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Research of the Week

Blocking fatty acid oxidation when fatty acids are elevated turns out to be a terrible idea.

Evidence for optimism.

More potassium in the diet, more IGF-1 in the muscles.

It’s unclear if surgery is effective for rotator cuffs.

Ketones improve cognition in patients with type 2 diabetes.

New Primal Blueprint Podcasts

Episode 393: Tara Garrison: Host Elle Russ chats with Boston marathoner, mother of 4, keto specialist, and strength trainer Tara Garrison.

Primal Health Coach Radio, Episode 38: Laura and Erin chat with Dr. Joan Rosenberg about the power of choosing into vulnerability.

Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.

Media, Schmedia

There’s a lot going on here.

Interesting Blog Posts

There’s a lot of money to be made in “saving the world from evil meat-eaters.”

Are scientists overusing Mendelian randomization?

Social Notes

You’ll never guess what happened when this vegan influencer went carnivore.

A giveaway.

Everything Else

Vegans would have you believe the ancient artist was painting a warning sign.

America is importing more sugar than ever before.

New Zealand is importing more human skin than ever before.

Can fasting improve breath holding?

Things I’m Up to and Interested In

I haven’t forgotten about wheat: Amylase trypsin inhibitors in wheat promote fatty liver in mice.

I’d give this as a gag Christmas gift: Firelog that makes your house smell like KFC.

Interesting idea: What the return of the freestanding bathtub might mean.

I’d drink this: Venison mezcal.

I’m not surprised: Humans need more protein in stressed states.

Question I’m Asking

Were you guys aware of atomic gardening?

Recipe Corner

• Instead of a single ribeye, how about an entire slab of ribeye? And then what if you smoked it?
• Pan-seared scallops are unmatched. Oh, and there’s some cauliflower.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Dec 7 – Dec 13)

• Why Grip Strength Matters—and 10 Ways to Build It – Build that handshake.
• Holiday Round-Up: 28 Cookie Recipes – Cookie recipes to use.

Comment of the Week

“Did, uh, ‘butt-chugging vitamin D’ make it into Keto for Life?”

– Gets an entire chapter, Ion Freeman.

The post Weekly Link Love — Edition 59 appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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Powerful questions cross the space between a health coach and a client to invite understanding and possibility. Find out more about the difference that powerful questions can make in health coaching.

The post What Are Powerful Questions? Health Coaching in Action appeared first on Chris Kresser.

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Though it’s hard to place levels of importance on various systems in the body, it is clear that your brain (along with your heart) is as the top of the list. This hardworking organ deals with an incredible amount of information each day and gives you the ability to think, reason, and move. It seems […]

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

There’s an ongoing debate on how important heavy weights are in order to get jacked. As with most trends, public opinion likes to cluster around the extremes. One day heavy weights are critical and the next they’re entirely unnecessary. Realistically, we need to have a more nuanced conversation about the merits and drawbacks to both high and low load approaches to hypertrophy. From there we can come up with some straightforward and practical recommendations that can be implemented into our training.

read more

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Although our holiday menus revolve around the delicious meats and savory sides, there’s still a soft spot for many of us when it comes to holiday sweets. Whether it’s baking cookies this time of year or serving show-stopping desserts at our holiday tables, we might give a little more leeway for treats as part of the special occasion. Below we’ve got recipes for every taste and preference—from Primal to keto, chocolate to peppermint, candy to mousse, pie to cheesecake…and even a jarred Primal cookie mix for gift-giving. Enjoy, and let us know what treats you’ll be baking and sharing this holiday.

1. Hazelnut Chocolates

2. Primal (or Keto) Fudgy Brownies

3. Keto Peppermint Bark

4. Keto Coconut Cheesecake

5. Cranberry Orange Olive Oil Cake

6. Low Carb Mug Cake

7. Pumpkin Pie

8. Sweet Potato Pie

9. Sweet Potato Custard

10. Chocolate Collagen Pudding

11. Mexican Hot Chocolate

12. Keto Fridge Fudge

13. Pecan Sandie Cookie Mix In a Jar

Thanks for stopping in, everyone. What Primal or keto treats will you be serving this holiday? Let us know on the comment board.

The post 13 Holiday Desserts appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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Have you ever heard that strength training is good for you and thought, “Yup, that sounds like a good idea, but…”

That “but” usually precedes a question. Like:

• “… but what exactly do you mean by strength training?”
• “… but does it require lifting heavy weights?”
• “… but can I add it into what I’m already doing?”
• “… but is it really that important?”
• “… but how do I get started? I don’t even know where to begin.”

If you’re asking yourself any (or all!) of these questions, you’re not alone. Many of our GGS Coaching clients start off with questions and concerns like this too.

In this article, we’ve got you covered. We’ll answer the top 12 questions we get asked about strength training, and we’ll even give you a sample routine you can try out today.

So if you have any hesitations about strength training, wait no further. Strength Training 101 is now in session.

1. What Is Strength Training, Exactly?

When you hear “strength training” you might think of a barbell loaded with weight, but there’s a lot more to it than that. (And many more options beyond doing heavy squats or beefy deadlifts.)

At Girls Gone Strong, we sometimes use the terms resistance training and strength training interchangeably. In technical terms, resistance training is any type of training in which the muscles work against some form of resistance. These types of movements or exercises impose an increasing demand on your muscles and central nervous system, causing an adaptation. That “adaptation” is your body getting stronger.

Here’s how it works.

When you apply a stressor, your muscles respond to and work against the stress. This movement against resistance causes microtears in your muscle fibers, and these tears are what stimulate the body to begin rebuilding the muscle. When you repeatedly stress and rebuild, stress and rebuild, you end up gaining muscle and increasing the efficiency of your neural pathways. All that to say, you are able to more efficiently perform the same (or similar) task in the future.

Say, for example, that bodyweight lunges are really challenging for you. With practice (repeated stress), your body is forced to rebuild those recruited muscles to be bigger and stronger and your brain learns and refines that movement pattern. Eventually, the movement becomes easier.

And while this is the most common form of training for building strength, the goal may not always (or only) be to get stronger. It is also useful for building muscle mass, losing body fat, improving certain aspects of physical performance, and rehabilitating an injury.

2. Is Strength Training Really That Important?

Strength training is really valuable for optimal health. Benefits can include:

• Increased muscle growth, strength, power, recovery, and endurance.
• Increased integrity of bone and connective tissues.
• Increased metabolism.
• Increased insulin sensitivity.
• Reduced rate of injury.
• Reduced lower back pain.
• Slowing of age-related declines like strength and bone loss.
• Prevention of osteoporosis (a disease characterized by low bone mass and deterioration of bone tissue) and osteoarthritis (a common form of arthritis where the protective cartilage that cushions the ends of your bones wears down over time).

Strength training can be especially vital in helping us stay active, prevent falls, and enjoy a better quality of life as we age.

There’s also a psychological component.

Strength training can be incredibly empowering because it shines a spotlight on all the things our amazing bodies are capable of, rather than on our what our bodies look like.

So many times I’ve heard clients and friends say that they wish they would have started strength training when they were younger. I totally get that. It can make you feel stronger, more confident, and more willing to “take up space”. With some practice, strength training can transform from feeling like something you “should” do to being something that gives you life!

Like our GGS Coaching grad Sarah puts it: “It’s like I’m a totally different person. I trust my body. I have faith in it. I feel really strong. I’m 42, and I’ve just had two children. You wouldn’t think that this would be the time that that would happen. It feels really good.”

3. Do I Need to Use Weights in Order to Strength Train?

Simple answer: no. Since strength training is all about challenging your muscles through resistance, you can use, well, anything that creates resistance. The world’s your oyster!

For example, you could use:

• Exercise bands
• Exercise machines
• Bodyweight exercises
• Barbells and plates
• Kettlebells
• Sandbags
• Medicine balls
• Suspension straps

Strength training workouts don’t need to be confined to the gym either. You can perform them at home, at the playground, or just about anywhere if you get a little bit creative. In fact, choosing bodyweight training can often remove or lessen certain barriers to strength training, such as time and money. (Imagine working out without having to pay for a gym membership, travel to and from the gym, organize childcare, etc.)

The takeaway here: If you’re super crunched for time and don’t have a lot of resources at your disposal, a bodyweight workout may be the answer. 

In addition, regardless of your age, your fitness level, or your past training experience, bodyweight training can improve your strength with the appropriately applied progressions.

If you’re curious to learn more about how to properly modify bodyweight training exercises to increase (or decrease) their intensity, check out this article by Dr. Laura Miranda.

4. How Often Should I Train?

When trying to figure out how often you should strength train, there are a few things to consider.

First, I’d like to introduce a concept that we use in GGS Coaching called the Optimal Effective Dose (OED).

To explain the Optimal Effective Dose, imagine your efforts on a continuum. To find the right “dose” of exercise, we first need to establish what each end of the continuum looks like, starting with the Minimum Effective Dose and ending with the Maximum Tolerable Dose.

In training, the Minimum Effective Dose (MED) is the minimum amount of stimulus required to achieve a desired effect — basically, the bare minimum to more forward, which can be beneficial and appropriate for some people.

On the other hand, the Maximum Tolerable Dose (MTD) is the highest amount of stimulus that a person can handle before experiencing negative consequences. This is the kind of training that’s appropriate for professional or competitive athletes, and it’s often a full-time commitment.

Somewhere between the two, there’s a sweet spot that we refer to as the Optimal Effective Dose (OED). Your OED is what gives you results in a relatively timely manner when you work consistently, all while still living your life.

Your OED should allow you to do the following:

• Feel in control of your hunger and appetite (i.e., cravings).
• Recover enough from each training session to allow you to train again by the time the next session rolls around.
• Feel generally good and energetic (not overly sore or exhausted from exercise).
• Participate in other obligations and activities in your life (e.g., family, career, social, leisure).

Finding your OED is important because when it comes to training (and many other things in life), more isn’t always better (or necessary). If you can achieve the results that you want in a few short sessions per week, it doesn’t make sense to be grinding away in the gym for several hours more than that. It’s the equivalent of paying $50 for a T-shirt when the price tag reads $25. Get in, get out, and get on with it.

With that in mind, how do you figure out how often you should train? Here are two important tips that our GGS Coaching clients find helpful.

Tip #1: Consider Your Schedule

If your schedule allows for two 30- to 40-minute strength training sessions per week, and you feel confident that you can consistently get those done, that is a great place to start.

Resist the urge to set a lofty goal of 75-minute sessions several times per week if your schedule doesn’t currently allow for that. Why not set yourself up for success? When you consistently get the training done, it’s motivating! Success boosts your confidence and helps to further engrain this wonderful new habit.

Tip #2: Set a Goal That Works with Your Ability Level

Be honest with yourself regarding your current ability level. If you haven’t been exercising at all, it’s probably best to start small while you work on making exercise a part of your regular routine. This will help ensure that your new workout routine isn’t too overwhelming, either physically or mentally.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to get overzealous when embarking on a new fitness venture. We can easily to overestimate our time and abilities, which means that we’ll shoot for workouts that are actually longer, more intense, or more frequent than what we can really maintain. And when we feel discouraged, we’re more likely to quit.

Similarly, even if you’re an advanced exerciser, it’s very unlikely that you’ll benefit from engaging in multiple exercise sessions every day. Your body needs to recover adequately from one session to the next, which requires time — more on that later.

(And if you’re thinking about the fact that some professional athletes do, in fact, train very intensely, consider this: It’s their job. Their entire lifestyle is tailored to sustain this type of training, and even then, it’s usually not a year-round schedule.)

As a good guideline, a schedule of two to four strength training sessions per week works well for most women. The newer you are to strength training, the fewer sessions you need; the more experienced you are, the more you can handle. Here’s how this can look like depending on your ability level and the time you have available to train each week:

Keep in mind that, to be realistic, the other types of physical activity you engage in — like cardio training, group exercise classes, or yoga — should also be considered and included in your calculations of the total time you have available each week.

Bottom line: You’re better off setting goals you can easily and consistently achieve than setting overly ambitious goals and getting discouraged when you can’t achieve them.

5. Do I Need to Do Any Other Exercise If I Strength Train?

In our experience, an optimal combination for most women is to perform cardiovascular training in addition to strength training. We suggest a combination of the following:

• Moderate-intensity cardio
• High-intensity training (HIT) OR high-intensity interval training (HIIT)

We typically recommend HIT for beginner or intermediate exercisers, although advanced exercisers are welcome to do it as well. HIT training brings your perceived continuous effort throughout the workout to between 7 and 8.5 out of 10.

We only recommend HIIT to intermediate and advanced exercisers. This interval-based form of training brings perceived effort during the work periods to 9.5 out of 10 — or higher!

Regardless of which you do, we recommend doing it one or two days a week.

Moderate-intensity cardio should bring your perceived effort to 5 or 6 out of 10, and be performed one or two days a week.

When people think of moderate-intensity cardio, they often think of running or using machines such as the elliptical or stair climber. But there are tons of options for this type of workout, including:

• Hiking
• Biking
• Swimming
• Rowing
• Fast-paced yoga
• Circuit training

As long as your perceived effort stays at a 6 or 7 out of 10 throughout the session, you’re good to go.

In addition to this, we recommend including as much low-intensity movement as your desire and schedule allow. This type of movement has you working up to a 2 or 3 on the perceived effort scale, and you should be able to carry a conversation throughout.

It doesn’t have to be perceived as “exercise” either! Here are some of the simple ways women in the GGS Coaching program are integrating low-intensity movement into their lives:

• Taking the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator.
• Using active transport (like walking or biking) to go to work or run errands.
• Carrying groceries instead of getting them delivered.
• Picking up their kids or their pets.
• Choosing to park a little farther away and walk.

Instead of thinking that more is better, think about cardio in terms of sustainability.

You should enjoy the exercise that you do and be able to fit it into your life in a way that enhances it. If you don’t feel like you can sustain the amount of cardio you’re currently doing, both in terms of time commitment and enjoyment, stop and head back to the drawing board.

6. Do I Need to Bother Warming Up? (Can’t I Just Get to It?)

When I first started exercising, I hated to warm up. I thought it was a monumental waste of time. I’d walk on the treadmill for five minutes, and then get to it. I discovered that my body doesn’t perform best this way. Nowadays, I look at my warm-up time as a luxury. It’s 15 minutes for me to jam out to my favorite music and prepare my body and mind for movement.

For many of us, our bodies are used to doing one thing most of the time: sitting. Many people have sedentary office jobs, and their bodies are hardly primed for movement when they get into the gym. A proper warm-up should prepare you for training not just physically, but mentally as well.

A well-designed warm-up — like those we prescribe in GGS Coaching — that includes diaphragmatic breathing, general mobility work, and activation of main muscle groups also provides the additional benefits of reinforcing alignment, encouraging better breathing patterns, and building efficient movement patterns.

Components of an ideal warm-up include (in order):

• Self-myofascial release (optional)
• Diaphragmatic breathing and core-pelvic floor connection breathing
• Cardiovascular warm-up (optional)
• Dynamic warm-up and movement preparation
• Warm-up sets (optional)

You may not always have the time (or need) to do an ideal warm-up, so while all of these elements have their place, it’s up to you at each training session to determine what you need most that day. As some elements from the above list are marked optional, prioritize the ones that aren’t — namely diaphragmatic breathing and core-pelvic floor connection breathing — as well as dynamic warm-up and movement preparation.

Taking a few minutes to prepare your workout can make a huge difference in your mindset and the way your body moves and performs during your workout. It’s worth it!

7. What Kinds of Movements Should I Do?

Exercises typically fall into one of six major movement patterns. A well-rounded strength training program includes movements from all six categories. Though you don’t have to do all six on the same day, make an effort to incorporate movements from each category throughout your training program.

The six major movement patterns are:

• Squat/knee-dominant
• Hinge/hip-dominant
• Single-leg or split-stance
• Upper-body push (horizontal and vertical)
• Upper-body pull (horizontal and vertical)
• Core (rotation; anti-rotation; anti-extension; anti-lateral flexion; and hip flexion with neutral spine, hip, and spine extension)

Here are just a few examples of each movement pattern:

Squat or Knee-Dominant

• Bodyweight squat
• Barbell back squat
• Barbell front squat

Hinge or Hip-Dominant

• Romanian deadlift
• Conventional deadlift
• Barbell glute bridge

Single-Leg or Split-Stance

• Reverse lunge
• Split squat
• Single-leg squat to box

Upper-Body Push

• Push-ups (horizontal)
• Dumbbell bench press (horizontal)
• Overhead press (vertical)
• Barbell corner press (vertical)

Upper-Body Pull

• Inverted rows (horizontal)
• Lat pull-downs (vertical)
• Pull-ups (vertical)

Core

• Half-kneeling chop (rotation)
• Pallof press (standing, tall-kneeling, or half-kneeling/anti-rotation)
• Front planks and variations (anti-extension)
• Side planks (anti-lateral flexion)
• Bear crawls (hip flexion with neutral spine)
• Prone back extension (extension)

When it comes to training, there are two types of movements: compound movements (also known as multi-joint movements) and isolation movements (also known as single-joint movements).

Compound movements involve more than one muscle group and joint while isolation movements involve only one muscle group and joint. Isolation movements aren’t absolutely necessary for everyone. For example, a person whose primary focus is to get stronger can get in plenty of bicep work by doing pull-ups, or enough quad work by squatting, instead of including biceps curls and leg extensions in their workouts.

When setting up your training, prioritize compound movements over isolation movements.

Why? Because compound movements provide the biggest bang for your buck by recruiting several different muscle groups at once. As a result, they use more energy, which also means that you’re better off doing them first when your “tank” is full and you can do more work.

Some examples of compound, or multi-joint, movements are:

• Squat variations
• Deadlift variations
• Push-ups
• Pull-ups

After you have completed your compound movements, you can work in some isolation, or single-joint, movements. Some examples include:

• Bicep curls
• Seated leg-extensions
• Tricep press-downs
• Calf raises

Isolation movements are typically best used as a way to target a certain muscle for growth. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with using isolation movements, but compound movements should be your priority if your goal is gaining strength or using maximum energy expenditure to change your body composition.

8. How Many Sets and Reps Should I Do?

The wonderful thing about being new to strength training is that it’s really common to experience strength gains and see physical changes relatively quickly. Strength training is a brand new stimulus for your body, which will respond quickly as a result! “Beginner’s gains” are a beautiful thing!

In GGS Coaching, our exercise programs typically include two to four sets of most exercises, though this varies depending on the person. Typically, the number of sets you perform is linked to the total number of reps you’ll do each set. The number of reps per set may vary depending on your goals, your training experience, and how frequently you are training. The following are some good guidelines depending on what your goal is.

Goal: Increase Your Maximum Strength

A max strength program will typically specify one or more main lifts for the workout. The rest of the program will include accessory lifts, which use a lower intensity and higher volume.

If you’re interested in gaining strength but not in gaining size, the accessory work is still important to complete. Instead, simply work toward the lower end of the volume range for the accessory lifts (i.e., 2 to 6 sets of 6, keeping track of how your body responds and adjusting accordingly).

Basic guidelines

• Main lifts: 2 to 5 reps per set and 3 to 6 sets for each movement
• Accessory lifts: 6 to 12 reps per set and 2 to 4 sets for each movement

Goal: Gain Muscle & Increase Muscle Size

Hypertrophy training is what is often referred to as “bodybuilding,” and the focus is on gaining muscle size. When training for hypertrophy, most programs typically include multiple exercises per body part within the same workout.

This type of training can and should use a wide range of loads and rep ranges to maximize muscle growth, although moderate loads are most often used since they allow for adequate mechanical tension, volume, muscle microtrauma, and metabolic stress.

Basic guidelines

• 6 to 12 reps per set and 3 to 6 sets for each movement

Goal: Improve Muscular Endurance

Muscular endurance is the combination of strength and endurance within a muscle. Muscular endurance training can improve the ability to deal with fatigue and the buildup of lactic acid — that burning sensation you can sometimes feel when training.

Typically, this type of training involves a moderate to high number of reps per set, but not necessarily a high number of total sets. Circuit training with low rest is one of the ways this type of training is often organized.

Basic guidelines

• 10 to 20 reps per set and 2 to 3 sets for each movement

It’s important to note that each one of these is a valid goal in and of itself. Let your personal preference — and not other people’s opinions — dictate what goal you choose for yourself.

9. How Much Weight Should I Use?

Before choosing how much weight you’ll use for an exercise, it’s important to know how to perform the movement.

For example, make sure you can perform a proper and pain-free bodyweight squat before adding external load using dumbbells, kettlebells, or a barbell. Adding load to a movement that you are doing improperly will not help you progress in the right direction. The same goes for performing an exercise properly, but with pain. Only once you know how to properly perform the movement and feel comfortable with it is it time to add weight.

We recommend that you choose a weight that allows you to leave one or two reps “in the tank.” This means that after completing the recommended reps, you are still able to perform one or two more reps — with proper form — if you absolutely had to (but you won’t actually do them.)

Put another way, you aren’t training to failure, (i.e. to the point where your body simply cannot perform the exercise anymore). Your last rep should feel challenging, but doable.

Selecting the right amount of weight takes some trial and error, and the only way to figure out what is best for your body is to dive in. Try a lighter weight, see how it feels, and then adjust accordingly.

In fact, we recommend that you always err on the lighter side when selecting weights. Starting too heavy can compromise the integrity of the movement and prohibit you from being able to finish your set. If you realize that your selected weight is too light halfway through your reps, rack the weight, write that set off as an extended warm-up, give yourself a minute of rest, and go a bit heavier for your next set. No biggie.

10. How Do I Get Better?

As I mentioned earlier, part of strength gains stems from the stress placed on your muscles. The stress breaks down the muscle tissue, and then during recovery, the body repairs and rebuilds that tissue to be stronger than before.

In other words, if you want to get stronger and more efficient with your workout (and reap the other benefits, like increased muscle mass) one of the best things you can do — besides being consistent with your training — is, wait for it…

… work on your recovery.

When we say “recovery,” we aren’t just referring to rest. Rest and recovery are different. Rest means that you took a day or two off from strength training, or spent some time snuggled up on the couch with a good book. While these things are important — and recovery does include some rest — recovery is more multifaceted than merely resting your body.

When we talk about “recovery,” we’re mostly talking about three things: nutrition, sleep, and stress management.

Together, these things help your body repair itself after exercise and get stronger. With that in mind, here are a few things you can do to maximize your recovery:

• Eat plenty of nutritious foods and get an adequate amount of protein. 1–1.5 grams per pound of lean body mass is a good place to start.
• Be certain that you are getting plenty of high-quality sleep each night.
• Incorporate some ways to decrease chronic stress into every day. A 5- to 10-minute leisurely walk, a quick meditation, or a few deep-breathing exercises can fit into the busiest of days.

Your recovery is just as important — if not more so — than your actual training sessions. (That’s why in GGS Coaching, we don’t just work on exercise and nutrition; we also take a deeper look at your sleep and stress management practices to help you can reap the most benefits, both in and out of the gym.) If you feel like you’re not getting any better despite being consistent with your training sessions, take a look at your recovery. It might be the thing that’s holding you back.

11. What’s the Best Way to Get Started Right Now?

The answer? Try our sample workout plan.

Here are two sample workout plans you can use to train twice per week. To put this into practice, here are the basic steps:

• Before each session, start with foam rolling, diaphragmatic breathing, and a dynamic warm-up (like we saw in Question 6).
• After your warm-up, start by consecutively completing all the sets in exercise 1a, (resting 60 to 90 seconds between each set).
• Then, move on to the next set of exercises, alternating between exercises 2a and 2b until you’ve completed all your sets.
• Do the same for exercises 3a and 3b.
• Remember to rest 60 to 90 seconds between each movement.

Here’s your workout plan!

Session One

1a. Goblet squat: 3–4 sets x 6–8 reps

2a. Lat pull-down: 2–3 sets x 8–10 reps
2b. Bodyweight glute bridge: 2–3 sets x 8–10 reps

3a. Corner press: 2–3 sets x 8–10 reps per side
3b. Standing Pallof press: 2–3 sets x 6–8 reps per side

Session Two

1a. Incline push-up: 3–4 sets x 6–8 reps

2a. Kettlebell RDL: 2–3 sets x 8–10 reps
2b. Band pull-apart: 2–3 sets x 8–10 reps

3a. Split-stance single-arm cable row: 2–3 sets x 8–10 reps per side
3b. Side plank on knees: 2–3 sets x 3 reps (hold 10 seconds)

12. How Do I Stay Consistent?

When it comes to keeping up a strength training program (or any health or fitness change, for that matter), some days will be easier than others. So what makes the difference between “falling off the wagon” and making patient but persistent progress?

In our experience, it comes down to two key things: coaching and community.

The combination of a coach who’s in your corner and a supportive group of people who are there to celebrate your wins, share your struggles, and help you stay inspired… that is a magic combination right there.

While helping hundreds of thousands of women over the years, we’ve learned that when it comes to staying consistent, nothing compares to the magic combination of coaching and community. Again and again, our GGS Coaching clients say it’s these two things that help them stay the course, no matter what life throws at them.

So seek out supportive people, join together with friends, or find a coaching program that speaks to your needs and goals. You’ll be stronger for it.

Want help getting the best results of your life — without extreme dieting or exercise?

Finally with GGS Coaching there’s a way of eating and exercising that’s effective, enjoyable, and easier than ever before (even if you’ve tried everything).

If you’re ready to:

• Stop restricting, dieting, and obsessing about food
• Eat food you love — that satisfies you — and still get the results you want
• Spend less time in the gym, not exhaust yourself, and still achieve your goals
• Trust your body and trust yourself around food
• Feel good in your skin, and radiate confidence from the inside out

We can help.

That’s why we created GGS Coaching.

Women need coaches who understand their unique needs and challenges, and GGS Coaching is a coaching program designed by women, for women, run by women.

Helping women is what we do here at GGS. Tell us what your goals are, and we’ll help you achieve them in a way that lasts.

GGS Coaching was designed as the antidote to all of the typical obsessive, restrictive, exhausting diet and exercise programs out there, which are too difficult to sustain for any real length of time.

We get it. That’s why we use a sustainable, skill-based approach to help you practice the exact skills you need to get the results you want – without overhauling your life.

GGS Coaching isn’t just about getting the best physical results you’ve ever gotten in your life — it’s about becoming the best version of yourself, one step at a time.

On January 1st, 2020, we’re accepting a small number of new coaching clients.

If you’re ready to work with a world-class GGS Coach, we strongly recommend you join our free, no-obligation pre-sale list below to enroll early and save up to 45% off the general public price.

Once you join the pre-sale list, we’ll send you more info about the program. And when enrollment opens, we’ll give you the chance to register 24-48 hours before everyone else. Plus, you’ll save up to 45% off our general public price.

Join the Pre-Sale List Now

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There’s a ton of talk about intermittent fasting in the ancestral heath sphere for general health and wellness as well as weight loss, but little indication of specific applications for the practice. Anytime you attempt a “radical” health practice like not eating, it helps to have a good reason to do it. That will not only give you something to aim for, but it will ensure you actually have a physiological justification for your experiment. Never go in blind.

What are some of the specific scenarios and conditions where fasting makes the most sense?

1. You Are Intractably, Morbidly Obese

It used to be that an accepted and well-tested fix for morbid obesity that was unresponsive to other methods was long term fasting.

One experiment was very long term: over a year of not eating anything except for multivitamins. (Disclaimer: I’m not recommending this approach, but it is interesting.)

Back in 1965, an obese Scotsman of 27 years and 456 pounds came to the Department of Medicine in Dundee, Scotland, with a problem. He needed to lose weight. A (1/8 of a) ton of it. The doctors suggested maybe not eating for a few days could help. It was just an offhand recommendation, but the Scotsman really took to it. He stayed at the hospital for several days, taking only water and vitamin pills while undergoing observation to ensure nothing went wrong. When his time was up, he continued the fast back at home, returning to the hospital only for regular monitoring. After a week, he was down five pounds and feeling good. His vitals checked out, blood pressure was normal, and though he had lower blood sugar than most men, he didn’t seem particularly impaired by it. The experiment continued… for 382 days.

Yes, AB fasted for 382 days, drinking only water and taking vitamin, potassium, and sodium supplements. All told, he lost 276 pounds, reaching his target weight of 180 pounds and maintaining the bulk of his weight loss. Over the five following years of observation, AB regained just sixteen pounds, putting him in excellent, but underpopulated territory (at least 80% of dieters eventually regain all the lost weight).

2. You Want the Benefits Of Ketosis Without Having To “Go Keto”

One thing a fast of sufficient length will do is throw you straight into ketosis. Humans are so wired to go into ketosis that a simple overnight “fast,” aka sleeping, will do it.

Then, when you do eat, you have more wiggle room on carbs because you’ve just spent plenty of time in ketosis during the fast. This isn’t the same thing as going keto, but then again, not everyone wants to be in ketosis all the time. Many benefits come from “dipping in and out of ketosis” on a regular basis, and regular intermittent fasting certainly qualifies.

3. You’re Otherwise Quite Lean, Active, and Low-Stress and Just Have a Little Bit To Lose

Fasting can be a stressor. Going without food tends to do that in organisms that rely on food for sustenance. It’s just that in the context of an overall low-stress lifestyle and low-oxidative stress physiology, it can be a positive stressor—a stressor that promotes strength and adaptation.

This is why women, in general, tend to have a tougher time with long term fasting. They are inherently more vulnerable to nutritional stressors since they have to be prepared to carry children to term and nurse them, two functions that require a steady source of calories. Biologically speaking, that is.

4. You Want a Buffer Against Degenerative Diseases

Now, this is mostly speculative. This isn’t medical advice or a guarantee of any kind.  There’s good reason to believe that regular extended fasting (or at least skipping meals/multiple meals on a regular basis) can reduce the risk of degenerative diseases and perhaps even extend life by triggering the autophagy pathway that cleans up damaged cells and keeps pre-cancerous cells suppressed.

Will this ensure you don’t get cancer down the line or die earlier than is your potential? No, not at all. But it’s a relatively easy thing to try with no downside, and it just might help.

5. You Want To Lean Out and Gain Muscle At the Same Time

The classic Leangains-style intermittent fasting with regular strength training is one of the best ways I’ve ever found to gain muscle and lose body fat concurrently. You follow a shortened eating window every day—usually 16 hours fasting, 8 hours eating—and on workout days end the fast with a strength training workout, then eat. Classic Leangains has you eating lower fat, higher carb on workout days and higher fat, lower carb on rest days, with protein kept high throughout. But it should work on whatever macro combination you prefer.

You won’t gain as much muscle as quickly as if you ate enormous meals all the time, but the gains you make will generally be leaner.

6. You’re Recovering From Major Gut Issues

A friend of mine just did a 5-day water fast to reset his gut biome after SIBO and/or a parasitic invasion. It fixed him right up. And whenever my dogs have ever had digestive upset, like diarrhea or something, I’ll throw them on a two-day fast and they bounce right back.

I think the gut needs periodic “resets” to stay in top shape. Give it a rest, have nothing go through demanding its attention for a couple days, and allow things to balance out. Just like someone who trains all the time can really benefit from a deload week, a digestive system that’s constantly digesting and processing food can benefit from a day or two of rest.

7. You Want To Control Blood Glucose Levels

In men with an elevated risk of getting type 2 diabetes, intermittent fasting without consciously changing what or how much they ate improved blood glucose levels. They either ate from noon to 9 PM or from 8 AM to 5 PM, so a solid nine hour eating window was enough to trigger improvements. That they didn’t change what they ate suggests that irrespective of the quality or quantity of the diet, simply not eating for 15 hours a day will improve your metabolic health.

Dr. Jason Fung consistently uses intermittent fasting in his patients with type 2 diabetes, so the potential for powerfully therapeutic effects for even full blown type 2 diabetes is quite high.

8. You Only Have Access To Terrible Food

When I travel for business, which is quite often, I tend to fast. Airports are getting better, but it’s still a sad state of culinary affairs. I usually have a few choices: I can pick at a wilted Caesar salad with flaccid chicken breast. I can eat some congealed beef patties from whatever fast food joint has set up shop in the terminal. I can drop $30 for a mediocre steak. Or I can just fast.

I usually choose the last option. At this point in my life, I refuse to put substandard food into my body, especially if it isn’t even very delicious. I’d rather just skip the food entirely and have a great meal when I arrive.

9. You Can’t Stop Snacking

Total freedom is hard for some people to manage. Even if the food is high quality and Primal or keto or whatever, constant access to eternal amounts of it is hard to turn down. Snacking happens. Again and again. Sometimes, we need to put up barriers to manage that freedom, to make it work. After all, paradise is a walled garden, and erecting the artificial eating barrier of a full-on fasting day (or two) or a compressed eating window will allow you to overcome this. If this describes you, a fasting regimen just might be the trick to work.

Plus, many people find that forcing yourself to not eat for an extended amount of time on a regular basis upregulates fat burning machinery and allows better eating habits and reduced snacking when you do go back to normal eating.

10. You’re Willing To Try an Unconventional Recovery Technique

When Dude Spellings was on the podcast, he relayed a wild story about racing 50 miles through the Grand Canyon in a (mostly) fasted state, being greeted at the finish line with a stack of pizzas, and instead of wolfing down with all the other competitors, continuing the fast through till the next day—theorizing that in his exhausted, inflamed state he could use the benefits of cell repair and anti-inflammatory processes enhanced by fasting. He woke feeling less stiff and sore than his previous crossing 13 years prior.

11. You’re Trying To Avoid Jet Lag

Another reason I often fast when traveling is to establish a new circadian rhythm aligned with my destination. By waiting until the morning after my arrival to eat, I take advantage of one of the most powerful stimuli, or zeitgebers, for establishing a new circadian rhythm: food. Eat a big meal in the morning, and your body “knows” it’s morning—biologically speaking.

How this looks:

I arrive at noon in the new location, which feels like nighttime for me. Instead of eating a big “lunch” and collapsing into bed, I spend all day staying active and fasting. I skip dinner. I walk everywhere. Then, in the morning, I get a workout in, preferably outdoors to get natural light exposure, and follow up with a big breakfast. That combo—the light, the workout, and the breakfast eaten at my desired breakfast time in the new place—sets my internal clock and minimizes jet lag.

12. You’re a Shift Worker

Shift workers are at an increased risk of many diseases, like diabetes and breast cancer, and a lot of this comes down to the disordered eating they’re often forced to engage in. They eat in the middle of the night, when their body wants to be sleeping, and in doing so throw their circadian rhythm out of wack more than it already is going to be.

If you’re primarily awake in the middle of the night but want to maintain a semblance of circadian rhythm, it makes sense to eat at normal dinner time and at the end of your shift, but not during. Fasting during your shift might just be the big breakthrough.

13. You’re Undergoing Chemotherapy

It’s common knowledge that calorie restriction can improve the response to chemotherapy while reducing the negatives. Fasting is just a more reliable, arguably easier version of calorie restriction. There’s even evidence that fasting can improve your healthy cells’ resistance to chemotherapy while reducing the cancer cells’ resistance while reducing negative symptoms like nausea and vomiting.

Don’t consider this medical advice, but do discuss it with your doctor. This info is resonating across the oncology world; it’s getting harder to deny that many patients can benefit from intermittent fasting.

14. You’ve Got a Massive Feast Coming Up

If you have a history of eating disorders, this is probably unwise. The feast/fast method can be taken to unhealthy levels, especially if it’s couched in feelings of body dissatisfaction or deep childhood trauma. But if these aren’t an issue and you have a one-off feast (like a holiday dinner) you simply want to really dig into, fasting for a day before the big feast can enhance the effects of the feast.

Whenever I hit the Brazilian all-you-can-eat BBQ joint, I’ll fast for at least a day—just to get my money’s worth and really develop that insatiable, salivating, Primal urge to eat meat. Hunger is the best spice.

These aren’t even all the scenarios where fasting helps or makes sense. There are others, which is where you come in. What have been your reasons for fasting? Has it worked?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!

The post 14 Scenarios When Fasting Might Be Your Best Approach appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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Shoulders and hips. If I had a dollar for every time I have been asked how to open these two areas I would have a summer home. Shoulders and hips are the most mobile joints in the body and, therefore, are easily injured if not properly balanced with both strength and flexibility.

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Has the same old holiday routine put you in a funk this year? Are you tired of the same food, the same activities, and even the same people? If so, you don’t have to feel bad. Sometimes the “same” thing can become stressful and even boring. If you are fortunate enough to have some time […]

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Tea can mean a lot of different plants. There’s maté, the bitter South American shrub steeped in boiling water to extract the caffeine-like compounds contained within. There’s rooibos, the “red tea” made from a polyphenol-rich bush native to South Africa. There’s coca, the South American plant also used to make cocaine. There are the unnamed wild bitter root and herb teas used by the Maasai, the evergreen tip teas used by American natives to obtain vitamin C, the nettleleaf teas used across Europe.

For today’s post, I’m focusing on the actual tea plant—Camellia sinensis. All of the classic teas come from the same basic plant; the differences lie in how they’re processed after harvest. Most tea undergoes controlled oxidation to develop flavor and different bioactive compounds. The more oxidized, the darker the tea. The less oxidized, the lighter.

I’m also going to focus on the health benefits of tea, rather than get into the nitty gritty of tea grading, the endless bespoke varieties, the optimum temperature—tea expert stuff. I enjoy tea, but I’m not a connoisseur. I can tell you about the health effects, and I imagine that’s what most of you are here for anyway.

Types Of Tea

Even within “true tea,” there are multiple varieties.

White Tea

White tea is made from tea leaves that are very lightly processed without any oxidation. Studies show that it’s “lower” in antioxidants than green or oolong tea, but that doesn’t mean it’s “worse.”

White tea possesses compounds that inhibit the absorption and digestion of glucose, thereby lowering blood glucose levels.

White tea also shows a unique ability to fight amyloid plaque linked to Alzheimer’s disease (albeit in test tubes, not live people so far).

Green Tea

In Japan, green tea is lightly steamed. In China, it’s quickly toasted under dry heat. The result with each is light oxidation. It has a “grassy” flavor and, in general, the most antioxidant content—the catechins. In one study looking at the antioxidant content and effect of 30 different teas, the top 2 and 6 of the top 10 were green teas.

Most studies find that green tea is associated with the most health benefits among all the teas, but I take that with a grain of salt. For instance in this study, green tea was associated with better health outcomes than black tea among adults in the Mediterranean, but they failed to control for physical activity. Green tea drinkers had more physical activity, which the authors suggest is a benefit of green tea but I suggest is a feature of the “healthy user effect.” Green tea drinkers did more healthy stuff like exercise, while black tea drinkers were less likely.

There are consistent links between green tea and lower cognitive decline. We don’t see this as much in other teas (or coffee, for that matter).

Oolong Tea

Oolong is “halfway between” green tea and black tea: more heavily oxidized than green, less oxidized than black. Oolong also ranks highly for antioxidant content; in that same 30-tea antioxidant study, oolongs took 4 of the top 10 spots.

Black Tea

Black tea is fully-oxidized tea. It’s the highest in caffeine and rich in a class of antioxidants known as theaflavins.

Theaflavins in the 50-100 mg range (4-8 cups of black tea) reduced body fat and increased muscle mass in Japanese women, while green tea catechins had no effect.

Pu-erh Tea

Pu-erh tea undergoes an additional level of microbial fermentation. It develops intense flavors and unique bioactive compounds.

For example, pu-erh contains alpha-amylase and alpha-glucosidase inhibitors that reduce the absorption of dietary glucose and lower blood glucose levels, particularly after eating.

Animal studies show protective effects against metabolic syndrome, hyperglycemia, obesity, and fatty liver. It seems to reduce liver fat, but by a strange mechanism: by increasing de novo lipogenesis (fat creation) in the visceral adipose tissue. Rodents in the study lost weight but gained visceral fat.

Matcha Tea

Matcha green tea is made from powdered, shade-grown tea leaves. Well, “shade-finished” might be a more accurate descriptor; a few weeks before the harvest, matcha-designated tea plants are covered with shade. This slows the growth, sweetens and deepens the flavor, and increases the amino acid content of the leaves (specifically L-theanine). Pulverizing the tea leaves into a powder increases the surface area and makes for a stronger, more potent brew. Plus, when you drink matcha, you’re consuming the leaves and all their polyphenols and amino acids themselves. The powder doesn’t get strained out like normal green tea leaves.

This seems to increase the antioxidant activity. First, there’s more L-theanine available. I’ve discussed the stress-reducing benefits of L-theanine before, but it’s also good against anxiety and pairs well with caffeine (more on that later). Plus, a 2003 study found that the epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) was 137 times more bioavailable in matcha than a traditional leaf-based green tea, and more than three times as bioavailable as the “largest literature value of other green teas.” My guess is that the increased bioavailability is explained by the fact that you’re consuming the powdered tea itself rather than steeping and discarding the leaves. Another advantage of matcha is that because it’s so potent, you need much less of it, rendering any of the potential downsides of tea, like fluoride content, less troublesome.

(Can you tell that matcha is my favorite?)

The Health Benefits Of Tea

In general, tea is a rich source of bioactive polyphenols with suspected health benefits. Some of the potential anti-cancer effects reported by the study:

Chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD): In Korea, drinking more than two cups a day of green tea was linked to lower rates of COPD.

Colon cancer: Among Korean patients who’d had colorectal adenomas (benign tumors) removed, taking green tea extract reduced the recurrence of them at one-year post surgery.

Prostate cancer: In Hong Kong, green tea consumption was linked to a reduced risk of prostate cancer. However, follow-up controlled trials in men with prostate cancer had mostly null results.

Skin cancer: Among whites, both caffeinated coffee and tea consumption were linked to protection against basal cell carcinoma (although coffee had the stronger relationship).

Most of the cancer studies in humans are merely observational. More interesting are some of the other effects.

Most tea varieties have mild anti-hyperglycemic effects, most likely caused by the ubiquity of substances that inhibit the effect of glucose digesting and absorbing enzymes. In other words, drinking some tea with your meal will generally reduce the amount of carbs you absorb.

Tea polyphenols are among the best at inducing a beneficial hormetic response—the one where your body responds to the presence of “toxins” by upregulating its own defense capabilities and triggering a net beneficial cascade of health effects. It’s up there with coffee, chocolate, and red wine. Green tea, for example, triggers the Nrf2 pathway, causing an increase in glutathione and other antioxidant pathways our bodies use to reduce oxidative stress and nullify reactive oxygen species.

The (Few) Negatives To Look Out For…

Fluoride

I’ve covered fluoride before, and I’m still not sure of it. It seems to have some benefits for topical application to teeth, but systemic ingestion poses problems. For instance, women who consumed the most fluoridated water (and tea) during pregnancy give birth to kids with depressed IQs. Tea is very high in fluoride. The plant itself is quite good at yanking fluoride from the soil, and soil fluoride in tea-producing countries is on the rise due to industrial pollution.

High quality tea made from younger leaves is more likely to be lower in fluoride, since the plant won’t have had as much time to deposit soil fluoride into the leaves. The lowest quality, cheapest brick tea is made from the oldest leaves and will be higher in fluoride.

White tea is generally low in fluoride, since the leaves are picked when still very young. Green, oolong, and black tea leaves all stay on the plant long enough to pick up measurable levels of fluoride.

In Ireland, the only European country with legally mandated water fluoridation, the average fluoride content of brewed tea was 3.3 mg/L, with the highest levels hitting 6 mg/L. Based on Irish tea consumption, the authors suggest that “the majority of the population in Ireland are at risk of chronic fluoride intoxication.”

Organic Japanese-grown matcha green tea is a good option for fluoride minimization, as Japanese soil tends to be quite low in fluoride.

Microplastics

If you use plastic tea bags, your tea will be full of microplastics. Stick to loose leaf or paper tea bags.

 How to Brew It

Okay, so how should you brew your tea?

Duration: If you’re trying to maximize antioxidant extraction, longer is better.

In one study of bagged and loose leaf black tea, longer brew times extracted more antioxidants.

For bagged tea, 5 minutes produced the most antioxidants.

For loose leaf tea, 60 minutes produced maximum extraction. However, the first 10-15 minutes were where the vast majority of antioxidants were obtained. Longer brew times extracted more, but the rate of extraction dropped off a cliff. The difference between 15 minutes of brewing and 60 minutes of brewing probably isn’t enough to justify waiting an hour for your tea.

Water choice: A recent study compared green and black tea brewed with three different waters: tap, bottled, and deionized. Tap water with higher levels of minerals produced the best tasting tea with the lowest amount of antioxidants. Bottled and deionized water with lower levels of minerals extracted the most bitter compounds, leading to a higher antioxidant level but harsher taste.

Water temperature: I’ve read and heard a lot of different “rules” for brewing tea. Some say to “never boil the water.” Others say the opposite. All I know is that I’ve never noticed a big difference—but I’m no expert. What I do know is that both low and higher water temperatures seem to extract and preserve a good amount of antioxidant content:

In the black tea study above, they used water at 80 degrees C or 176 degrees F. That’s well below boiling.

In the study comparing 30 varieties of green, black, oolong, white, and pu-erh teas, they used water at 98 degrees C or 208 degrees F. That’s almost boiling.

A Few Ways To Enjoy It

Collagen Matcha Latte: Read this post for directions.

Coffee Matcha: Sometimes I’ll make a batch of French press coffee and throw a spoonful of matcha powder in with the grounds. I’ll add some hot heavy cream to the brew. This is a great way to get caffeine and L-theanine at once, a synergistic combo shown to improve cognitive performance. Many find that theanine takes the jitter away from the caffeine buzz.

Creamy Turmeric Tea: Read this post, and add some black tea.

And…I’ve got a couple new ways that takes the work out of the above. For those looking to get out the door quickly in the morning, tea in hand, check out the new Primal Kitchen® Matcha Keto Collagen Latte and Chai Keto Collagen Latte. I’m excited about them. Let me know what you think.

Summing It Up

Like everything else, tea is no super-substance that will save you from cancer, diabetes, and obesity. But it’s a drink that’s consistently (and sometimes causally) associated with better overall health, has a long tradition of usage, and can complement an otherwise healthy diet and lifestyle. All teas appear to have some benefits, so drink what you like most.

What kind of tea do you drink? How do you make it? How do you take it?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care!

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