Science and sense based recommended reading this week.

I haven't kept up with my "week in review" posts for some reason but here's a bunch of great and informative stuff you might enjoy &/or be enlightened by.

• Imogen died wanting to be thin.
  After years of suffering and starvation, Imogen Brennan realised anorexia would claim her life if she didn't get help. Here, she shares her story in the hope of changing misconceptions about eating disorders.

• Intuitive eating is inversely associated with body weight status in the general population.
  Thanks to The Nutrition Guru & The Chef.
  "A recent study has shown that those who intuitively eat (listen to their hunger and fullness signals) and don't have a list of forbidden foods, are less likely to be overweight or obese."

• Re-examining High Fat Diets For Sports Performance
  Thanks to Gabrielle Maston for this one.
  "The push behind this diet is not driven by science. Nope, only by a few popular social media scientists that have driven this through anecdote and poorly designed studies."

• Carbs, Diet Cults & Broscience: A Look Into Fitness Fallibility
  This is a long one, looking into critical thinking or rather the abscence of it in regard to certain theories and practices in the fitness scene.

Finally here's a nice video on The Science Of Persuasion.

As they said on the I Fucking Hate Pseudoscience page, "It's interesting how closely the minds of marketers and con artists align".

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Where The Money Is At: Physical Entertainment For Consumers With A Casual Interest In Getting More Active

You have to understand something.

Most things... things that are for sale, the profitable stuff... they're designed with people in mind who have what you might describe as a passing, or casual interest in that thing.

The people who are really passionate and into something for the long haul, they become deeply invested in it and... I want to say they gravitate towards "quality" but that's not always the case. They gravitate away from the mainstream though, at least.

That's not to appear snobbish either. It is entirely OK that not everyone is into fine art, for example. It's ok if you prefer a rom com or an action & CGI blockbuster over foreign arthouse films.

One thing is for sure though... when the Spice Girls came out circa 1994 singing "I really really really want to zig-a-zig ah" and became the biggest selling female act of the day... it wasn't because that was actually a genius piece of musical and lyrical composition that people with a real passion for music felt a deep emotional connection to.

God... 1994... what a shit year. Maiden didn't even have an album out at all, rendering the entire year a complete waste of time IMO. In hindsight and if it was possible, I'd have just skipped the whole thing until The X-Factor was ready for release.

But anyway I digress. People with a casual interest in commercially produced music as entertainment ate that stuff up and people got rich. All good. Supply and demand, capitalism, all that stuff.

The fitness and fad diet industries work the same way. And like I said... fad diets are often harmful but at least as far as the exercise stuff goes, that's fine. I realise that now, as a more mature aged adult. It's fine if people just have a casual interest and think "hey that might be a bit of fun, let's go give it a try"... it's safe to use Zumba as an example by now without offending anyone, I hope?

What you have to realise though is that if you're really looking for more than just "physical entertainment", when you're really looking for lasting & ongoing results and to achieve something... you have to consider the difference between stuff that is designed to be sale-able to people with a passing / casual interest in exercise, and a serious & strategic approach to training for someone who is passionate and in it for the long haul as a defining aspect of their self-identity.

Now... even if you don't (yet) identify as one of those people who are super-passionate about training, you want to emulate the sort of approach that such a person is likely to have, to the best of your present ability. The passion for it will come in time, as you reap the rewards of productive training in terms of your physical health and condition, and how you feel about yourself and your ability to achieve and succeed when you set your mind to it.

So... a lot of words here but to sum up: the difference between stuff that's designed to be marketable to as many people as possible with a casual or temporary interest, vs stuff that's made for people who are looking for something to really become invested in, identify with and become passionate about. It is well worth understanding the difference, especially if the latter is what you require.

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On a personal note... goal setting post.

I've been in this sort of "at my age who gives a shit I'm just gonna cruise along doing my thing" sort of mode the past few years, as far not being this super driven "gotta be the most ripped, gotta keep up with and outdo all these guys in the gym 10 or 15 years younger than me so everyone knows I'm the best trainer" sort of guy.

And I'm all about that life. For my clients, for anyone following my on social media... it SHOULD be all about "being happy where you're at, and feeling great about where you're headed, at your own pace". It's not about keeping up with or outdoing anyone else and it IS always about being happy where you are not but heading towards where you'll be happier still.

That's what I believe and what I try to facilitate in people who come to me for help and advice.

HOWEVER... I think it's a possible combination of being inspired by all the amazing athletes I've seen who were here for the Arnold Classic, plus the more pleasant, mild Autumn weather... and throw in that my birthday is coming up in a month as well.

It was at about this time LAST year that I decided I'd stop being complacent and dial in some tight Flexible Fueling targets according to my own system, and work on hitting them consistently. What I set out to prove last year was that you get better results by working towards optimal targets rather than just slashing into deficit of where ever you are starting from, and that even while pushing those higher numbers on intake, you'll still see weight loss while improving performance and maintaining (even adding) lean mass.

If you go creep my instagram you'll see that this worked out exactly like I said it would. Pushing around 2900 - 3100 (and at times even more) calories per day I dropped around 1kg over the winter, if I remember correctly. Maybe it was a little more. I'm not saying it's a massive drop in weight or anything like that, but that wasn't the point.

The point was, and still is, as follows:

If you're an athlete, or anyone training for performance and condition, don't be afraid to push towards an optimal aka maximum usable energy intake. You will not get fat. You will actually see a decrease in fat mass as more of those valuable resources are made available to fuel performance at training, recovery from training, and the creation and maintenance of lean mass as an adaptation to training.

So to recap... I started out if I remember correctly at about 2400 - 2600 calories per day, perhaps less as I had gotten quite complacent. Start pushing 2900 and up throughout the Autumn and into the Winter, and see a gradual reduction in bodyweight. THEN though in the late Spring, I cut back to 2600 and immediately dropped another 2kg. This is all documented on instagram and in fact there is one photo captioned "fuck! This cut has gone too far!" or something like that.

What else you can see on instagram is I didn't let up on the massive amounts of fruit that I'm known for, still ate pizza twice a week, and in fact the only way I could force myself to hit those over 3000 targets was by including a couple of mint slice chocolate biscuits on a daily basis. And I got leaner. Because that's how it actually works.

Anyway.

That's what I decided about this time last year, and I made it happen just like I said it would.

Right now though, I'm fired up after hanging out in the gym with so many amazing athletes. So many people who really seem so happy based on setting goals for themselves and working diligently towards them and reaping the rewards. So what I'm going to do this year is one step beyond what I did last year.

This year I'm going to GAIN weight while still getting leaner.
That's the goal anyway. There's a limit to how much lean mass a mature male should be able to add without use of any steroids or anything like that. It's not a huge amount, sadly enough... so what weight increase there will be will hopefully be a little lean mass plus more glycogen in the muscles. I'm looking at maybe 3kg, realistically. But, I'll come out of it next Summer heavier and visibly leaner.

That's the goal. Watch and see.

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