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The floor press is an excellent exercise. It is a particular favorite of mine for guys with long arms. I often use it instead of the bench press for these guys. Here are five benefits of the floor press:

1. Builds muscle mass in the chest, triceps, and shoulders
2. Increases overall pressing strength
3. Specifically boosts lockout strength
4. A good choice for beginners or those coming back from injury
5. Minimizes shoulder stress for long-armed lifters by limiting range

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Are you treating your accessory work like carnivores treat their vegetables? As an afterthought to the main steak event?

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For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering one question from a reader. It’s all about synthetic peptides, small chains of amino acids with potentially huge effects on your health and physiological function. In most cases, these synthetic peptides are based on naturally-occurring compounds found in the human body. Scientists isolate the “active component” of the compound and whip it up in a lab by stringing together the right amino acids. Many of these peptides are available for purchase online, strictly “for research purposes.” But people are using them.

Are these safe for humans? Are they effective?

Mark, I would love if you did a write-up on BPC-157 and LL-37 with regards to gut health. I’m surprised with all your articles on collagen peptides you haven’t written once about “synthetic” peptides. Thanks!

Sure.

Let Me Cover PBC-157 First….

BPC-157 is a partial reconstruction of a string of 15 amino acids that’s already found in Body Protection Compound, a naturally occurring healing compound the body produces. Its creators took the natural BPC and figured out the most “biologically active” section of its amino acid chain, then synthesized that section alone. You can find the real thing in human stomach juice (and presumably throughout the body doing its job). You can buy the synthetic version online.

What Does BPC-157 Allegedly Do?

It enhances healing and recovery from injury. In one study, BPC-157-treated Achilles’ tendon tissues were more resistant to injury, spread more quickly on a petri dish, and recovered faster than untreated tendon tissues.

In another rat study, their cecums—the beginning of the large intestine—were perforated. Applying BPC-157 enhanced healing, stopped bleeding, and sped up recovery.

It counteracts NSAID toxicity. BPC-157 blocks aspirin-induced bleeding and improves healing of NSAID-mediated lesions in the gut, brain, and liver.

Another rat study even used BPC-157 to improve healing from a spinal cord injury. BPC rats regained functional autonomy, had better control over their tails, and were less spastic.

It can treat periodontal disease, reversing inflammation and reducing bone loss.

It can treat colitis, reducing gut inflammation and restoring mucosal integrity.

Briefly looking through all the anecdotes online, most people are using this peptide to heal joint or tissue injuries, which seems to be the best use. Ben Greenfield swears it healed his tennis elbow and hamstring damage. I even saw one person who used it to improve brain health and function after years of stimulant abuse. Some research does show that BPC-157 can restore dopaminergic function in the brain. Some are even reporting restored sensitivity to stimulants (although using a healing peptide just to restore your ability to get high off Adderall again seems counterproductive).

What Are the Downsides?

It must be subcutaneously injected for maximal efficacy. This isn’t as hard as it looks (millions of diabetics do it every day) but some people are really nervous around needles. Orally-active BPC-157 is available, but I’m not sure how it compares.

There is the small problem of the total lack of published human studies. If there are any, I didn’t see them. The animal studies are impressive, though, and the fact that the peptide chain does naturally occur in our bodies suggests it’s relatively safe, but we don’t know for sure.

A big problem is that you can’t verify the purity of the products available online. You have to read reviews, know the right people, and do the research. These aren’t legally intended for human consumption, so there’s no testing authority regulating the safety and content of these products.

Now For LL-37….

LL-37 is an anti-microbial peptide found naturally in people. It’s heavily involved in the immune response, and its role in health isn’t very clear. It isn’t consistently “good” or “bad.” For instance, its presence can suppress tumor growth in colon and gastric cancer, but it’s been shown to promote tumor growth in ovarian, lung, and breast cancers. But it’s also able to bind to and negate the effects of lipopolysaccharide, the bacterial endotoxin secreted by many gut pathogens, and selectively target apoptotic white blood cells while leaving viable ones unaffected.

Why Are People Using It?

There are online forums populated by people who are using this peptide to heal gut issues, deal with inflammatory diseases, and treat autoimmunity—or, they’re at least buying the peptide, injecting it, and hoping that it works and not always following up with the results. I’m skeptical about using these as justification to experiment. As one recent paper put it, LL-37 is a tiny peptide with huge effects:

Some of the functions of LL-37 are anti-inflammatory, particularly those involved in blocking Gram-negative signaling pathways through TLR4. However, in the context of the inflammatory response, this peptide may also provide proinflammatory signals that can propagate inflammation, stimulate type I IFN production, and result in induction of autoimmune diseases. Further research is needed to fully understand the big effects of this little peptide on immune system function so that potential therapeutic uses can be explored.

Sticking Points With LL-37

Much of this could be a guilt by association situation: LL-37 is often found elevated at disease sites and in diseases states because it’s part of the inflammatory response. It isn’t necessarily causing the disease. But the immune response is a delicate one with huge ramifications. I’d be very careful with injecting a peptide that the body normally produces in times of acute inflammation. That sounds a lot like trying to attempt top-down regulation of innate immunity—a decidedly bottoms-up process.  Probably better to wait for human trials rather than rely on positive anecdotes from unsourced forum posts. I’m not saying these people aren’t helping themselves with this compound. I’m saying the risk of complications or unwanted effects would be too high for me.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading and be sure to comment down below. Do you have any experience using these synthetic peptides? How about any others?

The post Dear Mark: Synthetic Peptides appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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We have high standards at Gym Jones. I don’t just mean the strength and fitness standards that so many people associate us with. I mean it more generally. When we train someone here, we expect effort and intensity, of course, but we also expect them to meet us halfway. We will give you our time, our energy, and all of the training knowledge we’ve accumulated over the years. But it’s what the trainee brings to training that is, in many respects, the much more important contribution.

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Weight Watchers (recently rebranded to WW) put out an app for kids and teens who want to lose weight a few months ago. It’s called Kurbo, and it assigns “traffic light” color codes to different foods. Green foods like fruits and vegetables can be eaten freely, yellow foods like low-fat dairy, lean meat, and bread can be eaten in moderation, and red foods like full-fat dairy and sweets should be eaten sparingly or “planned for.” Kids under 13 need to sign up with a parent, while older kids can sign up on their own. Online coaching is available for an extra fee. Users are urged to track their food intake and body weight, even if they choose a goal like “Have more energy.”

Critics hit back. The Atlantic claimed that using apps like Kurbo won’t make a difference for the kids who need it most—those living in “food deserts,” those exposed to junk food marketing, those whose parents can’t afford healthy food and haven’t the time to fix healthy meals. Outside Online warned against the potential for Kurbo to create unhealthy fixations on food and “clean eating” in kids, setting the stage for eating disorders that can increase the risk of mortality, depression, and anxiety later in life. They called for an overhaul of “food policy” instead.

It’s wrong. They’re all wrong.

The childhood obesity epidemic isn’t a single, double, or even triple-issue problem.

It’s not caused by a lack of green light foods and a surfeit of red light foods.

It’s not caused by food deserts either. Unfortunately, introducing grocery stores full of fruits and vegetables into “food deserts” always fails on the macro level at least: not enough people end up buying the food.

It’s not caused by a lack of “food policy.” Official governmental food policies are arguably what helped get us into this mess.

Outside Online mentions an “overhaul of culture.” That’s closer to the mark, but it’s probably not broad enough.

Childhood obesity is far more multifactorial than people are willing to acknowledge. People give lip service to multifactoriality. When they say “childhood obesity is multifactorial” or “we need an overhaul of culture” they’re really just talking about calorie intake and recess cutbacks at school (although neither of these help matters).

In reality, childhood obesity has dozens of causes. You can’t fix one or two things and fix the problem. You have to fix the entire structure of modern society. All the things we talk about on here—the sleep, the industrial seed oils, the sedentary living, the light at night, the excess carbs, the inadequate strength training, the overreliance on “cardio”—also affect children.

But changing “food policy” won’t do it. Nothing “top down” will accomplish it, because society is made up of individuals and families. Change must start down there, not at the top.

I read a dozen research studies every week suggesting some new and simplistic answer to the child obesity issue. 

Prebiotics reduce childhood weight gain? Great. Does that mean prebiotic powder in the water fountains is the fix? That might help, but we have to go deeper. Prebiotic supplementation helps because children are designed to eat foods that contain prebiotics. You could just give the isolated prebiotic on top of their refined diet for half the benefit, but it’s more effective and provides more micronutrients when you let kids eat whole foods that contain prebiotics instead of refined foods bereft of them.

Oxytocin reduces the desire for rewarding junk food? Great. Does that mean we should mix oxytocin into their milk bottles? Give your kids MDMA microdoses? No. Instead, spend close physical time together as a family. Hug your children. Wear your babies—go skin to skin. Do the normal, everyday human things that promote oxytocin secretion.

Oh, it’s not food deserts but food swamps—an overabundance of fast food joints and food marketing—causing the obesity epidemic in kids of lower socioeconomic status? Now we’re getting somewhere. But does that mean we should lobby government to force fast food restaurants to close up shop and stop advertising? That’ll never happen. What actually works is turning off T.V. commercials, limiting exposure to marketing, and saying “no.”

You see what’s going on here? Local decisions are the only way forward. You can say “no.” You can hug your kids more. You decide what to buy at the grocery store and make for dinner.

The crux of the issue is that if we want to fix childhood obesity we have to fix ourselves. We have to change how we, as parents, eat, move, spend our free time, consume media, interact with our kids. We can’t expect our kids to eat good food if we’re not. We can’t expect our kids to refrain from digital device addiction if we’re logging eight hours a day. We can’t tell our kids to read books and play outdoors if we’re glued to our screens and bingeing Netflix.

It’s not easy. Few things that are worthwhile are easy. But here’s the secret to all this stuff: It’s way, way better than what you were doing before. It’s more fun and more rewarding. We just have to get over that hump of complacency, of habit, of resistance—and then we’re home free. You know how you’re always happy you forced yourself to go to the gym? How not only are you happy having worked out, but you enjoy the actual workout itself in the moment. That applies to everything else that’s good for you. Getting out the board game and corralling the kids is worth it. Family game night is better than everyone zoning out or hanging around on devices separate and together. On every level, it’s better.

It’s easy to despair. The world is unfair and set up for kids to get fat. They shouldn’t have to think about what they eat. The idea of a weight loss app for kids shouldn’t even enter a developer’s mind.

They shouldn’t have a dozen varieties of gluten-free cereal to choose from. Their milk shouldn’t be skimmed, their chicken shouldn’t come in finger form, their days should be full of rambunctious play and exploration.

They shouldn’t have to think about food at all. They should simply eat the food that’s available, and the food that’s available should be nutrient-dense and unrefined.

The problem, you say, is that we don’t live in that world anymore. We can create little islands of ancient nutrition in our homes, but they aren’t impermeable. Your kids will go to school, go to parties, go to friends’ houses. And they’ll realize that the small world they live in isn’t “normal.” They’ll get exposed to candy and video games and everything else that increases the risk of obesity. And they’ll probably bug you about it. They might even whine.

So what? Hold fast.

None of these other solutions are going to work. Not the apps, not the public policy. Societal change for something this personal can’t happen from the top down.

Real change happens around the dinner table. It happens when the heads of the family decide to make the change happen at the hyper-local level—the only one they can hope to control.

Oh, so what about everyone else, you might be asking? How can I guarantee that my neighbors and the other parents are my kids’ school are doing the same thing? Or those unfortunate kids on the other side of town? Or the impoverished ones in that other country?

You can’t. That’s how it works. You can’t control it. And once you allow the experts to start dictating how everyone else eats and lives, you’ve lost. You won’t like what they come up with. No government official will ever advocate or enforce the kind of diet we believe in. The best hope you’d have is for a Primal Caesar to cross the Pepsi Rubicon and wrest control of the government from the corrupt bureaucrats and establish a Primal regime. I’m too busy for that.

As a final note, a word on dieting in kids. I may take flack from readers for this one, but so be it. Kids shouldn’t be “put on” specific diets. Don’t make them go keto or carnivore or (especially) vegan.

Look: if your kid only wants to eat eggs and bacon and steak and full-fat milk, awesome. Don’t force your kid to eat anything in either direction (but keep it available—because their whims change quickly and thankfully). And if your kid is dairy-intolerant, don’t give them cheese. But if your kid likes potatoes and berries and bananas, those are completely legitimate foods for a growing human to consume. I just can’t advise restricting any whole Primal-friendly foods on the basis of macronutrient ratios. Kids are in constant go mode. They’re running and moving everywhere. They’re laying down new tissue at an astonishing rate. They may even still be building brain tissue, depending on their age. Stay away from the aberrant foods like industrial seed oils and massive amounts of refined grains. Sugar should simply be kept out of the house, out of reach. Provide healthy vegetation even if they’ll only eat 2-3 things in that category, give some animal foods at every meal, and don’t worry about carbs or fat.

If everyone did that, we wouldn’t have an obesity epidemic in kids. Thankfully, you can choose to do that. Right here, right today.

And that’s good enough.

What about you folks? What do you think about childhood obesity? What can we do about it? What should we do about it? Do you agree with my stance?

Let me know down below, and thanks for reading!

The post What We Get Wrong About Childhood Obesity appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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As the popularity of consumer genetic testing services continues to climb, more and more consumers are making decisions about what to eat or what supplements to take based on their testing results. In this episode of Revolution Health Radio, Dr. Tommy Wood and I discuss the problems with consumer genetic testing and explain why the results are not as helpful or actionable as we’ve been led to believe.

The post RHR: The Pitfalls of Genetic Testing, with Dr. Tommy Wood appeared first on Chris Kresser.

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How many mornings do you wake up and feel like you have been run over by a truck in your sleep? Joint stiffness and pain are standard, especially in the morning, and can severely interfere with your quality of life. In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 14.6 million Americans had […]

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Today I’m overjoyed to announce the release of my latest, greatest, and certainly broadest attempt at a comprehensive plan to live long and live awesome: Keto For Life. The book’s official on-sale date is December 31, and—as tradition goes on Mark’s Daily Apple—I’m offering an incredible group of free bonus materials as a pre-order gift. Here’s a link where you can access your favorite online retailers to order, but know you can also visit your favorite brick and mortar bookstore to pre-order, too.

Folks, I know many of you have been here with me and the MDA community for enough years to remember how this all began with the Primal Blueprint. It’s been such an awesome journey—and one that keeps evolving in incredible ways. I genuinely feel like it’s all been leading toward this one. I’ve poured my personal experimentation and hard-gained insight into every book I’ve written, but this one feels, well, like a whole new level of inquiry and practice. Keto has kicked off not just a dietary trend the last few years but truly a whole new realm of scientific research. I’ve been knee-deep in it in writing this book, and I’ve not only delved into these revolutionary findings but have also taken the integration of keto science and Primal lifestyle principles to an entire new level. Let me tell you about it….

With ground-breaking connections for how keto and Primal principles can literally reset your biological clock, Keto For Life is a revolutionary gateway into eating and living for increased longevity and resilient vitality. With endless how-tos in every chapter, a 21-Day Biological Reset plan with multiple holistic lifestyle prompts for each and every day, and more than 80 delicious keto recipes, it’s a deeply comprehensive and fully actionable resource for living Keto For Life—and all it’s meant to be.

Longevity is about much more than just healthy eating. However, oftentimes when you’re stuck in the disease state of carbohydrate dependency, you might as well forget about other lifestyle strategies until you can escape that certain destiny of pain, suffering, accelerated aging and disease. If you’re an ancestral health enthusiast, you likely realize the amazing health awakening that comes when you upregulate your fat burning genes and get off the carb dependency train. Favorable blood test values, dropping excess body fat, and escaping the common problems of energy, mood and appetite swings are indications that your metabolic flexibility is robust. While Keto For Life dutifully cleans up some of the misconceptions, hype, and misinformation that have come with the explosive popularity of keto, I’m expanding the entire picture into “Four Pillars of Longevity.”

I’ll give you a little teaser today about each section so you’ll be eager to dive right in when your book arrives! In the Introduction, you’ll learn how hectic, high-tech modern life is becoming more and more at odds with longevity, especially the hidden costs of hyperconnectivity, destruction of meaningful social connections, and forces like consumerism, flawed and manipulative marketing messages relating to diet and medical care, and even the fitness industry’s obsession with struggle and suffer instead of a more sensible approach to exercise. You’ll learn perspective-altering insights about our actual healthspan as well as intriguing multi-plane views of aging that will revamp the way you look at your later decades—and the journey leading to them.

A new perspective shows us that aging as we know it isn’t a normal and inevitable result of chronology but actually what Dr. Art DeVany describes as “the unrepaired accumulation of routine cellular damage… a loss of cell function, loss of cell integrity, loss of the ability of stem cells to renew tissues.” Embracing this truth, you can take tremendous control over the rate at which you experience decline, instead appreciating and optimizing the variety of human “peaks” we can achieve and harness throughout our lifespans. Chronology has far less to say than we’ve given it credit for.

Pillar #1: Metabolic Flexibility

This is the best catch-all term to convey the magnificent journey of escaping carbohydrate dependency and becoming a fat-burning beast. Literally, metabolic flexibility describes the ability to burn a variety of fuel sources—not just external ingested calories, but also internal sources such as stored fat, stored glycogen and ketones manufactured in the liver as a byproduct of fat metabolism—when carb intake is low. At the highest level of sophistication, you become a “closed loop system” that can survive and even thrive without needing the constant intake of external calories and certainly without needing to adhere to any regimented macronutrient eating patterns.

In this pillar, you’ll reacquaint with the importance of a comfortable, minimally stressful step-by-step process to escape carb dependency and progress toward metabolic flexibility. As detailed in the Keto Reset Diet, you’ll execute a 21-Day Metabolism Reset, a fine-tuning period, and a 6-week nutritional ketosis period. We’ll discuss some advanced strategies for fasting and eating in a compressed time window, particularly the importance of limiting your digestive function to 12 hours. You’ll get guidance on integrating the hottest longevity superfoods and supplements, as well as help sorting through the weight loss hype around them and pinpointing the best ways to use these products.

You’ll learn some of the best long-term keto strategies, including living in what I call the “Keto Zone,” where you eat in a general keto-aligned pattern without stressing about macros, as well as incorporating days or periods where carb intake might increase beyond keto limits without you stressing about it. You’ll also learn what NOT to do with various popular keto strategies that are ill advised or overhyped, including (but not limited to) the ridiculousness of dirty keto, obsessive weekend refeeds, and cheat days.

Pillar #2: Movement and Physical Fitness

Movement and physical fitness are two distinct concepts. Together, along with preserving sharp cognition, they represent the essence of aging gracefully. In contrast, when we lose cognition and mobility, our life expectancy and quality of life plummet as we are relegated to wheelchairs, beds, and medications that limit our physical freedoms and compromise our mental well-being.

The desperate obligation to increase all forms of general everyday movement can be best handled by JFW—Just F—ing Walk! Today, many fitness and health experts assert that simply moving around more (especially avoiding the prolonged periods of stillness that are so common in the digital age) has surpassed the importance of following a structured workout routine as the top priority to be fit for life. How can this be? Because moving around all day is one of our fundamental genetic expectations for health. Our genes crave movement and are averse to stillness. In as little as 20 minutes of sitting still, we can experience impaired glucose tolerance and acute insulin resistance, along with diminished cognitive function. When prolonged periods of stillness dominate your daily routine, it can cause chemical changes in the brain that promote further inactivity. This is quantified by a lower measurement of Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)—you burn fat less efficiently at rest and consequently crave more carbohydrates for energy.

Now, because modern life is so comfortable, we also have a desperate need for ambitious fitness endeavors like Spinning, CrossFit, or even completing a half-marathon, but these goals must be only contemplated after you have established a foundation of basic everyday movement, which I detail in the book.

Once your movement looks good, you can get into the genetically optimal workout pattern ala Primal Blueprint with a strategic blend of comfortably paced cardio, regular short duration, high intensity resistance workouts (weights, machines, or just bodyweight exercises like pushups), and occasional brief, all-out sprints (the ultimate Primal exercise to delay aging under the “use it or lose it” natural law.) Let’s also add what I call “play” endeavors that can feature each of the aforementioned. As you know from being a Primal enthusiast, there are massive hormonal and physiological benefits to be gained from putting your body under resistance load regularly, and opening up the throttle occasionally with all out efforts.

These activities, which have been almost completely neglected by most modern humans, give us a boost of adaptive, anti-aging hormones like human growth hormone and testosterone. Brief, intense efforts also help preserve muscle mass as you age, improving the critical longevity component of organ reserve. This is the functional capacity of your organs to perform above baseline level, one of the most fundamental ways to assess your state of health and longevity potential. This Primal approach to fitness is simple, time efficient, and within reach of everyone. It also gives you awesome protection against the accelerated demise associated with inactivity.

Unfortunately, many fitness enthusiasts follow an overly stressful approach that leads to breakdown, burnout, illness and injury. Chronic exercise leads to hormonal and immune dysfunction, and compromises metabolic flexibility—instead pushing you back in the direction of carbohydrate dependency. You’ll learn how to schedule and conduct the various workouts correctly, avoid chronic patterns, and apply an intuitive approach instead of a regimented approach to your fitness goals.

Pillar #3: Mental Flexibility

Mental flexibility makes you resilient for life in the same manner that metabolic flexibility makes you resilient enough to skip meals and maintain energy and focus. While looking after the physical vessel is essential, we must acknowledge the strength of the mind/body connection as previously discussed with the insights from Dr. Chopra and Dr. Lipton.

This section details numerous strategies to hone mental flexibility, starting with pivoting: going with the flow when facing life change. Pivoting entails knowing both when to persevere when your peak performance goals are aligned with your deep beliefs and calling to make the world a better place, and also recognizing when it’s time tone down the influence of your ego and quit when things don’t feel right in your gut.

You’ll learn how to avoid the disease state of ruminating, that is, the act of engaging in obsessive or destructive thoughts about the past or the future that cause you feel anxious, depressed, irritable, overwhelmed and downright sad. Instead, we can cultivate the esteemed skill of mindfulness—accessing a state of calm, present awareness through repetition and endurance. 

Next, you’ll learn the importance of journaling, actually taking pen to paper and recording your thoughts, hopes, dreams and worries. Journaling can help you identify and correct self-limiting beliefs and behavior patterns. The specific practice of gratitude journaling, for example, has been scientifically validated to reduce stress levels, dissipate negative emotions, boost levels of the love hormone oxytocin, and activate calming parasympathetic nervous system function.

You’ll also read about learn to nurture meaningful, reciprocative interpersonal relationships—which might very well be the most powerful and important way to improve your longevity prospects in the entire book. Our genes are wired for connection, and the digital connections that are dominating modern life and coming at an extreme cost to our physical and psychological health. You’ll learn to cultivate a thriving social network, a smaller cluster of your closest family and friends, and place particular importance on the make or break health element of a loving partnership.

Pillar #4: Rest and Recovery

Optimizing your sleeping habits and environment will be the prominent focus here, but we must also consider a broad-based approach to chilling out amidst the hectic pace and constant stimulation of modern life. Strategies include disciplining your use of technology, taking frequent breaks from peak cognitive function to refresh depleted brain neurons, conducting recovery-centric workouts designed to promote relaxation and rejuvenation, and becoming competent at napping when cognitive function declines from afternoon blues. You’ll learn to pair mellow evening habits with a high energy morning routine (plenty of ideas included).

You’ll also turn your attention to proper recovery, both from fitness regimen and workplace overstimulation. You’ll learn about specially designed “Rebound Workouts” that can actually speed recovery in comparison to total rest by stimulating parasympathetic activity. And you’ll learn how to get better about focusing and prioritizing during the workday to avoid the dreaded cognitive middle gear, where you’re busy but ineffective. Finally, you’ll learn the importance of disconnecting on multiple levels to deliver profound hormonal and psychological benefits, stuff we have overlooked and disrespected with our warp speed technological progress.

21-Day Biological Clock Reset

After a comprehensive education and practical instruction about the 4 Pillars, it’s time for a transformative challenge: The 21-Day Biological Clock Reset. The reset features daily action items representing each of the Four Pillars. The journey, while short in duration, is designed to be highly focused and demanding. This is the only way to stimulate lasting lifestyle transformation and release you from the powerful pull of decades-old ingrained habits and powerful cultural forces pushing your out of a balance and stuck in carbohydrate dependency.

You’ll be exposed to a variety of strategies and concepts over the 21 days, and the idea is that you will pick and choose your favorites to integrate permanently into your lifestyle. You’ll be challenged to perform breakthrough workouts, increase daily activity, actually sit down and do stuff like a gratitude journal and create dark, mellow evenings instead of maximum screen time. It’s going to be fun, but it’s also going to be intensive, not to mention life-changing. Completing the Biological Clock Reset once a year is an excellent way to fine-tune your longevity muscles and clarify your focus amidst the constant distractions of modern life.

Recipes

But the food… Folks always want to know about the recipes. The 80+ Keto For Life recipes are a collaborative effort among numerous authors, coaches, chefs and well-known keto experts, including Dr. Cate Shanahan, Keris Marsden and Matt Whitmore of The Paleo Primer series, William Shewfelt of the carnivore diet movement, Dr. Lindsay Taylor and Layla McGowan, my co-authors on the Keto Reset Instant Pot Cookbook, Tania Teschke, author of The Bordeaux Kitchen, and more.

You’ll find everything you need for beginning, recommitting or reinvigorating your keto eating enjoyment with this diverse selection of dishes, from gourmet to quick and easy, from breakfast to beverages, snacks to side dishes and everything in between.

Let me share one today that might appeal….

Sneak Peek Recipe: Keto Cheesecake

Prep Time: 40 minutes (plus refrigeration time)

Cook Time: 60 minutes

Servings: 8

Ingredients:

FOR THE FILLING

• 16 ounces (453.59 g) organic cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 large egg
• ¼ cup powdered stevia or 1-2 tablespoons honey

FOR THE CRUST (OVEN METHOD ONLY)

• 1 cup (96 g) almond flour or 1 cup (128 g) coconut flour
• 4 tablespoons (60 g) butter, at room temperature
• 1–2 tablespoons powdered stevia
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

FOR THE CHOCOLATE CRUNCH TOPPING

• ¼ cup (34 g) macadamia nuts or assorted nuts
• 1 bar (3.5 ounces/100 g) dark chocolate (85% cacao or greater), broken into pieces
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil 2–3 tablespoons fine coconut flakes

Instructions:

Make the filling: In a large bowl, combine the cream cheese, vanilla, lemon juice, sea salt, eggs, and sweetener. Mix thoroughly with an electric mixer on low speed.

Choose between the Instant Pot Method and Oven Method and proceed as directed.

Instant Pot Method: Pour the filling into a round glass bowl or springform pan that can fit inside the Instant Pot. Cover the bowl carefully with foil. Pour 2 cups water into the Instant Pot. Place the cheesecake on the handled steam rack (or in a steamer basket accessory if you have one), and lower the cheesecake into the pot. Cook on High pressure for 25 minutes. When the Instant Pot beeps, allow the pressure to release naturally, about 15 minutes, then lift out the cheesecake.

Oven Method: Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

Make the crust: In a bowl, combine the almond flour, butter, stevia, and vanilla until well blended. Press the mixture into the bottom of an 8-inch springform pan or round glass or ceramic baking dish.

Bake until the crust darkens slightly, about 10 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes (leave the oven on). Pour the cheesecake filling mixture into the pan and smooth out the top with your hand (just kidding, use a spatula).
Bake until the middle is almost firm, but not quite, about 50 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.

While the cheesecake is cooling, make the chocolate crunch topping (use for either version): In a small food processor, blend the macadamia nuts until they resemble a crumbly flour. In a double boiler or a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, melt the chocolate and coconut oil. Mix the nuts and coconut flakes into the melted chocolate.

Drizzle the topping carefully across the top of the cooked and cooled cheesecake. Refrigerate the cheesecake until the crust feels hard, 30 minutes to 1 hour. Slice and serve.

Macronutrients Per Serving:

Instant Pot Method: 323 calories; 29 grams fat; 8 grams carbohydrate; 7 grams protein

Oven Method: 459 calories; 42 grams fat; 12 grams carbohydrate; 10 grams protein

Final Thoughts

I realize that there is an overwhelming amount of content hitting us today from books, magazine articles, blogs, podcasts, YouTube and streaming media, and it’s easy for a new book to get lost in the shuffle or buried on a “read later” list. That’s why I want to reiterate what a hugely expansive and life-changing this book Keto For Life represents. My longtime writing/publishing partner Brad Kearns and I joke that we always underestimate the difficulty and duration of a book project by half, and this was no exception. Keto For Life represents an intensive project that took an entire year to complete, with devoted efforts from a sizeable team of researchers, editors, agents, publicists and publisher. It’s designed to stand proudly for years to come as an owner’s manual for longevity. I hope it can help you claim your fullest and longest life.

Now For the Keto For Life Pre-Order Bonus Gifts…

This is always my favorite part. For those who order the book early, I have a few gifts for you (available right away even though the book itself comes out 12/31/19).

Bonus Audio Summary

Enjoy a detailed overview of every section of the book to get you excited and prepared to begin your Keto For Life journey. My co-author, Brad Kearns, describes the 4 Pillars in detail.

Sneak Peek Excerpt Booklet

Read some choice excerpts to give you a feel for the comprehensive nature of the book, where you obtain a deep education and scientific rationale for the 4 Pillars, as well as get practical, step-by-step guidance to implement, and (finally) enjoy a few of the delicious 80+ recipes from the book.

$10 Discount at Primal Kitchen®

Grab some of your favorite keto-friendly products to add variety and ease to your keto cooking ventures.

That’s what I got today, and I’m thrilled to offer it up to the community where it all began and where it’s still evolving. Folks, I hope you enjoy reading the book and putting it into practice as much as Brad and I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for being here.

Reprinted from KETO FOR LIFE by Mark Sisson with Brad Kearns. Copyright @ 2019 by Mark Sisson. Photos copyright @ 2019 Jennifer May. Published by Harmony Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

The post Introducing Keto For Life: Leveraging Metabolic Flexibility To Pursue The Ultimate Goal of Longevity appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

Buy my template, and you’ll not only get stronger, but it’s all you’ll ever need. Have you ever heard a popular coach or trainer say this?

Templates are for sale, usually as an ebook or a PDF downloadable file with illustrated instructions. The pitch includes that it’s easy to understand, to do, and promotes consistency. It’s often a twelve, sixteen, or twenty-four-week program that you can repeatedly do without much change. 

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Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

The classic dumbbell pullover is an exercise bodybuilders have been doing for ages. Back in the Golden era they were credited with building bigger lats, pecs, and serratus. Many top bodybuilders also swore they increased the size of your rib cage too. You have probably seen old black and white pictures of people like Arnold Schwarzenegger doing them.

And some people went as far as to call them the upper body squat.

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