The Demonisation Of Processed Foods Has Gone Way Too Far

For a while now I've had an issue with the amount of nonsense that gets put around about quote/unquote "processed food" and how you can't be healthy, can't lose weight, can't be in shape & and are a poor excuse for a human being if you ever eat any of it.

I mean... really.

There are lots of foods on the shelves of the supermarket that don't make for a great choice in meeting your nutritional requirements without exceeding your energy requirements. This much is true, however for the most part these particular "unhealthy" products aren't really marketed as things you should rely on for every meal. They're more like snack products and so on, for the most part.

To say "we should eat less processed foods" isn't bad advice, as in implies eating more fresh fruit and vegetables instead, for example. But interpreting that advice as "any food out of packet is inherently bad at any amount or frequency" is not correct and I've been saying for a while it is actually harmful. For example when you have the case of someone who is trying to get into shape through restrictive dieting and excessive exercise without results, the idea that a specific, particular choice of meal or snack is responsible for the lack of results especially coupled with the inference that they "weren't disciplined enough to earn it" or whatever is particular harmful and conducive to the development of eating disorder.

What we've seen in the past week though is a step beyond even this, with the suggestion that commercial baby formula is unsafe and unhealthy, merely on the basis that it "comes from a tin" and has ingredient names that people don't recognise. Worse still when the "healthy alternative" people are being encouraged to use instead actually has the potential to kill a child due to the inappropriate level of certain nutrients that it might contain.

Why all the hate for "big food?" I'll paste in my comments in reply to the message above on the Blocked By Pete page on facebook.

It comes across to me like these people literally think of "big food" as a bunch of diabolical Monty Burns type characters sitting around scheming about "how can we trick people into ingesting more toxic chemicals and tell 'em it's healthy? ESPECIALLY BABIES?"

I mean... I'm not the most trusting person but even I don't see any reason to assume anything remotely like that is plausible. Truth be told, although I might come across otherwise sometimes, I don't even think that's what's going on with most of the "alternative nutrition" crowd... they're not deliberately evil, they're just deluded narcissists who can't accept that their gut feeling might not be as accurate as legit scientific investigation, and just keep digging in deeper the more flawed their position is shown to be. Except for a couple I won't name right now who i believe are genuinely just very bad people.

The idea that baby formula isn't / wouldn't be healthy and safe on the basis that it is produced by "big food" though? You'd need to actually provide some evidence, not just act like it is self evident.

Baby formula is an answer to a problem of the instance where a new mother is not able to produce enough breast milk for some reason, or hell it is 2015... the biological mother might not even be in the picture, it could be a single dad or even a two dad family. So in these instances we have a need for a product that replicates the nutritional content of breast milk as closely as possible to ensure the infant can get what it needs to thrive. And "big food" goes "yeah there's some money in that, we can do that" and there you have it.

This whole "we need a healthier more natural alternative to formula' is problematic on two fronts as #1 it just puts more pressure on to new parents who are probably stressed out and in many cases made to feel guilty already due to not having success in breast feeding, and #2 so far (and believe me I have been asking) no one has been able to tell me exactly why people need to be looking for an alternative to formula as if it in some way questionable.

It's a very good, very dangerous example of why this whole demonisation of processed foods thing has gotten way, way, WAY out of hand.

Come see what people are saying about this entry on facebook.

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Why would you require a unique, custom training program but accept a generic diet plan?

One of the weirdest things to me is that people have been convinced that they require a unique approach to training, but will accept a generic eating plan. People in the business believe this as well, which I guess is where the public get the idea from. Everyone who walks in the door wanting to not be overweight anymore, to trim up around the waist, or whatever... gotta build something brand new just for them, from the ground up. Can't give 'em the same set of excerises as anyone else, because they're individuals with unique needs.

Diet though? Just print off another copy of the same generic "these foods good, those foods bad" meal plan. Right?

The opposite approach would really be a lot more helpful to most people. 

Start with a training strategy that we know is effective, and fine tune it as much or as little as is necessary to suit each individual. Depending on their goal, their confidence and ability level, and other factors as well, they might need to start with a different selection of exercises than another person, with a view to progressing to the more advanced options. A competent trainer can do this while still working to a pre-existing strategy that he or she knows will produce the desired physical results in due course.

As to diet though, this is where people really are unique individuals with very unique, individual requirements. Now, all people are similar enough in that they require a certain amount of total energy which we can calculate accurately, and they'll require a certain amount of protein, fiber and other nutritional resources within that appropriate total energy range. The amounts will vary from person to person, but where the real individual uniqueness comes into play is with which choices of foods will best suit each person to meeting these requirements.

There is no point in dictating "these are the best choices that you'll find easiest to adhere to" to someone who just isn't feeling at all enthusiastic about that list of foods. It is even worse still to be a disciplinarian with a "who says you have to enjoy it?" approach that makes it about willpower and strength of character.

The bottom line as I say over and over again practically every day in every conversation on the subject is that people can and should be empowered to meet their energy, macro and micro nutritional requirements from whatever choices of foods best suits their tastes. A certain selection doesn't imply that they want it more, deserve it more, are better people or any other such nonsense. Results from training are facilitated by a suitable provision of energy and other nutritional resources, regardless of where they come from.

Therefore in my opinion, if you are shopping around for a Personal Trainer or for Online Fitness Coaching, what you should be looking for is someone who has an approach to training that they believe in, which has produced results for the people they've coached previously. Ideally you should also be able to learn enough about what that approach entails that you can make an informed decision before you sign up as to whether that approach is suitable for you as an individual.

If you really want to achieve a result through training, what you need a combination of "what it actually takes" plus "what is most suitable for you as an individual". Which isn't to say that you can choose literally anything you fancy doing and expect it to to be effective in producing a specific result. There may be any number of effective approaches to choose from, but that is not to say that every approach, program or product has the same potential for efficacy. Many of them have none whatsoever, others might be better suited to a different goal or a different set of personal circumstances. What we need is something that is actually suitable to both our goal, and our circumstances.

That's an important point that bares repeating and rephrasing. There might be any number of possible approaches from which to choose the most suitable, but the problem most people have is that they believe as long as they make the effort to do "something" then they should be rewarded with the result that they want. Unfortunately, that isn't the way things work.

If you follow an effective strategy, fine tuned a little as best suits your needs, you'll see results provided your nutrition is also appropriate. Regardless of how many other people have already used the same strategy. If you really insist on brand new, custom program built from the ground up, just for you, excluding anything that's been used with anyone else... you're not going to end up with a lot of good stuff in that program.

So the weird part is that we've some how been conditioned to believe that we can earn an athletic physique by eating the same foods we might be told an athletic person would eat, but that actually training with a serious program is optional.

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Bench Press with Controlled Explosive Velocity

I filmed some of yesterday's training session to demonstrate a little of the "Controlled Explosive Velocity" I've been talking about recently.

This applies in particular to the Barbell Bench Press, but it's much the same if you're using dumbbells or even machine press. Tempo is important, and you really want to make both the eccentric and the concentric movements count if you want to make this exercise as effective as possible.

Now, I managed to screw up somehow and the first caption in the video should say "Warm Up Set: 60kg".

You really want to make that warm up set count. Don't just take a light weight and blast out a bunch of reps at light speed with no control or resistance.

Perform the warm up set the way you would like to perform your work sets. Obviously, as you go heavier and as you become fatigued... the bar won't go back up in the air so quickly, and it might come down a little faster too... still, your intention should be to control the rate of decent by maintaining muscle activation, and then explode back up again with the most powerful muscle contraction you are able to produce.

Therefore what I suggest is to think of "explosive velocity", and for that matter think of a "controlled explosion" if you could imagine such a thing. For the PUSH we should be aiming to move that weight up in the air with as much (controlled) explosive velocity as possible. Now for working sets the weight should be sufficient that it doesn't just fly up in the air, but that's what we should have in mind to force the most powerful muscle contraction we can produce. We don't want to lock out at the top of the movement... stop perhaps a half inch short, then very, VERY slowly lower the weight back towards your chest. Slowly as if you're a little scared of letting it get too close, and them BOOM explode up again.

Do not neglect the negative portion by just letting the bar crash back towards you with no resistance. You should be applying an amount of resistance that is only just short of what would be required to hold that thing up in the air.

 Try this first for a warm up set of up to 16 reps. Then 4 work sets of 10 - 12 reps. You'll find it particularly demanding and notice a real difference in the hard, powerful muscle contraction you produce in those pectoralis muscles you are targeting.

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