As you know, I love to experiment. And the idea of trying to bring up lagging body parts with specialized high frequency training was something I found extremely intriguing. But, as I tweeted on Saturday night:
“Final verdict on the 4 weeks of arms and then 4 weeks of forearms… Big time failure. Blog post Monday to explain.”

The quick and dirty is that I’ve proven to myself in 3 separate tests that specific muscle growth is completely possible, and that training a muscle group 3 to 4 times a week doesn’t cause over-training if you are prepared for it.
During the first month where I trained only my back muscles 3 to 4 times per week I increased the muscle mass of my back by over 4 pounds (As per DEXA). While this was an excellent result (in my opinion) it didn’t transfer in my pictures. Basically, 4 pounds across my […]

Original post by Brad Pilon

pimg class=”alignright” title=”Ignite” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/ignite.jpg” alt=”ignite” width=”320″ height=”212″ /Running a popular blog with a big readership has its downsides #8211; the workload is heavy, the pressure to produce is high, the research is unending #8211; but the advantages absolutely outweigh them. One of the best parts of all this is that I can give relatively massive amounts of exposure to causes/blogs/authors/thinkers/movements that I truly believe in. Selling books and gaining new readers isn#8217;t everything, or even most of it; I got into this Primal health business because I wanted to change the world. We all care about something larger than ourselves, something that we wish others would care and think about, too. Well, I#8217;m fortunate enough to be able to bring that wish to fruition on any given day, and today is one such day./p
pspan id=”more-30554″/span/p
pstrongI have two things I think you should do today:/strong/p
ol
liJoin the a title=”Ancestral Weight Loss Registry” […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

pimg class=”alignright” title=”Baked Sweet Potatoes” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/sweetpotatoes2-1.jpg” alt=”sweetpotatoes2 1″ width=”320″ height=”212″ /Sometimes, weight loss slows. Sometimes, what worked amazingly well before, stops working quite the same. Although this can be scary, frustrating, annoying, or all of the above when a title=”Weight Loss Plateau” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/weight-loss-plateau/”progress slows/a, stops, or requires new input to continue like it was is ultimately okay, because we are an adaptive species. We can a title=”17 Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/17-reasons-youre-not-losing-weight/”change things up/a, shift stuff around. Physiological processes (among which weight loss and metabolism can certainly be counted) are a title=”384 Day Primal: Work the Process Not the Result” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/384-days-primal-work-the-process-not-the-result/”never linear/a #8211; that#8217;s partly what makes all this stuff so endlessly engaging./p
pToday, I revisit a strategy for overcoming these lulls in weight loss induced by low carb: carb (re)feeds. They seem counterintuitive, sort of, especially if you#8217;ve had success restricting carbs, but hold you opinions until you read on. […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

pimg class=”alignright” title=”Raspberry Gelatin” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/raspberry_gelatin.jpg” alt=”raspberry gelatin” width=”320″ height=”238″ /Jiggling rings and towers of gelatin can bring back unappetizing memories of a culinary era when Jell-O was king. So it’s understandable if you read the title of this post and said, “Seriously?”/p
pYes, seriously. Forget about flavored gelatin rings made with mini-marshmallows and canned pineapple or with Miracle Whip, peas and diced ham. Instead, envision a rich and creamy dessert with the flavor of fresh, ripe berries and the gentle sweetness of coconut milk. Think about an appetizer that tastes just like salmon mousse, except you can serve it in slices without any need for crackers or bread. And this is just the beginning. With some unflavored, powdered gelatin and a little creativity there is no limit to what you can come up with./p
pspan id=”more-30502″/span/p
pAlthough the ideal way to add a title=”Is Powdered Gelatin Primal?” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/is-it-primal-paleo-bread-braggs-liquid-aminos-psyllium-fiber-and-other-foods-scrutinized/#axzz21ZOGPqyp”gelatin/a to your diet is through […]

Original post by Worker Bee

div class=”breakout”
pIt’s Friday, everyone! And that means another a title=”Success Stories” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/category/success-story-summaries/”Primal Blueprint Real Life Story/a from a Mark#8217;s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me a title=”Contact Me!” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-book/share-success-story/” target=”_self”here/a. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!/p
/div
pimg class=”alignright” title=”Primal Blueprint Real Life Story” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA2009/real_life_stories_stories-1-2.jpg” alt=”real life stories stories 1 2″ width=”320″ height=”240″ /My wife Amy and I have been married for 14 years, we have 2 wonderful boys, I have a great job, and a nice home in a quaint city, and over the years we have been slowly falling apart./p
pI’m the kind of guy that carries his weight well, that’s what I’ve been told. I was active all my young life, track, football, martial arts, I could […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

pimg class=”alignright” title=”Smile!” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/smileyface.jpg” alt=”smileyface” width=”319″ height=”244″ /I think we can all agree that a basic goal in life is the attainment of happiness, that mind state characterized by positive and pleasant thoughts and emotions. But how do we become happy? By definition, happiness requires some type of pleasure to be present. We need good feelings and good physical sensations. Furthermore, the pleasure must come first, before the happiness. Something, and I don#8217;t care what it is, has to make you feel good before you can truly call yourself happy. As such, our behaviors and our motivations are shaped by that pleasure-seeking tendency. And that pleasure-seeking is mediated through the reward system, which has several different but interrelated components: liking, which describes the sensation of pleasure; wanting, which describes the desire to obtain the thing; and learning, the Pavlovian-esque conditioning. Basically,strong if we do something or expose ourselves to something […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

pimg class=”alignright” title=”Daydreaming” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/daydreaming.jpg” alt=”daydreaming” width=”320″ height=”212″ /There’s something about these middle weeks of summer that feel less hurried, less brimming, more casual. At a certain point of the season, everybody remembers to relax a little and soak it in. The “lazy days” mood got me thinking about daydreaming #8211; those lost minutes (maybe hours) in which we unintentionally slip into contemplation. Sometimes we end up floating into more serious ruminations. Other times, it’s just loose and happy reverie. We all do it #8211; whether it’s looking out the window of our morning train, laying in the backyard hammock, or sitting (a title=”How to Work Outside” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-work-outside-even-if-youre-a-desk-jockey/”standing/a, rather!) at our work desk. It can often happen even if we’re trying to focus. Call it a lapse in discipline, but the brain seems to have its own agenda in those moments. Is there some purpose here beyond mere escapism? What […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

The controversy over differing nutritional theories arises more from semantics and the limitation of language than it does from scientific principles.
These may sound like sharp words that admittedly could almost seem elitist, so let me try to explain…
The argument that a ‘calorie is not a calorie’, or that ‘not all calories are created equal’ is an error in language. Either that or an illustration of a gross lack of understanding.

(Adding funny pics that people can relate to doesn’t make an assumption more valid)
 
A calorie is a measure of energy. So a calorie by definition must be a calorie, just like an inch is by definition and inch and a pound by definition is a pound.
What is typically meant when someone says “not all calories are equal” is “not all macro-nutrients are equal” which is a valid statement.
The problem arises again in language… someone is thinking “Not all macro-nutrients are […]

Original post by Brad Pilon

pimg class=”alignright” title=”Sunflower Oil” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/sunfloweroil.jpg” alt=”sunfloweroil” width=”274″ height=”287″ /It#8217;s time for another edition of #8220;Is It Primal?#8221;, where I do my best to rescue certain foods from Primal limbo (if they deserve it) and banish others to Primal exile. And sometimes, I#8217;ll keep a food languishing just because there#8217;s really nowhere else to put it. This week I have five foods. Some, like sunflower oil and wheat germ, are quite common. There#8217;s a good chance you have, or soon will, encounter them out there in the wild, and I hope to give you the tools to handle them. Other foods, like skyr and corn smut, won#8217;t be quite so common (unless you#8217;re a time traveler from 16th century Mesoamerica or an Icelander), but you never know when you#8217;ll have the opportunity to eat some corn fungus and acidified cultured cheese yogurt. You want to be prepared. The last food […]

Original post by Mark Sisson