“BHB is a metabolite produced by the body in response to fasting, high-intensity exercise, caloric restriction, or consumption of the low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet.”

So instead of taking anti-inflammatory meds like Advil, instead consider SlowBurn high intensity strength training and a low carb diet with a touch of intermittent fasting tossed in is a match made in heaven for your health and well-being! It’s the combo we use at all our SlowBurn personal training studios. You should try it too!

 

As many of you know, protein is a vital nutrient for improving and increasing skeletal muscle mass, especially after exercise. And eating too little of it on a day to day basis can accelerate the normal rate of muscle loss. What you may not know however is how important the particular amino acid leucine is for repairing and building muscle.

Dr. Stuart Phillips is a top-notch nutrition and exercise research scientist at McMaster University in Canada who in 2014 penned a paper titled A Brief Review of Critical Processes in Exercise-Induced Muscular Hypertrophy. In it he points out the importance of leucine for muscle protein synthesis/repair/growth:

“Dietary protein appears to be most effective when consumed after exercise, to take advantage of the ‘receptive state’ of the muscle, for mounting a robust MPS response. This would appear to be a guideline that athletes engaging in resistance and endurance training should follow to allow the synthesis of new proteins specific to their activity, and also to promote adaptive remodeling and repair of any cellular damage. The dose of protein that appears most effective following resistance exercise, and possibly endurance exercise, is approximately 0.25–0.30 g protein/kg BM/meal, at least when consuming isolated proteins. Leucine is a key amino acid in stimulating MPS and its content in, for example, whey protein is probably a primary reason why whey protein is so effective at stimulating MPS as opposed to isolated soy and casein proteins.”

To understand how much protein you should eat on a daily basis, I like to keep it simple. Eat/drink about 20-30 grams of protein directly after your workout and per meal. If you’re lean, try to ingest 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight by the end of the evening.

If you are over fat, think about what you should weigh when lean and eat for that weight. As an example, if you weigh 200 pounds but should weigh 150, try to get about 150 grams of protein per day especially if you are strength training (which you should be).

Animal based proteins are a superior choice over plant proteins to get your leucine. Take a look at this chart:

Whey protein offers a whopping amount of leucine per calorie gram! The chart below supports this.

So, if you want to maximize your recovery and strength/muscle/endurance gains, consider drinking a whey shake mixed with coconut milk or water after your strength workout or endurance workouts (if you bother with endurance workouts that is). You might also want to buy some leucine powder and add this to your shake. My co-authors of The SlowBurn Fitness Revolution Dr. Mike and MaryDan Eades discusses how to concoct a muscle building, fat melting cocktail shake in their book The 6 Week Cure for the Middle Aged Middle.  It’s a very good book to read if you’re struggling with age-related fat gain and muscle loss. The Eades’ are super smart physicians.

A good, pure source of whey is David Aspery’s product.  (I do not make a dime endorsing his product by the by.)

Enjoy! And as always, comments are welcomed.

I was having some erratic PVCs (premature ventricular contractions) while I was away on vacation this past month. I’ve had PVCs for well over 30 years now, but the frequency and length of them became worrisome. Many people experience PVCs from time to time, and in most people, they are normal and not a sign of underlying heart disease.

But I was getting about 5-10 per minute and they lasted for hours. If I was active they stopped. Which is a good sign. Still, it worried me that I was having so many so frequently. They seemed to come out of nowhere. I was sitting an the airport going from Riga to Berlin and while I was sitting and having my usual high fat, adequate protein, low carb meal, they began and kept on going. This continued for days and only subsided with activity or lying down and resting. Sitting an eating or talking was almost unbearable. It felt like my heart was going to pop out of my neck.

I called my doctor from Berlin, Germany and she said not to worry but if they persisted to come in to see her when I returned. She agreed that this was not normal and required investigation.

So, upon return to the states, I saw a cardiologist, really nice fella, who did a sonogram of my heart. After all the tests and exams he did, I asked him his opinion of my heart. He said my heart was absolutely perfect – very strong and solid. Said he’d never seen a better specimen in a 52 year old – not even in a young heart. (My BP was 117/70. He praised this as well.)

So I asked him, “In your experience doc given my EKG, sonogram, bloods and your examinations, what is the likelihood that I have underlying heart disease of any kind including clogged arteries? “Nil” he said. “Practically zero.”

So much for my high fat, artery clogging diet and complete lack of aerobic exercise.

I do have to wear a heart monitor for 24 hours so that they can see how the PVCs come and go. The rug I’m wearing doesn’t help so they needed to tape me up.

I suspect that several things may have contributed to the increase in PVCs:

1. Lack of my usual mug of bone broth which is loaded with minerals resulting in an electrolyte imbalance

2. Too much stronger and lower quality coffee

3. Too much alcohol (ah, Paris!)

4. Reintroducing foods that contain gluten – beer, bread and some sauces. This definitely messed my skin up big time.

Since I’ve returned, I have cut back on caffeine, alcohol and am drinking my wonder fluid broth and the PVCs have definitely gotten much better, meaning, lessened greatly. So all seems well at this point.

One thing I noticed when he showed me the sonogram of my perfect heart, the interior beating heart valves look like a beautiful dancer. It literally looked like a person dancing and beating on two drums. Take a looksee:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XiTRNaU8_NA#t=0

This little gem  Molding a Mighty Arm (copyright 1930) is part of my library collection of old and rare strengthening books. The author, George F. Jowett, was a turn of the century strength and physique guru.

As many of you know all too well, I often argue with other experts in the field of personal training and strength exercise. These passive and friendly FRED talks cover a myriad of issues but mainly over repetition speed or tempo.

Many experts belittle slow rep tempo training. Their main beef with it is that they think it cannot build much beef. This error in thinking is usually due to their misinterpretations of certain physiological principles of exercise.

Most of these arguments revolve around the misguided idea that lifting weights rapidly selectively recruits the so-called fast twitch muscle fibers and that slow reps don’t. The fast twitch fibers are the fibers most responsible for hypertrophy (muscle growth) and strength.

But the idea that slow reps don’t tap into or recruit the FT fibers is untrue. Muscular contractions obey what is known as Henneman’s Size Principle. From Wiki:

Henneman’s size principle states that under load, motor units are recruited from smallest to largest. In practice, this means that slow-twitch, low-force, fatigue-resistant muscle fibers are activated before fast-twitch, high-force, less fatigue-resistant muscle fibers.

The speed with which you lift a weight is not a factor in determining what fibers are called upon to contract. What matters is the amount of force and the degree of effort one generates. In other words, the greater the effort you put forth and the harder the effort becomes, the more likely you are to engage the fast twitch fibers.

As en example, pushing your bicycle with a flat tire off the road as fast as you can does NOT recruit more fast twitch fibers than trying to push your Hummer that has a flat tire off the road as fast as you can. The former results in very rapid muscular contractions and the latter very, very slow muscular contractions. But the latter require much more physical effort.

Another example: A sprinter running as fast as he can in the 100 meter race will NOT recruit more fast twitch fibers than if he tried to run as fast as he can in the 100 meter race with a 50 pound vest on. With the vest on, he will run much slower but the effort will be much greater thus recruiting more fast fibers.

When a set of any exercise is taken to complete fatigue, the effort is the greatest. All types of fibers – both fast and slow twitch – are recruited. If you train to complete fatigue using ANY rep tempo, you will recruit the fast fibers. But explosive reps have the unfortunate side effect of screwing up your joints but good.

This is a snippet from inside the Jowett booklet. Look at the LAST sentence. Ancient wisdom:

He means six times to fatigue to begin with and build from there.

Now, what does he mean by “fairly slow”? We just don’t know. But he didn’t say to perform the lift explosively as many experts suggest today. You’ll also notice if you read the whole snippet that he ain’t too keen on cheating.

Much of the information you hear today on weight training is dangerous fast-speed nonsense that will leave you injured (Crossfit, Parkour, plyometrics, etc.) and with less total strength and muscle mass than you might otherwise enjoy. F=ma peeps.

If you find yourself talking to a trainer who tells you to lift weights quickly and explosively or tells you that you have to move rapidly and violently in order to build and develop strength and muscle mass, smile and walk away. You are talking to a very misinformed individual or, as my grandfather would have said, “a schmuck.”

To build or restore muscle and bone tissue requires hard work – intense effort.

No amount of easy, fluffy stuff is going to cause  positive tissue remodeling, or as the industry puts it, “make you look better naked.”

It doesn’t matter what you believe or what you think will do the trick. Your opinions on the issue do not supersede science.

In other words, you’re thrice weekly tennis game isn’t going to preserve or build muscle. Neither will your Yoga class or your morning speed walks with Mabel or your jog around the whatever it is you jog around.

So when you hear the industry experts say fluff like “Do what you will enjoy! Do what you will stick with!” ignore them. It’s a good recommendation when trying to figure out a hobby, but not for transforming and strengthening your body. Imagine if that same expert said that about diet?  Just eat what you enjoy! Uh huh.

You have to strength train and you have to do it properly, meaning, safely and with  a high enough degree of effort that your body gets the idea that you want more of what you already have. Then you rest, meaning, take days off from exercise, and this is when you build and strengthen.

The little dude at the top of this post is lifting his barbell way too fast. He’d get an earful from me if I was training him.

When you lift, count a minimum of 5 real seconds to lift a weight and the same or slower to lower. Lift and lower until you can’t lift the weight against your best effort to do so.  Choose a weight or a resistance level that allows for between 60-90 seconds of total effort until your muscles are pooped out. Add a small amount of weight each session – as little as one pound. 5-10 different exercises are plenty.Train your whole body each session. 2 sessions a week. Let me know how it goes.

Questions? Thoughts?

My daughters breakfast this morning. Took 5 minutes to make. Cost? Less than a buck.

Lunch given will be similar.

Supplements are: Multi vitamin/mineral, D, K, O3, and a probiotic. Filtered water.

May I ask, what did you feed your kids?

People say it’s cruel to kill animals to eat them. Well, as I see it, how you kill them is the most important issue. You can do it horribly or humanely. I opt for the latter.

I was talking to a client about this the other day. She agreed and understood that we need to eat animal matter, but still had trouble with the idea of killing them.

I said to her “Well, the animal is going to die someday, so, would you rather the animal grow old, became decrepit and live in discomfort and potential agony till it drops and then we eat it? Or, might it be better for the animal to kill it humanely before it suffers?

This made her smile.

So, if you have a beef with eating beef or any other animal because it has to be killed, remember that the animal has to die someday.

(Note: I realize that there are other issues like veal, piglets, and other animals that we eat that are not allowed to live a decent lifespan and are tortured while they live. I am against this.)

The book above is part of my collection of rare, first edition fitness books. It is also one of my favorites. It was written by Alan Calvert and published by the author  in 1911. The cost of this book was “$1.00 net”.

The book is full of gems. Phrases such as “Most lifters are of phlegmatic temperament” which means meek, thoughtful, reasonable, calm, patient, caring, and tolerant, make me chuckle.

On page 156/157 Calvert states:

Most professional lifters train only for a short time everyday. Some lifters only train three or four times a week. A total of 2 hours time each week is more than enough to keep a man in the highest possible condition, and it is also enough to develop a novice from a totally undeveloped condition into a perfect Hercules….the man who practices weight training scarcely has to train at all.

Smart man that Calvert.

In last Sunday’s New York Times there was an article by Gretchen Reynold’s titled: How to Get Fit in A Few Minutes a Week. 

Boiled down to the nitty gritty, researchers found that short, brief but intense bouts of cardio did as well or better than the traditional forms of cardio for improvements in fitness. In other words, long drawn out bouts of plodding on the treadmill or stepper is an inefficient use of your fitness time. You can get the same and better benefits training harder but briefer.

And no – you’re not losing more fat by plodding away for hours either. Most of the energy you use when doing cardio come from glycogen (sugar) stored in your muscles – not from the fat on your hips, thighs and belly. What…you didn’t know that?

As many of you are aware, I have been a staunch advocate of brief, intense strength workouts long before my first book The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution: The Slow Motion Exercise That Will Change Your Body In 30 Minutes A Week. was published. Short, intense and brief strength workouts work and they work well – if you are willing to put a solid effort into each and every set you do.

Here is my daughter Georgia, who is 6 years old in this video, doing some serious work at my gym Serious Strength Personal Training.

Strongmen, you got nuthin’ on this kid:

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I am not the person who invented the concept of less is more when it comes to exercise by any stretch of the imagination. I am just one of the many who have helped to popularize the concept. If any contemporary fitness individual should get the credit for inventing the concept, it would be Arthur Jones, the tough talking, pistol wielding, renaissance man who invented Nautilus and MedX exercise equipment.

Take a looksee:

)

Interesting fella eh?

At any rate, while it is true that HIIT cardio training (as mentioned in the NY Times article) is different from HIT weight training, the type of stimulation to the muscles is very similar.

Intense muscular effort calls upon the higher threshold (the so-called fast twitch) motor units to engage (as in sprinting or lifting a very heavy object) and results in increased total mitochondria (not mitochondrial density – two different things which researchers often goof up on) thus improving endurance and aerobic capacity. Mitochondria are the energy producing cellular power plants of the cells.

Intense efforts are the key to producing the results you require – if time is something you value that is. You don’t need a lot of total work.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, to improve your physique or figure, what and how you eat is 99% of that battle. Productive exercise, meaning, exercise that produces positive tissue remodeling (denser bones and more muscle) requires very little time per week to achieve. As little as 15-30 minutes a week. Even less.

In the time it took you to read this post, you could have stimulated every muscle in your body to become stronger.  And the time you’ll now save at the gym will allow you to learn a foreign language. Or paint the house. Or…

I saw this on the Let Fat Be Thy Medicine. I hope they won’t mind my shameless promotion of their movie by using this pic.

And…you won’t be buying nearly as many (if any) antacids, acne cream, arthritis meds, cholesterol meds, insulin (if you’re type 2), dry skin salves, eye drops, ear wax removal liquids, cough drops, NyQuil, sleeping pills, Advil, Tylenol, GasX, you’ll make fewer trips to the dentist for cavities, root canals, fewer doctor visits…

Shall I go on????

As we all know, many people today suffer from obesity. For many obese people, one of the common ailments that comes along for the ride is a fatty liver.

An overly fatty liver (greater than 10%) can be problematic. Your liver performs many important tasks and thus needs to be in tip-top shape in order to clear the blood of toxins, produce glucose, bile acids and a bunch of other very important functions. So eating and drinking in a manner that fattens of the liver is unwise to say the least.

Most people know that you can make your liver fatty by drinking excessive amounts of alcohol. This may be in part due to a lack of choline in the diet and/or from poor absorption of nutrients caused by tipping the bottle too much and too often. Many alcoholics eat poorly and experience poor digestion since alcohol can damage the gut and stomach lining as well as upset the balance of good bacteria in the gut biome. But a fatty liver may also be caused by excess fructose consumption and excessive refined carbohydrate intake – a condition known as non-alcoholic, fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

A study done in 2011, Short-term weight loss and hepatic triglyceride reduction: evidence of a metabolic advantage with dietary carbohydrate restriction concluded the following:

2 wk of dietary intervention resulting in a reduction in body weight of ≈4.3% reduced the hepatic triglyceride content by ≈42% in subjects with a clinical diagnosis of NAFLD. However, dietary carbohydrate restriction was significantly more effective at reducing liver triglycerides than was calorie restriction.

Though losing body weight was part of the cure for a fatty liver, the diet involved seemed to be even more important.

Chris Masterjohn thinks otherwise. Chris knows his stuff and I agree with him that this particular study isn’t as strong as it could be. Yet, if you had to opt for one or the other approach, which would you choose?

To combat fatty liver:

• Limit or abstain from alcohol
• Eat choline rich foods like eggs and other animal products
• Stay lean

Ever wonder why olde time taverns used to have eggs and pickles at the bar? Well, now you know!