The turbaned, leathery face of Sanity?

People persist in what does not work all the time. They read an article, or a book for the learned types, and keep pressing on in a direction that produces less and less.

Look at the low fat dogmatists. When I was growing up, our entire family went low fat, and all of our healths, and waistlines, detiorated significantly. Yet we persisted in buying skim milk and lean meat for years as we all got fatter and less vital.

You could also look at the HIT Jedis, the Yoga fanatics, the “No Pain, No Gain” Nazis or any one of a dozen fitness cults out there.

Can you honestly tell me that these people seem sane, sober, measured? People who prescribe one size fits all madness on the rest of us, and then, when it inevitably fails for a large number of people, call the failures lazy.

More of what does not work, does not work. Just because it works for somebody else, does not mean it will work for you. Use your head. Use your judgement.

Also, not everything works indefinitely. If something works for a little while and then stops, try something else.

Be sane about your diet and training. If you know that something requires more time and energy than you’re prepared to give, try making a change that you know that can do. Over time, I think you’ll find that your beliefs about what you can do will grow bigger. But forcing yourself into some preordained box is a recipe for failure.

Don’t drink the Kool Aid.

Did I have to use another Sopranos picture? No, but I did.

Round about the same time drunks became alcoholics, gluttony became a dirty word.

I understand, moralizing has a tendency to have the opposite of its intended effect, and guilt is never pleasant, but the word itself may be the key to an excellent, sustainable long term diet change.

According to Wikipedia, the word gluttony is “…derived from the Latin gluttire meaning to gulp down or swallow…”, which sounds kind of like wolfing down your food to me. We also describe the unpleasant feeling of having a lot of food in your stomach, as being “glutted”, like the food is all fighting to get into your intestines because there’s not enough room. You know how you typically feel crappy, dull, and sleepy after a really huge meal? Not a new phenomenon. It was describe by Aquinas hundreds of years ago. In modern days, Jim Loehr, a prominent sports psychologist, also talks about quitting the meal before the apathy sets in.

In other words, don’t eat in any way that compromises your energy levels. And I’m not talking long term energy levels either, I mean your energy levels right now. Ideally, you should eat because your energy levels are low, aka “I’m hungry”, and then you proceed to eat until those levels are restored, and try to eat the foods that restore your levels cleanly (without sugar crashes or hungry twenty minutes later syndrome).

It turns out moral philosophers didn’t just want to bag on fat people, but were more interested in the ill effects that attend gluttony almost immediately. We’ve all been there, you eat too much and you get sluggish and dull. It takes time before you really get obese. So basically overeating also makes you prone to being dumb and lazy on the road to being fat.

Now obviously there is more to it than this, because some diets like, low fat diets in particular, seem to encourage gluttony by negating feelings of satiety in spite of being full.

I think its a lot easier to wrap your head around a lifestyle change when the benefits are almost immediate. You don’t have to wait “some day” to start feeling good about wiser eating habits. You also don’t have to whip yourself into some quasi neurotic “motivated” state to just put the fork down. Putting the fork down is a much easier solution when you realize that you get to feel good almost immediately, not only psychologically, but physically as well. It also means that when you get tired, it’s a signal that you really do need to rest, not just that you have an insulin crash, but that’s a topic for another day.

Moshe and his IDF Death Kitten are not impressed by bodybuilding

Yeah, I said it.

Look deep within your heart Luke, you know it to be true.

Men have been interested in health and strength for a LONG time. Josephus talks about Judeans going out and lifting stones for their daily exercise. Charlemagne went for a daily swim. According to Sir Francis Bacon, archery is great for increasing lung capacity.

There were three great concerns for men and fitness. The first was health, the second was aesthetic, mostly not being a fat guy (by the standards of the time), and the third was strength. The last one is broader than the way we conceived it, it meant the ability to do specific things, run fast, wrestle well, ride well, and, yes, lift heavy stuff.

“Bodybuilding” changed everything. Aesthetics became king.

If you’ve been interested in fitness for a while, you can predict what I could say next. I could talk about “Being as strong as you look” and all sorts of fun stuff about how the old days were better, but I won’t. I don’t really have an issue with pursuing the aesthetics either, as long as you don’t go Greg Valentino crazy.

The biggest change is less about what the strength game became and more about the fact that everything about health and fitness for the non athlete (and in some cases for the athlete) was being viewed through the lenses bodybuilding provided.

Serious bodybuilding, like any serious sport, requires a high level of time, energy, and most importantly interest. Every human being has an interest in being healthy and strong, at least healthier and stronger, but not every human being has an interest in being a competitive bodybuilder, or even just a dedicated enthusiast. It is a specific sport, it’s not the be all and end all.

So the result is that 50 year old executives and soccer moms are being given health and nutrition plans that are great if you’re a sport bodybuilder, but not so great for their needs and desires.
It’s a pretty recognizable rule that you start small and build to greater things. The same way you can’t bench five hundred right out of the gate (unless you’re an orangutan, and if you are WHOA A LITERATE ORANGUTAN!), the same way you can’t expect someone who’s sedentary and overweight to have the heart of a champion right away. You can’t tell them “Go heavy or go home!” and expect it to have a lot of impact. You shouldn’t tell them to dig deep when all they’re going to do is hurt themselves because they haven’t built up the work capacity (ask those Crossfitters who got rhabdo from their overly intense trainer).

That’s why I love calisthenics and I love low carb. If you start at the bottom rung of Convict Conditioning, you’re doing simple exercises that do work, and you’re getting into the habit of working out. Low carb doesn’t ask you to give up everything right away, but allows you to continue a lot of what you’re doing, while making better decisions; it’s an easier pill to swallow. And guess what? All of these things mean greater health, better aesthetics, and better strength for something you might be called on or want to do in your daily life.

The pursuit of aesthetics is what drives a lot of us. And that’s great, who wants to be fat? But programs for people who want to look good professionally are not necessarily what’s needed or desired by most people. So its back to basics time, healthier, stronger, and better lookin’ using strategies that you will actually do.

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Now, what would you say if I told you that this plan…

Does. Not. Work.

A lot of programs in the diet and fitness world work for a given value of the word “work”. Heck, even a lot of the crappy stuff “works” in the sense that if you followed it, it would give you results. The problem comes from the fact that the programs require a level of time and discipline that the average person is not going to follow through on because they’re WEAK AND STUPID! JUST EAT AND LIFT! PUSH AWAY FROM THE TABLE FATTY! YOU JUST DON’T WANT IT BADLY ENOUGH! GENERIC FITNESS TRAINER CODEMNATION!

This is why so many trainers, including big names (like a certain person whose initials are Gillian Michaels), are frequently full of crap.

A Big Name

What they do “works” if they can successfully bully someone into following it, or trick their clients, fans, cult members into bullying themselves. If you’re like me, which is to say someone who is moderately sane (at least saner than a drunk rabbit), and has other priorities (not an athletic professional), you need something that you will actually do, and hence will actually work.

The truth is, people like you and me have been getting in better shape for a long time, without radically inconvenient diets, without energy sapping starvations diets, without gym memberships, and without sacrificing time spent at work or with friends or family. (Author’s Note: For the drunk rabbits out there, no I’m not saying gyms are bad or that you won’t have to spend time working out, work with me here).

Our goal is to provide you with the diet and fitness strategies that work. Really work.

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According to my sources, the above video is not an actual prison, or an actual prisoner, or mostly in the contents of Convict Conditioning. But, yeah…

I know prisoners are bad guys. That’s why they’re in jail. And I know they’re not all super jacked wolves. We’ve all seen “prisoners” working out in movies: Nicholas Cage doing handstand pushups in Con Air, and Leonardo DiCaprio doing dips in The Departed. And, knowing how to workout and become super strong with no resources is an attractive idea. How would it be done?

Convict Conditioning answers that question. Published by DragonDoor (the same outfit as Pavel Tsatsouline, who endorses the book), it is simply a unique calisthenics book. A lot of stuff out there is either so standard that it’s boring (who doesn’t know how to do a push-up?) or geared towards guys who are already in great shape and trying to take it to the next level (one handed, one legged, jumping backwards push up anybody?). Convict Conditioning falls into neither of those traps.

This is a great book because it is way more sensible and complete than you would expect a something named “Convict Conditioning” to be. The author doesn’t spend a lot of time glorifying prisoners, or, indeed, engaging in much “prison chic” at all. This book has something for you whether or not you are just starting out, or are already quite advanced. This is because of the meat of the book: progressive calisthenics.

This is an idea you’ve seen before in 5BX, simple bodyweight exercises progressing to more difficult variations as you get stronger. His six basic movements (Push up, pull up, squat, leg raise, bridge, handstand push up) cover just about every conceivable muscle group and all require little or no equipment. The initial movements are easy enough for just about everybody (who can’t do push ups off a wall) progressing to truly awesome feats of strength (strict one arm push up).

He also has very common sense recommendations about taking it slow and respecting the progressions so you don’t get injured. Also for most of the programs for structuring your workout, you’re doing a max of 2-3 exercises each day, so, it is pretty easy to implement even if you don’t feel like giving up your current workout, or are not working out all (who doesn’t have time for two exercises a day?).

The only warnings I would give is not to go for the handstand pushups (use the “Marion pushups” and a few others he recommends for the shoulders), you don’t want neck, head, or spinal injuries from falling down. Also, ease into the bridging (the first two movements he recommends in the bridging section are good to go for most people, however).

There is “controversy” surrounding this book, but little of it is actually centered around the contents, which are excellent as far as I’m concerned. There is also a reportedly a sequel, “Convict Conditioning 2″ coming out which deals with recovery techniques, boxing, etc., and I’m certainly looking forward to it.

Check the book out here

What the inside of a badass's head looks like

Odds are, you haven’t heard of the Travis McGee series of novels which chronicle the adventures of the greatest American Hero no one’s ever heard of, a “salvage consultant” who gets back other people’s stolen property. The author was a former OSS Lieutenant Colonel and Harvard MBA named John D. MacDonald, and you probably have heard of one of his other works, Cape Fear.

The whole series of novels has a lot of physical details. Travis details much of his workout and diet, and given the military history of MacDonald, I think it represents the author’s workout and diet as well.

When Travis needed to lose some weight after a period of debauchery, he went on a diet of “…cheese, meat, and salad.” A sample meal consisting of “…twenty ounces of rare beef and a peck of salad.” And he wrote this in 1965. Just goes to show that the low carb, high protein and fat diet as a means of weight loss has been around forever. If you want to learn a more in depth history on this topic, I recommend Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.

Incidentally, he also details some of the exercises he does. Travis uses calisthenics throughout most of the series, like the Roman Sit Up and One Legged Deep Knee Bed,  and mentions weights only once in the last novel.

Seriously though, an OSS agent says to lose weight and get strong, you need calisthenics and low carbs. How cool is that?

If you want to learn more about the history and science of low carb diets read…

Or if you want to get cracking on the first Travis McGee novel…

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Just to state for the record, this headline is a parody. This video has been kicking around the internet since about 2006. Apparently Aleksey decided the best way to impress the recruiters at UBS was to create a video resume. They thought it was funny enough to send to some friends and it went viral from their. I showed it to a friend and she kept a pretty straight face up until when he started dancing, and she said, “He’d better get over himself.”

Despite the blatant narcissism on show (the dude’s interviewing himself here), what he says isn’t necessarily much different from what any standard self-improvement guru out there might tell you (except that most of them aren’t quite as cheesy. What is he CEO of? His dorm room?). So I’ll consider this video about 20% true and 80% bull.

More to the point of this post, what is holding you back from achieving the body, fitness, and energy you desire? As Aleksey would have it, you are probably not pushing yourself hard enough, after all “Impossible is Nothing” (Just remember to have those three spotters to help you get the barbell back up). But I’m sure that you, like me and most people out there, are stressed and hurried as it is, and here is some genius telling you to push harder. Yeah right.

One thing he says that I do agree with is that everything rests on your physical condition. After all, to be extreme about it, you can’t do much when your dead. So what gives you great physical capacity? How can you be in your personal best shape? If what you are doing right now doesn’t seem to be taking you in the direction you want to go, then redoubling your efforts will just continue to get you nowhere. In my experience, running full tilt into a brick wall leads to more broken noses that breakthroughs.

So let’s do a short checklist of what the right path looks like (and this is a hierarchy. 1 is more important that 2, and 2 is more important that 3):

1) Sleep. Prioritize this above all else. If you aren’t getting enough then nothing else will go right, and you won’t want to do anything. There are a lot of really scary studies out there about what being chronically short of sleep does to you. I’ve had a lot of personal experience with bad sleep habits and still struggle with it. The thing that has worked best for me is to set a fixed bedtime. When I get there, I say to myself, “No matter how cool this thing is that I am doing, it will still be there in the morning.”

2) Food. What you eat is more important than how much. Sugar and anything made from grains keep you hungry, make you fatigued after an initial buzz, and keep adding fat onto your body. If you aren’t doing this now, try shifting to eating only meat, eggs, cheese, vegetables, and fruit, with a preference for the animal products.

3) Exercise. This is third, so it is less important than you may have thought. Do the other two first. If you are looking to reduce weight, food is 90% of the issue. Steady state cardio like a treadmill or jogging really doesn’t have much of an effect. For something that will develop strength and can be used for life with low chance of injury, we recommend bodyweight exercises. To burn fat, do these in high-intensity circuits.

Don’t go onto Step 2 until you have made a habit of Step 1, and don’t go to Step 3 until you’ve made a habit of Step 2. When you’re firing on all cylinders, you’ll feel golden, and impossible will truly be nothing.

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Who doesn’t want to look like an ancient warrior? Especially if you are like I was 243 lbs of skinny fat. If you’re not familiar with the term, it doesn’t mean powerlifter or strongman fat, but emaciated arms and legs and blubber. I was a chubby lil pumpkin.

Not even me at my fattest. Fatty fat fat.

I picked up the book because I wanted that Ancient Warrior Physique. Believe me, this was not the first diet book I ever picked up, but it was the the only diet book I ever managed to follow and the only diet that really kept the weight off. The reason I was able to follow the recommendations: Simplicity.

The one basic rule was only eat once a day in the evening. That’s really it. That meant steak, butter, whatever I wanted was fine, but just once a day. With one big meal a day in the evening, you eat either nothing or coffee and a little bit of fruit or nuts during the day in case you need the energy.

So when I started, I cut out breakfast, lunch, and snacking. But I wasn’t even that hardcore, occassionally eating during the day if I had a reason (birthday lunch, or eating breakfast when visiting relatives, etc.). I even cheated a bit by having a danish with my coffee instead of fruit or nuts on a pretty regular basis. Point being, I didn’t have to think a whole lot, just obey the one big rule.

Now, according to most conventional thinking, I should have actually gotten fatter, more unhealthy, had major mood swings, and other nasty consequences. Doesn’t one meal a day ruin your blood sugar? Isn’t eating last thing in the evening the worst time to eat for fat loss because your metabolism is slowing down? Well the opposite happened. I lost weight and felt brimming with energy.

Ori Hofmekler, the author, a former Israeli commando and cartoonist for Penthouse, (yes, that’s his real resume) has some solid ideas about why this diet works and doesn’t have all the expected side effects. This diet can be beneficial for your blood sugar because you’re not jumping up and down on your pancreas (or stomach for that matter) by eating five times a day. It actually gets some rest. Also, yes, your metabolism is slowing down near bedtime, but you get higher quality sleep, something I can also testify to. So it is a trade off, but one with a net benefit. You do feel “hunger” but quickly learn to distinguish between actual hunger and just “habit hunger.” Actual hunger means a decline energy as a signal that you need fuel. Habit hunger means you’re used to eating at a particular time and place or eating a particular food.

While Ori doesn’t have the background one might expect for someone who writes a diet book, he has the only credential that matters to me: what he says actually works. It was the easiest diet I’ve ever done because when it was time to eat, I didn’t have to slow down or be all that choosy. The weight dropped off me like crazy, and I never said no to a steak once.

The Warrior Diet also has a lot of fun historical facts and reasoning behind it, and I realize it is a reality shift for most people. In spite of the fact that it is really only one simple rule to follow for diet, learning the reasons behind it can really get you motivated. This is the book that got me “hooked” on diet and fitness. I was interested before, but this was the first time something worked in a way that I could stick with. And not just worked a little bit either, but worked in spades.

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Typical Florentine Resident

When I was in Florence, Italy, I noticed two things:

1) The city was only the size of Waco, Texas, but it was crawling with beautiful women. I had to shoo them away from the windowsill every time I wanted some fresh air at the hotel.

2) After my testosterone levels stabilized I noticed that Florentines as a whole seemed a lot leaner than my fellow Texans (A definite contributor to the hotness factor).

Looking at how they ate and lived, several things impressed me:

1) Food was more expensive, so you ate less.

2) Although the food was more expensive, you did get what you paid for. It was good food.

3) Vegetables all over the place: celery, carrots, and onions constitute the “trinitario” of Florentine cooking.

4) You walked everywhere. Although this probably has some health benefits by itself, when you’re walking, you’re not eating.

5) The vegetables weren’t exactly slowing down their meat and cheese consumption. I had the delight of tasting Bisteca Fiorentina, the sort of massive steak I thought only existed in Western states and served by guys named Buford.

6) And nothing was slowing down their alcohol consumption either. More wine and hard liquor than beer was being consumed.

I have difficulty thinking of the physical differences I noticed as purely genetic; look at American Italians:

Typical New Jersey Resident

Now, John is from Kansas. While grateful for the sterling work that state has done protecting the rest of us from Missouri, the strange and frightening folkways of its people gave me pause.

Ritual cat feeding, modern day Kansas.

Or he was messing with me.

“Isn’t it bitter or something?”
“No, man, smooth as silk and tastes awesome!”

So, I tried some. Behold! It not only tasted like buttery happiness; it was really filling and satisfying.

Here’s the breakdown from the FDA:

One Cup of Half and Half: 7g Protein, 10g Carbohydrates (0g Sugar), and 28g Fat.

One Cup of Non-Fat Milk: 8g Protein, 12g Carbohydrates (12g Sugar), and 0g Fat.

So, half and half has slightly fewer grams of protein, slightly fewer overall carbs, way less sugar, and way more fat. For a negligible sacrifice in protein, you get carbs that aren’t jumping up and down on your insulin levels, plenty of fat to aid satiety and keep you going, and you get to drink something that tastes like the Platonic Ideal of Milk. This is a perfect Eat Steak Lose Weight food. You simply grab a different bottle at the grocery store, and instead of “sacrificing” anything, you get to drink something that tastes a whole lot better.

Winner: Half and Half

P.S. I can’t really drink more than a few swigs because it is so rich, and I also can’t drink more than a few swigs of non-fat milk because it is a tasteless opaque white liquid, so I don’t think I’d actually make it to a full cup in either case.
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