the back of your head say you’ll never reach that goal. That voice is already loud on so many fronts, why give it a megaphone? In my experience, people set these unattainable goals with all the optimism in the world, but when they fail to reach their goals, they give up entirely. Any small progress is seen as no progress since it didn’t complete the task. You are discouraged and dismayed. It’s a very difficult thing to get back on the horse, so to speak. You may even wonder why you would even try to lose weight or set goals?

Well, all I’m saying is that New Year’s resolutions aren’t the reason you should want to lose weight. You should start today because you’re ready to fully commit to the challenges ahead, not because it’s the first week of January.

What do you think, Andrew?

Anything that gets you moving towards being a version of yourself that aligns with where you want to be is a positive thing. However, it’s hard for me to throw my enthusiasm behind something that has such an abysmal success rate. “It worked for them/me/co-worker Karen” should never be a reason to try something. We are all built and wired differently because of our genetics, lifestyle, commitment level, etc. If you make a resolution, or even just a goal throughout the year, follow these steps to ensure you have the greatest chance of success:

1) Set a timeline. Setting a time limit for your resolution gives it a sense of urgency. There’s a principle out there that says we will take as much time to do something as we give it. Think to the last time you had a project due. Chances are, it wasn’t given to you on a Friday and due Monday, but I bet you waited until the last minute complete it. The same principle applies to your fitness goals. With a finite timeframe, you will feel compelled to get started and stay moving towards your goal everyday.

2) Set up smaller goals along the way. Success breeds success and failure begets failure. When setting a goal, it needs to be something worth getting. If you want to lose 50lbs, setting your goal at 20 isn’t going to get you to 50. However, if you set your goal to lose 50lbs this year and you say you want to lose 20lbs in the first 5 months and 4lbs per month after that, you have now created momentum. Accomplishing the first goal will snowball into more accomplishments and establish good habits that can be repeated. The way to lose weight is one pound at a time.

3) Have a plan. And please, stick to it. “A goal without a plan is a dream.” How are you going to lose those first 4lbs? If you don’t know that how are you going to lose 50? How are you going to get your bench press up to 225? Create a plan and stick to it for the duration. Don’t hop to the next thing. Don’t just go into the gym and do what you feel like. Don’t go to the grocery store without knowing what you need. Have a progressive gym plan, a diet that works for you and know what to do if/when it stops producing the results you want. Having a plan and sticking to it, even if it isn’t optimal, is better than having no plan at all. At the very least, you will find that this plan doesn’t work for you.

4) Change your mindset. Easier said than done, I know. However, the people I work with don’t really start to see lasting results until they start doing it for the right reasons. Many people come to me because they hate the way they feel. They’re not “sexy” enough. They don’t have enough muscle. But something happens after a few weeks or months. People start to see what their bodies are capable of. Now, Instead of thinking they don’t have enough muscle, they want to see how much muscle they can get. That simple mindset shift has gotten more results than any resolution alone ever has.

5) Learn to love the process. Celebrate that squat PR, rejoice in your new 5k time, get psyched about your new program! Through chasing progression and not perfection, by looking forward to what’s to come and not what you did/didn’t do yesterday, you are subconsciously more exited about your goal. Be optimistic with your future and your process, and it won’t feel like you’re doing as much work along the way.

There are five steps to help you achieve your resolution. This isn’t a complete list, nor do you have to do everything. These 5 steps are a few simple ways to give yourself the best chance of success. Set a resolution or don’t, but have a plan to get there, set some goals along the way, and change your mindset so you can start enjoying the process.

Do you need some help getting started or maybe you know where you want to be but don’t know how to get there. Go ahead, click that contact button and shoot me an email so we can get started right away. I help people get results every day and I can definitely help you!

Welcome

Hello! Welcome to my new (hopefully) Bi-Monthly Blog. I’ve often felt that because there are so many sources of good information out there, there isn’t much more I could add to the conversation. However, I have recently come to the realization that not everyone has the same exposure to the people or publications that I follow. Also, much like our political news scene, the exercise and nutrition world is sensationalized. And also like our political news scene, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

So thats where I come in. My style has always been a pragmatic one. Critical thinking. Evidence based (as cliche as that designation has become). Truly trying to understand both sides of an argument. Often times, much to my wife’s dismay, I’ll play devil’s advocate in our discussions of everything from the serious to the mundane. So much so, that if we haven’t discussed the topic before she might not know where I actually stand on the topic. If we’ve every met in person and you asked me a fitness related question I probably answered one of two ways: by saying “it depends” or asking if you want a long or short answer.

These point/counter-point type posts will be more a long answer type answers, with hopefully some sort of final thoughts on which way seems to be the better of the two options.

This will be as much of an exercise for me (to understand topics that I may not be well versed in yet, or have a strong opinion one direction) as hopefully informative to you. So if you have any topics you’d like me to write about please let me know in the comments.

Do you have any questions? Want to discuss this more? Shoot me over an email and we can discuss!

andrew