All over the web, you will find so-called fitness “gurus” saying that eating before bed is a bad thing. They say that anything you eat within 3 hour of falling asleep will turn into fat overnight, and you’ll wake up feeling a little more… jolly the next morning. Well, is this a fact? Is there any evidence to support it? Will eating before bed actually cause you to gain weight?

Turns out, there actually hasn’t been a single study ever done that specifically sets out to ask and answer this question (as of 2012). In fact, there’s no empirical evidence that alludes to this even mattering at all. In other words, there’s nothing to suggest that eating before bed is either a good or bad thing.

What About the Effect on Your Digestive System?

Of course, there’s one exception to this is. That is, when talking about people with gastroesophageal reflux disease (aka heartburn). Eating before bed puts more pressure on your body to use peristalsis to move the food down, without the help of gravity. This means the cardiac sphincter is more susceptible to opening and causing acid reflux. For people who are prone to heart burn, it is definitely recommended by the medical community to limit ingestion of food before heading to bed. If this applies to you, then you may definitely benefit from not eating in the hours before you sleep.

What if You Don’t Suffer From Heartburn?

Is there any reason to fear eating before bed if you don’t get heartburn? Well, there are scientific studies that look at the topic of meal timing throughout the day that may help us get a better idea of the best route to go when it comes to eating before bed. In fact, there are a boat load of studies on this issue, and they all say the same thing; that meal frequency and timing doesn’t matter.

In 1997, a massive amount of research was done to compile the numerous studies that have focussed on meal timing. The goal was to connect obesity rates with some sort of pattern. What did they find out? That meal timing, in it’s almost infinite number of varieties, didn’t have any connection to obesity at all. In fact, the only thing that they could conclusively link to obesity was the foods that people were eating, and, more importantly, how much of those foods they were eating in a 24 hour period.

The take home message for us is not to concentrate so much on when we are getting our meals, but rather, the total number of calories that are in those particular meals. If your body is using 1800 calories per day, and you’re eating 1800 calories per day or less, you won’t gain weight. Not even if you eat 800 of those calories an hour or two before bed. It’s the calories in vs. calories out rule. In case you’re new to the site, it supersedes all others when it comes to weight loss and weight gain.

Now, I’m not advocating eating your dinner right before bed or anything like that. I’m not saying it’s okay for you to gorge out on ice cream right before bed either. I’m simply saying that going out of your way to not eat 2 or 3 hours before you sleep is unnecessary. As long as you’re not overeating within a 24 hour period, then you don’t need to worry about gaining weight by eating at the “wrong time.”

Let it be a comfort for you to know that eating before bed does not have some unique ability to put weight on your body any more than eating at any other time of the day does.

What’s the Best Food to Eat Right Before Bed?

In general, a high quality protein source is believed to have the greatest positive effect during your sleep. If I had to recommend only one food to eat before bed, I’d say cottage cheese. The casein protein in cottage cheese is released slowly, preventing your body from entering a state where it turns to muscle mass for energy. Not that your body will eat visible amounts of muscle while you sleep anyways, but for those of you who want to be fickle about your muscle mass, cottage cheese is my go-to bed time snack.

Exceptions

There are two substances that require special mention, as what I’ve said in this article definitely does not apply to them. They are, surprise surprise, alcohol and and caffeine. These two substances are known to disturb sleep significantly, and subsequently, make it harder to reach your fitness and health goals. People tend to underestimate or simply not care about the calories they’re consuming when they’re under the influence of alcohol, making it detrimental at any time of the day. Also, not being able to sleep at night due to stimulus from caffeine is also something to be avoided. Rest is one of the most important factors when it comes to losing weight and building muscle, but that’s for another post.

If you spend any amount of time poking around this site, and many other fitness sites for that matter, you’ll quickly learn that exercise is of vital importance when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle. I live for it. I believe that I’m better for it and that my readers are too. Indeed, according to the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey, I’m in the minority. They say that only 31% of Americans get sufficient exercise (they quantify this as 30 minutes, 5 times a week). This I’m sure comes as no surprise, we’re constantly being told that we need to exercise more for one particular health reason or another.

That being said, little attention is paid to those of us in the 31% who do get sufficient exercise. A great many exercisers actually suffer from the opposite problem, that is, too much exercise, or too little rest. There’s a fine line between getting the activity that we know we need and overtraining. It’s often difficult to quantify how much exercise is the perfect amount for us individually, and unfortunately for us there is no one surefire description or definition of overtraining that universally applies to everyone. It goes without saying that what may be overtraining for one person, might be little more than a warmup for a triathlete.

It’s true that some activity is better than none, but too much activity can be worse for your health than none at all. Overtraining is very real, and those who are most prone to it often aren’t very good at recognizing the signs and symptoms of it. You can simply be doing too much, or doing too much too soon. The real trick is to find out how much activity is right for you by listening to your body, being aware of the information below, and doing a little detective work for yourself.

Signs of Overtraining

• You’re Getting Sick. A lot. A lot more than usual, in fact. Getting sick in and of itself doesn’t mean you’re overtraining. However, if you’re finding yourself with the sniffles more often, or if you’re waking up with a sore throat multiple days in a row and you’ve recently increased your training schedule, it may be worth investigating. There are many ways to give your immune system a run for its money, including but not limited to; under sleeping, high stress, improper nutrition, etc. If these things are all in check though, you may simply be pushing your body too hard and a well earned break from training may be your best remedy.

• Past Ailments Are Back. If you’ve had a nagging injury or used bad form in the past that you’ve since recovered from or fixed, and it’s now coming back to haunt you, chances are it’s because you’ve upped your training recently and it’s a bit much for your body. Best to reel back the reins and ease into your increased training more slowly. If that causes the your former problem to rear it’s ugly head too, then you’re probably just trying to do too much, period.

• You Feel Awful After a Workout. If you regularly exercise, you know all about that great feeling you get after a workout. Usually, this will last for the rest of the day. That’s thanks to the endorphins that exercise has been proven release. Sometimes, you might get some delayed onset muscle soreness, but this in and of itself can be a good kind of pain. But what happens if you just feel like crawling into a hole and dying after a workout? I can safely say that this isn’t normal. Whether you’re physically or mentally worn down to the point of feeling miserable after your workouts, you’re probably exercising too much.

• Your Limbs or Joints Hurt. Your body is better at telling you that it doesn’t like something you’re doing better than your concious brain is. If you’re training in a way which is causing aggravation to a joint, you’re probably doing something wrong. It could be that you’re just using improper form (whether lifting or running), or it could simply be that you’re doing too much of it. It could also be a case of delayed onset muscle soreness, but that usually goes away within a day or two. Only time will tell. Don’t let that endorphin high get the best of you – if you’re doing something daily that is causing pain in any area of your body, back off for a while.

• You Can’t Finish Your Normal Workout Routine. If you ever get to a point where you’re consistently struggling to finish workouts that you’ve done dozens of times before, you may very well be overtraining yourself. I’m not talking about pushing yourself to complete a longer run than usual, or lifting more weight than usual and failing to complete it. I’m talking about not being able to complete a task that you’ve routinely successfully completed in the past. This is a sign that you’re regressing in your training and you need a good break before coming back to it with fresh eyes and muscles.

• You’re In a Foul Mood. Especially after your workouts. Scientists have recognized that an athlete’s phycological state is often a better diagnostic tool than physical factors when trying to determine if overtraining is at play, according to Jack Raglin, Ph.D., a Kinesiology professor and researcher on sports and psychology at Indiana University. “Changes in demeanor are an early sign of overtraining, so if a runner recognizes this symptom, he can adjust his training to prevent physical damage,” says Raglin. He goes on to state that if you can catch overtraining in its early stages, then simply taking a day or two off will remedy the situation.

• A Loss of Enthusiasm. Chances are, when you first got into your current workout groove you were excited about it. You were excited about your future results. You craved the post-exercise feeling and benefits. If you’re at the stage where you’re approaching the overtraining bug, you’ll quickly find that enthusiasm withering away. The spark has disappeared. When you get to that point where exercise is just another “thing” in your busy schedule that you feel you must do, it’s probably time to have a look at your routine and see if something needs some changing. Exercise should have a level of fun to it, and not consistently feel like a chore. This attitude can be a sign of overtraining.

• You’re Losing Muscle or Gaining Fat Despite Increased Exercise. If you’re working out like crazy to try to increase your results, only to have the exact opposite thing happen, then you may be overtraining (or you’ve started eating way too much). If your diet hasn’t changed, then it’s probably because you’ve upset your cortisol and testosterone levels. Too much exercise can result in an excess of cortisol and reduced testosterone. Cortisol will increase the levels of fat on the body. Your body is also probably looking to glycogen as a fuel supply since you’re exercising so much. Glycogen is stored in your muscles, and the effect of your body using glycogen as fuel, combined with reduced testosterone, is a loss of muscle size. If you’re regressing in terms of body composition despite increased training and a similar diet, you’re probably overtraining.

• Excitability and Insomnia. This is usually more of a problem for explosive athletes like power lifters and sprinters, but the inability to sleep and increased restlessness is often a tell tale sign of overtraining. This is due to your sympathetic nervous system being stressed to it’s breaking point. Other common symptoms include increased heart rate, even while at rest or at first waking in the morning, and an inability to focus.

• Sluggishness and Chronic Fatigue. These symptoms tend to affect endurance athletes more than the explosive force-type athletes. They’re products of your parasympathetic nervous system being overworked, and is a very real danger for people who tend to run 50+ miles a week. The fatigue associated with this type of overtraining can be both mental and physical, and you may feel like your legs are heavier, your zest for training has disappeared, and like you’re just plain ol’ useless.

In the end, there is no definitive test for overtraining, not even for high calibre athletes. The only way to know for sure if you’re overtraining is by exclusion of other causes, and being aware of the signs and symptoms above. It never hurts to take some time off. Your body doesn’t get faster and stronger by training. It gets faster and stronger while it’s recovering.

Perhaps the most feared and revered exercise to take place in the gym, the deadlift is one of only two exercises I deem to be vital if you’re wanting to see big-time gains in strength and size (the other is… you guessed it… the squat).

Don’t let the name scare you off from this exercise, it’s only called a deadlift because it’s the closest gym interpretation of lifting a dead weight up off the ground. It’s an extremely functional exercise, meaning any strength gained from doing deadlifts will translate to being better able to do things in every day life (think lifting a heavy suitcase out of a trunk, moving furniture, playing a practical joke on your best friend by moving him somewhere ridiculous while they’re still sleeping – “The Hangover” style).

In all seriousness, there are many things for which to praise the deadlift. From it’s uncanny ability to turn a weakling into the envy of his/her friends, to it’s positive affect on all the other exercises you do, its benefits are plentiful. Below, i’m going to go through and list the most important benefits of the deadlift. Enjoy.

Deadlift Benefits:

• Works Every Major Muscle. The deadlift is pretty lonely when it comes to being on a list of exercises that work nearly every major group of muscles on the body. If you’re running short on time and looking for an exercise you can do that will give you the most bang for your buck at the gym, the deadlift would make a fine choice.

• The Posterior Chain. The Posterior chain involves the glutes, hamstrings, adductor magnus, and lumbar erectors. Combined, these muscles make up for one of the most important areas, functionally speaking, in any high performance athlete. There is no single exercise out there that better develops and strengthens the posterior chain than the deadlift.

• Improve Posture. Deadlifting naturally strengthens your lower back better than anything else. A weak lower back has been shown to dramatically increase the likelihood of poor posture. By strengthening this area, you’ll naturally improve the positioning of your spine and you’ll be less likely to develop or continue a slouch.

• A Real Life, Functional Lift. Think about the bench press for a moment. You’re laying down flat, and pushing the weight upwards with your chest towards the ceiling. Does this movement mimic movements that you routinely do in every day life? Not at all. The deadlift however – that’s a different story. The deadlift involves simply picking something up from ground level and moving it up to waist level. This is an extremely common movement amongst humans from all cultures, and is perhaps one of the best pure tests of overall strength around. By routinely deadlifting, you actually make it easier on your body in these real life situations, and also reduce the chance of injury at the same time. Moving furniture around doesn’t seem so daunting after a few months of regular deadlifting. Promise.

• Grip Strength. Deadlifts are renowned for their ability to build massive amounts of grip strength, and for good reason. Your fingers are literally the only things connecting you to the weight of the bar. Your forearms have to work incredibly hard as you progress in weight to keep the bar from falling out of your hands. Subsequently your grip strength grows by leaps and bounds.

• Testosterone and Growth Hormones. The deadlift is an exercise which sparks muscle growth on a body wide scale, and it rivals the squat in it’s effect on your entire body. Not only does the deadlift promote muscle growth in the legs and lower back, but it also makes it easier for you to put on muscle any place on your body. Due to the fact that the deadlift hits so many muscles all at once, it causes the body to release a great deal of these hormones that promote muscle growth like nobody’s business – so long as you’re working above 75% of your 1rm for 8-10 reps.

• Preventative and Rehabilitative Benefits. Due to the fact that the deadlift hits the entire back and all connecting muscles, it is often prescribed as an exercise to prevent injury – particularly among athletes. On the same token, it’s used to build up strength in those who have suffered serious injury. It has been hypothesized that the moderate to high hamstring activity elicited during the deadlift may help to protect the Anterior Cruciate Ligament during rehab.

• Core Strength. Arguably no exercise develops the core the way the deadlift does. If abs and a rock solid mid section are goals of yours, you’d be unwise to leave this exercise out of your workout program. With the abs, waist, hips, backside, and lower back working like crazy to keep your spine where it should be throughout the movement, your balance and strength in your core will benefit greatly.

• Safety. This might be a bit of an odd thing to bring up when it comes to talking about the deadlift, but it’s worth noting nonetheless. Some exercises, including presses and squats, are best done with a spotter present when you’re lifting heavy and going to failure. The deadlift on the other hand can be done safely by yourself, without fear of getting trapped under a bar when you’re going for max. Which brings me to my next point.

• Minimal Equipment. All you need is a single bar with some weights on it. You don’t need a bench, a rack, a bunch of dumbbells (though you can use dumbbells as a variation of the deadlift), or anything else to do a deadlift. When compared to other exercises, for the amount of benefits the deadlift provides, you spend very little for what you get from them.

• Cardiovascular System. When performed correctly and with sufficient effort and intensity, the deadlift will severely tax the cardiovascular system during a normal set. You’ll really get that “out of breath” feeling immediately after a set. Your break time is well needed, as your aerobic system plays catch-up before you muster the courage to lift up that bar for another set. The benefits of working your cardiovascular system are numerous and far-reaching, but that’s another article.

• Stability Control. Doing the deadlift is a little like doing a shrug, a leg press, a full back extension, a crunch, leg curl, and a straight-armed pulldown all at once. It’s far different from isolation exercises in the sense that it involves so many muscle groups and multiple joint movements, subsequently recruiting massive amount of stabilizer muscles that otherwise wouldn’t get much stimulation. These little stabilizer muscles are virtually ignored by many in the gym, but they’re critical (in my opinion) to achieving a balanced and functional physique.

• Variation and Versatility.There’s a surprising amount of variations of the conventional deadlift. Some will put more emphasis on the front of your body and the quad muscles, some will put more emphasis on the back half of the body and the hamstrings, but they’re all useful in providing new and necessary stimulus to your body from time to time. From the Romanian Deadlift to the Stiff-Legged Deadlift, they’re all beneficial and worth trying. Not only are there different types of deadlifts, but the deadlift is also unique in that there are variations in training approaches that all have their merits. For example, you can train for speed strength by using light weights (approx 30% of your 1 rep max) at higher velocity. You can train for size and strength using mid-range loading (between 45-70% of your 1 rep max). Or, you can train for maximum power and strength using 1 rep pulls at 90% or more of your effort. All of which are incredibly useful for achieving a wide range of differing goals, making the deadlift an extremely versatile lift.

• Upper Back Mass. This benefit is more from personal experience of myself and my clients. You’ll just have to take my word for it when I say that the deadlift has an unparalleled ability of putting slabs of lean muscle on your upper back. It’s more effective at this than anything else, without doubt. This has the effect of making you look wider, thicker, and more powerful.

• Rate of Force Development. Rate of Force, also known as explosive strength, is an important aspect of athletics and performance. It essentially dictates how quickly someone can develop tension in their muscles. Big lifts that start from a dead stop are superior in training to increase your rate of force, and the deadlift is arguably the best overall exercise that starts from a dead stop.

*Note* – It’s critical that you master proper form when performing the deadlift. Start with low weights, perfect your form, and only then start adding more plates. For tips and advice, have a peek at my post on proper deadlift form.

It’s the first thing people notice about you when they meet you. There are very few ways to hide it, and you’ve got to live with it. Your face is your first foot forward. It’s no wonder that so many people want to get plastic surgery to make it look like they’ve lost weight in their face.

It’s important to remember that there are alternatives to expensive and potentially dangerous surgeries when your goal is simply thinning or tightening the look of your face. Your face is no different than any other area on your body when it comes to losing weight. The same things that cause you to lose weight in your thighs or your arms or your belly, will also cause your face to have a more firm, slim, and young appearance. Contrary to some information out there, your face is not immune to the effects of exercise.

In fact, when someone starts a weight loss routine, one of the first places that they notice weight loss is in the face. This is good news, as the time required to notice a visible change to your face in the mirror is relatively small when compared with some of the more well-known trouble spots, like the thighs and love handles.

The Problem

When someone is unhappy with the shape of their face, the reason can usually be traced back to one of two main causes, and usually a combination of them both. They are:

1. You have too much fat covering your face.
2. Your facial muscles lack elasticity.

There are things you can actively go out and do to counteract both of these problems, and we’re going to discuss all the ones that work in this article.

It’s first important to note that it is by and large impossible to target the fat on your face for weight loss independently of any other part on your body. Spot reduction is not possible anywhere on the body, as it’s genetics that predominantly dictates where you will lose fast first and how fast you’ll lose it on a particular part of the body. The American College of Sports Medicine puts it like this, “No exercise will eliminate fat from a specific area of the body, just as no change in your level of caloric intake will guarantee that the fat will melt away in the area of the body you most want to address. As a rule, the pattern in which you lose body fat is genetically predetermined.”

What does this mean to those of you wanting to lose a layer of fat on and around your face? It means you need to begin a calorie controlled diet and start exercising. This will have you losing weight all over your body, but like I said earlier, one of the first places many people start noticing weight loss is in their face.

As far as exercising is concerned, it will greatly accelerate your results if you do both cardio and weight training. Ideally, you should dedicate three days a week to a gym where you can strength train. You can also do this from home. Dedicate another 3 days a week to cardio, whether it be running, biking, the elliptical – it doesn’t matter. Alternate your strength training and your cardio days.

A good workout routine and calorie controlled diet will eliminate any of the fat covering your face and neck area, but it won’t directly influence your muscle and skin elasticity in the face.

Are Facial Exercises Useful?

Facial exercises are not a new thing. In fact, they’ve been used by the medical community for many years to correct certain orofacial issues caused by disease or injury. This practice is called Orofacial Myology. Certified Orofacial Myologist Licia Paskay says, “exercises for the face are very good, they balance the muscles and a balanced face makes a person look better.” She goes onto explain that they truly are the only viable alternative to surgical reconstruction. “The non-surgical method is through regular exercise of facial muscles and this can be accomplished effectively without any of the health risks, expense, and pain or scarring of surgery or injections,” explains Paskay.

Dr. Mark Berman, MD, past President of the California Academy of Cosmetic Surgeons says bout facial exercises. “…this is a medically sound method of achieving and maintaining a more youthful facial appearance with the capacity of obtaining results that are comparable to those that can be achieved by surgical means. It makes sense medically.  Like a face lift or fat injection, such physical exercise of the facial muscles can create a more youthful, healthier appearance by causing the facial skin to tighten up and become more toned.  And it can accomplish this effectively without any of the health risk, expense, pain or scarring of surgery.  Whether you’re 30 or 70, you’ll see a definite change.”

For these reasons, I recommend facial exercises first and foremost when wanting to lose weight in your face. Particularly when someone loses a lot of fat in their face, they’re often met with the problem of excess skin hanging in their neck area. Combine this with a lack of elasticity and tightness in your facial muscles, and you create the need for some exercises and tricks to win your battle to lose weight in your face. The following exercises will work your facial muscles. Do them in front of a mirror, and keep your back teeth lightly touching together throughout each exercise.

Facial Exercises

Exercise #1: Jaw Muscle 

Place your middle fingers on the corner of your mouth (not inside the lips) as shown in the picture. These will provide resistance in the exercise. Smile outwards from the corner of your mouth in the direction shown in the picture. Concentrate on stretching your lower lip and chin during the movement. Hold at the widest position possible for 5 seconds, and return. Do this 8 times.

Exercise #2: Full Face

Place your index fingers along the laugh lines between your mouth and your nose, along the bottom line shown in the picture. Put some pressure on your face with your index fingers, and imagine trying to hold your lips and mouth in the same position during the exercise with these fingers.

Now, try and lift up all the cheek muscles indicated by the arrows in the picture. Work against your fingers, and don’t let your fingers move up at all. Hold at the top of the movement for 5 seconds, and repeat it 8 times.

Exercise #3: Cheeks

Place your fingers in the same position as you did in exercise #1. Smile upwards, along the lines shown in the picture. Use your fingers as resistance and pull your muscles up towards your temples as far as you can. Hold for 5 seconds and once again, repeat 8 times.

Exercise #4: Double Chin

Lean your head all the way back and look a the ceiling. Make sure the front of your neck feels stretched. Now, purse your lips, pushing them upwards towards the ceiling and hold them for 5 seconds. Relax your lips. This is one rep. Repeat this 8 times.

Do these facial exercises daily, and keep them up. You’ll see and feel the difference in your face – so long as you’re keeping up that calorie controlled diet and your workouts. 

Tips and Tricks

There are a couple of things you can do to almost instantly improve the look of your face. These are useful to use before someone takes a picture of you, before a big date, before graduation, etc.

• Change your posture. Try to stand as tall as you can and imagine that there are strings pulling your head up. Lift your chin a little higher than normal. This will cut down on the look of a double chin and an undefined jaw line.

• Before someone takes a picture of you, pull your head all the way up, as if held by strings, and then push your chin (and your head along with it) an inch or two forward. Then, slightly tilt your chin downwards. This will completely get rid of most double chins in photos.

• Slap underneath your chin repeatedly with your pointer and middle fingers. This causes any excess skin hanging below your jaw line to actually contract, and visibly reduce in size.

• This last one is mainly for women, but contouring your face using makeup can be very effective in reducing or emphasizing parts of your face. Also, shorter hairstyles tend to make faces look rounder. Try growing your hair out.

Remember though, these are just last minute tricks, they won’t actually make you lose weight in your face at all. My first recommendation is also my best, control how much you’re eating, and exercise regularly. This will give you better results than makeup, a new hair cut, and facial exercises alone.

Not only are you bound to encounter a situation every now and then when making it to the gym isn’t feasible, but sometimes you just don’t feel like making the trek to the gym. Despite this, many people still want to workout. This is where a good bodyweight workout comes in handy.

I myself run into this situation most often when traveling. I’ll be staying at a hotel, and I head down to the “gym” on the main floor, and low and behold, there’s a treadmill that looks likes someone took it from a museum. Sometimes, there might also be an equally archaic stationary bike. As far as weights go however, I’m continually disappointed in the selection, or lack there of.

Bodyweight routines are great, because not only do they build muscle and strength, but they can also work your anaerobic system at the exact same time. Due to the nature of bodyweight exercises, you can go from one to another relatively quickly, negating the time for lengthy rest periods and thereby increasing your cardio workout.

Functional Strength

Not only are bodyweight exercises sometimes your only option, they’re also completely necessary in my opinion. In fact, I’d say they’re downright vital when it comes to having a functional and impressive body. Why is this? It’s because bodyweight exercises are perhaps some of the greatest indicators of overall fitness and strength there are. They leave very little room for cheating, they leave very few muscles out of the equation, and they often make up for holes and vulnerabilities left by years of traditional weight training.

Case in point. Not long ago an MMA fighter, also a powerlifter, walked into a training session in my gym that was focused building functional strength. I knew this guy, and was well aware of his tendency to brag (not an uncommon trait to stumble upon in a gym, I know). His latest and greatest news was that he had successfully performed a full parallel squat with 580lbs on the rack.

That’s nothing to scoff at, not at all. Without any argument it would be say to safe that with a feat like that, it would be appropriate to call this guy strong. However, if you were to judge this guy by his performance in this the bodyweight training session? Well, I’d classify him as out of shape. Yup, he couldn’t even make it to the 15 minute mark before bowing out. Not only that, but he couldn’t even perform one single legged squat. Not one. Coming from someone who can squat 580lbs with both his legs, this is, at first glance, surprising.

Mobility and Strength

If you look at this powerlifters situation a little more closely, it makes a little bit more sense. The body is extremely good compensating for weaknesses that traditional weight lifting creates. In the case of the squat, the outer hip muscles and glutes are left behind and the lower back and hamstrings take a good amount of the work. When this powerlifter attempted a real-life, functional movement, his stabilizer muscles failed him miserably. This hardly qualifies him as a well-rounded, grade A fitness student.

Bodyweight exercises require much more mobility and stability than traditional strength training exercises. If you regularly include bodyweight exercises in your workouts, you already know how much they’ll compliment and benefit your weight training. This is why I recommend taking a day off here and there from your usual routine and supplementing it with this bodyweight routine. Without further ado, let’s have a look at this bodyweight workout.

The Bodyweight Workout

Click on the exercise name for visual instructions on how to do it.

• Bench/Chair Dip

This can be done from any kitchen bench, chair, couch, coffee table, etc. Feel free to get a little inventive if you’d like. Basically, you just do a normal dip while your feet are resting on something stable. Do 8-12.

• Jump Squat

Stand shoulder width apart the same way you would as if you were doing a barbell squat, and keep your arms at your side. Lower yourself down into a full, deep, squat, then drive your legs through the floor explosively to launch yourself as high in the air as you can. Upon landing, you have completed one repetition. Do 8-12.

• Close-Grip Push-Up

A variation of the normal push-up, the only difference is that your hands lie closer together. I like to use my pointer fingers and thumbs to touch to make a diamond shape with my hands on the floor. If you’re just beginning, place your hand shoulder width apart as this will be a bit easier. This variation will put more emphasis on your arms. Do 10-15.

• Burpee

The burpee takes you from a normal standing position down into a pushup, and finishes off with a jump squat. This one will really get your heart pumping. Do 12 of these or as many as you can in 60 seconds.

• Running on the Spot

Run on the spot for 60 seconds.

• Handstand Press

Prop yourself up against a wall (upside-down) with your arms fully extended. Then lower yourself until your head is nearly on the floor. Return to the starting position. This may be a little daunting at first, so feel free to start off with a pike press. Do as many of these as you can, or up to 10.

• L-Sit

Sit down on the floor with your legs fully extended out in front of you. Now, push yourself up in the air by driving your hands through the floor. Keep your legs perfectly straight. They should look like they’re floating parallel to the floor when you’re at the top of the movement. One set should be at least 15 seconds long. Work on it until you can hold it for 60 seconds. Some people find this easier to do with push-up bars (myself included). I personally use these ones.

• Single-Leg Hip Thrust

I know how this sounds, but don’t knock it until you try it. It works your glutes better than nearly any other exercises I can think of. Sit yourself up against a bench or a couch, prop one leg up on something sturdy, place your other leg up close to your chest, and drive your hips up off the floor until they’re parallel to the floor. Do 8 on each leg.

• Lunge

You might be familiar with this one from the gym already. From a standing position, lunge forward with one leg and bring that leg’s quad to a parallel position to the floor. Your other knee should stop just short of the floor, it should not hit the floor and subsequently “bounce” off, this is a common problem I see in the gym. Do 8 then switch to the oppose leg and do 8 more.

• Inverted Row

Lay on the floor beneath a study table, or beneath a broom/pole that’s supported on each end. Grab the edge of the table, or your broom, and pull yourself up towards it. Try to squeeze your shoulder blades together at the top of the movement, and keep your body perfectly straight throughout the movement. The only part of your body that should be touching the ground when you’re at the top is your heels. Do 8-12.

• The Plank

One of the best core exercises around (far more effective than your average sit-up), the plank works your abs well. Lay down flat on the floor, then prop yourself up on your forearms. Keep your body perfectly straight, don’t stick your butt out, and don’t let it sink. Like the name implies, imagine your body is a plank. Hold this position for at least 15 seconds, and try to build up to 60 seconds. This is one set.

• The Wall Squat

Sit against the wall as if you were sitting on an invisible chair. Your legs should form an ‘L’ and your thighs should be parallel to the ground. Hold this position for up to 60 seconds. That’ll be one set.

• The Jumping Jack

Surely this one needs no introduction. You will be reminded of your junior high Phys Ed class while doing these, but they’ll get your heart pumping and contribute nicely to the anaerobic portion of your workout. Do these for 60 seconds, that is one set.

• Jump Tuck

This is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Jump up, and try to tuck your thighs up as close to your chest as possible during each jump. Do as many as you can, or up to 60 seconds.

• Doorway Pull-Up

Throw a towel over a sturdy door so your hands have a something soft to hang on to. Pull yourself up against the door as high as you can. This will hit your arm and back muscles hard. Do as many as you can up to 12.

• Calf Raises

Last but not least, calf raises will hit, wait for it… wait for it… your calves. I know, shocking. Many people neglect these muscles, which I believe is a mistake as not only are they a vital part of a healthy and fit body, but they’re also a very visible body part. A nice set of calves are a great indicator of someones overall fitness. Do 25 of these.

Notes

Once you can easily make it through one set of each of these exercises, then go and and do the circuit for a second time. If you’re really fit and feel like you need more of a challenge, you can do a third round. The faster you move from one exercise to another, the greater the cardiovascular component of this workout. Personally, I try to do this workout as fast as I can, because that way I know i’m benefiting both my aerobic and anaerobic systems.

A new craze has been sweeping the blogosphere as of late, and it’s decidedly anti-grain. Naturally, after all the good things you’ve heard about whole-grains and their wealth of benefits, this came as a bit of a surprise. I wanted to know, why are people saying this? Is there any truth to it? Are grains bad for you? Is gluten bad for you? Is there any scientific evidence to corroborate this new way of thinking? In my quest to find out, I put together a detailed article examining where this myth came from, who’s spreading it, what they’re saying, and the the scientific evidence that ultimately proves them to be wrong.

Be forewarned. I’ll be going against the grain of current popularity in this article. (Ha! You like what I did there?… No? Awkward.)

The Perpetrators

After exhaustive research, it became exceedingly obvious that nearly all the anti-grain rhetoric found online came from the pro-Paleo crowd (if you’re unfamiliar with Paleo, have a look at my take on it here). This is unsurprising of course, because one of the very foundations of the Paleo philosophy is that grains are evil and to be avoided at all costs. I found it quite difficult, however, to actually find any scientific data which conclusively supported this Paleo-centered approach to grains.

Sure, there was the odd scientific publication that had a word here or a word there that, when taken out of context, could be used to further this anti-grain propaganda. But as for an overwhelming amount of peer-reviewed research that decisively and definitively axe grains as a healthy or even acceptable food group? It doesn’t exist. Not even close.

Have a look for yourself. Google “are grains bad for you.” Low and behold, the first 3 results that pop up are Paleo. The first results that pops up for me? Marks Daily Apple. This is a blog run by Mark Sisson, one of the more famous pro-Paleo bloggers. He has written a book called the Primal Blueprint, and he makes his living by promoting the Paleo ideology.

Of the following 9 results on the first page, 7 of them are bonafide grain-bashers. Of those 7, all of them are personal blogs, run by one person, that support or promote the Paleo or raw/whole food diet. They all share a common belief that if the caveman didn’t eat it, it must be inherently bad for humans. Again, you can read why this theory just doesn’t hold up in my article, here. All of those websites either promote one of the main pro-Paleo books (like The Primal Blueprint, The Paleo Diet, or The Paleo Solution) which they make a commission on, or they sell their very own self-published book that promotes a Paleo-style diet which forbids grains.

Here is a batch of results that came up when I googled “are grains bad for you”:

Site #1     Site #2     Site #3     Site #4

Site #5     Site #6     Site #7

What Types of Sites are These?

It’s definitely interesting and important to note that none of these pages are from reliable, trusted institutions of research. These are websites created by one person, edited by one person, and written by one person. Legally, what they say is nothing more than opinion, it doesn’t have to be correct and they are accountable to no one. They don’t need to have evidence to support their claims because there’s no one forcing them to do so (in the interest of full-transparency, I am no different from the above sites, except of course in the fact that I don’t profit in any way from what I say in this article).

Even when a scientific claim slaps them in the face, straight from the mouth of the researcher himself, they often decide to ignore it. Want an example? Of course you do. Feast your eyes on this exert from Mark Sisson’s post on why “grains are unhealthy.”

“A few years back, scientists found that high-fiber foods ‘bang up against the cells lining the gastrointestinal tract, rupturing their outer covering” which “increases the level of lubricating mucus.’ Err, that sounds positively awful. Banging and tearing? Rupturing? These are not the words I like to hear. But wait! The study’s authors say, ‘It’s a good thing.’ Fantastic! So when all those sticks and twigs rub up against my fleshy interior and literally rupture my intestinal lining, I’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s all part of the plan, right?”

What Mark did here was link to this article published in Science Daily based on research done by Dr. Paul L. McNeil, a cell biologist at the Medical College of Georgia. What McNeil, the expert, the researcher, and the authority in this instance said was this:

“When you eat high-fiber foods, they bang up against the cells lining the gastrointestinal tract, rupturing their outer covering. What we are saying is this banging and tearing increases the level of lubricating mucus. It’s a good thing.” He goes on to say, “It’s a bit of a paradox, but what we are saying is an injury at the cell level can promote health of the GI tract as a whole.”

… But Mark took this and twisted it around. He then, without any evidence whatsoever, made his own conclusions about the matter. Worse still, he published these thoughts on his website, only to perpetuate these make-believe facts that have no basis in science. This, ladies and gentleman, is how rumors begin, and in my opinion, is ethically questionable. In case you missed it, you can find the article he’s referencing here (it’s always best to go straight to the source).

Home-Grown Pseudoscience

Granted, this is just one example of a Paleo-guru ignoring the facts. However, in my experience, it is representative of the attitude of many grain-bashing folk out there. They’ll take bits of information from here and there, combine it with a little bit of theory and pseudoscience, and whip it up into their latest argument against the evil little grains.

I can’t stress enough that this stuff is very much from the fringe of the pseudoscience community. Any talk about grains being bad for you is not from the experts, the researchers, the scientists, or the P.H.D.’s in the field. No, it’s from the lone Paleo bloggers, looking to buy his or her next Mercedes, bike, horse, or Flintstones-mobile.

Let’s take a closer look at what the grain-bashers have to say about grains. After all, if we didn’t analyze the facts, we’d be just like them now wouldn’t we. I’ll use Mark Sisson’s rant against grains as a framework to mount my rebuttal.

Science and Evidence

Mark states in this article that you do not need Grains for the following reasons:

Statement #1: You don’t need fiber, he uses this website as his proof.

Statement #2: You can get the vitamins and minerals from other foods.

Statement #3: They are “completely and utterly pointless in the context of a healthy diet”.

Statement #4: The Cavemen didn’t eat them.

Statement #5: Humans “cannot” handle grain consumption, because “we simply do not have the wiring necessary to mitigate the harmful effects of lectins, gluten, and phytate”. He cites about half a dozen articles that supposedly support his claim.

My responses to these statements are listed below:

Response #1: WebMD, The Mayo Clinic, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the University of California system, the Canadian Diabetes Association, Netdoctor, the National Institues for Health, The New York Times, ehealthMD,  and the Harvard School of Public Health disagree with you. Just to name a few… off the top of my head. Peer-reviewed research more your style? Have a gander: Health Benefits of Dietary Fiber.

Response #2: This is true. You can in fact get pretty much all of your vitamins and minerals from other sources. However, this puts a fair bit of pressure on you to eat a wide range of food items on a daily basis. It’s much more nutritionally sound to include grains in your diet, to make sure you have a wide range of vitamins and minerals at your disposal. This goes with all food groups. It’s best not to eliminate an entire food group from your diet without due cause because it puts a great deal of pressure on the remaining food groups to try to fill in the nutritional gaps.

That said, just because you can get the vitamins and minerals found in grains from other foods, is not cause in and of itself to cut grains out of your diet. Just because we may not need something in one particular light, does not make it inherently unhealthy.

Response #3: Thanks for the opinion, champ. Please refer to the sources in response #1 for my thoughts on the issue.

Response #4: Actually, that’s not necessarily true. A publication by the Oxford University Press called People, Plants, and Genes: The Story of Crops and Humanity tells us that there is indeed evidence that cereal grain has been processed and consumed by early humans as early as 200,000 years ago.

For the sake of argument, lets just assume that grains weren’t part of the diet of an average human being until around 10,000 years ago. Who says that’s not enough time to warrant an evolutionary change? On the flip side, who said grains are badass enough to require the human body to change at all? Where is the proof that grains are too much for the normal human digestive system to handle? Oh right, there isn’t any.

Response #5: So this is the big one. Gluten, Lectins, and Phytates have been vilified by the anti-grain and pro-Paleo communities viciously and without rest. These three molecules are the backbone of their argument against grains, and have hence been singled out to be proverbially hung on the gallows. Not surprisingly, maybe, because without a little bit of scientific jargon to confuse the more gullible Paleo follower, the Paleo guru’s money making machine would crumble at their feet. I’m going to tackle Gluten, Lectins, and Phytates one by one.

Gluten

Gluten is a protein complex of the two proteins, gliadin and glutelin. They are bound together by starch, and found predominantly in nature in the seeds of various grasses. Gluten-sensitive enterophathy, more commonly known as celiac disease, is an autoimmune inflammatory disease of the small intestine that is the result of eating gluten. In these individuals, the body treats gluten as if it were an invader, and subsequently mounts a significant immune response. It effects approximately 1 in every 250 people. It’s worth noting that the results of eating gluten in those with gluten-sensitive enterophathy are almost completely reversible.

There is also a growing number of people who have begun to label themselves as gluten-intolerant, or gluten-sensitive. The medical industry now refers to this condition as non-celiac gluten-intolerance. This is not the same as celiac disease in that eating gluten is potentially dangerous to gluten-sensitive individual, but much less worrisome for the gluten-intolerant person. There are no antibodies for gluten present in non-celiac gluten-intolerant individuals and there is no observed damage to the lining and architecture of the intestine, unlike their celiac counterparts.

If you are an individual who is sensitive to gluten, allergic to gluten, or if you have full blown celiac disease, then gluten will make you feel miserable. It’s responsible for a whole host of health problems in these individuals, from headaches to IBS. The effects of gluten on celiac individuals are not new, and medical professionals have been using a gluten-free diet to treat these individuals for over 40 years.

While there is no doubt that gluten causes problems in the minority of the population, there is no evidence whatsoever that gluten is problematic for the average, gluten-tolerant individual.

The Increasing Prevalence of Gluten-Intolerance

Still, it’s health effects have come under prominent scrutiny as of late, both from non-celiac gluten-intolerant folks and from those who believe that it is not “natural” to eat gluten. They point to the disputed fact that gluten wasn’t a major staple in the human diet until around 10,000 years ago, when agriculture underwent a major revolution.

Anti-gluten advocates also point to the growing prevalence of gluten-intolerant people in western cultures today. Indeed, some studies find that celiac disease and gluten-intolerance has increased four-fold in the last 50 years. Still, the problem effects the vast minority of the population, and there is no definitive answer as to why this increase in prevalence is occurring. Of course, there are many theories.

Something called “detection bias” may have something to do with the massive increase in diagnosed cases. The very fact that gluten is such a hot topic these days makes people (health care workers included) more aware of the condition. The more aware people are of a condition, the more people tend to look for it. The more people look for it, the more who find it. Before recently, non-celiac gluten-sensitivity had been under the proverbial medical radar.

Now granted, detection bias probably doesn’t account for the massive change in the amount of gluten-related illnesses in the past half-century. Another theory that potentially explains the increase is new-age genetic modifications and production techniques used within the food industry. Gluten is now widely used as a food texturizer, and can be found in everything from deli meat to candy to potato chips. The new nutrient combinations could be theoretically functioning as an immune trigger in some individuals. Still, the mystery remains, and as of 2012, there is no solid scientific evidence which definitively answers the question.

The Take Home Message About Gluten

As home-grown theories about the health effects of gluten abound, there is no credible scientific basis for it. As Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale Prevention Research Center  so eloquently puts,

“The potential adverse health effects of gluten in those sensitive to it have reverberated in cyberspace, creating the impression that gluten is a bona fide toxin, harmful to all. This is false; gluten is not ‘bad’ for those tolerant of it, any more than peanuts are ‘bad’ for people free of peanut allergy.”

He goes on to point out that avoiding gluten is justified for some, but unnecessary for most.

“The effort is well-justified for those who are truly gluten-sensitive, but potentially much ado about nothing for others just caught up in the trend. In addition, the exclusion of whole grain wheat, rye, barley and potentially oats from the diet might reduce overall diet quality and fiber intake. Again, a price worth paying when gluten avoidance is clearly necessary, but cost without benefit for others,” Katz says.

I’m glad Katz brought this up, as the hyper-abundance of anti-grain material sweeps blogs and forums across the nation, little is being said about the negative health effects of gluten-free diets. Registered dietitian Wendy Marcason said in a 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association that a gluten-free diet presents “many negative features, including the high cost of the diet, the difficulty following the diet, and the risk for developing amino acid deficiencies and conditions of bone loss.”

This small study even shows preliminary evidence that a gluten-free diet may in fact decrease the count of beneficial bacteria in the gut, and increase enterobacterial counts, which are microbial features associated with disease. More research needs to be done on the issue before anything can be conclusively decided.

Ultimately, the recent fad can be summed up nicely by Dr. Alessio Fasano, direct of the University of Maryland’s Center for Celiac Research. “The bottom line for gluten-sensitivity,” Fasano says, “is there are very little facts and a lot of fantasy.”

Lectins

Lectins are a naturally occurring phytonutrient that plants use as insecticides to protect themselves from insects and other potential predators. Mark Sisson states that Lectins are toxic “antinutrients,” that attack the stomach lining of insects, bind to human intestinal lining, and maybe even cause leptin resistance.

Before I say anything else, I want to mention that “antinutrient” isn’t really a word. It’s not used by the nutritional or medical communities and you won’t find it in the dictionary. I can only conclude that he refers to lectins in this assumably negative way due to the fact that lectins, in some circumstances, have been shown to act as a toxin in the human body. Now, learn this.

Lectin is in all foods. Read it again grain-bashers. Lectin is in everything you eat. 

Most of the lectin we eat is rendered harmless by cooking, as the majority of lectins are deactivated by heat. However, some lectins, like those in carrots, apples, bananas, avocado, corn pumpkin seeds, wheat bran, wheat flour, dry-roasted peanuts, and more, are not deactivated easily by heat, so they’re often active when we eat them.

The lectins that do make it into our body’s in an activated state break down the membranes of cancer cells (reducing prostate, colon and other cancers), fungi, bacteria, and viruses (HIV-1 included).

Lectins only become a source of intestinal discomfort when they’re consumed in extremely large quantities. When you overload your system with lectin, it starts to affect your intestinal cells in the same way it does with cancer and virus cells. This effect is not new and is well documented in the medical community.

As with many things in life, too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing, and lectin is no different. Saying that a food is toxic or harmful to the human body because it contains lectin is a little like saying carrots or apples are toxic or harmful to the human body because they contain arsenic. Yes, arsenic is a toxin. Yes, it can kill you. No, the arsenic in an apple or a carrot is not unhealthy. It’s misleading to think like that, not to mention incorrect. Heck, even water will kill you if you drink too much of it in too short a time span. Life is all about balance, and lectin is no different. When ingested in its natural amounts, as part of whole foods, it is not something you need to actively fear or avoid.

It can become counterproductive when you try to micromanage the nutrients in foods by avoiding certain ones. Sure, if you isolate lectin and ingest a large dosage of pure lectin, it will cause an adverse reaction in the body. Often times when you take one constituent of a whole food and isolate it, you’ll indeed find that it’s detrimental to your health in large amounts.  Fortunately, this isn’t a very useful or realistic analysis; lectin isn’t isolated when you eat it with food. When you eat lectin in food, with all it parts intact, you achieve balance and reap its health benefits.

The evidence accusing lectin of any ill-effects on the body simply isn’t there. Eat on, brethren.

Phytates

Phyates (also known as phytic acids) are antioxidants found in legumes, nuts seeds, and whole grains. Phytate-bashers claim that phytates make minerals “biounavailable.” Again, this is not a real term. What the anti-phytate crowd is trying to say, is that phytates render all the nutritious minerals and vitamins you eat useless. At least, that’s what Mark Sisson says in his article.

What Mark is likely alluding to is that fact that phytates can bind to certain dietary minerals and subsequently slow their absorption into the body. While this is absolutely true, saying that by consuming phytates you’ll basically neglect the body of vitamins and minerals is complete and utter hogwash.

Phytates in your everyday meals are not something you need concern yourself with, so long as you’re eating a balanced diet. The average American gets enough minerals in their diet to more than make up for the relatively small amount of minerals that get bound to phytates.

The important thing here is to recognize that phytates are broken down by a large degree by cooking, and unless you’re eating a diet made up predominantly of grains, they pose no negative health risks.

The Benefits of Grains

Not only are any negative claims about grains untrue for the gluten-tolerant individual, the many proven benefits of grains have been completely ignored by those who spread these nutritional myths. In my hunt to discover the truth, I needed to seek out the opinions of recognized institutions in the health industry. This is what I found out.

Diets high in grain have been shown to significantly lower the risk of developing heart disease and stroke, increase IVF success in men, protect you from high blood pressure, improve insulin sensitivity by lowering insulin levels, significantly reduce heart failure risk, reduce risk for blood vessel disease and cancer, reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes, and help to lose and maintain weight. Indeed, the health benefits of whole grains are simply too good to ignore.

Do we need grains? No. Does evidence prove, barring any gluten-sensitivity, that including whole-grains in our diet is a healthier option than leaving them out? The answer is unequivocally, undeniably yes. 

Now, where is my sandwich?

In the past few years, the Western world has seen a wave of followers develop as proponents of the Paleo-style diet. The virtual army of dedicated Paleo-eaters are hard to miss online these days, with any Paleo-related article getting flooded with comments and arguments as soon as they’re discovered. Perpetuated by famous Paleo-endorsers such as Loren Cordain, Robb Wolf, and Mark Sisson, Paleo has turned into quite the movement. By the way, you can find their respective blogs here, here, and here.

As with many fad diets in recent years, the opinions are heavily divided by people who see Paleo from a more objective angle, and those who will defend it into the wee hours of the night; some so loyal that they no doubt would be offended that I even mention the Paleo Diet in the same paragraph as the words ‘fad diet’.

The truth is, the concept behind Paleo has actually been around since the mid 1970’s, when a gastroenterologist named Walter L. Voegtlin first came up with the idea. In reality, there is very little difference between the Paleo Diet and countless other low-carb diet fads that have made the rounds in the past decade. The main thing that separates Paleo from its low-carb cousins is the fact that Paleo doesn’t endorse the use of grains – not even the whole wheat variety.

The Paleo Philosophy

Paleo relies on the (unproven) fact that our ancestors from the stone age (circa 10,000 years ago) had inherently healthier diets than us modern-day humans. Paleo claims that they didn’t suffer from modern-day problems such as arthritis, cancer, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases of affluence. Rather, they were fit, strong, and healthy individuals that were much better off than us. The Paleo premise is simple; if the cavemen didn’t eat it, you shouldn’t either.

Palaeolithic nutrition is based around the fact that in the 10,000 years that humans have been eating a diet framed by the agricultural revolution, we haven’t had the time to genetically adapt to the modern way of eating; that our body’s are better suited to eating in the manner that our ancestors did for hundreds of thousands of years.

Admittedly, it’s a pretty cool idea. It’s easy to get a kind of romantic attachment to eating like we ‘should’ eat – the way we were ‘meant’ to eat. When I first heard of Paleo and looked into it, it made a good bit of sense, at least at first. Being the research-based guy that I am; I had to look into it further.

For 30 years Paleo has taken a backseat to almost every other diet program around. The Atkins diet, the Hollywood diet, the South Beach Diet, the Mediterranean diet, and so on. It wasn’t until 2005 where Loren Cordain released his book ‘The Paleo Diet for Athletes: A Nutritional Formula for Peak Athletic Performance’ that it really came into the spotlight. I’m not really sure why it did, but I think that it has a lot to do with the fact that it was around this same time that the similarly popular “gluten-free” movement began to spring up.

The two’s rise to fame can be paralleled in the past few years, and it’s not really surprising. The two both believe that gluten is off limits – that it is responsible for a host of common medical problems, from autism to migraines. But i’m getting a bit ahead of myself here. Continuing on.

Inconsistencies and the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution

Paleo teaches its followers that the human diet basically took a turn for the worst as soon as the agricultural revolution got under way around 10,000 years ago. Farming, along with its processes, have been the corner stone of the human diet ever since its inception. And, according to Paleo, this is the reason why we’re so obese today. Remember, if the cavemen didn’t eat it – then you shouldn’t either.

Most notably, this means grains of all kinds, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, and dairy are out of the question completely for the strict Paleo Dieter. Now, if you’re thinking that it doesn’t make much sense that tubers like sweet potatoes and yams have been crossed off the list – you’re right. These were around long before the agricultural revolution, right? Even by a Paleo guru’s own logic, these tubers should be green-listed. After all, yams are an African crop that have been eaten by humans since the beginning of time. Why shouldn’t you be allowed to eat them?

Potatoes have been around for 35,000 years, but apparently this is too short a time span for the hardcore Paleo(er). This is interesting however, since Turkey is acceptable to eat on the diet, although it was only introduced to Europe in the 16th century.

Perhaps the most shocking inconsistency that I came across was on the topic of grains. Yep, a publication by the Oxford University Press called People, Plants, and Genes: The Story of Crops and Humanity tells us there is indeed evidence that shows the nasty gluten-containing food staple known only as ‘cereal grain’ has been processed and consumed by humans as early as 200,000 years ago. A far-cry from the Paleo Diets claim of 10,000 years.

Really puts a dent in the whole ‘haven’t had enough time to get used to grains’ theory.

Some of the inconsistencies are obviously more important than others, but they all tend to discredit the logic of the Paleo phenomenon. Needless to say, I wanted to find out more about Paleo after learning the above. Here’s what I found.

Holes and Science: Dissecting the Paleo Diet

Fundamental Hole #1: The Caveman Diet

One of the first holes that comes to mind when I think of the Paleo Diet is the fact that it relies so heavily on things that are unproven, and to-date, unprovable. The Paleo Diet is based on what some experts believe the cavemen ate. They look at historical studies and modern-day hunter-gatherer societies and combine this with a whole lot of theory. But, do we really know what caveman ate? Is there any definitive evidence that details a caveman’s universal dietary menu? The answer, unfortunately, is no. We use conjecture, educated guesses, and speculation, with only hints of science. But science is not made of “probablys” or “quite possiblys”. Rather, it’s proven, reliable, documented, and peer-reviewed. If only Bob the cavemen left his darn cookbook for us.

Fundamental Hole #2: Location

Not only is much of what “cavemen” ate is still open to interpretation, but it’s highly location dependent. Just because the cavemen of modern Europe (that the Paleo Diet models itself after) are thought to have consumed a diet relatively high in meat (due to a lack of plant availability), doesn’t mean that early man in other areas of the world didn’t have a vastly different looking diet.

Katharine Milton talks about the !Kung people in an editorial in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. She says that the !Kung, an African people who live in an almost ideal hunter-gatherer environment, live on a diet that consists of approximately 67% plant food, and only 33% animal foods; significantly different than the ideal proportions laid out by the Paleo Diet.

Likewise, hunter-gatherers in other parts of the world like southeast Asia, for example, no doubt had a very different looking diet again. Due to things like geography, weather, and local vegetation and animal life, what was available to the cavemen was likely highly location-dependent.

Fundamental Hole #3: Alternatives

Another glaringly obvious issue with the Paleo Diet is the fact that we can’t accurately replicate it. We are at the mercy of modern food production and distribution systems that, quite simply, are a far cry from what the caveman would have had access to. These things we find in our supermarkets have been refined over the centuries. The meat we’re buying is not fresh grass-fed mammoths, they’re cultivated hybrids nurtured on artificial fertilizers (yes, even the grass-fed variety).

I had a conversation with a Paleo friend of mine the other day at a breakfast restaurant. It went something like this.

Me: Why are you eating so much bacon with your eggs?

Friend: It was as close as I could get to Paleo on the menu. Sausage is too processed.

Me: Fair enough. But surely, eating that much bacon can’t be healthy?

Friend: Well, it’s the healthiest Paleo meat that I saw on the menu.

…. I had a bowl of oatmeal with berries sitting in front of me, and forgive me Paleo Gods for saying so, but I think that is a whole lot healthier than mowing down a heap of fried bacon. But, that’s just the predicament that Paleo forces people to confront these days. You’re not going to find freshly killed wild boar to eat uncooked. So, you do the next best, modern-day alternative. In this case, it’s a pile of bacon. Paleo? Yes. Healthy? No.

Fundamental Hole #4: The Cavemen Suffered Much Less Diseases

A frequent claim made by the Paleo Dieter is that cavemen were largely free of the symptoms of chronic diseases, included, but not limited to high blood preasure, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and insulin resistance. These are also known as the diseases of affluence, or civilization. While this statistic is largely believed to be true, it can be attributed to the fact that, due to a variety of reasons, cavemen simply did not live long enough to develop such diseases which are associated with old age. This fact is substantiated by numerous sources, including researchers from the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago.

One of them goes on to say, “ there is neither convincing evidence nor scientific logic to support the claim that adherence to a Palaeolithic diet provides a longevity benefit.”

Paleo followers are quick to combat this research, saying that modern hunter-gatherer communities share their paleolithic counterparts luck in the sense they seem to be immune or have very little diseases of affluence, despite a significant number of elderly citizens above the age of 60.

Once again, this is countered by science. Geoffrey Cannon, Science and Health Policy Advisor to the World Cancer Research Fund says that humans are designed to work very hard physically to produce food for subsistent living, to survive periods of food shortage, and that we’re not adapt to a diet rich in energy-dense foods (like sweets, sugary drinks, bagels, donuts, ice cream, butter, steak, sausage, and fried meats). Likewise, William R. Leonard, professor of anthropology at Northwestern, states that the problems facing modern post-agricultural revolution societies stem not from deviations from a specific ancestral or ‘Paleo’ diet, but rather from an imbalance between calories consumed and calories burned, a state of energy excess uncharacteristic of ancestral lifestyles. In other words, we as a society simply eat too much these days.

Fundamental Hole #5: Who Says We Haven’t Evolved?

Scientists from the Department of Food Science from the University of Hanover question the notion that 10,000 years is not enough time to ensure an adequate adaptation of the human genome to be able to properly handle the products of agriculture, assuming that there was indeed enough selection pressure to warrant evolutionary change.

The scientists turn to examples of increased lactose tolerance in Europe and increases in the number of copies of the gene for Salivary Amylase (which digests starch) which have both occurred in the past few thousands years, to explain that the body, when necessary, can indeed adapt in a relatively short period of time.

Fundamental Hole #6: Who Says Our Digestive Physiology Changes Significantly At All?

Following on from the last fundamental hole, Katharine Milton, a professor of Physical Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley disputes the fact that there was enough selection pressure to warrant an evolutionary change to our digestive system at all.

Relying on many of her publications, Milton states that “there is little evidience to suggest that human nutritional requirements or human digestive physiology were significantly affected by such diets at any point in human evolution.”

In other words, she believes that to date, at no point has any particular food group caused any significant change (like that proposed by the Paleo Diet) to the human digestive system. Food for thought.

Fundamental Hole #7: The Animal to Plant Ratio

This is more a personal grip than anything else, but according to strict Paleo Dieters, the ideal Paleo Diet has approximately 67% of its total calories come from animal sources, and only 33% (again, approximately) from plant sources. In other words, they believe that that most cavemen ate that way.

Now I don’t know about you, but I highly doubt that all, or even most cavemen were able to supply roughly two-thirds of their diet with animal sources. Once again, I think this is highly presumptuous and location dependent. Sure, those societies which lived in significantly cold environments often had only animals to choose from, since plant life didn’t survive well. But in lower latitudes, I think that a great deal more calories would come from plant scavenging, both due to availability and ease of retrieval.

There is some research to support my thoughts. A publication in Evolutionary Anthropology titled Hunter-Gatherers and Human Evolution discusses how, excluding cold-climate foragers, the typical Paleolithic diet was probably closer to 50% from plant calories, 25% from hunting, and 25% from fishing. Those numbers sway even more in favor of plant calories when you go further back into the Stone Age, since fishing didn’t become common place until 35-40,000 years ago.

Observations of modern hunter-gatherer tribes in New Guinea show that large animals are only killed a few times in a hunters entire career. And unlike all but the very late Stone Age humans (either late Palaeolithic or early Mesolithic), modern-day tribes have access to bows and arrows and other more advanced stone tools. An average days hunting of modern hunter-gatherer tribes in this region consists of one or two baby birds (not even half an ounce each), a few frogs, and a lot of mushrooms. Those that made these observations hypothesize that it’s unlikely that Stone Age hunters in this same area had greater success with hunting and thus most likely had a diet which loosely mirrored those of their ancestors.

Fundamental Hole #8: Why Idolize the Caveman Diet, Anyways?

What’s the big obsession with the diet of a caveman? I mean why should we, with all our food availability and variety, choose to idealize the diets of those who were forced to eat whatever their local environment provided for them? They weren’t eating to ‘be healthy’. They were eating to survive, eating anything they could get their hands on. Why is this healthier than the healthiest options of a modern diet? Why is this better than an egg on 100% wheat toast with a glass of milk for breakfast?

The truth is, the idea that the ‘Paleo Diet’ is inherently healthier – simply has no scientific basis whatsoever. I’m sorry if I just broke your heart.

The Dynamic Duo: The Paleo Diet and the Occupy Gluten Movement

As I touched on at the beginning of this article, I suspect that much of the popularity of the Paleo-style diet has a lot to do with the recent rise in popularity of the gluten-free movement. Both nutritional groups share the gluten-free philosophy – and swear by it.

People on the Paleo Diet will tell you that they feel better than ever. That they have more energy, have better sleeps, less headaches, and a whole lot more. And I don’t think they’re lying, either. I truly believe that they think the Paleo Diet is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Behind the scenes, I think what’s actually happened here is that the Paleo Diet has won over many food-sensitive individuals who didn’t realize that they are in fact food sensitive. What do I mean by food sensitive? I mean anyone with a food allergy or intolerance. Whether it be peanuts, lactose intolerance, or gluten intolerance, the Paleo Diet covers by far the most common food allergies and sensitivities. Recall that peanuts, dairy, and grains are all on the Paleo no-fly list.

It’s very common for people to be mildly sensitive to a certain food group and have it undiagnosed. Some people can live their entire lives and not realize that the gluten in grains actually caused them to feel unwell, that it gave them a mild case of IBS, or headache. When an individual like this switches to the Paleo Diet, they suddenly feel phenomenal, and proceed to sing the good diets praises.

In these cases, I’m all for the Paleo, or gluten-free approach. However, for normal people who lack food insensitivities, I can’t with good conscious tell them that the Paleo Diet is healthier than a balanced and nutritious modern-day diet. It’s interesting to note that Paleo was first created by a gastroenterologist – someone who had to deal with IBS and a host of other conditions that are all the result of food sensitivities. Paleo would be a safe diet and ‘cure-all’ for many gastroenterologist patients.

Pro’s of the Paleo Diet

That said, while I believe the fundamental concepts and basis of the Paleo Diet are flawed, I don’t completely condemn it. In fact, I strongly agree with many of the principles laid out in the diet, and think that many people would benefit from them. Paleo advocates eliminating any excess sugar in your diet, places a good deal of importance on protein consumption, bars the use of alcohol, and tells you to avoid refined sugars and vegetable oils. I whole-heartedly support these aspects of the program.

I completely agree with the Paleo Diet when it comes to eating more natural foods. In general, I think the less processed the food is, the better it is for you. However, I don’t turn a blind eye to things like cottage cheese and whole grains which have been proven to be healthy for the average person simply because cavemen didn’t have access to them. I believe it is silly to shun certain food groups when there is no tangible evidence whatsoever to support it.

I also give credit to the Paleo Diet when it comes to calorie density. Many of the foods acceptable under the Paleo philosophy, particularly vegetables, are very filling and yet contain relatively few calories, giving them a low energy density. In modern energy-dense diets, it’s very easy to overeat and gain weight. For this, I praise the Paleo Diet. I think everyone should replace heavily refined sugars and oils with more vegetables and other healthy options. This will cause people to feel more full on less food, and make it easier to shed those unwanted pounds. This is also the main reason why many people who go on the Paleo Diet lose weight at first – but it’s important to note that people can do this as part of a normal, balanced, non-Paleo diet as well.

Successful weight loss comes down to, at the simplest level, a calorie deficit. If you’re eating less than your body needs to maintain its weight in a day, you will lose weight. The Paleo Diet makes it easier to eat less than your body needs during a day than a typical Western modern-day diet due to it’s low energy density, but it’s certainly not the only way to achieve this.

If you take anything at all away from this article, it’s that you should try to eat more naturally. Avoid the cookies, the bacon, the cake, and the soda. Instead, eat more vegetables, choose whole wheat over highly processed white grains, and beware everything you read on the internet. When in doubt – do your own research.

What is Parkour?

If you’ve found yourself relaxing on a park bench lately or… well pretty much any other urban setting you can think of, you’ve probably been witness to Parkour (or freerunning) – whether you realized it or not.

Yes, that thing that flew over you as you were catching up on your reading was indeed a person; not a bird, cat, kangaroo, elephant, or Batman.

It’s called Parkour, and it’s defined as “getting somewhere quickly and efficiently using only the human body”. It involves people moving around objects with extraordinary speed and efficiency using only their environment. Very often this will have people vaulting, jumping, climbing, running, and rolling through an area to keep traveling at a quick rate.

Parkour isn’t competitive, it isn’t acrobatics, it isn’t reckless, and it isn’t done without reason, which often comes as a surprise to many people looking in from the outside.

Rather, Parkour is so much more than just people barreling through a neighborhood at break-neck speed; it is a way of life, at least to those who live and breathe it.

The Parkour Philosophy

Parkour was developed in the 1980’s by a group of nine young men in France. They called themselves the Yamakasi, a word that means “Strong Man, Strong Spirit”. To this day this saying still sums up the aim of Parkour; that is to be a physically, mentally, and ethically strong individual.

Much more than just a physical sport, Parkour, in the minds of those who practice it, is considered to be a way of thinking. It’s a way of training oneself to develop inner strength through movement. Understanding that Parkour is a way of thinking and not just a physical activity is a fundamental concept in the Parkour Philosophy. The jumps, vaults, and running are all simply by-products of this way of thinking. There is no prescribed, must-do movements in Parkour. It’s simply travelling from A to B, while being intensely aware of your surroundings, in the most efficient way possible.

How to Start Parkour

To become a traceur (the term used for people who practise parkour), you’ve got to work on your fitness. There is no set-in-stone training method that will make you amazing at Parkour, but doing little things to make small improvements will add up to a whole lot of skill in time.

Parkour is all about functional, usable strength. For this reason, bodyweight exercises and Crossfit are absolutely ideal forms of training to prepare yourself for parkour. If you have no idea where to start, then I’d recommend the following bodyweight routine:

2 x 10 Push-Ups
2 x 10 Jump Squats
2 x 10 Pull-ups
2 x 10 Sit-Ups

Progress with this routine until you can do 4 sets of 20 reps of each exercise. There really aren’t any predefined exercises that specifically target Parkour, and this is the reason I’d suggest working on overall fitness when training for it.

Basic Moves

Once you can complete the above workout, and you feel you’re ready to move onto some Parkour, it’s time to focus on the two most important movements. What are these you wonder? You guessed it:

1. Jumping

2. Landing

Box-Jumps will help you with your jumping, and the standard PK roll is something that will help greatly when it comes to hard landings. Similar to the way parachutists are taught to roll when hitting the ground, the PK roll spreads the impact of a jump over your whole body, all while flowing into the next movement. But before you start practicing rolls, make sure you’ve mastered the technique shown in this video of an ideal landing. Remember, slow and steady wins the race (and doesn’t break their leg).

The best way to practice and improve your jumps is simply to do them. Start jumping onto something low, and work your way up to progressively higher and higher heights. Stairs are perfect for this. Same thing goes for your landings. Start practicing from a standing position, and work your way up off taller and taller objects from there. These two movements are the foundation of Parkour, so make sure you practice these so much that you start to dream about them. A tip is to try to land softly on your toes 10 times in a row before adding height to these moves. When you do move on with your PK rolls, once again start practicing them from a standing position before moving to higher heights.

A good way to know if you’re progressing with your jumping is by looking at the number of steps you can jump. Below is a list of difficulty for stair jumping:

1-2 steps is very easy
3-4 steps is a moderate difficulty
5 is hard
6 is very hard
7 is impossible (well, unless you’re superman)

It’s very important to not attempt things that are beyond your levels of training and fitness. Injuries do happen in Parkour, so it’s very important to take baby steps when it comes to progressing.

Once you’ve mastered jumping and rolling, the most logical moves to work on next are the vault and the precision jump. Vaults are used to clear pretty much any obstacle, and are crucial to efficient Parkour. Now, there are many different types of vaults; some more efficient than others. Probably the easiest and most useful, the two handed vault is a good place to start. The precision jump is necessary to learn as well, mainly so you don’t overshoot things. It’s all about control with the precision jump, and it’s a skill you should definitely work on developing. Practice these just like you see in the linked videos.

Advanced Moves

Once you’ve got the precision jump, the PK roll, and the two handed vault down cold, you’re probably ready to start introducing some of the more advanced, fun stuff. These are, in no particular order:

The Monkey Vault

The Kong Vault

The Wall Run

The Cat Balance

The Cat Leap

Tic Tac

As you get out there and practice these moves, the more comfortable you’ll get, the more you’ll begin to flow. And flow, is really the hardest thing. If you you slice up all the movements in Parkour into individual movements, they look pretty easy. How hard is traversing a 4 foot wall when you have a minute to do it? How hard is it to jump down 5 or 6 feet when you have all the time in the world to prepare for it?

It is the speed that makes Parkour so impressive, and also such a good workout. Fast, intense, and agressive Parkour is hard. Having only half a second to think about how you’re going to get up a 10 foot wall is hard.

As time goes on, your methods and safety considerations will start to meld, and your movements will begin to flow beautifully. Don’t rush to get to this point – that’s how people get hurt. Take your time. Do it right. And have fun.

Community

You might be surprised at how many people actually practice Parkour. Here in Vancouver, there is a group that gets together every week at a new location and they just wing it from there. It’s perfect, and there are groups just like that all over the world. Just head over to google and search for a Parkour community in your area.

Having other people around you who are more experienced is an excellent way to learn. I highly recommend going out there and joining a Parkour group yourself if you’re serious about getting fit and learning Parkour. People are always willing to help you, and they’ll help you avoid common mistakes by critiquing your progress.

I’m going to leave you with a Parkour video that is absolutely incredible (the guy in yellow is doing more of a freerun, since Parkour is done exclusively on your feet). How’s this for inspiration!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some things stick out in my mind as being more effective and hardcore than others when it comes to burning fat, and Tabata is probably the best example of one of these intense but worthwhile endeavors.

“The rate of increase in V02 max is one of the highest ever reported.” – Izumi Tabata, the founder of Tabata.

In a nutshell, Tabata is a challenging training regimen. Izumi Tabata is the coach of the Japanese Olympic speed skating team, and he developed Tabata as an extremely high intensity workout for his skaters.

Make no mistake about it, speed skaters are some of the most impressive athletes in the world. A combination of both speed and strength is crucial for speed skaters to be successful. To find a workout that is strenuous enough for these elite athletes is a challenge, to say the least. Which is why what I’m about to say is even more incredible.

When first introduced to Tabata, nearly all of the professional Japanese speed skaters couldn’t complete a full workout without stopping for a rest. As some of the most fit athletes around, this really speaks to the power of Tabata workouts.

Even more surprising is the fact that a single Tabata workout is only 4 minutes long. 4 minutes! It’s certainly difficult to understand how something so short can be so challenging, but if you go and give it a try for yourself, I promise you that you’ll quickly feel differently.

How Tabata Works

Tabata is essentially a HIIT workout on steroids. It’s condensed into a quick 4 minutes, split between extremely high intensity and rest periods. It differs from normal high intensity workouts in that your break periods are only 10 seconds long. This doesn’t give your body much time for recovery, and it’s precisely why this workouts can be so taxing on your body in such a short amount of time. Here’s what it looks like on paper:

20 seconds: All out effort and intensity
10 seconds: Rest
Repeat x 8

And that’s it. Eight sets of 30-second intervals that add up to 4 minutes of pure pain. Good pain, that is.

After Burn Effect

Despite its extraordinary difficulty level, some people still question how a Tabata workout can have a tangible effect on fat loss because it’s only 4 minutes long. Well, it’s not so much that the fat is burned during the 4 minute workout itself, but rather, the majority of the fat is burned long after the workout is finished.

It’s something called the after burn effect. The high intensity intervals in a Tabata workout actually causes your body to continue burning fat for many hours after you stop working out. The science behind this? Well, the extreme intensity, combined with a very small period of rest over a few minutes will have the effect of burning off most of your body’s glycogen stores. This forces your body to feed directly off your fat stores for the energy it needs in the hours after the workout.

A Tip to Get the Most out of Tabata

Due to the fact that Tabata does a great job of burning through your body’s glycogen supply, anything you do after immediately after a Tabata workout will burn more fat than it normally would. Like I touched on earlier, this is because your body is looking to your fat stores for a direct source of energy.

What I like to do immediately after Tabata is to go and do some steady state cardio for 15-25 minutes. This extra bit of normal cardio will burn a lot more fat than it would had I not done Tabata before. It’s a nice little 1-2 punch against body fat.

Just a word of warning. If you’re not extremely fit already, it might be better to leave Tabata alone for a while until such time where you’ve built up your level of fitness to such a level. A good plan of action would be to start walking, then move onto jogging, then running, and then start a HIIT routine. Once you’re comfortable with traditional HIIT workouts, only then should you move on to Tabata.

This workout is for all my readers currently on house arrest…

… or anyone who just wants to work out at home.

Admittedly, it’s just not always feasible or practical to make your way to the gym. That doesn’t necessarily mean that your desire to workout is any less strong. Thankfully, despite what your local gym rep will have you believe, it is possible to get in a good workout at home with minimal equipment – just as good of a workout as you would have at the gym, no less.

I know, some of you are probably gasping and crying blasphemy at the top of your lungs, but I truly believe this statement to be true. To have be successful with a weight training program you need:

1. To utilize progression. What does this mean? It means that it’s important to continually challenge your muscles lift either more weight or do more reps than the last time you were in the gym. Try to make every workout a new personal best, even if you only manage to push out one more repetition than your last workout
2. To train to failure (or close to). Take every set to the point where your muscles are just about to give out. This way you ensure you’re working your muscle fibers to their absolute maximum. Because you’re training at home, you likely won’t have a spotter, so that’s why I recommend going just short of failure.
3. To provide your muscles with a variety of stimulus. If you do the same exercises in the same order for months on end, your muscles will get used to your routine. This leads to your workouts becoming ineffective.

And… that’s it!

Naysayers: Tell me one good reason why you can’t do any of these things at home? Oh right, there isn’t one!

The following workout assumes that you have some very basic workout equipment at home. Mainly, a set of dumbbells and a pull-up bar. A basic bench wouldn’t hurt either. You can get all these items at your local fitness store, but as with many things you can often find them cheaper online. I got my home gym equipment on Amazon, I use these adjustable dumbbells (rock solid up to 120lbs each) and this pull-up bar (both are awesome quality).

I’ve divided the workouts based on your experience level when it comes to working out. Follow the instructions of your experience level:

Beginner Lifters

I highly recommend beginners to start with a full body workout. For a full body workout, you’ll need to pick 1 exercise from each muscle group listed below. Every month or 2, go back to this list and change up your exercises to make sure you’re keeping your muscle on their toes. If you’re a beginner, skip down to the exercise list to make your workout.

Intermediate Lifters

For those of you who have been lifting for a longer period of time, your muscles will need a little bit more emphasis to see results. For this reason, I recommend doing a split routine, 3 times a week. For each workout, take 3-4 exercises from 2 different muscle groups listed below. I recommend the following split:

Day 1: Chest/Triceps

Day 2: Break

Day 3: Back/Biceps

Day 4: Break

Day 5: Legs/Shoulders

Day 6: Break

Day 7: Break

If you’re an intermediate lifter, skip down to the exercise list to make your workout.

Advanced Lifters

If you consider yourself to be a very experienced lifter (seriously lifting for 2+ years), then you probably want to dedicate a day to each muscle group. Take 5-6 of the exercises from 1 muscle group for each workout (with the exception of biceps and triceps, which I suggest combining into one workout). An example week will look like this:

Day 1: Back

Day 2: Triceps & Biceps

Day 3: Shoulders

Day 4: Legs

Day 5: Chest

Day 6: Break

Day 7: Break

Exercise List

Legs

Back

Chest

Shoulders

Biceps

Triceps