I recently found myself in a friendly argument over the origins of the obesity epidemic. It (the argument, not the epidemic) started with a post on my Facebook page (scroll down to January 2), which itself came from this article on weight loss in the New York Times Magazine.

The argument was over how much of the rise in obesity can be attributed to genetics vs. environment. Anoop Balachandran, a fitness professional studying for his Ph.D. in exercise science, argues that it’s virtually all genetics, and makes his case on his blog in this post and this one. His biggest point is that the people who are obese today are the people who would’ve been obese anyway, and what we call an epidemic is a rise in their weight,…

Tags: Tags: body fat, dual intervention point model, energy balance, fat loss, genetics, lifestyle, obesity, set point theory, Weight Loss

The first to come after you when you turn 50 is the AARP. Nonstop pressure to join, nonstop pressure to buy useless crap while you’re in, and nonstop pressure to rejoin when you quit because you’re sick of the AARP selling your address to every company that wants to make a quick buck off people who’re slipping into dementia. The second is the healthcare industry, which give you the full-court press for a colonoscopy.

I have nothing against diagnostic procedures in general, but I have a real problem with procedures that require an empty stomach. That’s why I minimize blood tests. I’m as concerned about my HDLs as the next guy; I just don’t want to have to fast 12 hours to get a reading.

A colonoscopy requires a full 24 hours without food, about 6 of…

Tags: Tags: colonoscopy, diet, fasting, nutrition, pancakes, small meals, Weight Loss

I first heard about intermittent fasting a few years ago, while interviewing a nutrition researcher for a magazine article that never ran. The article was about the cleansing craze, particularly the crazy idea that we’re loaded with toxins that can only be purged with prolonged administration of juices and enemas.

The researcher noted in passing that her preliminary studies of intermittent fasting showed promise. I filed the information away but didn’t pursue it. I’ve been recommending four to six small meals a day for as long as I’ve been writing books. If fasting works better, I have a lot of backtracking to do.

All of which is a long way of introducing Experiments with Intermittent Fasting, a new, free book by John Berardi, Krista Scott-Dixon, and Nate Green of Precision Nutrition….

Tags: Tags: intermittent fasting, John Berardi, Krista Scott-Dixon, nate green, nutrition, Weight Loss

Saturday morning, and I’m sitting in my car while one of my kids does one of those things parents pay money for kids to do. I’m geeking out on the sequel to A Game of Thrones, and I’m happy to have an hour to do nothing but read.

A couple of the other parents, though, are more ambitious. They’re dressed for a workout, and apparently serious about it. They take off jogging, and don’t come back until the hour is almost over. When they do, I can see by the way they’re walking — short, stiff-legged strides with feet splayed slightly — that they’ve pushed themselves. They spend the next five minutes going through a choreographed stretching routine.

They move like people who work out. But they don’t look like people who work out. They’re obese by…

Tags: Tags: endurance, gardening, keith scott, obesity, physical activity, running, weight gain, Weight Loss

In a recent post, I asked a simple question: “What do we know about nutrition, and how do we know it?” You provided a lot of inspired and thoughtful responses (20 so far). Now it’s time to put that question to someone whose living depends on him knowing the answer.

I first met Mike Roussell, Ph.D., back when he was merely Mike Roussell, doctoral candidate, at the 2007 Fitness Summit. We’ve been friends ever since. Mike, who’s a computer whiz as well as a nutrition expert, helps me understand the secret logic of social-media algorithms. In return … well, I’m not really sure what I do to help Mike.

But it works out for me, and really, what else matters?

I asked Mike to answer the following questions via email. To…

Tags: Tags: breastfeeding, epic fiction, exercise, mike roussell, nutrition, omega-3 fats, the fitness summit, Weight Loss

Back in the late 19th century, some of the most educated and progressive people of the age believed in spiritualism. That is, they believed it was possible to communicate with the spirits of the dead, and regularly attended seances where transparently contrived bumps, breezes, and groans kept them on the edge of their chairs.

Mary Roach, in a book called Spook, explains why.

The rise of spiritualism coincided with the dawn of the electronic age. Their lives had been filled with one wonder after another: the telephone in 1876, the phonograph in 1877, and the first radio transmission of a human voice in 1900. That’s in addition to the mid-century rise in telegraph networks and continual improvements in photography.

If messages could travel thousands of miles on telegraph wires, and human voices could be…

Tags: Tags: belief systems, cleanses, diets, exercise, fitness, hcg, magic, national weight control registry, nutrition, Weight Loss

On my worst days, I fantasize about cleaning my house with a shovel. It’s cluttered with so much useless crap that it would be impossible to sort out piece by piece. Better to just shovel it all out and not worry about whether we’ll miss any of it later. As it is, we often can’t find the stuff we need because it’s buried under all the stuff we don’t.

Case in point: Today I found a stack of Kids Discover magazines from 2006. And when I say I “found” them, I mean they were sitting on our dining-room table. It’s the first thing a visitor would see. How they got there is a mystery I’m unlikely to solve.

As long as they’re there, I had to look at them, and one of the themed issues caught my…

Tags: Tags: bad advice, body fat, conventional wisdom, diabetes, eggs, exercise, meat, nutrition, protein, weight control, Weight Loss

Continuing with my interview with my coauthor, Alwyn Cosgrove:

In Part One, we covered the reasons we wrote NROL for Abs, and you explained your core-training philosophy and methodology. But core training is maybe one-fifth of the program in our book.

Let’s start with mobility, since that’s the way readers will start all the workouts. Pretend I’m a reader who picks up this book with the goal of finding a bunch of exercises that’ll help me get ripped abs. How do you convince me that the mobility exercises are just as important as the core training? What do I lose if I don’t work on mobility?

AC: Take a look at most 70-year-olds and get back to me! That should be reason enough.

Let me illustrate this with a story. When I got out of the hospital in 2006 I was struggling to regain fitness. As…

Tags: Tags: alwyn cosgrove, core training, nrol, nrol for abs, training, Weight Loss

Today is Opening Day for my new book with Alwyn Cosgrove, The New Rules of Lifting for Abs. I’m not sure if it’s in every bookstore yet, and Amazon still lists it as available for pre-order (the official release date is December 30, while I’m writing this on the 29th). But Amazon is telling those who pre-ordered that their copies are on the way, and friends and colleagues who received advance copies are posting their reviews, so it feels close enough to the real thing.

Among the generous and enthusiastic endorsements for the new book:

* Craig Ballantyne lists his three favorite exercises from Alwyn’s programs.

* BJ Gaddour of Workout Muse gives the book a thumbs-up. (Also check out BJ’s interview with Alwyn.)

* One of the most pleasant surprises came from
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Tags: Tags: alwyn cosgrove, bj gaddour, craig ballantyne, exercise, nrol, nrol for abs, training, Weight Loss

My friend Kevin emailed on November 4 to tell me he’d lost 25 pounds. I can’t recommend his training protocol — if I’m reading his email correctly, 90% of the calorie deficit came from his Wii Fit Plus workouts, and 10% came from not drinking chocolate syrup straight out of the can — but of course I congratulated him on his results.

On November 29, he wrote back to say his program had hit a snag:

I’ve been gaining and losing the same three pounds for six weeks. I need something new. A new gym just opened up less than a mile away. Or maybe an exercise bike? Any recommendations?

In reply, I suggested that he forget the exercise bike (limited muscle involvement, limited range of motion, limited results) and join the gym. “If you’re creative,” I wrote, “by which I mean, if you
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Tags: Tags: always be closing, exercise, mike roussell, Weight Loss, weight maintenance