Scott Abel - The Blog

Psychosomatic Nutrition Part 2

2012-02-06T05:00:00.000-05:00

We are all familiar with expressions like “worried sick.” Most people also know that these expressions are based in truth. The various neurotransmitters of the body responsible for a sense of well-being and for anxiety are placed all through the digestive tract as much as they are the brain. This is fact. This is also why the related release of stress hormones is known to also be cosmetically “unfriendly.” Many of you know that if you are stressed you start to hold water, become bloated, maybe gassy, crampy – either constipated or unfortunately, just the opposite. And most of you know that stress and worry can induce these physiological responses. It is no coincidence that these same general symptoms are common among all the various “food” related digestive disorders and allergies and intolerances that the modern civilized world has manufactured for you – so now you can have something else to “worry” about – food itself – and of course - a marketed solution to solve it for you. It’s ironic to me that most if not all of these disorders are unheard of in Europe in the areas where people still live traditional lives – where the corner stone of their mindsets toward food is a mindset of enjoyment – not fear and stress.

The word disease, often means dis-ease, which means “a cause based in a source of tension, usually unreleased tension.” And the tension you have been led to absorb and internalize about food and eating – right foods vs. wrong foods - is as much a contributor to any food-allergy-illness-aversion you ‘think’ you have - over anything you are actually eating. And when I say this, people love to get all offended and defend their victim status. They love being victims of food and digestive ailments - phantom though they may be. Even “Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease” estimates that over 90% of people with these various “food issues digestive disorders” actually do NOT have them. But oh, they love to think they do. And this is a decidedly curious North American phenomenon.

So, to make the point on the mindset of psychosomatic nutrition – follow me to my hypothetical Abel laboratory for a little experiment.

Like many other “nutritionists” out there, I’ve just stated I have a lab, so it must be true, right? To be even more official I’ve even donned the white lab coat for full effect. I’ve chosen two people in my lab with exactly the same symptoms. Both have been convinced by the diet, food, and supplement industry that they have various food aversion that makes them sick – you know, bloating, cramping, headaches, water-retention, fatigue – the usual symptomology that can apply to a thousand different things – including stress and worry. These two people, let’s call them Cindy and Susan: I’ve given them each a serious dose-by-injection of sodium pentothal. You all know it as “truth serum.” But truth serum is not something that makes you tell the truth – that is a public misunderstanding. The various “truth serums” are drugs that make you intensely “open to suggestion.” (A lot like masking marketing as scientific proof)

So, after dosing Cindy and Susan, the experiment is ready to begin. Both are now quite open to the power of suggestion. I give Cindy a couple large chocolate éclairs. But along with these éclairs I “suggest to her” that this particular food is going to do her a world of good. She is going to feel much better and healthier from eating this food. Her symptoms are going to go away, if she just eats this more regularly, and less of other things. I “suggest” to her also, that everything I’m telling her is clinically proven in labs around the world. Labs - just like mine.

Now, for Susan, I take a different route. I give her a whole foods salad, with healthy nuts, seeds, raw veggies, healthy extra virgin olive oil – just the healthiest meal possible. But now under the effects of sodium pentothal – I also “suggest” the following to her: I tell Susan that in the future she will just not be able to resist this meal because it’s sooooo delicious. But I also “suggest” to her, this meal is making her sick. This is the meal causing all her digestive symptoms. And just like with Cindy, I “suggest” to her also that everything I am telling her is “clinically proven” all around the world in labs – just like mine.

Now for added effect and because I consider myself a bit of a mad scientist – I hook Cindy and Susan up to a bunch of bells and whistles machines -The kind of machines that will beep and make noise and measure things like worry, anxiety, stress and physiological response to it all. The conclusion looks something like the following:

Cindy is completely relaxed by all physiological indications and responses. But she is eating the chocolate eclairs which everyone outside my mad-lab knows is bad for her and should immediately affect her condition and response. Yet all machines measuring stress, both emotional and physiological – are quiet.

Susan on the other hand is making her own noises of enjoyment – since it was suggested to her she would “love” this meal – even though it would make her sick. So you can hear her moaning “mmmm, that’s good” as she starts to taste her food. But within minutes after swallowing the first few bites the machines are going crazy and indicating all kinds of emotional and physiological stress responses. She loves the food, but as “suggested to her” – it seems to be making her sick.

In my lab, (since I’m bored and single with nothing else to do), I continue to monitor them both for several hours after the initial dosing of truth serum, and the initial consumption of the suggestive food solution or culprits.

Cindy, who ate the éclairs – finds that doing so has no ill effects on her condition – none at all. Her state of mind, formed by the power of suggestion, has completely cancelled out any anticipated physiological reactions and common symptoms of her suspected food aversions.

Susan, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed her healthy salad – as I suggested to her she would – and in fact says she now craves it – but she also “knows for a fact” this salad is making her sick – and all the prevalent physical symptoms are present, which seem to support that conclusion.

And let’s get real here. This is indeed science. After all I’m wearing a lab coat. I’m a nutrition expert. At least more-so than most people out there selling snake oil solutions by creating digestive disorders out of thin air.

You’ve been told to agonize over this piece of bread or that thing made of flour. And now you are literally ‘scared’ this food will induce all the digestive discomforts you have been experiencing. Well, you haven’t even eaten it yet. So, what do you think happens when you do?

Just like with other health issues, it’s usually not the diet or the food that is at issue – No! It’s the circus-like tension created all around it – that is what is causing your various “digestive disorders.” And for even more of you, the fact you like to be part of a “special victims unit.” (isn’t that a T.V. show?) “Hey, I’m special – I have all these food restrictions, don’t you know.”

Maybe years ago you began feeling bad just eating things you were told would make you fat. That bad feeling precipitated a physiological response way back when – and you can’t even remember it as a trigger. Since then, you’ve had a psychosomatic response to a variety of foods, that you have been marketed to into believing will lead to all kinds of digestive disorders and symptoms – and oh, may make you fat as well. Well, who wants that in their diets!

But what if you could in reality just eat whatever you want? I bet with that calm mindset you won’t need to stuff a whole cake into your mouth in one sitting – and try to do it quickly before the self-loathing and guilt kicks in. Most binge eaters eat with that time-delay guilt/shame factor in mind – they know it’s coming right behind, so get in as much as you can before it kicks in.

What I actually “know” to be true is that if you just let go of all this tension you’ve created in your mind about good vs. bad food – you’ll have a calmer approach to food and eating – and therefore a symptom-free experience of eating as well. You don’t need to label foods as good or bad, painful or sinful. It’s just “food” for God’s sake!

If you can get to this calm place – my guess is you’ll start to care way less about food. And because of that you won’t be less responsible, but more responsible. And less tension means more enjoyment. I even bet you’ll lose weight. But at that point since you’ve let go of all the tension and drama – losing the weight as well, will finally be no big deal. As these things matters less – then they have less power to make you sick. That is the truth of psychosomatic nutrition.

The truth serum you’ve all been swallowing- is a heavy and steady dose of mass marketing of fear and paranoia, packaged with instant solutions. So, you end up restricting more and more foods from your life and tell yourself you are happier for doing so. But the reality is, you still worry, stress and fret over food and eating. Victory – mass marketing. Victim – You, just not in the way you want to believe.

Some of you will get it, most of you will not. So be it.

I do suggest for further reading you check out my book, Beyond Metabolism: Understanding YourModern Diet Dilemma.

Psychosomatic Nutrition Part 1

2012-01-23T04:00:00.000-05:00

I’ve talked about the mindset of diet and nutrition for ages. I’ve discussed the relevance of The French Paradox – and how the French adore and enjoy food but simply do not obsess over it. And the result is even though they eat substantially more “indulgent” food, and smoke far more on a person to person basis – they are in fact far healthier than their North American counterparts. Yes, I’ve discussed this in several of my books and Blogs. People read them with interest, give them a quick nod of ‘that’s interesting’ and then go right back to internet searches for the next wonder-diet or wonder-supplement.

But the fact of the matter is that the way most of you think about diet and nutrition is what is causing the most trouble for you with your diet and nutrition. I mean it’s ridiculous when you think about it.

It’s like most people want to be sick. They want to be food restricted.

This is what they tell themselves. So, when they can find something with a completely general and vague symptomology – they latch on to it. Yes, “I’m gluten intolerant” or “I’m dairy-sensitive.” Whatever. Most people consider themselves both or even consider other food-sensitivities as well.

“Don’t you know that sweetener you are using causes cancer?” And on it goes.

People just don’t get it. Oh, but the nutrition and diet industry get it just fine. They want you to be afraid of food or food-stuffs. They want you to depend on them for your information for “what is ok to eat.” And this is ridiculous to the point of being farcical. That is to say, YOU, and the way you have allowed your mind to be manipulated by marketing – YOU have become ridiculous and farcical, in all your nonsense and obsession over anything and everything food or nutrition-related.

We are now a completely consumption-based society. On that front we “want.” And our “want” knows no ends. Ironically enough we also now consider that all answers to all issues are matters of “consumption” (there must be a pill for that)

But our obsession with Body Image and nutrition, combined with food is a marketer’s paradise. Once you are told you can’t eat a certain thing, that is exactly when “want” kicks in and you can’t seem to go without it. But if you stand back and consider the absurdity of it all, the way the French do – does it make any sense?

So, you have gluten-free pasta, gluten-free bread, flour-free bread, cocoa-free chocolate, sugar-free chocolate, dairy-free ice-cream, fat-free ice-cream, sugar-free ice-cream, caffeine-free coffee, sugar-free cookies and candies, fat-free everything, and yes of course even meat-free hot dogs and hamburgers. And don’t even get me started on low carb, carbs-foods and low-sodium everything. Can you not see how ridiculous and contradictory it all is?

Your obsession with food is sick - hilarious, but sick.

Oh people like to play down how important food is in their life. If I asked you to make a list of 10 things that really matter to you in your life, I doubt “food or diet” would make the list – Yet, if you are truly being honest with yourself, and listed what “matters” – as a statistical reflection of how many times per day you think or worry about it – then food/diet would be near the top of that list and for all the wrong reasons.

It’s time people stopped walking around like zombie-lemmings. You need to get truly conscious about diet and food so you can let go of this psychosomatic hold it has on you. First you need to start observing how often you think about food, diet, and nutrition. Then observe and become aware of what goes on when you think about these things. Combine how often you think of food/diet/nutrition with how you feel when doing so. How are you when you are eating? How do you feel when you are eating food that you label as “good for you” vs. how you feel when eating food that you label as “bad for you.” This begins acknowledging the psychosomatic hold this all has on you.

After a while, can you even know which is the chicken and the egg in this equation? Maybe all this focus and tension on food and diet, maybe that is the problem. Maybe that is what makes you “feel” sick. Maybe that is what makes you think you can’t tolerate this or that food. One of the key indicators to eating disorders or potential ones are when people get more focused on “food limitations.” They like to focus on what they think they can’t or shouldn’t have, over what they can have and enjoy. But this is another paradox because our brains are wired to enjoy food. (see my book, Beyond Metabolism) Trying to pretend you can’t have or enjoy certain and a specific food is not going to work for long. Hence the industry steps in and gives you “faux” versions of anything and everything.

Listen if you’re ill or prone to illness and you’ve got the diet-mentality then more than likely you think diet has something to do with it – whether it’s true or not. Then you end up with a gluten-free, meat-free, sugar-free, salt-free, dairy-free, calorie-free approach to diet which is anything but “FREE.” That my friends is imprisonment. It’s humour-free, it’s enjoyment-free, and yet it never seems to be guilt-free or shame-free, does it? And yet, I’ve had many people hire me to write them diets that cater to the above limitations of gluten-free, sugar-free, carbs-free, meat-free, sodium-free blah, blah, blah. It’s ridiculous, and it’s sick and its part and parcel of psychosomatic nutrition.

You live in fear of what this or that food may do to your body, internally and externally. Many people also use this as the backdrop to what is really going on. They want food restrictions. They want to be told certain foods make them sick – not because this is true – but because eliminating these foods, they think, will give them that better body. Oh, they never say or admit it – often even to themselves. But underlying all of this “food-intolerance” is really a body-image issue. But you seldom have a happy body by getting there with a mindset of denial and self-deprivation. (See my Phantom Menace project for more on this.)

So, along with the fear-based diet-mentality the result can only be “emotional tension.” The exact opposite of the French who cannot imagine or fathom the word “tension” associated with eating and food. But in the fear-based mindset you eat something indulgent and then feel guilty or sick – again, psychosomatic. If you think and tell yourself you can’t tolerate a certain food, then just the worry about “knowing” that means when you eat it, of course you are going to experience physical symptoms.

The whole issue and problem of the western world is in making all of nutrition and diet such a big thing to begin with. I mean, really, consider the popular name “Weight Watchers.” What does that actually mean? It means people whose focus is on food and weight, weight and food, food and weight, weight and food. Well that certainly sounds worry-free, doesn’t it?

And to answer all of this with “well yeah but it works” means you still live in the diet-mentality. No it doesn’t work! To create worry and concern over something as trite as food/eating and diet – shows how messed up the mindset must be to begin with.

Much of modern nutrition is mental or marketing manipulation producing a psychosomatic result. And of course my position is not the popular one. You can’t “sell” my position and you can’t “consume” it either. But with psychosomatic nutrition you can create pills, potions, magic water, cleanses, supplements, all the faux food categories mentioned above. Therefore everyone is happy and “free.” The product manufacturers are certainly happy – and as consumers, you get an answer to literally “consume” - for every single psychosomatic nutrition “issue” you think you have. And yet, are you more free and happy diet-wise? Is your food/eating/diet no long an issue- no longer a big deal- no longer something you think much about?

No, the French have the right idea. For all of you who think you have all these nutritionally related restrictions, good thing you don’t live in France. Oh, the sacrilege of waking up to a full baguette and block of cheese in the morning! Don’t they know that stuff is made with flour and with gluten, and with dairy?

Ah yes, they know. And they are happier and healthier than YOU ARE.

Too bad psychosomatic nutrition in North America doesn’t lead to wellness but to all kinds of phantom ailments.

Some of you will get it – most of you will not. To be continued.

Can We Get Real? Apparently Not !

2012-01-09T04:00:00.000-05:00

Back in Toronto I once trained a fairly high-level local celebrity.(several actually, but that is not the point) One of the top female Fitness magazines wanted to do a big layout spread on her. But while she was a media celebrity she was not really in the Fitness Industry. We had about 6 weeks to do what we could and we did so. And when the magazine spread came out I was both shocked and disappointed – but not for the reasons you may think. We did what we could and she looked great: Apparently not “great” enough.

The layout feature on her must have photo-shopped at least 20 lbs off of her – in every single photo, especially in her “trouble area” glutes and hips. I was so disappointed. These magazines pretend to be “for and about women” – and yet they seem to betray them at every turn. What happened next disappointed me even more. With my name mentioned in the article and her “celebrity” status, I began getting requests from ladies, who of course wanted to be “trained” by the same person who trained her. They wanted to “look like her” and do what she did. Well how do I explain to people that even “she” doesn’t look like “her” - in the magazine layout. People say they know and realize all about photo-cropping, yet they still seem to marvel at the results of it as if it were “real.”

Why am I telling you this? Well I had a bit of a strange year last year (I turned down a lot of business and income) and it reminded me of all the phoniness this industry puts out as real. One situation bothered me on such a scale that I just can’t let it go. So I am going to write about it now.

I got a coaching request from a “competitor” who wanted to compete in the IDFA – a natural organization – and he wanted to get his pro card etc. Fine enough. We started exchanging emails. Well turns out this “National Champion” sends me a list of all the pharmaceuticals he was taking. There must have been at least a dozen different drugs, as well as finishing drugs like diuretics etc. He informed me I didn’t have to help him “beat the drug test or the polygraph” because he already has that down pat and has not been caught yet. Perplexed and disappointed (yet again) I told him I could not help him.

What a tremendous insult this is to my natural competitors or those striving after their best potential. See, it’s not even the obvious that bothers me so much in the above scenario. It is the “sub-text.” This person was so cavalier in his attitude toward using a boatload of drugs to compete “naturally” that it meant he just assumed that all my other “natural” competitors must use as well. And that is insulting to them, to me, and to the nature of competition – but it is insulting to you the consumer as well. When these people hold themselves out to be “natural” then what is achievable becomes fundamentally distorted.

This person advertises on his website that he is a “natural” competitor and “champion” and yadda, yadda. Not just misleading, but fraudulent.

But this is no isolated incident. Every year I see Figure competitors who become champions and they play the exact same game. They choose their words carefully and say “I compete in Figure because I don’t have to take the drugs like in bodybuilding.” They don’t say that they do not take any drugs. They just give that impression. Many will proudly say, “I refuse to take steroids.” Yet on the other side of that statement, they abuse thyroid medication, Growth Hormone, estrogen antagonists, clenbuterol, diuretics and other little pharmaceutical tricks of the trade. (Which I know far too much about) And while I consider them to be losers – it’s the consumers who lose.

You naïve consumers are led to believe that something is naturally achievable that is in fact not achievable. And there is a world of difference between high expectations and unreal expectations. And the fact that these people will lie to your face in order to secure your loyalty or your money just does not sit well with me. Why can’t we just be real? Oh, I know why. This way they can sell you supplements and fat burners that they claim helped them achieve that final “look” that they know full-well was only achievable with drugs.

In my small little city there is a “Natural” drug-tested show every year. Now, it’s been years since I followed any shows, but just a few years back, even at this tiny local show, I was shocked when someone wrote to inform me that of the 9 people tested, 7 tested positive! (to the best of my memory) But who of any of the audience members are going to find out about that, when it comes out several weeks or months later and only on-line where very few “in the know” find out about it.

Switching gears let me tell you about two people I do know by comparison.

My friend and colleague Coach Kevin Weiss is someone I marvel at, in terms of his involvement in this industry. 2 X’s National Champion, professional bodybuilder and now this year, World Raw Powerlifting Champion - Coach Weiss is a performance machine. In fact we Abel Body peeps, have nicknamed him, “The Machine.” Coach Weiss has been natural his whole career. And his approach to competing is unique.

You won’t find him posting on social media about his diet, or his training. Even after winning the World Championships this year, he didn’t take to the Twitterverse to seek any external validation. His competitive pursuits are obviously very personal and intimate to him as a form of self-expression. Even I can’t get him to talk about this stuff unless I bring it up. He just doesn’t need to share it all with anyone else. He seeks neither glory nor validation from his pursuits. Now, that is “Tao” in action.

So, I presented him with this scenario. I said, “Buddy, what if I told you of someone competing in IDFA – who is on as many or more drugs than most hard-core IFBB pros – and he can beat the drug test and polygraph?” The question itself seemed to puzzle Coach Weiss. He didn’t get angry or upset – he just looked at me puzzled and asked, “Why would anyone want to do such a thing?” Purists like Coach Weiss, see things in pure terms. We need more like him in the industry! But let’s not confuse being a purist with being naïve or being a prude. Once the “hypothetical” situation sunk in with him, he was as disgusted as I was.

And I have another natural client – Anthony Josse. Anthony is both young and naïve. (And believe me, being naïve when you are young is not a bad thing at all) But Anthony has one in a million genetics. Someday he will be a “go to” person and everyone will want to know how he trains this or that body part, and how he eats, and the rest of it. His genetics to compete naturally are off the charts. He just won a pro qualifier as well, and the rest of the field wasn’t even close to him. Like Coach Weiss, young Anthony also has mental genetics as well. He doesn’t just rely on his “gifts” he works them to exhaustion – which is as it should be.

And he will go very far indeed.

But here’s the thing. Against this guy above, he doesn’t stand a chance. Take two people of equal genetics, and one is lifetime natural and the other has been doing hard-core steroid stacks for years – there is no legitimate comparison or level playing field possible. It would be like comparing a Model-T Ford, to a modern Ferrari. And even if that Model-T was as well-kept and pristine as is humanly possible, it still couldn’t compete in any way, shape, or form with even the most poorly maintained Ferrari. And this is the sad truth. Young Anthony can make a real mark and name for himself in this industry. But not when people willing to cross a line in such a vulgar way, stand in his way.

As Coach Weiss asked, “Why would anyone want to do that?” Why indeed!

See, folks like Coach Weiss and young Anthony - they are not schemers. They don’t think or act like schemers. Therefore they cannot conjure an image of people willing to scheme so low to make a name for themselves or profit under false pretenses. But the industry is loaded with these types of people. The bottom line for them is the bottom line of $$$$. Integrity and principle have little to do with it. They just want to support their lifestyle, and they are willing to lie and scheme to do it.

Asking me to coach someone like that is, as I said on my Facebook page, asking me to be a “trainer of “Chumpions!” No thanks!

I have always known more about the internal workings of this industry than most people will ever know. I have not only been “behind the curtain” I was one of the ring masters for many, many years! I’ve been a part of it at the highest levels. But when it comes to competing in a Natural contest – and loading up on a boat load of drugs to do so – or when it comes to Figure competitors denying to their friends and families how they “really” got there then the most innocent question is actually the most prudent one as well. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

As the old saying goes, “just because you are willing to lie to your family, don’t lie to mine!”

I’m so tired of being made a villain for pointing out obvious vulgarities of this industry. Why is it so hard to speak and admit the truth? Why do we need to lead people on by fraudulently misrepresenting ourselves or what goes on in the industry? Who benefits from that? I know a lot of innocent people who are consequenced by it.

Good people like young Anthony Josse, and Coach Weiss. And you the consumer as well.

How?

Well you keep believing the fraudulent lies told to you because you want to. You want to believe that this person did it all naturally because it gives you hope in your own wish bias that you can achieve something even remotely close to that. But you are being lied to. Where is the honour in that?

Some of you will get it.

Some of you will not.

Some of you will attack me for this as well

So be it.

'Tis the Season

2011-11-28T08:25:00.000-05:00

Tis the holiday season

But all up in your head

“How to stick to your diet”

Fills you with dread

There will be parties and gatherings

Festivities and such

Temptations too many

And pressures too much

And websites and media

Their articles abound -

“Be fearful this season

Lest you gain a few pounds!”

So you get out the scales

One for the kitchen and bath

You’ll be vigilant this year

No room for a gaff

You’ll weigh every morsal

And then yourself every morn

And if that scales moves slightly

You’ll meet it with scorn

Oh you’ll commit to the diet

But it won’t be a cinch

And you’ll do what you must

Becoming a Grinch

No egg nog for you

No drinks to good cheer

Not even hot chocolate

Not even light beer

You’ll skip the big feast

The trimmings and pie

You pretend you don’t want it

But you know that’s a lie

Just one more temptation

To add to the pile

But do you question the costs

Of such extreme self-denial?

So you sneak a few shortbreads

Aware what you ate

And then wash them all down

With a big dose of self-hate

Then you redouble your efforts

Your commitment to self

But your willpower’s shrinking

To the size of an elf

So if that’s what it takes

You’ll try even harder

You become a slave to your diet

And serve as its martyr!

So pile on the guilt

And more contempt for the season

And who could blame you at all

Because you have ‘such a good reason’

You’ll go hungry tomorrow

Yes, that’s the trick

“Bah humbug” this season

That includes you, Ole Saint Nick!

So at the next party

You stick to all veggies - no dips

“A few moments in the mouth

But a lifetime on the hips”

That is your motto

You remind yourself harshly

You’ll stick to the veggies

The garnish, and parsley

So starving you go

While trying to be nice

Resisting visions of sugar plums

And any other food vice

But your heart is not full

Of goodwill toward men

Because your stomach is empty

And your cravings, X’s ten!

No chocolate at all

No candy canes either

Not even a lick

Or on your thighs it will gather

So, you’re sticking to diet

But you seem to have lost all the ‘Merry”

You’ll weigh in tomorrow

And even that is quite scary

“And the gym may be closed”

You hear someone say

“Say it ain’t so man

You’re supposed to workout on that day!”

So instead you start hoping

For a dumping of snow

You can burn lots of calories

In the shovelling, you know

Now you’ve lost all perspective

And something more dear

No glad tidings inside you

Less love and good cheer

To all of you out there

Who want to surrender tradition,

I say - you lose something far more important

Than some lame diet mission.

The Good Book teaches

A time for all seasons

Don’t weigh yourself down

With lame diet reasons

Embrace the full season

And all that it brings

The food and the drink

And other such things

And on this diet of yours

What if you cheat?

I say, celebrating the season

Is not a defeat

And just put away for now

Your guilt-measuring scale

And if you want to, instead

Have another cider or ale

So I send you all out

This warm season’s greeting

And I suggest to you all

Just enjoy what you’re eating!

I say let go of the guilt

And stick a fork in your diet

And I’m sure you will like this

If you let yourself try it

The guilt and the worry

Will surely poison your mood

And all over what?

Some drink and some food?

There’s a time to make Merry

To be human as well

So why give this all up

For some dark diet hell?

We celebrate yearly

With food and with drink

Embrace them both fully

It’s time don’t you think?

Don’t you get tired

Of the same yearly game?

You crave and resist

And end up with shame

Forget all these experts

Who warn you of gain

They are part of the problem

And cause you more pain

They tell you “be worried”

Or you may end up fatter

They want to generate fear

So ignore all their chatter

You need not resist

And suffer in hiding

Get out there and share

In warm joyful tidings

There is a time and a place

And the holiday season’s not it

To think that your diet

Is something you “quit”

Raise a glass to good cheer

And fill your plate up as well

And embrace all the sentiment

From that first jingle bell

Because spiritual fitness

Is shaped in traditions

So, embrace them in full

Without these self-conscious restrictions

There can be food for the soul

And for the soul, can be food

And there’s meaning in that

And I don’t want to be rude

But there will always be time

For the battle of the bulge

But there should also be occasion

To most fully indulge

So here’s my idea

It’s not so contrary

It’s is far more important – in season

To Eat, Drink, and be Merry!

So hear me exclaim

As I sit here and write

Season’s Greetings to All

And To all

A Good Bite!

If the Holiday season is something important to you and yours, don’t rob yourself of all it can do for you by trying to divide your energies. I implore you, as a fitness and diet expert – let go the self-consciousness - let go the body-image - let go the diet-nonsense and the guilt attachments, just this season. And see what it does for your soul. Allow yourself and your heart to be fully wrapped up in the magic of the season again – even be hugged by it. Remember what it was like as a kid. Embrace that. Your soul needs it. Your soul is nourished by it. It’s once a year. Let go, surrender the external stuff, for internal real stuff – the stuff of the stuff - that should matter.

Season’s Greetings to You All – and

God Bless

Denial is Not Just a River in Egypt: How Competition Dieting is a Ticket to Future Weight Gain for Years to Come

2011-11-14T05:30:00.000-05:00

or,

Competition Dieting Makes You Fat – Some More Relevant Research

Let’s start with something “catchy” but true shall we? Here goes, and bear with me: “For 90% of ladies out there, dieting for competition in the physique industry will lead to unhealthy weight gain for YEARS to come!” There I said it! And now instead of attacking it, in denial, let’s examine it a bit more.

When I say I have been studying metabolism for years, I mean studying in “real terms.” I don’t mean industry nonsense, websites and magazines. I mean real science, real journals and real text books. I have been well ahead of the research now for at least a decade. I even get contacted by researchers every so often to ask me “how I knew” things, which research is just now starting to uncover. And guess what? What they are starting to uncover now are the real-life risks of ill-health and weight gain due to unwise, absolute calories-restricted dieting – the kind it takes to get your body fat to lowest levels to get on a physique stage.

This is something I started discussing way back in my Science Behind The Cycle Diet video lecture project back in 05. Since then my research has taken me to writing Metabolic Damage and theDangers of Dieting, a 200+ page book, I am quite proud of, and which more than a few academics are now using as reference material. Moreover, I just also finished not one, not two, but three related books, as one project – Food Issues and You: Finally Facing YourPhantom Menace – Food and Eating issues that are often the result of, you guessed it, unwise and ill-advised diets that end up rewiring the brain, and not just affecting metabolism. And I talk about the wiring of the brain in my other book, Beyond Metabolism –Understanding Your Modern Diet Dilemma. So that's six books by me, if you include my book on Body Image Disorder in the fitness industry (The Other Side of the Mirror) and all the research that went it to each of them. I challenge any other “expert” out there, who likes to digitally disagree with me, to show me their own accumulated contribution of anything even close to this! Then we have something to talk about if you “disagree.” Until then, I remain an academic – and as such in search of the truth, not some fashionable position to defend.

I am about to tell you of two current studies that reflect well on everything I’ve been saying the last decade or so. My sincere wish is that people stop living in denial and defending what they want to be true and instead start facing the facts of what is actually true. And the truth is “contest dieting for 90% of people who undertake it, will predispose them to exaggerated weight gain for years to come.”

And it can also lead to food and eating issues. The main frustrating aspect of this truth is that not only are wannabe competitors in denial of these facts – but they just consider themselves to be in the 10% that, “this will never happen to me” group. – kind of like all those people who smoke anyway, and then want a “Mulligan” when they finally get some sort of smoking related disease or cancer! I’m quite sick of it actually- but I’m more sick of the industry people who know the truth but won’t act on it on behalf of their clients – because there is just so much money to be made in being a competition-prep Guru.

I want you to pay close attention to these two separate studies that vindicate my research both in food and eating issues - and in metabolic damage and accelerated weight gain after dieting.

Now I am not going to deluge you with research here, but pay attention to these two recent studies (for hundreds of other references I refer you to my projects above):

Notice the first study is from the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine and check out the names of true scientists who worked on it! Notice the second abstract is from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto – also world renowned – as I have used their materials in other projects. Note also the recent dates of this research – and note this is independent true academic work in the search for “truth.”

In other words, no Figure competitors, coaches, or diet-Guru’s participate in this – and this is real science – without bias. Pay special attention to the title of the first study. Notice the word “LONG TERM” here. And this is what absolute caloric deprivation or exhausting diets induce – long term hormonal changes that lead to ongoing long term and substantial weight gain! Pay particular attention to this sentence in the “conclusion” – “One year after initial weight reduction, levels of the circulating mediators of appetite that encourage weight regain after diet-induced weight loss do not revert to the levels recorded BEFORE weight loss.” This shows that even ONE YEAR LATER post-diet, the body is still being programmed to gain weight – and it is being programmed for this “because of the previous diet!” This is why the conclusion finishes with how these levels do NOT return to what was normal for individuals “before” dieting. Hence, dieting causes and generates substantial weight gain in the post diet period. So, what are you going to do, another contest diet to take the weight off again???? Isn’t that logic kind of like taking up heroin to break a cocaine habit???? It’s nonsense.

You know I am always talking about the immediate, the residual, and the cumulative elements of adaptive stimulus and response. And this is a good example - because competitors live in denial. Here is what I see: They have no conception of residual or cumulative response to a diet that maybe is a year or two behind them. So they look for “immediate” reasons for weight gain and digestive issues – which the diet industry is only too happy to oblige. They all start looking for “answers” like gluten intolerance, carb-resistance, yeast issues, celiac, dairy digestion, cleanses – anything and everything except the truth.

And the truth is that contest-diet, even if it was a year or more ago – induced hormonal fluxes and changes that are still causing cumulative weight gain even years later. So whether a lady gains this weight suddenly as in a 40-50 lbs post-contest rebound, or slowly and incrementally – had it not been for the previous diet, her weight would not be climbing. Even some of my own clients – before they competed were maybe 130 lbs. or so. But every year since weight is slowly increasing - and even compensating for age disparity, what was once 130-135 lbs, is now 145-150 lbs, or 165-175 lbs, as “normal” weight. So, again I stress the title of this research and the words “LONG TERM.” You are not carb-resistant, or have food allergies, or dairy aversions, or whatever else you can come up with. Your weight gain and inability to lose it, are a result of previous ill-advised dieting! And you can find out more and more details of any of these things in any number of my own books I mention above.

Now, let’s look at the second study “abstract” shall we? What is important here are a few things, and first to me is that post-diet weight gain and eating and food issues can be caused by the same diet. In other words, for too many ladies out there, the weight issues are bad enough but then there is a rewiring of the reward centers of the brain, which begin a long battle with food and eating issues – which themselves enhance weight gain even more, creating a most insidious feedback loop between physiology and psychology.

Many people who undertake physique competition have addictive type personalities. (see my book, The Other Side of the Mirror for more about this) Notice that the Yale Food Addiction Scale and this abstract address the concept of “addictive tendencies.” If that doesn’t describe 80% of the competitors I have worked with, I don’t know what does! Notice also the “validation” for addictive food issues – and this general but telling conclusion – "Those who met the diagnostic criteria for FA had a significantly greater co-morbidity with Binge Eating Disorder, depression, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder compared to their age- and weight-equivalent counterparts. Those with FA were also more impulsive and displayed greater emotional reactivity than obese controls. They also displayed greater food cravings and the tendency to 'self-soothe' with food.”

So, you have a person prone to addictive personality which leads to competing and all the appealing control factors it entails. But the diet to get lean triggers neuro-responses and chemical changes in the brain that lead this person to think about food and eating the way an addict thinks about his next fix. (The brain changes and emotional reward center changes in the brain are discussed thoroughly in my book, Beyond Metabolism: Understanding Your Modern Diet Dilemma.)

Look at the other co-relations for FA as well, mentioned in the abstract: depression, ADD, distorted eating behaviours etc. And this study was done only with control groups, not post-dieting groups, who are pre-disposed to addictive issues AND weight gain!

So if we put these two studies together we get a clear indication of both physiological and psychological ramifications of something like a competition-diet, in the normal personality-type disposition of the typical competitor. This is what real science shows.

Can the industry stop burying its head in the sand for a while – and instead of attacking me – at least entertain the realities involved here. Moreover, let’s stop “glorifying” suffering as an inevitable part of the contest-diet experience. No, a contest-diet experience will not be “easy.” But if there is real “suffering” this is a warning from your body to you of pending post-contest issues, both metabolic and psychological. So, you should not be surprised when you end up with them, even a year later. – No more surprised than a smoker who gets cancer 10-20 years later!

It’s just that metabolic damage, weight gain, and eating issues, happen much faster than cancer. Let’s get out in front of this, and start getting some voices heard, instead of shutting them down in order to make money. Stop capitalizing on a “wrong.” Let’s get back to the industry of “health AND fitness” instead of what it has become.

I urge any and all of you to send this out to places and people where it may do some good. Sure, some will want to attack it, and live in denial. That is the norm. But there may be others who are on the fence who could be helped by at least beginning to entertain the information here in these studies and at least get them thinking more long-term, and more about wellness, than just short-term ‘appearance.’

(Many thanks to former mentoring student, Amir Sidd of Dubai, for sending me this research for consideration)

Manifesto for Effective Coaching

2011-10-31T06:00:00.000-04:00

This should be considered Part 2 of my series on what real coaching is or should be – whether on-line or in person. We need to think more thoroughly about the role of Big “C” coach in the on-line fitness industry. (see my book, The Abel Approach) What passes as “coaching” right now – is in fact, a travesty. And I will keep repeating this until I see any signs that it is getting better.

We need to outline the parameters by which a real coach is supposed to add value to a client’s experience – and then we need to ensure that as coaches, we fulfill our side of the bargain in satisfying that responsibility. There are too many weak, unskilled and talentless people out there “appointing” themselves as coaches without nary any due consideration of the true requirements of the role. You think because you won a physique contest or have a few certifications that this is somehow “qualification” for coaching others. It’s not even close. A real “Big C” coach must live and be that role. It is not because his ego wants to dictate to people, but because his spirit is called to serve people. And there is a fundamental difference between these two perspectives. Below are some the main essential ingredients and pre-requisites of the craft of coaching. Let’s look at some of them. The real Coach must be able to -

Act and live by the principles that you advocate
“Be” a role model, don’t “act” like one
Be of noticeable integrity, don’t just talk about it in others
Impose principled values
Be part of someone else’s solution, not detached and separated, like some kind of “boss”
Help someone establish reasonable and achievable performance goals, not absolute ones
Be truly concerned with long-term client-progress and growth, not just short term profits for yourself
Provide useful and constructive feedback within the triangle of awareness (physical, mental, emotional)
Emphasize cooperation and interaction, not a one-way dictatorship
Keep the client engaged, and focusing on what they need to do and know, not on what you as coach, do and know
Be encouraging in sincere and individual terms
When being encouraging or critical, be fair and understood in both
Don’t use negative emotional “tactics” ever to try to coach someone – e.g. don’t try to scare potential clients about how demanding you are as a coach. Treat others professionally in the ways and means you would expect to be treated if roles were reversed – in other words, as an adult!
Realize that often what you are seeking from the client as a coach is insight, not just constant evaluation
Keep interaction real – personal methods of obtaining client-feedback will always yield deeper and more meaningful insights than some questionnaire-type approach. There is no substitute for real interaction.

But along with the above - are the character traits required of good coaches as well. And I will get into that in another article. And you cannot “learn” these as you go. A real coach has to be honourable, genuine, noble, have high standards for himself not just others, be of high integrity, be sincere, have it known what he stands for without having to announce it all the time. He must be enthusiastic for clients in a mature way, not because it looks good to be so. And the coach must have domain knowledge mastery beyond “certification levels.” He must have good instincts for knowledge, information, and diplomacy in interaction.

The unfortunate thing about the character trait requirements of a real Big “C” coach – is that these elements are easy to fake on-line, and easy to manipulate people of lesser skills and intelligence to believe. There is no way around it that the consumer needs to also become more educated about what real coaching is or is not. I know complete morons with a pro card and a bucket full of pharmaceutical enhancements that makes them think they are somehow equipped to “help and service” others. Does that even remotely make sense?

Real coaching is about developed and enhanced interpersonal, psychological, emotional, sociological and evaluative, communication skills. You don’t acquire these things in a weekend certification but in a life-long career experience devoted to the cause - not of your own self-interest - but for helping someone else. You also don’t receive these skills all of a sudden, because you won a high-level physique contest at some time. Neither of these things translates into coaching skills or prowess. But until consumers understand this, the lowest common denominator will prevail. And coaching will continue to be little more than a joke – its current state.

But more to the point – the real Big “C” coach who does possess these skills and has honed them over years of practice should indeed warrant a premium price for it. There is a reason motivational speakers make hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars speaking to corporate heads each year. And that is because they produce intangible value. And real Big “C” coaching works the exact same way.

Real coaching requires a complex mix of social, interpersonal, psychological emotional and relational skills, ON TOP OF higher intelligence and the domain knowledge and technical skills within any field or practice. Only all of these things together will create Big “C” coaching value that rises to the top of the hierarchy of what coaching is supposed to be.

The most effective coaching mandate boils down to this – passion, people, principles, and professionalism.

Real coaching should never encourage room for coaches who want to play Boss-Cop or use the role of coach to enhance some personal sense of status of glory. Real coaching is service-oriented not ego-driven. The job is to help other people achieve, succeed, or otherwise enhance their life-experience in a positive way. A real coach does not pat himself on the back for that. That just illustrates selfish motivations. And these websites need to stop “glorifying” coaches who seek that very thing!

As a coach, if you are going to hold people accountable for their behaviour and performance then you must surrender yourself to that same level of accountability – and not because you feel you have to – but because this is just how you live your life. I have no respect for so-called coaches whose lives are a mess – and yet they have no tolerance for clients who are having troubles with application and process.

In real Big “C” coaching - understanding people – one by one – and one on one – and how they react and respond to you as an individual – is not an optional skill – it is an essential requirement.

I think this is enough to absorb for one article. And let’s call this The Manifesto for Effective Coaching

As usual, some of you will get it – some of you will not.

For those of you who sincerely want to become better “Big C” real coaches, I suggest you also read and do all the homework assignments in my book, “The Coach Whisperer.”

And I think we also need to look at the consumer side of this equation as well in future articles.

On-Line Coaching: Retail Commodity or Essential Service?

2011-10-17T06:00:00.000-04:00

One Night Stand, or True Romance?

I have stated frequently that what passes for coaching in the Fitness and Diet Industry is simply a travesty. And I stand by that statement. But what strikes me most is how YOU the consumer do not seem to understand what you are purchasing or should be purchasing when seeking out a coach, on-line or in person. It seems this type of ignorance is what allows such shoddy quality to flourish. So I would like to take a few Blogs over the coming months and help you undertake an understanding of what coaching really is, or should be. And then you will be a more aware consumer.

Right now the number one fundamental problem in all of this is that both the coach and consumer seem to have a retail “transactional” attitude toward coaching. But real Coaching is not a ‘retail event’ it is a relationship. So right from the beginning the mindset of “shopping and procuring a coach”- like it is some kind of “item” of purchase – is just faulty thinking. Think of any of the helping industries, like psychiatry, psychology, ministry, choosing a doctor etc – These are not ‘retail’ events where price-shopping and ‘deals’ are the fundamental emphasis. In relationship-orientations, the fundamental focus must be on ‘a good fit’ and the service itself. The fundamental focus must be on the relationship element of coaching. That must come first.

But currently- both coaches themselves and potential clients prefer the “transactional/retail” approach to coaching. Why? - Because it is so much easier in conception, in thinking, and in “buying.” And that will work for the coaches, but for you the consumer, you cannot “buy” coaching this way. But what this does is reduce the internet to one giant “Wal-Mart” of potential coaches. They market and offer “coaching” as a retail commodity. But it isn’t – real coaching is a committed relationship. And there is a reason there is no “Wal-Mart” service for this kind of thing in real life. (counselling, psychiatry, ministry etc)

The relationship elements of coaching mean building real bonds. Most people who want to call themselves coaches do not have the patience of the wherewithal to do so. After all relationship-building requires deeper commitment and obligations – and these go beyond being married to a coach’s high opinion of himself, his program, his diet, or especially his own bank account.

But on the ‘real’ Coaching side of the equation it also means being selective. A real coach cannot just chase every opportunity. Viewed this way, the retail/transactional coaching is a lot of the same mentality that goes into a ‘one night stand.’ You need to watch out for coaches who try to sell you other “goods” as soon as you are on-board. Many go from one pyramid scheme to another, selling Isogenics, VI, and other so-called “opportunities” that line their pockets - but illustrate little concern for the client as a client – but show a perception of the client as merely a consumer with a bank account. At my last workshop, one attendee certified in “biosig” approached me and advised me to get on board. His exact words were, “You don’t even have to believe in it, but it’s a great money-maker.” Well, I’m sorry but I do indeed have to believe in it. But his comments reflect exactly what I mean – just viewing you, the potential client as a retail item – someone for whom a transaction is waiting. And unfortunately on the potential client end of purchasing coaching, you clients do not think much differently.

But while the retail/transaction mentality is more the “one-night stand” approach – elements of real coaching could be compared to ‘romance’ by contrast. The difference between ‘one night stand’ and actual romance is that the coach must care about this other entity named “client.” And he must care more about this client than he does the money the client represents. And he must care about the client more than he does about protecting what he thinks is so special about himself, his programs, or his diets. And this requires a complete reversal of attitudes and behaviours beyond what exists right now in the Fitness and Diet Industry - what is labelled as ‘coaching’ but clearly is just higher end retail/transaction mentality. The transactional/retail approach to coaching relationships in this industry are common and are the norm because they involve less real hard work and fewer real-world coaching skills. Think of buying an item at a store, vs. working alongside someone who created that item. All this retail/transactional mentality does is invite into the scene the internet marketer. And this just makes the whole thing even worse.

Furthermore, there is a stark difference in being a supervising expert to a client and being a true advisor. The expert’s job is to “be right.” - to solve the client’s problems through the application of technical and professional skill. (and this can easily become a dictatorship when the so-called expert also selfishly attaches emotional pride to his expertise.)

But the coach as advisor behaves differently and with a different attitude and emotional investment. Rather than needing to always “be right” - The coach as advisor seeks to always be helpful – to provide guidance, input, and counselling to the client’s own thought and decision-making process. It is the client who should retain control and responsibility at all times. The coach is not raising a helpless child here after all. The coach as advisor does seek to engage and grow the client however, and this is done through interaction and engagement. It cannot be accomplished by “do ‘this’ for three weeks then get back to me.” Yet the coach as ‘expert’ seldom engages this kind of real interaction for two reasons -1) it is just too time consuming and labor intensive, and 2) they coach in volume so they cannot devote the time, even if they had these relationship skills – and trust me, most of them do not.

So when you look at it this way, coach as advisor, or coach as expert – it is easy to understand why so many so-called professional coaches may talk the talk of being an expert advisor – but in actuality they do not really want to be one. They do not want to advise within a two-way functional relationship. They do not have the patience or the personality for it. It is simply easier to dictate protocol.

So, as a potential client you need to ask yourself which type of coach will best suit your needs, not for just right now, but for long-term. Because trust me, if you need a coach, you should be considering a long-term equation, not some short-term fantasy goal (but that is a whole other article). So, in a coach, who do you need right now and for the future? – Do you need the expert approach, someone who will dictate and approach you from the point of view of dominance, where they are always right, and you do what they tell you – or do you actually seek, an ‘expert advisor’ whose mandate is more about being an expert at being helpful. - Because these two categories are widely divergent. And you are not likely to find many of the latter types in this industry, trust me on that.

And of course it is foolish for the ‘expert’ to try to play the role of helpful advisor. Usually their egos cannot handle it – and/or they simply do not possess the appropriate communication, listening, or social skills to do so. The mentality of expert advisor is just different than the mentality of ‘expert knowledge holder.’ The mentality of advisor is just different, more compassionate for one thing. The personalities are different. The work experience is different. An expert ‘trying to be’ an advisor is going to be miserable and do miserably poor – and more than likely he will end up resenting the client all through the process as well.

Remember, a purported “fitness” or “diet” expert is someone claiming to have advanced knowledge in these areas. This does not automatically translate in to being a competent advisor to other people. What you know vs. what you can teach or instil in others are different things. Of course the best case scenario is a blend of domain knowledge expertise and advisory skills – but with more emphasis being toward the advisory capacity and just enough emphasis on the expert ability and knowledge.

The problem with a sole/soul emphasis on expertise becomes a problem of arrogance and pride. The expert starts thinking, “I am the one with all the knowledge, I am just fine – it’s the client who needs to change.” And this is just that retail/transactional mindset in action. - Because an expert who is focused on coaching as a relationship would not think this way. All that kind of thinking does is separate the expert and the client – both end up perceiving the other as “an object” in the working end of what is supposed to be a relationship. At this point you no longer have a mutually engaging relationship. And this is completely predictable. The retail/transactional – “I’m the expert and you are not” mentality – melts away the human relationship factor which ‘should be’ at the center of any service industry mandate.

Again, developing these relationships requires a long-term emphasis. Moreover it necessitates creating commitments and obligations most ‘experts’ do not want to incur. It is simply too time-consuming and too long-term oriented. They would rather attend the latest symposium and learn the latest studies or techniques for diet and training – things that are short term and change almost yearly.

But for the true Coach-as-advisor – developing the coaching relationship is precisely the intention – and then so is the long-term focus. This is what is missing in the Fitness and Diet Industry. This is the travesty I allude to. And I’ll say it again. Expertise is different than expert advisory skill and ability – which is what most clients actually need – they just don’t realize it.

With simple technical skill and domain knowledge and expertise for which most ‘experts’ advertise themselves – none of these skills have any bearing on the emotional, psychological, mental, or sociological milieu and nuance of what is actually required in a “relationship.” So we are back to that professional, “one night stand” mentality of experts – because that is how they are trained to think. But real relationships are not so clear-cut, and real relationships involve all of these nuances mentioned above – far beyond just “expert knowledge.”

And what about the delivery system of this knowledge? Who is teaching that?

This is why “Head Coaches” earn far more money and are more valued than are “head-trainers” in professional sports. And this is what I am talking about here. This industry spits out low level “trainers” who try to advertise themselves as high level trainers – and high level trainers who try to advertise themselves as “coaches.” But they are not “coaches” in the real sense of the term – because they do not emphasize the relationship elements of what coaching entails.

There is very little about learning field expertise of say being a fitness or nutritional expert – that would prepare any of you for the psychological complexities of coaching and helping actual clients. What you know or have learned is simply not enough to guarantee effective coaching leadership.

The whole problem is that our culture and reward systems are built around transactional approaches, not relationship-building concepts – built around the one-time, ease of the one-night stand mentality – vs. the complexities of the true romance inherent in any real relationship. But these relationship-building elements – the romance if you will – these are the requisites for good qualified coaching.

This tremendous focus on outcome pretends to bypass all the stages it takes to build someone toward true success – or more importantly, to be able to move someone toward achievements that are sustainable and wellness-promoting – not unsustainable and destructive. –Ok, so you pay Guru X – and you buy his new diet product and become part of his pyramid selling scheme as well. You may even drop 20 lbs in 3 months. But 4 months later you have gained back 30 lbs, and now you feel humiliation and feel like a failure. How is that progress? How is that coaching success exactly? As a client, how is that even a wise investment? When you care about outcomes to the exclusion of not caring at all about how you achieve them, you enter the world of the one-night-stand mentality. You fall prey as well to wolves in sheep’s clothing. You will more than likely be willing to subject yourself to all kinds of damaging practices – taking illicit drugs etc. When the end justifies the means, you are in dangerous territory. And the competition-end of the fitness/physique industry represents this all too well.

We need a fundamental shift in attitudes from the top down, and from the consumer up. Coaching needs to start being accredited. The wild wild west of the internet needs to die a quick death. We need to stop thinking in short term retail/transactional approaches, to both coaching and achieving goals – that shallow ‘one night stand’ approach. And we need to embrace the romance – the real thing – that real achievement is not something you purchase, but something you nourish and nourishes you -all along the way.

Some of you will get it – some of you will not/

And if some of you are offended – GOOD – I suggest you take a long hard look in the mirror.

Food Issues and You: Finally Facing “The Phantom Menace”

2011-10-03T05:30:00.021-04:00

Food Issues and You
Finally Facing The Phantom Menace

Because Life is Too Precious to Let Something so Inane

Occupy Your Mind and Dictate Your Emotion

Well after two years of research of tens of thousands of pages – and over a hundred pages of notes – the “Food Issues” project is finally ready for purchase.

If you suffer any kind of eating issue, mild to severe, then this project is a must for you. It doesn’t matter if it is binge eating, overeating, mindless eating, nervous eating, unwanted snacking, etc.
If any of these types of eating issues describe you, and you struggle with it – then this project is for you.
Moreover, if you are even mentally preoccupied with food too often, then this project is for you.
If you find you are always in a mental battle within yourself regarding food, then this project is for you.
If thoughts of food engender feelings of anxiety, guilt, reward, shame or any of these emotions within you – then this project is for you.
If thoughts of food change your feelings about yourself or make you anxious then this project is for you.

Anyone who would even remotely use the word “struggle” to describe their relationship to eating or food or weight or diet or even body image – would behoove themselves to investing in this project.
And this project consists of not one, but TWO books regarding eating and food issues. And to help even further there is a third component of this project – workbook, which has exercises and discussion which will fundamentally alter your approach to food – and help you solve these issues once and for all.
Below, Scott describes the various components of the project.

If you even suspect you may have an attachment to food or eating issues – you should invest in this project!

Book 1 – Dealing with Excesses and your own created “External Solutions” to Deal with Your Phantom Menace

Far too many people out there suffer from food-related issues and most of you suffer in silence. Whether it is an intense preoccupation with food or some kind of eating issue – the truth is that for many of you food is taking over your mind and your life in a very negative way. I wrote this project for those of you who suffer. I have witnessed it in my coaching practice for years and it was simply time to do something about it.

My two years of research resulted, in not one book for this project, but two separate but related books. And on top of these two books there is a workbook as well. If any of you out there suffer any eating/food or diet and weight related issues, at the very minimum you should purchase the workbook.
The project breaks down this way. Book one is all about the modern world we live in and how it creates “excesses.” Your food/eating issues are actually a result of excesses you have created which you may not even realize. And these excesses in thought or behaviour lead you to falsely seeking “external” solutions to what are in fact, internal issues of excess. Book one addresses several different chapters that discuss various personality types or situational circumstances where you create your food and eating issues as a reflection of other continuing unresolved issues of excesses and internal struggle. This book discusses and explains how you seek “external” solutions to food issues – things like new diets and such – because you cannot truly understand that the food and eating issues themselves are external issues of excess.

The first part of eradicating any problem you have is that you first must understand it. Book 1, which deals with your issues of excesses and external solutions, will help you truly understand what you are dealing with in terms of the phantom menace of your food issues. The book includes details and chapters that you have probably never considered are contributing to your current struggle with eating and food. The subject matter contained within this book, and the exercises and questions posed –will go a long way in helping you to properly understand your issues from their point of origin. And from this vantage point and understanding you will be more effective in dealing with them.

Book one finishes by walking you down a path of wellness and explaining to you how and why you can - and need to – restore emotional balance.

Book 2 – Your Diet Mentality “IS” Your Phantom Menace

Once you understand the operating emotional factors from book number one, book two addresses your food/eating/diet/weight issues from the actual mindset you have adapted – what I label as “the diet mentality.” Book two helps you to understand your own “stinkin thinkin” regarding your food/eating issues. In book two you will explore how your diet-mentality is not only the servant to your struggles – but actually supports and reinforces your struggles with food and eating as well.

In book two, you will be able to unravel how you do not really have food and eating issues per-se, you actually have awareness issues. And the reason you cannot solve your food and eating issues is because your diet-mentality is blocking your path to real awareness.

In book two you will understand that your diet-mentality that you have adapted over time - is in fact the phantom menace that continues your problems in the areas of food and eating.

Moreover, book two expands upon book number one by examining the emotional positioning behind your diet-mentality. Book number two looks at how you deal with your emotional life – or not deal with it, and how this creates not only awareness issues, by emotional suppression and repression as well. And both of these play out in the phantom menace of your mind as food and eating issues – when in fact, the reality is – that your phantom menace is the result of unresolved emotion – anything from just day to day avoided stress – all the way to intense past emotional pain that is still unresolved.

BOOK 3 - The Workbook

The workbook is designed to work on its own, or as an excellent adjunct to both main texts of this project. Because this whole project is formulated on the premise that your food and eating issues are emotional and awareness issues – the workbook focuses on these elements of yourself.

The focus of the workbook is an emphasis on developing self-awareness by focusing on three key components of it that have been disrupted by the phantom menace of your diet-mentality. These key areas are perception, perspective, and emotional courage. The workbook contains many exercises as well as key delineations and markers which will help you empower yourself by developing self-awareness. And as you do the exercises and change your perspective, and perception, you also develop the emotional courage to see the phantom menace of your food issues for what it actually is – a phantom.
And as such, over time you no longer need to fight with the phantom as you have been doing. You merely see it for what it is and slowly but surely you are able to let it go.

This workbook will take you in a direction you would never have imagined for dealing with so-called “food” and “eating” issues. But as you study the data and do the exercises – the journey you are on will make better sense to you. And the emotional courage and awareness that results – will strengthen you in all facets of your life – but specifically for appropriately dealing with your phantom menace/diet mentality.

Now of course, I suggest anyone suffering food and eating issues of any kind – mild to severe – should purchase all three components of this project. Each are components of the other and strengthen your understanding better - as a totality, than as any one single component of the project.

But some of you will find one of the books speaks to you specifically more so than the other book. And this is why I wrote two of them, from a different, but related vantage point. And this is also why I offer each component of this 3-part project, as separate items for purchase as well.

I put two years of my life into this project in the hopes to help those of you with food/eating/diet/weight issues. My sincere hope is that this project changes your life, and you can finally rid yourself of the phantom menace. Life is far too precious to let something so inane occupy your mind and dictate your emotion.

Good luck to you in this journey. Let’s get to work !

God bless
-Scott

Metabolic Damage and the Dangers of Dieting

2011-09-19T07:08:00.000-04:00

Around 2002-2004, I started noticing an unwelcome trend among physique competitors and people following fad diets. A few of these cases were particularly pronounced. I began a steady flow of research into what was happening to these people’s bodies and physiques in the post-diet period. My research later led me to coining the term “metabolic damage” for what I was witnessing. The term caught on in a very short time. Many people could identify themselves with the symptoms and repercussions of metabolic damage. I went from getting a few letters a week about it – to receiving dozens of letters per day. Clearly something was going on out there, in terms of what “a diet” was doing to people’s bodies. And the term “metabolic damage” which started with me, became a common phrase in the fitness and dieting world lexicon.

At first I was quite surprised at the number of people out there suffering. It led me to increasing my research even more into this phenomenon. Part of me was happy that this phrase “metabolic damage” was helping people to realize something about themselves – something they had been blaming themselves for up until my first few articles came out. I was happy that the phrase and my research were helping people understand what was happening to them.

But something else began to happen as well – something that I could not foresee. Internet marketers and wannabe “Coaches and Guru’s” were also latching on to the term. But their goals were more self-serving. There weren’t really trying to help anyone so much as they were trying to line their pockets or appear in the know. I found this tremendously disappointing because it began confusing people that I was intending to help.

Moreover, my own articles on the subject were now appearing in other places on the internet, but with other people’s names on the articles. Oh sure they changed a few words around, but it was obvious where the source of the information came from. I started looking into people who claimed to know about metabolic damage. I thought they may be another source of research material or expertise I could tap into. But what I found shocked me. None of the people I contacted had done any independent research into metabolic damage. Every single one I contacted named my articles as their only source of “research.” I was flabbergasted. There were now websites doing webinars and pod-casts on metabolic damage – yet the people offering it had done virtually no work in the area at all. – NONE! They were just trying to use the enticement of the phrase “metabolic damage” to gather more ‘opt ins’ and gain more clientele. Well finally I have had enough. I’m tired of getting letters from people whose coaches use the phrase “metabolic damage” to capture clients and then make the problems worse by assigning diet protocols that make no sense – and do more harm than good.

So I have decided to take the following action. I am removing many of my on-line articles on Metabolic Damage and Dangers of Dieting from the Blog site. I have now put them into one comprehensive project that you can ALL have access to. This way you can educate yourselves, to the same level of any “Guru” out there, by having access to all these articles in one project. I present to you the E-book Metabolic Damage and the Dangers of Dieting.

There is a certain flow to putting this all together as a “collection.” I think anyone interested in the topic of metabolic damage – or anyone suffering metabolic damage – will benefit tremendously from having this collection at their fingertips. This collection of my research articles on Metabolic Damage not only includes all previous articles – but it includes articles never before released as well. And previous articles that are included are now included in their unedited versions.

This collection ends up being over 210 pages of depth! 210 pages! I haven’t seen any other industry expert with any articles at all, over 10 pages, let alone over 200 pages.

This is the most exhaustive and detailed collection of research, data, articles and expert opinion on diet and metabolic damage that you will find anywhere on the internet!

If you truly want to understand “Metabolic Damage and the Dangers of Dieting”, either as an expert or as someone suffering from diet-repercussions, then you want to get this book. It is entirely printable, and in it you will learn:

The circumstances of metabolic damage
The repercussions and consequences of prolonged ill-advised dieting
The potential health concerns of metabolic damage and weight-gain rebounds
You will understand the biology of weight control and how this differs from dieting and weight loss
You will understand the importance of metabolic regulation and “set points” of body weight
You will understand the human metabolic compensation system and how forced dieting ‘disrupts’ this system and sets in motion the potential for metabolic damage
You will understand terms like metabolic burnout, metabolic recovery, metabolic resiliency
You will understand techniques used for possible long-term recovery, “if” recovery is even possible
You will see classic long-term diet studies that show tremendous psychologically damaging consequences from both dieting and metabolic damage
You will understand why many attempts to solving the issues are counter-intuitive and can actually make things worse – things like vitamin therapy in a low calories diet can do more harm than good
You will be able to understand how to look for signs and symptoms of metabolic damage or burnout
You will be able to look for signs if your diet or metabolic damage are negatively impacting your mental and emotional health
You will understand in better detail the importance of diet-psychology and what underlines it – in terms of determining diet success or failure, for the long term
You will be able to look for solutions once you understand all that is going on in your body or with someone you may know and care about
You will be able to see through fitness and diet industry hype that preys on your inner desires and emotional weaknesses
You can empower yourself by reading this book and possibly prevent or resolve metabolic damage and dangers of dieting, in yourself or for others.

This is truly the most comprehensive and exhaustive collection of articles, insights, expert opinion, and knowledge available regarding metabolic damage, the dangers of dieting, and diet-psychology in one project.

On a separate and exciting note – the next instalment of this Blog will launch the long-anticipated product ‘Food Issues and You – Finally Facing Your Phantom Menace.”This project took 2 years from start to finish and consists of two separate but related books, and a very comprehensive workbook for people who truly want to rid themselves of food or eating/weight issues. Tell everyone you know who may benefit from this 3-pronged project and look for it in my next instalment. I’m happy to finally be able to bring it to people who suffer from such issues, either intensely - or enough to negatively effect their lives and self-esteem. I look forward to everyone’s feedback.

Adhering to Real World Principles: Understanding Max Load Training

2011-09-05T06:00:00.000-04:00

Some time ago Aristotle made the salient point that although methods are many, principles are few. What a seminal point. But what I see is that these “methods’ are so varied that they are violating key fundamental principles. The result is that you the trainee are not getting results from your gym time by following questionable methods that fly in the face of real world principles. And this is the frustrating thing for me. I train people in the real world. I’m not sure what is being taught at certification courses these days, but what is interpreted as “principles” is faulty at best. In this article I want to use a real world example for those of you training to gain size, muscle, and thickness, and have the mistaken belief that this is accomplished with “max weights.” This is another term I have trouble with as it is quite misleading, as we will see.

The other day I received an e-mail from a client who was a little confused. While training, a personal trainer walked by and advised that my client lighten the load substantially, and do 4/4/1 tempo "to get more out of it." Say what? My client was confused because I had advised to lift explosively, regardless of rep range. So, who is right?

Well, let me pose a theoretical situation and some questions. I lift 100 lbs for 5 reps, and you lift 100 lbs for 5 reps. I do 5 reps in about 5 seconds, and you use the tempo above and take about 30 seconds to lift it. Here are the questions: Who demanded more power from that set? Who had more metabolic demand from that set? The answer to both is me. Power, folks, is a rudimentary principle expressed in many ways, but is essential to training for size, strength, thickness, etc. The simple basic premise is that it takes more power to move a weight in one second than it does to move it in two seconds. Over the course of a workout this is seen as an expression of more work in the same amount of time, or the same amount of work in less time. These are all expressions of the principle of power. Notice the above “method” of tempo violates that principle. Simple.

Next question. In the above example which one of us achieved the most overload? The answer is that it is a trick question. If that 100 lbs is a weight we are used to performing, then neither of us achieved overload for that set. Therefore, the advice of lightening a load you can already do explosively, and take 4 times as long to do it, is faulty logic that does not follow basic principles. It means negating max load, and therefore negating the overload principle in general. This is just one example of a “method” being faulty at best.

Now if you follow this so far then you may be thinking that max load is therefore the way to abiding in the Overload Principle. Well yes, and no. Max load is not max weight!!!! This is the fault of the industry that details external cues as the be all and end all of performance. How much you “can” lift is not the deciding factor. The deciding factor is how much stress a muscle endures as overload. These are entirely different things, as I will explain below and use a real world example.

First, let’s understand these basic principles in more concrete terms. Power is an expression of force with speed. There are several types of power. Of concern to us here are Explosive Power, and the Power Expression itself. Explosive Power can be defined simply as force over time. It can also be defined as the time it takes to get to max force output. Or it can be expressed as recruiting fibers for strength performance in a context of speed. So simple explosive power is expressed as f/t. Force is defined as load or strength within this context. This is where all the confusion on the gym floor begins. Inexperienced trainers and trainees seem to think that the above solution means to use a “max load” as in weight, and be explosive. This is untrue for forcing an adaptive response. The example below illustrates my point and I’m sure if you look around your gym you will see many people making this same mistake.

At one of my former gyms where I was training I happened to be in close proximity to one of the gym’s trainers and his client. I had seen them before so I watched as they repeated a familiar scenario. It was obviously deadlift day for them. Because I was training in the same area I witnessed their classic training mistake. The trainee was a kid of average size. I watched as he did a warm up set (I presume) at 225 for 10 reps, and at a fairly explosive speed. I then watched him do a set of about 5 reps at 325 still trying to be explosive but with the bar moving more slowly even though the intent was explosive. Here is where the disaster took hold. They moved the weight up to 365 lbs and rested a long time, then after a lot of yelling and screaming he performed two very slow reps that were agonizing to watch. Everyone yelled and cheered and high fived each other. Finally, they put four plates on the bar for 405 lbs. He did one very difficult rep that seemed to take forever. The two of them were screaming and a few on-lookers seemed impressed by the effort. After he put the weight down the trainer wanted to make sure everyone saw that and actually came up to me for comment. He said, "Did you see my guy pull 4 plates? Isn’t that great?" I said to him, “well that depends on what your purpose was for this session.” He said, “Oh we’re training for size and thickness” So I replied honestly, “then you just wasted about 30 minutes of gym time.” He huffed at me, “Well, that’s your opinion!” And I replied, “No, that’s a matter of fact, if you understand the principles”

So let me explain to those of you with open minds why that kind of ego training is a waste for adaptive response. Let’s examine the power equation in more detail shall we? Most of you have probably heard the power equation of force X’s distance over time: f X’s d / t. If we examine the above example with that formula principle, then we will see what a waste of time his “max loads” sets were. For the sake of argument let’s say for this guy the distance of his dead lift from floor to lock out was 2 ft. So if we address the loads used over that distance and the time it took to deliver them we can illustrate the power equation and why he did indeed waste a crucial amount of gym time.

At 225 lbs, he lifted that weight over 2 ft, and he did it explosively in under a second, lets say .8 of a second. Therefore for that set he lifted 225 X’s 2 divided by .8 seconds. This yields a total units of force produced to be 562.

At the next set he lifted 325 lbs X’s 5 reps. As I said, the weight moved a little slower but still with ample explosive power. So let’s say each rep took a full second. Therefore we have 325 X’s 2 ft divided by 1 second. So this yields a total units of force production to be 650. At this point, looking at the numbers it seems his progressive overload is right in line with an adaptive response. (But I will come back to that.)

His next set was 365 lbs and as I said there was a noticeable slow down in how long it took him to hoist that weight. It took at least twice as long each rep as the previous set. Let’s call that two seconds. So here are the numbers. He lifted 365 X’s 2 feet, but it took two seconds, so we divide that by 2. That number yields a total units of force produced to be 365! How can that be? His max load was increased yet his power output or overload response decreased substantially. I will come back to that again.

Finally, he performed his last set at 405 for one max rep. This rep took forever, and in my mind I did a slow three count while watching him. So the numbers are 405 X’s 2 feet, divided by 3 seconds. (Remember force times distance divided by time.) So his final number here on his “MAX LOAD” set was actually only 270 total units of force! How can this be? This elicited even less adaptive response than did his warm up set at 225!

Take a look at this graph of the TEP of Power:

(The vertical line of the graph is the amount of force used, and the bottom line is the time expression.)

As you can see by graphing this performance, his actual peak performance sets were way before his max loads sets. Now lets go back and look at those again and reassess, considering the reps.

In set one at 225 lbs he performed ten reps. So with his calculated total units of force at 562, and we times that by ten reps, we get 5,620 units of force demanded during that set.

At set two we addressed that the total units of force produced was 650. He did that set for five reps so if we multiply the 650 X’s 5 we see a total units of force demanded of 3250.

His next set was 365, and the total units of force we calculated were exactly the same as that. Yet even with this max load he lifted only two reps. Therefore his total units of force produced is 365 X’s 2 or a measly 730 total units of force demanded. So his “max weight” sets are starting to show more ego training than adaptive response.

Finally his last set was 405 lbs for one long rep. We already showed a total units of force production at a rather pathetic 270. And when we multiply that by his one rep, we therefore get the same number, 270.

So to sum it up, if we follow the training principle of power his max loads sets were not the heaviest sets in terms of load on the bar but rather the sets previous to that:

225 lbs yielded 5620 total units of force demand
325 lbs yielded 3250 total units of force demand
365 lbs yielded 730 total units of force demand
405 lbs yielded a paltry 270 units of force demand

Lessons

So the lessons learned here are great. First we learn that max loads have little to do with how much weight is on the bar. Max loads are relative only to performance of those loads. Next we learn that for this particular case the trainee would have been better off doing all of his sets somewhere between 225 lbs and 325 lbs. Sets done in that rep range would have elicited a greater adaptive demand and response.

Within that context, is where programming expertise takes over. If the goal is size and thickness as stated then more sets would be cycled through a program toward the heavier end of the proper rep range but still dropping down for some explosive work near the lower end of the rep range. Again, this would all take place over the time of a properly designed program.

If we go back to the graph, we can see that anything left of the 225 lb sets would be too little overload, as in not enough weight. This illustrates the fault with slow tempos, which no one in their right minds would use for an explosive lift to begin with.

But the greater lesson is that to the right of the 325 lb set, there is not nearly enough duration of overload in order to accomplish an adaptive response. All of this brings in line the whole idea of what “max loads” even means. How many times do I have to say how much is on the bar is only relative information; it is incidental. It is amazing to me how many bright people that know the principles intellectually, do not follow them in their “methods.” Maximum strength training methods do not lend to maximum size, strength, or thickness. (See also Behm 1996)

What this above example illustrates is the Training Efficiency Percentage of Power. The definition of Training Efficiency Percentage is the “number of reps in a given set of performance, that force an adaptive response.” If we look at the above graph then it is obvious that all training loads should be somewhere between 55% and 85% of maximum performance loads in order to produce an adaptive response. Therefore, how much you “can lift” is not very significant in terms of how much you “should lift” within a course of programmed training. Of course there is much more to this that can make the above equation either more or less effective, depending on training approach.

Innervation Training protocol addresses in more depth such performance parameters. Toward the Innervation Training “principles” it is important to also remember that “there is differential Innervation of specific muscles or parts of muscles in different or specific ranges and planes of motion.” This contributes to another principle that is known as TAP (Total Activation Potential) I will address that in another article.

Conclusion

So what this means in terms of load selection should be obvious now.

What it means in terms of cadence should also be pointed out. There are only two relevant cadences in bodybuilding training. Explosive, and continuous tension. Sequencing of exercises becomes paramount to training if you understand what max load training really is, as well as in relation to explosive and innervation training, in terms of selected ranges, planes of motion, and so on.

I hope this article explains to you that although methods may be numerous, if they don’t adhere to parent principles, then much can be lost to the trainee.

The Field-Expert as YOUR Coach or the Head-Coach Expert-Advisor as YOUR Coach?

2011-08-22T05:00:00.004-04:00

And what about Coaches? And what about Coaching?

I have said for years now that what passes for “coaching” in this industry is a shame, even a travesty. And yet many people write me telling me how “great” their coach is – and yet by my assessment that ‘great coach’ they refer to is one of the completely inept and incompetent coaches I denote to as part of the problem. It occurred to me a long time ago that calling out coaches isn’t the problem. What I and other ‘real’ coaches need to do is educate the consumers, so they actually know what the word ‘coach’ really means, and what a coach actually does. Just because someone has the podium on some popular web-site or web-board doesn’t mean a whole lot to me about their so-called “expertise.” Just because someone has the microphone, so to speak, doesn’t mean they necessarily have the ‘voice.’

But the fact is most of you consumers don’t have a clue. You think if someone held you accountable to some diet, and became a diet-cop, and food-Nazi in your life, that this equates to being ‘a great coach.’ And yet where are they when you rebound from that diet and gain 40, 50, 60 lbs. Then most of these Guru’s abandon you, or worse “blame you” for your lack of self-discipline or whatever. There is no “coaching” in that scenario. It’s lame, plain and simple. And the fact all this even passes as coaching illustrates the extent of the problem. So, I am going to do a few articles regarding coaching. It is meant to educate YOU the consumer. If you are going to purchase such a service you should know what it actually is, and not what it is held out to be. For instance right now, know the idea that you are purchasing a “service” and not a “product.”

Unfortunately and all too often, coaches - rather than being creators of enthusiasm end up being destroyers of it. Too many are focused on tasks and outcomes and achievements – and this all seems well and good on the surface, but what about the long term? Rarely is any “fitness or diet expert” trained to understand and influence people’s emotions. Sure, experts can help determine what you “should be” doing. But how skilled are they at considering you as a person and your lifestyle demands and circumstances within that equation – as you go about doing it? There is far too much short-term thinking of both coaches and consumers in this industry. And what happens? Sure, you may lose all that weight and reach some target goal? But do you stay there? No! Why? - Because everything to do with the so-called coaching is about short-term elements, and not long term reality.

The problem here is that both you and the coach may be on the same page – but it’s the wrong page! The focus seems to be solely on “winning today” with no regard for long term future. The thinking seems to be “let’s let tomorrow take care of itself” There is no investment in future of the client in terms of wellness and well-being. And to me this makes no sense at all. There are far too many coaches out there who have “mission statements” but no clear and actual or truthful “mission” to speak of beyond making a buck. And this is the problem. For both coach and consumer right now coaching is far too much a cold business transaction and less the relationship that the word “coach” actually dictates.

If you take a sport like football for instance, a player now has several coaches. He has a “positional” coach for the position he plays. He has some kind of strength and conditioning coach. And of course there is the head- coach. And it’s the head- coach who gets the big bucks and has all the responsibility. And this is what I am talking about. We need more true and real “head- coaches” in this industry and less “strength/conditioning or diet coaches” who are merely acting like head- coaches. What a sham!

Real coaching is relationship-building. No way around it. That means it is about the client, not about the coach’s so-called “expertise” over fitness, dieting, whatever. A coach must be willing to build a real relationship, and most simply are not. Why? – Because it’s too much work. Anyone who calls himself “coach” and assigns protocol and then says “write me in four weeks” is not a coach. He is in fact lazy and lucky to actually get money for being able to run such an inane agenda. You see there is a fundamental difference in this industry between what it means to be a head-coach, and what it means to just be a “field expert.” A field expert is someone who has studied an area, let’s say diet or strength and conditioning training. A head-coach, means the word “head” is all-encompassing. It doesn’t just mean “head” as in standing in front or at the top, it means head, as in what sits on top of your neck. The real head-coach is all about your triangle of awareness – mental, emotional, and then the physical protocol of diet and training. Putting the cart before the horse – as in thinking the diet and training make the person- is just incorrect. And yet it is what this industry has been passing off as coaching for decades now.

So we need to make a distinction between being a field expert, and being an advisor. The coach is an advanced expert-advisor. The field expert thinks his job is always to be right, first and foremost. The client is secondary to that notion. The field expert thinks the job is to solve the client’s problems through assigning protocol of training and diet. With this line of thinking the field expert takes responsibility away from the client and takes charge until the goal is reached. Well, that sounds good on the surface. But it’s completely one-dimensional, and there are very few real people who can live their lives this way.

The head-coach, as expert- advisor is a different mindset. Rather than wanting or needing to be “right” the expert- advisor’s actual job is to be helpful – and to be of assistance – to manage if you will. Protocol is secondary to actually relating to the client. The head-coach wants to provide guidance, input, and counselling. The client’s thoughts and feelings actually matter to the head-coach. The head-coach wants to nourish and nurture the client’s own decision-making process. Whereas the field-expert takes all this away from the client, or at least doesn’t realistically entertain it. But to the true head-coach, the client is the focus and not his fancy protocol of diet or training. And “the client” retains control and responsibility at all times. As expert-advisor, the coach always wants to be subordinate to this end of responsibility.

What is too common now is that many field-experts are simply pretending to be head-coaches. And in reality they don’t even want to be. They want to take charge. They want to dictate. Developing a coaching relationship is just too time-consuming and intricate in real terms. And there is a huge difference between being a field-expert and a head-coach. You can go to all the NSCA symposiums you want – but that will never make you a better person in an expert-advisory role. Quite simply the differences between the field-expert and the head-coach advisory mentality are monumental. The skills required are different, the personality required is different, and the mindset is completely different. The wannabe coach with the field-expert mentality is going to be miserably poor in the advisory role of head-coach. All he knows is fitness and/or diet. That doesn’t help him deal with the fact that all people, meaning clients, are going to be different. The field-expert ends up adapting a sort of arrogant stance that “my” coaching is just fine – it’s those clients who need to change and do what they are told. But when you simply slot people into diets or programs, and treat them like objects by leaving all that with them - and then telling them “you can only contact me” after two weeks, or four weeks or whatever – you treat the client as “other” and not as part of a relationship – which real coaching is meant to be. And when you treat people like an object it is not long before the same happens to you – as a coach. The only reason this coaching laziness continues this way, is because there seems to be an endless sea of clients who refill the ones who just give up. Most coaches in fact, count on it. So, if the industry is going to continually refuse to demand better coaches – then I think it is my job to educate you all to become more discerning consumer clients.

Most field-experts could never handle the head-coach advisory role anyway. It means creating commitments, obligations and trust. And most are ill-equipped or ill-prepared to take on such a deeper role of coaching. Let’s be clear then: the field-expert is concerned with his field, fitness, or diet or whatever. And the client must fit into that notion. The head-coach expert-advisor however, is more concerned with the client, and the coach’s diet and training protocol are secondary to that notion. – Quite a qualitative distinction indeed.

Differences

The differences are immense. The field-expert coach can emphasize all day long the technical skills for which he is trained and qualified – all good stuff – and reasonable to be sure. But this also seems to release him from any sense of being stressed over a need to develop interpersonal, psychological, emotional, or political nuances of the coach/client relationship. YOU, as the consumer need to decide what you need more of – a technical expert, or an expert advisor. Being the field-expert is much easier to supply because relationships – inherent in the word “coach”- are not nearly as cut and dried as offering up technical expertise and pretending it’s relational.

I’ve been to dozens of these symposiums in fitness and diet – I’ve lectured at them as well. I stopped all that years ago. Why? – Because there is little to nothing in all these events and lectures of so-called “professional” training that prepares anyone in real terms – for the complexities of dealing with actual clients – every single one of whom – will be a different entity unto itself. How about we start having some professional training on being on-line head-coaches, expert-advisors if you will - and doing something about the travesty that currently has an open-door policy for any idiot who wants to claim himself to be “a coach.” Too many so-called expert-advisors try to create the appearance of greater experience, competence, knowledge and abilities, than they actually have. (this is even easier now with the pretend world of social media, Fake-book, and the like.) And the ironic thing about this is – the head-coach relationship is like all relationships, built on trust.

Far too often the field-expert is overly possessed with thinking that knowledge is everything – but the fact is, - effectiveness is everything. And those field experts who adapt this arrogance of “I know more than you” – are also in danger of communicating and acting in ways that are pompous, patronizing, and condescending. Most clients will not respond to being treated this way – but they will react to it. – And they usually react to it by becoming more defensive, more guarded, less relational, and less interactive. Sometimes this merely reflects lack of maturity of the field-expert coach. He acts to protect his own interests first, and the needs of the client are subject to that. The head-coach’s approach however is just different. Whether he knows himself to have more knowledge than the client or not – the goal is to use whatever knowledge he has in service of the client – not in non-consideration of him. The head-coach mentality keeps faith that relationship-building and putting the client-first is good practice first, last and always. Conversely, the field-expert puts his faith in acquiring more and more domain-related information and knowledge – whether this is applicable to his typical clientele or not is usually not part of the contextual considerations. (most unfortunate to my mind)

Funny thing is when attendees at such lectures are polled as to whether they would prefer hiring a head-coach expert type of advisor, or a field-expert armed with technical expertise, a whopping 80% said they will of course prefer the head-coach: – the problem is they can never find one who actually possesses these skills in reality. And I agree. It’s time the industry took some kind of lead and started educating both field-experts and industry consumers, as to what various levels of coaching are composed of, or not composed of. The qualitative differences are stark indeed. I’m going to try to contribute more on this myself in the near future. I will write another feature article on how YOU, the consumer can go about choosing the right coach for you. So, stay tuned for that: For now let me outline for you some of the differences between the field-expert of say, diet and fitness vs. the head-coach expert -advisory role.

Field Expert/Domain Knowledge	Head-Coach/Relationship Advisory Expert
Transaction-based	Relationship – emphasis
Me -> you	Us
Knowledge and information emphasis	People skills, communication emphasis
Work “on” and “at” clients	Work “with” and “for” clients
Short-term emphasis always	Long term emphasis, short-term considerations
Doubt toward client-compliance	Establishing two-way trust
Goal is to emphasize “my” expertise	Goal is to understand and appreciate client-perspective
Assign, and dictate	Give, advise, and be helpful
Exclusionary regarding his expertise	Inclusive of his relationship skills
Obligations are “on” the client	Obligations are “for” the client
Commitment is to gathering more expertise	Commitment is to client wellness
Focus on short-term protocol assignment	Focus on long-term client understanding
Use of business “contracts” of some kind	Comfortable with the nuances of relationships
Main emphasis is business prevalence	Main goal is the sanctity in the client-relationship
Style is often impersonal, dictatorial	Style is engaged, personal, intimate and interactive
Preparation based on technical knowledge	Adaptability and flexibility to client’s changing circumstances and life-stressors
Pays attention to what clients are saying	Pays attention to what and how clients are feeling, and ascertains why
Is a top-down vertical relationship of interaction	Is a horizontal equal relationship in terms of interaction
Interaction is defensive of knowledge and expertise	Interaction is open, inquisitive, and relaxed
Skills are domain-based, fitness, diet etc.	Skills are relationship-based, advisory, interactive etc.
Thinks “I am” the solution to client’s goals	Knows the client is the ultimate solution for themselves
Less involved and indifferent beyond own prescriptions	More involved, and more intricate and time-consuming interactions.
Focus is on client-compliance	Focus is on client-learning and awareness
Focus is on outcomes	Focus is on on-going breaking down of obstacles
Focus in physical realm of behaviour	Focus is in the triangle of awareness – mental, emotional, and physical and emphasis within whatever realm theclient currently needs most
Uses lots of measurement tools and rules	More emphasis on guidelines and parameters
The expert is the source of key information	The client is the source of key information
“I” dictate the parameters of interaction to my style	The client dictates parameters of interaction based on their needs, and their personality style
Client dependence expectation	Client-interdependence and self-reliance expectation
Client adapts to “me”	I adapt to the “client”
Belief that client needs my expertise	Endeavour that client wants my guidance
Client –responsiveness and compliance is emphasized	Client-initiative and eventual autonomy is hoped-for

So, overall look at this above comparison chart. As a consumer or potential client, decide which side of the chart most suits your needs, maybe not only for the present but for the future as well. To me it is increasingly senseless to hire a so-called expert to achieve some short-term goal, get there, learn virtually nothing in the process – therefore surrender the achievement entirely – only to end up right back where you started – and then begin the whole process again – shopping for yet another short term field-expert.

As usual when it comes to this stuff, some of you will get it – some of you will not. And frankly the ones who do not – are simply not ready for the kind of head-coaching service that someone like me abides in.

Re-Thinking the High-Protein Diet

2011-08-08T06:00:00.002-04:00

This post has been included in Scott's E-Book: "Metabolic Damage and the Dangers of Dieting". For more information on the E-Book click the banner below.

The Lard Paradox: “Hey Lard-Ass!” – Well, Thank You for Saying So!

2011-07-25T06:00:00.001-04:00

Ask people to list the top three healthy fats and almost always the most “in the know” people will just parrot back to you whatever is the current vogue trending information out there. It need not be true, but we live in an era where the goal is first to create public opinion on what is true, and then coax the public to simply keep believing it. There are major powers that be who invest a great deal of money in order to create public opinion about their product. To do so, they must also, “create” certain facts to fit their agendas as well. This is so pronounced now in the nutrition arena that real facts are ignored and agenda becomes part of the political machine to create “facts as knowledge” so people will literally “buy into” it all.

It is said enough that this exists in the fitness and dieting realms, but when it is exists in the arena of nutritional study it is sadder still. This is supposed to be a legitimate arena of scientific inquiry but what we find more and more often is just a mighty wizard – who behind the curtain – is just a little old man – pulling strings and levers to create an impression, an opinion, and “facts not in order.” We see this in the fitness arena all the time. Expertise, for instance, is often built more on exposure and the goal to create a person’s reputation – than it is on any deep experience level and applied proven knowledge. People are manipulated to ‘revere’ these authority figures, without ever analyzing what is being said about them or by them. And now the same “trending” is taking place in the nutritional realm as well.

One of the most common ways to create a following is to first create its opposite. To create the hero you need to create the enemy. You need to create simple dichotomies that people can understand. “like this, not that” – “this is good, that is bad” – “eat this, not that” etc. Well the same simple attempts to influence public opinion exist in the political arena of nutritional study. And it leads to nutritional dogma.

What are the three healthiest fats? Well it depends really on what year you are asked the question? For instance right now coconut oil is all the rage and macadamia nut oil is for the really in-the-know, more bohemian crowd. But only a few years ago, the emphasis would have surely been on extra virgin olive oil, and other similar types of fats. And so it goes. Nutritional knowledge seems to be a lot like fashion, it just keeps changing – based more on vogueing trends, than on scientific progress. And what are the three unhealthiest fats? Well almost always people will say, butter, margarine and lard in some order or another. Put another way, what fat source would you NEVER consider eating if you are a bonifide fitness connoisseur and health-conscious dieter? In answering this question where does your “opinion” come from? Is it based in true scientific knowledge, or is it merely “shaped” by the agenda of modern profiteers and researchers who shape your opinion by creating these opposites of good and bad, right and wrong, mentioned above? Be careful of what you think you know, that just ain’t so!

The Lard Paradox

Would you eat lard or cook with it? Why or why not? Can you answer this question beyond saying “well, it’s a nasty fat” I remember being at a symposium once when the lecturer held up some lard on a giant serving spoon and incited everyone with the statement, “Can you imagine your body trying to push this gunk through its tiny veins and blood vessels?” Everyone “ooo-ed and “ahhh-ed” The comment obviously had achieved its desired effect. Oh, and of course he just happened to be selling a healthy fat compound as an alternative. Once again, create the enemy to move people away from – then introduce the hero, and gather people toward it. Well in the case of lard, not so fast. (And this is just one example.)

Do you even know what compromises a healthy fat from a risky fat? Do you know the components and constituents that are supposed to make it so? If you do; follow me here and find out the very interesting truth about lard.

The National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference shows you that half the fat in lard is monounsaturated: 47% to be more exact. If you know your nutritional science then you know that monounsaturated fat is one of the good fats. It helps raise HDL, the healthy cholesterol – and as well it helps lower the LDL, the dangerous cholesterol. So, half the component of lard contributes two good things, healthy fats should do. - With me so far?

In fact, the monounsaturated component of lard is the same monounsaturated fat so celebrated in the Mediterranean Diet and Blue Zone diets you hear so much about. Moreover 90% of that monounsaturated fat in lard is the exact same “oleic acid” that is in olive oil. – You know, another one of the “good guys” in the fat wars.

Now, it gets a little tricky: - 40% of the fat in lard is indeed saturated fat. Ah, see, that is why it is such nasty stuff then. End of story, right? Not so fast. - 1/3 of the saturated fat of lard’s composition is “stearic acid.” Stearic acid is the component now being lauded as the healthy constituent of dark chocolate that you hear so much about. (So dark chocolate good, but lard still bad.)

Stearic acid, a saturated fat, is now considered a “good fat” because it can also raise HDL cholesterol. At the same time stearic acid has no effect on LDL cholesterol, good or bad. So the net take away of biological impact of stearic acid is a positive benefit. In other words, with stearic acid, we have one positive health effect, and one neutral effect. Keep this in mind as we move forward – but for now, isn’t it funny that the one positive effect can be used to market “chocolate” to you as a consumer, but be ignored along with the other healthy components of lard – to keep you from considering it as a viable cooking source etc.

Now, we have covered a great deal of the proportional make-up of lard already. The remaining fat content in lard – which is about 12% of the total content, is polyunsaturated fatty acids. (PUFAS) – You know, more of the potential “good stuff” in the fat wars - because the PUFAS tend to lower LDL, as we know – but have negligible effects on HDL one way or the other. So to be clear, the remaining fats in lard contribute one positive health effect and one neutral, non-damaging effect as well.

The Final Score

Many of you have had an emotional reaction to even the word “lard” in your head – and yet you know nothing about it other than what you have been told. Many times if I mention the word lard, the immediate reaction is “EEEEEEEWWWWWW, how could you cook with that stuff?” and yet - let’s examine the actual facts. Lard, overall, has a 70% health-contributing profile. And while the remaining 30% of this fat may indeed raise LDL cholesterol (the one negative thing) these remaining fats also raise the good cholesterol, HDL- yet another plus. So, as you ache over your coconut oil, fish oil, Udo’s oil, and whatever else is being sold to you – know this – The old, “if it’s in a bottle and marketed well it must be good for you” is a triumph of marketing, not real science. Once again, the industry “works” by leading you to think in terms of absolutes as in good and bad – as in “good over here” but “bad over there” If you want to cook with lard a little bit, for flavour or what not, do so. You will still have an overall healthy nutritional profile. And if you don’t believe me, look it up by all means. Stop buying into industry hype that one component of health is totally good, and its opposite is totally bad, or not good. You don’t have to hate chocolate to love vanilla. These are just marketing tactics used to herd you toward manufacturer’s products. Your nutritional study may lead you to a lot less knowledge than you think you have regarding nutrition. Einstein put it best when he said “don’t let school get in the way of your education.”

I’m reminded of Julia Child who lived healthily and happily well into her late 90s. She not only used butter for everything, she layered everything with it. It was her “secret” ingredient if you will. I was recently watching old episodes of her show and I had to laugh at the non-measured, huge amounts of butter she used for almost everything she made. I wondered how modern nutritional students would view that show. Would they learn or would they judge? It allowed me to also recall how at one time I also used ‘butter’ as a secret ingredient for preparing powerlifters in the last few weeks before their competition. “Butyrate” found in butter can give a decided advantage, if employed the right way. It was then one of the many tactics I used with lifters. I wouldn’t have been “ABEL” to do so if I just regarded nutritional knowledge as the vogue fashion it has become. I would have been led to ignore something that actually became a huge benefit. And in the broader sense, this is no way to learn or educate yourself.

Think you know all you need to know about nutrition? Think again. But I still wouldn’t advise you to calling anyone “Hey Lard-Ass,” and then try to explain to them that it’s meant as a compliment!

Some of you will get it; some of you will not

The Skinny on Fat Loading: What you need to know, from the man who created it!

2011-07-11T06:00:00.000-04:00

If you have used fat loading to peak for a contest or a photoshoot in the last ten years, then chances are your approach was a variation to the “Fat Load” I created way back in the late 80’s. However the recent trend of internet “Guru-itis” has now mutated some of my concepts into unworkable and flawed protocols. Seems certain people wanting to make a name for themselves are morphing some of my procedures like Fat Loading, or the Cycle Diet in order just to make them “look” different. But as they stray away from the method, they also tend to violate the principles behind it. In the end, the result can hurt the intent for a polished and peaked physique, rather than help it. Allow me to set the record straight. Fat Loading is one of the coolest and most productive and efficient ways to peak a physique, and volumize muscles in those crucial hours and days before taking the stage. Let’s take a closer look at how and why it works.

Understanding Energy Storage

Energy is stored throughout the body in various places for various uses. For competitors the number one emphasis is max fuel storage within the muscles, but as little as possible in the interstitial spaces. But this is near impossible to achieve. As a competitor diets to rid the body of any and all fat, the body also sacrifices fuel storage within the muscles as well. This is the body’s way of maintaining some kind of energy balance and sustainability. Competitors overwhelmingly are taught to focus on glycogen storage and replacement. But this is the blindside of peaking strategy. Any average student in nutritional biochemistry can tell you that glycogen storage capacity in the body is limited. Moreover, replacement can take days and even weeks. This presents a dilemma when trying to peak a physique which as been depleted over weeks or even months of calories deficits and intense training.

The neophyte but misplaced approach to volumizing muscles before a show is to “carb load.” But this is misguided for many reasons. The recognized “recipe” for carb loading is 6-10 grams of carbs per kilo of bodyweight over three days: Sounds viable - And ‘looks good’ on paper. But it is flirting with disaster when trying to cosmetically peak a physique. For the 220 lbs bodybuilder for example, this amount is upwards of 1,000 grams of carbs over three days. However; this “recipe” is not the whole story and its where most competitors sabotage all those months of dieting by following a process without understanding all the contributing factors. (once again, proof of the statement, "it’s not the recipe, it’s the chef," that matters).

The storage capacity for glycogen is much lower than these amounts above. The storage limit is said to be about 400 grams or so. And what most paper-experts do not understand is that the body Supercompensates to energy sites where the energy is most needed. So for glycogen loading, most of these calories go to - and are stored in the liver. Moreover, true glycogen loading takes time, and the time involved will certainly compromise the cosmetically prepared, peaked physique. And yet these are only a few of the issues, beyond the paper understanding of carbs loading.

Osmotic Influence and Response

Once again, even a beginner nutritional biochemist will tell you that each gram of carbohydrate stores 2.7 grams of water along with it. From the above we know that the body has a limited capacity for storage within the muscles. And within this capacity must store 2.7 grams of water with each gram of glycogen. Well 400 grams is only 1600 calories. But the recipe above is for 1,000 grams over a few days. So clearly we have an issue when intake exceeds storage capacity. And this plays itself out in the guts of the ill-advised carb-loading strategy.

Glycogen loading in this short window of time is hard on digestion. (most competitors can tell horror stories on that reality) Sugars, in sudden and dense infusion into the gut produce a very specific osmotic response. Sugars attract water to the gut to aid digestion. So competitors who are already dehydrated – have this state of dehydration signal to the body to pull water from the muscles and deliver it to the gut to aid the digestion of all these sudden carbohydrate calories influx. This can lead to stomach distension, bloating and cramps; and the cramps are both in the gut, and now in the muscles since water has been displaced from muscle tissue to aid digestion. Clearly we have a worst-case scenario, rather than best-case scenario happening. And on top of this the attempt to load beyond the body’s limited storage capacity; this has certainly led to the dreaded spill-over everyone talks about. So carb loading has as much to do with ruining a stage-ready physique as it does with peaking one.

The Fat Load Solution

However, if we turn our attention to how the body really stores energy we see the importance of intramuscular fats and triglycerides and we can see how easily it can be to manipulate these for peaking benefits in the real world and not just on paper! That sample 220 lbs bodybuilder mentioned above has virtually an unlimited storage capacity of fats within the muscle. (something like 10,000 calories) The key is in understanding proper Supercompensation. Remember once body fat has been reduced to contest or photoshoot levels, the body is in a depleted state. It will “supercompensate” energy stores to where the energy is needed most. And for a depleted body, energy is always stored first within the muscle, especially if it is a saturated fat source. (Remember glycogen Supercompensation goes primarily to the liver first)

But here’s the important thing. Unlike carbs, fats do not tend to store water along with them in the intracellular spaces. And fat loads tend to neither create nor release or displace metabolic water the way carb loading does. Indeed fats tend to create more of a magnetic effect and draw and absorb water into the cell along with them. This has the effect of volumizing muscle while at the same time, “pulling” water from the undesired interstitial spaces and the gut, into the muscles. This is what "peaking" is supposed to do. But this is not the whole story yet.

Fats alone will not volumize and peak the depleted physique. Taking in carbs along with the fats, in well-timed intervals, will deliver as much glycogen swelling into the muscles as possible. But there is no risk of spillover; because the delivery system is different, since fats are accentuated, not just carbs.

How to do it

Well the actual methods can vary and the application should always be an individual one. This is why I always say, “it’s not the recipe, it’s the chef.” How much supercomp someone can handle depends on what they’ve been through in terms of diet and training and how depleted they are as a result. There are no “one size fits all” last week peaking recipes! Having said that, the general strategy is as follows:

The first day of loading should be simple enough: Double calories, but cut protein in half. Make up the difference in carbs spread over several meals. This serves as a primer for the metabolic environment for the ongoing loading. The first day added carbs will be more quickly absorbed. The body has not had time to react yet. By the second day the door should be wide open for fat/carb loading. A typical day looks like the one below, highlighted by the Abel Body Steakhouse fat load, now so popular in so many countries.

Friday: day before show (based on 220 lbs bodybuilder, dieting 12-16 weeks)

Meal 1: 5 whole eggs any style, 2 handfuls cashews, (roasted and unsalted) 1 snickers bar (or in US Pay Day Bar)
Meal 2: 8-12 oz any kind of steak, 1 cup rice, 1 cup peas,1/2 cup pineapple
Meal 3: 150 grams chicken, 1 handful cashews, 2 Eat More Bars (Pay Day Bars, or Snickers Bars)
Meal 4: I can tuna, 30 rice cakes, any flavour, or 300 grams potatoes
Meal 5: Any fine steakhouse, largest prime rib (20+ oz), and eat all the fat; T-bone cut is fine as well; add fries, even super size it; sometimes even large Caesar salad, piece of cheesecake, rinse and spit process as needed, no drinking of any fluids.
Meal 6: Repeat meal 3 (middle of the night), if hungry.

The morning of the show usually continues the fat load. Depending on how dry the competitor looks at this point I use one of two options. The first is 3-4 whole eggs, along with 4-5 large rice cakes covered with peanut butter and add jelly. The other option is steak or eggs, with a large bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar added (to replace some water from the dehydration sequence – but this requires feedback assessment and evaluation).

The rest of the day focuses on normal contest dieting or more fat load/simple carbs combination, according the athlete’s biofeedback. But one word of caution is in order. Once a person starts loading and starts using fats to load, intestinal motility slows down. Therefore the timing of meals becomes very important. The stomach can only handle so much incoming food when it has not been used to it for so many weeks. Again, this is why expertise is so highly valued. Knowledge is one thing. Knowing how to apply it, PRICELESS. So many pretenders in this game have neither the former nor the latter.

When you don’t want to play dice the last few days before a show with hardcore risky procedures like insulin loading with carbs infusion - then fat loading - is the tried and true method of peaking the physique. It’s enjoyable, it’s productive, and it works.

And this article has been a peep-hole view into how and why it works. This article is also about the reality of its application vs. the way it is now being misrepresented by wannabe Guru’s, all over the net. This is the skinny, on Fat Loading ! I should know, I’m the one who started it all, back in the 80’s. But I doubt anyone ever mentions this to their competitors or performers.

How Certifications Are Dumbing Down the Integrity of the Industry

2011-06-27T06:00:00.001-04:00

I devoted a whole chapter to “The Certification Dilemma” in my book, “The Coach Whisperer.” Frankly, anyone who is thinking of becoming a trainer or increasing their training business, or just be “better” at the job, should read that book. But certification has become big business. Unfortunately it is also downgrading expertise and relevance in the fitness industry and more is the shame in that. I’m going to discuss several of the nuances involved here in hopes it will not fall on deaf ears. But the fact is that because everyone and their brother seems to be offering simple “certifications” there has been a tremendous dilution of real expertise and even qualified functioning practitioners all across the industry. I’m not sure I can cover what is “wrong” in the certification biz in one article - there is so much nonsense out there – but I will point out some major points of contention. Suffice it to say I remain steadfast in my claim that “certified does not = qualified!”

One of the first industry-wide mistakes of certification is a complete focus in the physical realm. Humans are more than their physical bodies. But the physical paradigm model that prevails industry-wide would have you believing otherwise. This “physical-model” encourages wannabe trainers to look for problems with a specific physical cause and solution – instead of a systemic human one. Thus, the focus marginalizes the client and negates developing necessary skills of empathy and sound interactive communication. And this has now gone to the point of being ridiculous. Apparently I can now pinch the skin on the back of your hamstring and solve physical and hormonal problems that are beyond the scope of MRI’s and blood work. PLEEEAAAZZZE !

By this out of whack focus only in the physical realm this faulty trainer-model ignores the practicality of a client-focus, and wrongly chooses a mechanical body-movement focus. When the client is ignored this way, the practical importance of strategy and tactic are also mistakenly skewed. Not every client can be a convenient square –peg to fit into a square-hole, just because he/she shares the same functional anatomy of being human. This one-way dogma of assessment and assignment conveys a message that the client mere “object” to work on – rather than “subject” to work with. And it leads to all kinds of mistaken one-size-fits-all approaches that can do real harm – things like “Cross-fit” come to mind.

This industry needs to work on a certification that matters – And accreditation testing that matters as well. Certified in a weekend, really? The industry also needs to get to a place of “higher level” certification where the notion of “trainer” can be surrendered to the higher calling of “coach.” The industry needs to get away from, if not totally abandon the “physical-model” and get with the reality of the “person-focus-client-centred model.” Right now, at the very best “certifications” are mere ‘training wheels’ to the actual work of trainer – and not even close to relevant for the real work of “coach.”

Coaching should take clients past a focus of the realm of the “immediate” and consider leading them to ruminate the residual and cumulative elements of protocol. You do not and cannot do that with a focus on the “training” at the negation of the client. I mean really, somehow a 46 yrs old female, who has not been training often over the last decade can pick up a “Cross-fit” workout on a website and apply it the same way as another 35 years old fit person, somewhere else across the country? How is that even remotely a client-centred-focus? Oh its convenient. And it may generate income. But is it relevant- relevant “to” and “for” the trainee?

But this is what is happening all across the fitness world. Trainers are becoming “specialists” and because of that they perceive one kind of solution over and over again. And they have short term, shallow relationships with clients. This may be fine for turn-over and getting paid – for a while- but it is a COMPLETE DISSERVICE TO WHAT THE FITNESS INDUSTRY IS SUPPOSED TO STAND FOR. This is supposed to be a human-service industry. Clients are not served by the one-size-fits-all approach, although pocket books may be. Real human services are more generalized. A trainer should be “certified” to understand the importance of a potential client’s background in real terms. This would put the trainee in the appropriate context of being helped. As it exists right now, a potential client’s statement of their goal and the narrow definition of their “problem” seems to be sufficient for “assignment” of protocol. Really? With an isolated and microscopic understanding of client’s this way, trainers are not equipped at all to help potential clients maybe reconsider their immediate goals in light of longer term interests and health and wellness. This “should be” the human element involved. This capacity ‘should be’ what the industry begins to certify.

Let’s certify and accredit actual professional practitioners. In this sense of narrow definitions and assigned “specialists” Cross-fit is really ‘no-fit’ to my mind. It’s as narrow as any other fitness or diet gimmick out there, “successful” or not. Convenience should come way down the line in terms of servicing the trainee/client. And I am not “picking on Cross-Fit” – it just comes to mind as an example within this context.

Certifications and the physical-model emphasis has led to even consumers thinking there needs to be no long term relationship established to meet goals. Both sides of that kind of thinking are mistaken, and myopic.

The whole fitness industry in terms of certification is now so bent on generating revenues that wise and intelligent potential and experience is squeezed out for the sake of expediency of the “certified” member who can pass a lame test. There are people who have had their pets become “certified trainers” and “diet experts” on-line. What does this say about this industry and its accreditation policies and processes?

There are certain things that certification tests as they exist right now simply cannot measure. Good professionals can always wisely adjust their actions and advice in any given context in order to achieve the true aim. (health, education, service) etc. This goes far beyond mere “instruction” and speaks to ability and expertise – applied wisdom if you will. And you cannot do this without an established client-relationship – another thing to which certification pays scant attention. Only the process of reflective practice – trial, error, assessment, adjustment – allows for people to get better at what they do. A “certificate” is meaningless in this regard. The certification providers are now just separating “intent” from real-world function. But specialists in theory are not the same as front-line workers who must put theory into practice. Learning ‘rules’ and very low accreditation standards just doesn’t stand up to the smell-test of real-world required expertise. Trainers are now just followers, and usually followers of other people’s stated agendas. Too many rules and requirements, eliminates discretionary judgement which is vital to the role of “instructor” in any service industry. Too many rules also stifle development of creativity and flexibility of applied learning. All these certifications create are misguided robots who can only produce “reactive thought rather than proactive thought – compliance instead of creativity – and adherence instead of audacity.”

The fitness certifications out there are merely creating a sea of “cooks” – and while they can carry out a recipe by design – they cannot write a recipe of their own. Certification is smothering the potential to create the next generation of “chefs” – the ones who will know and understand all the “ingredients” – beyond just rote recital – the ones who can go out and “create” recipes, develop meaningful program applications – perhaps even become the next generation of “experts.” The leaders in this industry and other private “Gurus” who have seen the income potential of offering certification are in fact, dumbing-down, the level of competence across the whole of the industry. I find that abhorrent. These “leaders” have gone too far in over-planning, over-prescribing, and over-controlling agenda for profit. They are not turning out leaders and service-providers – they are turning out line-cooks who are just above flipping burgers in terms of relative competence. The consequence to all of this is that individual initiative is obstructed – and sound-decision making skills are replaced by looking on-line or to certification to be told what to do and how to do it. It’s creating professional helplessness, not expertise.

Two Analogies

Standardized scripted curricula that are directly tied to immediate test scores may be provide for some “management” of an agenda – but it does not lead to the goal of “accrediting” large numbers of people to be competent in the working world. If I bring you to a conference room for a weekend, and I show you the same movie four times, and tell you during discussion all that I want you to “know about this movie” for the test tomorrow – do you really think it would be hard to pass that test? Any monkey could pass that test. Yet, this is what certification has become. Now, go from there out into the real world and over the course of the next year see 50 other movies but have no contextual guidance regarding them, and then come back and take that same test – how will you do?

If I went to a medical conference on emergency surgery and attended and took notes on all the “new information presented” at that conference – could I pass a test on what I “absorbed” at the end of that conference? Well of course I could! Would that make me a doctor? Would that qualify me to carry out emergency surgery in emergency situations? Would I be ‘Cross-fit’ qualified to do so? It’s nonsensical to call these things “certifications.” And it’s offensive to mislead the consumer and newly certified trainees that this is some equated to qualified expertise – any more than it would be to pass myself off as qualified to perform emergency surgery as in the above example.

And yet the industry continues its cash cow certification both organizationally and privately. It creates an agenda of the lowest common denominator so that everyone “passes.” You would have to be a moron not to pass these things. The curriculum is sure to be never beyond the grasp of most, while certainly well below the grasp of the true professional. These “standardized” curriculums sacrifice individual thinking and the “teachable moments” within it – and surrender to the lowest common denominator of following recipe rules. You cannot ever create expertise this way. Oh, sure, all the attendees can give you the right answer that you want – just as I could at the medical symposium example listed above. So what? What exactly does that prove? How exactly does that “certify” you? This is more akin to working on the end of an assembly line than it is even remotely related to creating accredited experts to work in the human services field. There is a fundamental qualitative and distinct difference between the person on the end of an assembly line who screws in the same table leg all day long – compared to the carpenter who creates the complete table from scratch blocks of wood. Let’s stop pretending the two entities are the same thing.

Certification is all about thinking within a very tiny box. And even within the box, certification is about thinking what you are told to think. You are led to study and ‘maybe’ know standardization, but not true innovation. How is that ever going to lead to professional development? Certification through standardization discourages the exact types of thinking that are actually necessary when serving actual clients in the human model of experience, and not the physical model of theory. We need to test qualitative abilities like thinking on your feet, adaptability, flexibility, creativity and holistic thinking. You can’t test that in a multiple choice field answer that suggests “right/wrong” answers. All you become good at in this arena is taking tests. Worst yet, this comes to be seen as the “right way to do things” instead of what it actually is, which is a piss-poor limited way of “getting by” at bare minimums.

Let’s start certifying what it takes to be a real professional in the field of human interaction- Because “fitness” is just the industry vehicle. It is not the fundamental nature of the business – human relationships are. The aim to accredit and be a true professional should be testing those elements of the human plane, not just the physical plane. Is the trainer a good teacher, a good communicator, knowledgeable, thoughtful, reasonable, reflective, and most of all, empathetic and responsive?

Sure some standardization may be necessary as a base level of understanding. But do we need to label this as ‘certified?’ Formulaic procedures, and rigid scripts and bureaucratic requirements may meet the needs of finding new recruitments to the field – but it does not produce new and better experts. A little standardization of material is like training wheels for riding. It lends, AT FIRST - a semblance of predictability, uniformity, and some kind of arbitrary low level standards of understanding – but not much else beyond it. But what the industry needs to understand is that standards, real and substantive standards, can be achieved without this low level of bureaucratic standardization. All this over-standardization that curricula create is dumbing down the whole industry, not lifting it up to higher echelons. And in doing so, it is driving out the forces of real expertise – ingenuity, wisdom, sound teaching and method, relational skills, relativity and the like. Show me that in your certifications, and more importantly, show me that in your testing methods for accreditation!

Because Let me Tell You the Level of Idiocy That I See Every Day

I have people join my coaching program every month who have a multitude of certifications added to their names. And yet they seem to be completely incompetent in the exact field that represents their certifications. It’s hypocrisy in every sense. I have clients who themselves have three to four on-line “certifications” as “diet experts” and/or “wellness coaches” yet they themselves have food/eating issues, or flat out eating disorders. And the names of some of these “certifications” border on representing fraud – “diet doc” really? I know PHD’s in nutrition who wouldn’t dare label themselves as “diet doctors” or give that misleading impression.

Here’s the thing:

If you have a heroin addict who has been suffering intense addiction for a decade, and then goes to a weekend or even month long rehab “course” and then passes “a written test” on rehab skills – is that person now “qualified” to be your sponsor in your own addiction recovery? Is a raging alcoholic who does the same, now qualified to help you in your own rehab and recovery? Of course not! These people only know how live in and with addiction. They have not proven they know, understand, live and abide in a life of recovery, never mind being able to impart living that way in others. But they could certainly probably pass a written “certification” test on recovery if given the informational tools just before taking the test, couldn’t they? I see it all the time in my practice. We are churning out a bunch of “certified” nincompoops with no relevant comprehension of the knowledge their certification portends to suggest.

But there is yet another side to this that is even worse from what I see and witness as well. This tremendous de-skilling because of “certification as a business” has led to some incredible de-willing as well. And this is most unfortunate. Certification and its low standards has become so lame that it is removing good people from the game – and taking the game away from good people as well. And the result of this is a continued downward spiral of stupidity among “certification holders.” Let’s call it what it is, shall we.

Forcing otherwise intelligent people to parrot back rote learning with immediate recall and giving them the same ‘certification’ as the person beside them, who lacks complete common sense and understanding – is in fact a dumbing down of the whole field – the whole industry, in fact. Not only does this kind of idiot-testing remove the wisdom from the field of study – but over time it also removes wise experts from the field as well. And that is the true travesty. Giving the same piece of paper to someone who lacks practical application skills – and equating that “certification” to someone who has this real talent - brings down potential leaders and future experts, instead of propping them up. Is this really the intended consequences of standardized testing and certification?

Can we get back to a simple method of looking for quality when using the term “qualified” instead of equating it with a volume status of “certification?” Certified does not mean qualified. It should be about enhancing the professional experience, for the client, and not just about recruiting more clients with a piece of paper on a wall. Passing a lame test proves nothing – especially when the answers are handed to you immediately before taking that test. How is that testing practical application of knowledge and know-how?

The mantra of this rant here - is that there should be levels of distinction in calling anyone “qualified” for anything. There should be some sort of professional recognition of a real expert who practices based on being true to the “soul” of the professional practice – and not just a rudimentary gathering of paying test-takers who keep the industry alive and afloat. Clients of the industry are certainly not served this way. When an industry turns its back on its soul - its operating mantra, and focuses its organizational aim at generating income instead of providing better service (which is its soul) it demoralizes its own level of integrity, industry-wide. And it destroys the potential for finding, nurturing, or developing its future experts as well.

Roscoe Pound said this: “the term profession refers to a group…pursuing a learned art as a common calling in the spirit of public service….. Pursuit of the learned art in the spirit of public service is the primary purpose” If this is true – and it is – then how is the dumbing down of this industry via certification, serving either the spirit or the purpose of the profession and the public service it is supposed to provide?

Certification is now simply pumping out paper that misrepresents qualification levels and suggest “expertise” that is not there. It is good-business maybe in terms of generating income for the people providing the “certification” – but good business should also reflect integrity of the soul of the profession. We need to get back to protecting and honouring that element of this service-industry.

I could say a great deal more on this subject. But for myself, I can say mentoring is the true accreditation process. I only certify Abel Body Experts, after years of them working with me and illustrating a well-rounded practical knowledge not only of the concepts, but in application of them as well. Real experts model themselves the expertise they claim to represent. You cannot have an eating disorder or food problem and be a “diet expert” just because you have nutritional knowledge – any more than that heroin addict can be your recovery coach.

Certification is beginning to dumb down the whole industry, and that is the shame. I wrote this article because I care. I realize this presentation may “offend” some of you. But perhaps it is because it hits so close to home and reality.

As usual, some of you will get it, some of you will not. But I hope you will at least “consider it”

Tales from the Front Lines: The Lesson of “Monkey See, Monkey Do”

2011-06-13T06:00:00.002-04:00

Figure and Bikini Athletes: Pay Attention

People that know me and the amount of time I’m been in this game are always telling me, “Scott, you’ve got a million great stories; you got to start telling them.” But I always want these blog/articles to have a point to them beyond self-indulgence, so when I can I will try to lend a story or two to a point being made. I think in this blog there are several points to be made, about the nature of people, the blindness in this industry and the art and craft of what I do.

It is said that all industries are by nature, “copycat” industries – a sort of ‘follow the leader, herd mentality’ - And that can be taken to mean many things. I know I’ve certainly had my stuff copied, ripped off, stolen, plagiarized and whatever else over the years. But there is the question of who is doing the copying and why – says a lot about a person. Another way of looking at industry via the “copycat” element is regarding true leadership. A copycat approach to information and knowledge just leads to following the herd – and as the saying goes, if all you do is follow the herd, you spend a lot of time scraping your shoes. Another way of putting it is that unless you are the lead dog pulling the sled, then the view never changes! Think about that one.

Anyway, I also have known in my career that the copycat effect could also be labelled ‘monkey-see/monkey-do’ as most of these coaches and trainers (even the ones you are glorifying on other web boards) – have no idea “why” they are doing something – so they just copycat and follow the leader. I used that lack of knowledge and lack of knowledge of context many times in my career to the benefit of my clients, competitors, or just to make a point.

When I first became famous and well-known in the industry for the results I was achieving I was initially stunned by the backlash of hatred and animosity toward me. And the lengths people would go to - were quite vulgar to say the least, and that continues to this day unfortunately. There were “experts” and “wannabes” who would publicly say the nastiest things about me, or publicly “disagree” with my methods, yet privately, they would pay for other people to hire me to “learn what I do.” I would always laugh at that. They never understood that it was not about the recipe, but about the chef. And when the lesson needed to be taught to these people and their hypocritical negative energy, the monkey-see/monkey-do nature and insecurity I knew they all possessed would often play right into a strategic hand. I’ll give you a couple of examples below.

I had one client way back who had a very unique physiology – truly one of a kind. When dieting for a contest he would drink 14-16 litres of water daily – yes daily, sometimes even more. I often worried about hypernatremia with him but it never happened. He could maintain good osmotic balance drinking that amount. I also knew what would occur when we chose to dehydrate him for competition day. In advance of that- I weighed out 4-5 gallons of water and saw what it weighed on the scale. No doubt, taking away that volume of fluid would induce a quick scale loss. Indeed, every show he would go from 193-194 ripped and ready weight, to 177-178 when we cut water. This meant a quick sauna session and he made middle-weight class each and every time. (176 lbs) I remember one show a fellow competitor who trained at the same gym stormed out of the weigh-ins and would not compete against my client saying it was “unfair” that my client made the middle weight class. How is that unfair? Anyway, I digress- and this is where the story gets interesting on the nature of people and the monkey-see/monkey-do phenomenon of this industry.

I knew my client’s body really well by this point. I also knew some realities of physiology. There is no way I could volumize his muscles for competition day with the usual fat loading protocols that I used. The combination of all that fluid he drinks, now being cut out, along with the diluted electrolytes and his low calories competition diet, didn’t give me so much a dilemma, as it did a hell of a lot of room to play with.

I also knew the other so-called “experts” in the room had no idea of “context.” It meant they were all always so focused on what I did with my clients that it didn’t matter when I said I treat each one separately depending on what they went through up to contest-day. So, I gave them all an opportunity to show their expertise. For this competitor, the sooner I could feed him the better. But his situation was also unique - something I knew the other competitors and coaches would never acknowledge. So, I had a large pizza delivered right to the weigh-in room, with a 750 ml size diet coke, and a slab of cheesecake. I had him eat it right there at the weigh ins. (which the smell of pizza alone pissed off a lot of people) Now - I didn’t advise anyone else to go do the same thing. I just let the process unfold. Sure enough, as soon as most of these other “experts” clients weighed in – they ran out and ordered and ate pizza, just like my client did.

Big mistake.

Everyone knows (or should) you don’t eat flour or dairy for cosmetic peaking purposes. And depending on their own client’s osmotic situation and water balance, the results were predictably disastrous. My client went out and destroyed the middle weight class. These other monkey-see/monkey-do followers, did not fare so well. In fact, for as long as two years after that show, I still had other people’s clients coming up to me the day of the show saying, “Scott, I don’t know what went wrong. I looked fabulous yesterday. And I did everything right. I had pizza last night and cheesecake, and everything.” I felt sorry for these people taking advice from so-called experts who had no appreciation for “context” – no concept of true individuality – that you coach the person, not just apply a recipe. And it continues this day, but I’ll get to that. Everyone is looking for that magical last week peaking “recipe,” not realizing there isn’t one – strategy is always more important than tactic.

In another example I had a heavyweight competitor who got food poisoning one week out from Nationals. For the next three days he had both ends going in the ugliest ways you can imagine. When he finally got around to feeling good enough to eat and drink again, we had a dilemma. With only a couple days before the show the kind of fluid loss he experienced from being sick is a different kind of fluid loss from purposeful dehydration. When you lose fluids that way you lose both interstitial and intracellular fluids. You also throw electrolyte balance into complete disarray. And combined with the low calories diet for peaking we didn’t have much wiggle room. We couldn’t just replace fluids because this is a bodybuilding show, and just drinking would smooth him out completely. But the food poisoning left him way below weight, glycogen-and-fluid-and-electrolyte-depleted and with a weak stomach to match. We had to be careful.

Once again, this was a situation of unique “context” – an individual application – the situation didn’t call for a generic recipe.

There was no way we could dehydrate and fat load – no way that his stomach would handle heavy foods like red meat etc. So, I had to get sugars where they wanted to go, but not upset osmotic balance either. I needed to restore it in fact. Once again, I had the solution, and I knew the monkey-see/monkey-do, followers would fall in line and they did. I sent my competitor to the candy store and told him to load up on any and all favourite candies, except for anything with chocolate. He came back with a huge bag of licorice twists, ju-jubes, sour gums, all that stuff. It looked like a Halloween haul. Once again, I had him bring it all to weigh ins and eat it right there in front of everyone, while drinking water as well. The truth is, he needed to eat then anyway. We didn’t have much time. And he drank water along with it (and some Pedialyte).

Sure enough, monkey-see, monkey-do. And these other competitors who followed suit ended up of course not looking as good, some creating intestinal distension, because of course, sugars draw water to the gut. (unless there has been a digestive reason not to, like food poisoning) Once again, I didn’t say or tell anyone else but my client what to do. But because I am “Scott Abel” everyone copied what they saw. A funny anecdote to that was that people would say, ‘I tried Abel’s method and it didn’t work for me.” And I would laugh. Oh, you mean the method I gave to a client who had food poisoning, that method?

Whatever, some people get it, most people do not.

Anyway, even the next day back stage I had my client eating baby food out of the jar, strawberry baby food. This was like a hard food version of Gatorade that would give him something to digest, feed the muscles, but not upset his stomach. And the funny lesson of monkey-see/monkey-do of the baby food – is that you still see it today back stage, and yet I doubt anyone can accurately explain “why” they are doing it.

In another example, at a high level show in the early 90’s there was a particularly nasty other expert who was trying to make a name for himself. But he was doing it of course by targeting me, and saying some pretty nasty and vile things: Whatever. This was back when the first wave of “keto –diets” were all the rage. (Yes, the keto-diet in various forms has been cycling around for decades.) I hated that diet. I knew what it could do to competitor’s guts.

No way my people were going to ever do it.

Yet this “expert” and a few others were all over it, because it was all in vogue again – and at this one show – I think it had more to just do the opposite of anything I may be doing. So once everyone was at weigh-ins and all seated, I made sure these two Gurus were within ear shot and I asked someone if they had any “dextrose” with them. I said my client forget hers, and OMG, we really need it, RIGHT NOW. Of course none of that was true. And once again, I wasn’t advising anyone else to go do the same. I just “put it out there.” Sure enough, the clients of these two Gurus were put on dextrose, which any one knows if you are keto-no-carb-dieting, is a huge mistake. That kind of simple sugar dump in the presence of a gut that has not been digesting sugar or starch for weeks, produces an overcompensating osmotic response, of bloating, gas, stomach distension, whatever. These two guys’ clients looked terrible. And no doubt probably didn’t feel that great either. And why? Because these so-called experts had no respect for “context.” They had no understanding of peaking an individual is about the individual, and not about the peaking procedure. They were so focused on “what” I may be doing, they never asked the question “why” I was doing it. Answer: because it was what was called for, for my client at that time, based upon their bodies and their physiologies.

Monkey-see, Monkey-do: Figure Competition

So, why am I telling you all this? Well, one reason is because they are funny stories that still to this day leave me scratching my head in amazement as to what passes for expertise in this game. But more to the point I am telling you this because this ‘monkey-see/monkey-do’ nonsense continues to this day. And not only is it negatively effecting competitors’ placings – but it could be doing harm as well.

For instance, why are Figure competitors taking hard-core pharmaceutical diuretics? Why are they fat loading and carb loading? Why are they cutting water and dehydrating? Listen, and get this straight.

These so-called “experts” that have Figure competitors doing this stuff don’t even understand the general context and nature of Figure competition! This off-shoot of physique display is not about shrink-wrapped skin with volumized muscle. So these last minute peaking procedures for Figure are nonsensical and ridiculous. They lack contextual understanding - not just of the individual competitor’s needs -but what “the look” they are supposed to be producing – is all about. Figure is not bodybuilding – so why would you apply the same “peaking” procedure? You risk far more than you accomplish. Figure is supposed to be about sleek lines and physical balance in a feminine framework. It’s not supposed to be about shrink-wrapped skin, and eye-popping muscles and vascularity. So, why would you follow a peaking procedure that produces that?

Anyone that has a Figure client going through this sodium depletion or loading, fat or carb loading, and especially dehydrating, cutting water, carb-cycling, and using hard-core diuretics, is someone who doesn’t have a clue about “context” of application – and are merely following a carry-over of ‘monkey-see/monkey-do’ from the bodybuilding world to the Figure world!

Bikini

Even more laughable and reprehensible at the same time is that this monkey-see/monkey-do is now being carried over to Bikini competitors as well? Say what? Let me explain a little basic physiology for you here. You cannot peak a physique that has not been prepared to do so. That would be like someone who has never run more than a mile a day, tapers off to half a mile for two weeks and then tries to run a marathon??? Again, it lacks contextual application and understanding. If you try to control osmolity in someone with a bikini-competitor type of build, and muscle maturity - you will have disastrous results.

Their muscles and form have a certain look for a certain reason. And this is all about the osmotic balance between interstitial and intracellular fluids. If you try to “tighten up” a bikini competitor by cutting water or what not, all that is going to happen is they will look and feel like someone let all the air out them – almost like when you deflate a balloon. Anyone who thinks a bikini competitor needs to carb deplete and load, and cut water, once again, is in the very least, a neophyte, who does not understand the context of that endeavour either. There should be nothing left to do for Figure competitors and Bikini competitors except to “show up” that day. All the work should be done. If your competitor needs ‘last minute peaking’ for these endeavours, they just aren’t ready, and they were improperly trained and peaked.

In terms of peaking procedures the lesson is, there is no “one size fits all” - there is no last week recipe to follow - and yet, the dogma of the industry continues as a copycat, follow the leader, monkey-see/monkey-do phenomenon. And this is made much worse now because of digital media and social media – where people just lack an understanding of “context.” It’s just that now, the stakes are much higher in terms of metabolic damage, food issues etc.

The people who preach the so-called “science” of this industry will focus constantly on the “what.” But that focus completely lacks the wisdom necessary for real-world application. The art and craft of industry goes beyond the knowing of the “what” and respecting and understanding the art of the “why” “how” and “when” to apply the “what” as well as all the possible exceptions that may be in play. That is true expertise.

I am continually irked at what people in this industry consider to be “knowledge” – that is, knowledge without wisdom - the wisdom that recognizes the importance of context and nuance. Yet people continually pat themselves on the back because- by analogy – they learn and memorize the word “horse” in 9 different languages – only to go out and saddle themselves up to a goat to ride. I don’t call that knowledge.

Some of you will get it, some of you will not.

Dealing with Food/Eating Issues at a Deeper Level: The Phantom Menace Continued

2011-05-30T06:00:00.002-04:00

As discussed in my last blog, people manifest food/eating issues for all kinds of varied reasons. And some of these issues may have even been precipitated by other events or practices. For instance, we have of course discussed many times how competing in the vanity industries can bring about body image/eating/diet or food issues. The fact is a behaviour begins for one reason in a healthy context, but continues for a different reason in an unhealthy context. And regardless how these issues begin they all share a common theme. All food/eating/diet issues are awareness issues and they are also all emotional issues as well. (see Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease) This is not in dispute. And dealing with such issues requires a level of expertise far exceeding anything available in the fitness or diet industries. If you continue to consult diet or training Guru’s for help in dealing with food/eating/diet-related emotional issues, you are simply chasing your Phantom Menace, or more precisely – allowing it to chase you. Look at this quote:

Best Weight: A Practical Guide to Office-Based Weight Management

A wide range of abnormal eating behaviours, ranging from simply skipping meals (disordered eating) to full-blown DSM-diagnosable binge-eating disorders, can pose significant barriers to obesity treatment. While some of these disorders can be dealt with as part of the obesity-management strategy, severe eating disorders require specialized behavioural interventions that are generally beyond the scope of general practice. Such patients should be referred to an eating disorder specialist before you initiate a weight-management program.

Notice the use of key words in the above quote – words like “patients” “abnormal” etc. Consumers need to start getting real about seeing their food/eating issues for what they are. And when recognized professionals note the necessity for specialized treatment and counselling, then people suffering the Phantom Menace of food issues should start paying attention.

Emotional Events

Regardless of how they began all food/eating issues are emotional issues. A diet and training Guru is just ill-equipped in handling them. And because these are emotional issues they will almost always be triggered by unwanted or overwhelming emotional mood states or other emotional events. People need to start getting real about the level of the problem of their Phantom Menace. You need to stop thinking like you do for diet or training protocols – like short windows of time – as in 12 week periods or whatever. It is generally well-recognized that once in treatment or counselling, eradicating food/eating/diet-related emotional issues can take from 18-36 months, and that is in-treatment, with a sustained effort in overcoming the problem. Till someone actually pursues real expert help, the clock doesn’t even start ticking. You can call yourself a “physique competitor” all you want – but if you suffer food/eating/diet mental issues because of it, you have a more prescient true identity to be sure. You need to start dealing with this before it really becomes bigger than your world.

Emotional Lag Periods

Because all eating issues are emotional /awareness issues - they are bigger than the behaviours that trigger them. What does this mean? It means simply that most people with food/eating issues will concentrate on the unwanted behaviours they wish to eradicate. But this is not the problem – merely its symptom. Focusing on the unwanted behaviour (be it snacking, bingeing, overeating or whatever) is a false emphasis because it does not address the real and true emotional triggers behind the unwanted thoughts and behaviours. I constantly have to remind clients of the ‘lag period’ between an emotional event and being able to feel “right” again. And this is one of many ways unwanted eating/food/diet issues continue to play out over a long period of time. The truth is; understanding your own personal food/eating Phantom Menace is only a very small step in ridding yourself of it. Understanding is simply phase one. There are emotional lag periods to deal with – where- no matter how well you understand your issue - it still has power over you. To think anything less is not realistic.

By comparison think of the 5 stages of Grief. They are – denial/isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. A lot has been written about the 5 stages of grief and it has relevance for food issues and the ‘emotional lag period’ I am referring to. It takes people time to work through these five stages, anywhere from months to years. And the lesson is that even though the emotional event is over (say the death of a loved one, or a food/eating cycle) that doesn’t mean the emotional event has subsided or has less impact or is no longer there in mind or emotion. Food/eating issues are NOT diet issues. It seems I have to keep saying that over and over – even to people who claim to understand it. There is always an emotional lag period between understanding the emotional event – and actually getting to a point of fully processing and accepting it. This requires counselling/coaching on a specialized level. It does not require a diet and training program. Let’s get real!

Cognitive Shift

Eradicating the Phantom Menace of Food/Eating/Diet issues requires making a cognitive shift that I always talk about. But people who finally are able to accept they have these issues, think they can leap frog past the emotional lag period involved in forming the necessary cognitive shifts. And just like with the stages of grief above: intense emotional issues take time to work through. No one can just skip the steps of awareness to acceptance. A cognitive shift takes a lot of work. I liken it to learning the alphabet which is an exercise in cognitive perception and awareness. When you first learned the alphabet you had to painstakingly and mind-numbingly repeat each letter of the alphabet over and over. You had to pronounce it phonetically as well. You had to learn the alphabet song and drum it into your brain. There were 26 chords of experience to link together in your awareness. Only then could you learn about consonants and vowels and how and why they work. You couldn’t just jump from learning A through J, and then start reading and writing. Well the same work is required in creating a cognitive shift away from your food/eating issues. Many of my clients will write me back after a few exchanges and an exercise or two and say, “ok Scott, I’m ready for the next exercise.” That is just their frustration and impatience talking. A patient has to repeat certain exercises and mantras over and over again until they become embedded in their conscious awareness. Only then can a proper cognitive shift take place which will actually empower them to deal with their Phantom Menace food/eating/diet issues. It’s a slow process, and you cannot just skip or jump phases in awareness training. This would be like thinking you can leave the grave sight of a loved one the day of a funeral, and that day wipe your hands and say “well, that’s over now.” Quite simply this is not how awareness processing works. And until someone with these issues acknowledges that, they will not get very far. Case in point:

“Scott, I have a Dilemma”

At least 5 times per week or more I get emails from clients concerned over an upcoming social event. They always write me with the word “dilemma” attached to the perceived “problem.” They want to stick to their diets, but they also know what they are like and they also know there will be indulgent food present and they are not sure what to do. Almost 100% of the time, this kind of “dilemma” is presented to me by people who have weight issues, food /eating/diet issues. They do not see the Phantom Menace present in their so-called “dilemma.” They do not have a dilemma; they have just created one in their minds. Because the truth now is- whether they attend that social event and stick to their diets or not- they have already failed. What they have done now is reinforced an emotional issue with food and diet and eating behaviour. What this person has done by perceiving a dilemma in this scenario is two-fold problematic: He/she has now attached a social event to a perception of an emotional crisis, and has vaulted and attached food to the social event and crisis level as well. (negative cognitive association)

So, even if this person sticks to their diet at this event- he/she has already fuelled the phantom menace in their minds by perceiving the whole thing as a “dilemma.” The social event is not a dilemma. That notion is a phantom. The dilemma is the mindset of anxiety that perceives the event as a “dilemma.” Indulgent food, which may be part of an event, is now vaulted to being the center of attention and focus for this person regarding the event. It’s a mindset issue. It’s born in food/eating issues and especially diet consciousness. It’s an ill mindset not a healthy one. And yet I get presented with this so-called dilemma, at least 5 times per week. What this person has done is created a cognitive association of ‘dilemma’ that started with food or diet consciousness and is now unhealthily extended to a social milieu which should be about enjoying oneself. So what the person has now done is attach diet-consciousness, pressure and anxiety to any and all situations beyond their immediate control. That is not a coping strategy. It’s a reflection of a faulty mindset at work.

And yet for me as a coach the lesson is obvious. I can only teach it – but you/they can only live it by recognizing the reality of the emotional lag period mentioned above. Because the truth in this example of the so-called “dilemma” is this: When you stop believing that the struggle itself will eventually bring you relief - that is when the path to relief reveals itself. When you believe more in yourself, than you do in a diet or in food rules, or in a target body weight; then the path to contentment is right in front of you. I can only teach this reality. For people to create the necessary shift in cognition, this will take time. But what people with this so-called ‘dilemma’ need to realize is that this is about a shift in emphasis.

Yes, discipline is required. But it’s a different kind of discipline in a different area of awareness. It’s not about diet, or food, or eating or a social event. You need to apply discipline not so much toward your appetites and behaviours, but toward your thoughts- toward disarming your Phantom Menace.

What we see above is a negative cognitive association. Diet-consciousness takes over the mind in such a way that things like social events which should bring joy – are now associated with a sense of anxiety and pressure and food/diet/eating consciousness. This now brings down social events to the level of struggle as well. This is a negative cognitive association. Not only is progress NOT possible when thinking this way – but thinking this way ensures the struggle will continue. It’s like I said in my book, Your Truth is Calling – some people’s thinking strategies are stinking tragedies. But is there a way to create cognitive associations to help a person move away from food issues? Of course! There are in fact many.

Using imagery or memory are good cognitive associations to make on your own behalf to empower thinking and disempower the phantom menace. However the “associations” made must be relevant to your own life. I have one client who recently made quite a breakthrough in regards to no longer responding to physical or emotional cravings by reaching for food as a remedy. His breakthrough worked by making a cognitive association within his own life experience. It went along these lines:

First he realized that his “cravings for food” were interwoven with emotional cravings seeking satisfaction as well. At the moment he made that connection he was already separating the two things, which is very important. Once he first understood and comprehended this connection, he made the cognitive association in this way – He realized his response to any craving - emotional or otherwise was to satisfy that craving with food, and sabotage himself in doing so. He also realized this was familiar behaviour – so he needed some kind of mental association to correspond with “familiar behaviour” in order to associate with this unwanted action and be able to actually do something about it. He noted that he had been doing this behaviour for a very long time. It was part of him. For him, this was the key to a lock for freedom through cognitive association.

Satisfying his cravings with food was so familiar and old in its patterning that he compared it to always “going back home.” This was the metaphor he needed. Satisfying all his cravings with food - was like going back home to the old neighbourhood. (in his mind) It was like running into old friends that he used to party with, have fun with, get into trouble with – familiar mental and emotional surroundings – going back home. – His cravings were indeed ‘his old friends’ very personal to him and part of him. He could now own that. But he could now view the cravings the way he viewed his old friends. – There they were, still in the old neighbourhood, stagnant – They are still there, still partying, still screwing up, still living in their parent’s basement, still doing nothing. They are not moving up or moving on. These old friends (cravings) keep wanting him to join them, re-join them. In his mind, instead of resistance, there is now awareness and acceptance. He addresses the old friends, his cravings, by saying this – “thanks, but no thanks. We had some really good times together. But the truth is; you guys are no longer part of my life. I’ve had to move on. I can say hello to you. I can acknowledge you are all there. But I can also say good-bye to you all as well. I can say good-bye to that life at the same time. Take care my old friends.”

By using his memory and something he knows and values, he made a relevant cognitive association to his cravings. Instead of letting diet-consciousness dictate to him, he empowered himself, but letting go of that level of awareness. And he did it through a relative and important memory and connection he could relate to and associate with - his cravings. This is how it is done in real terms - Quite brilliant actually. I hope others of you, can benefit from witnessing positive cognitive association.

Associated GI Issues

At a separate level, there are physiological ramifications to food/eating/diet-related mental/emotional issues. Many of these show up in the GI tract. But here is another truth to consider as well. Many of the neurotransmitters which relay wellness and well-being to the brain; are in the brain yes- but these neurotransmitters are also lined all through the digestive track. People with diet-consciousness, food/eating issues often are convinced they have all these mild to severe GI issues that are medical in nature. But the truth is, they do not. They only manifest these issues as a physical reflection of their phantom menace. I have written about this before. These people have repressed emotional issues that are being reflected physically in the GI tract. When the intense emotional repression stops – so do the intense GI symptoms - and these include everything from sever constipation, to Celiac, to gluten intolerance, even PCOS. Most of the time people who allow the phantom menace of food/eating/diet-related emotional issues to rule them – also suffer some kind of GI problem as well.

Almost always in my experience, these intermediate to intense levels of GI issues are self-induced. And they are self-induced because of emotional repression brought on by associated food/eating/diet issues. Having these issues serves the phantom menace, because it also forces the person to remain vigilant in their food consciousness. It keeps them food-centred. And while it does that, it keeps them from finding their way out of their own true awareness as well. Having these issues is also a great way to maintain victim-status regarding diet/food/ metabolism etc as well. And yet, these issues are almost always phantoms. Once the awareness level is dealt with, these issues tend to disappear along the diet-consciousness that produces them as well. So, most times these phantom GI issues need to be met at an emotional awareness level – not a nutritional one. The nutritional solution is short term – the emotional solution eradicates the issue totally. Yet many reading this will fight for their victim status and “prove” their GI issues are real. This is the power of the phantom menace to be sure.

I deal with these issues en masse every single day. While many suffer alone and in silence I witness the common threads to all of it. It’s the Phantom menace of diet-consciousness that must be let go. It’s the darkness behind food/eating/diet-related emotional issues which need to have the light shone on them. Once this happens, there is relief. Till this happens there is only struggle

If any of this article resonates with any of you – you should consider attending this fall’s workshop – “Food Issues and You- Finally Facing The Phantom Menace”

For more information, contact Shara at vigeant@shaw.ca

As usual, some of you will get it – I hope it speaks to those of you who need to deal with it as well.

Food Issues and You: Finally Facing “The Phantom Menace”

2011-05-16T06:00:00.002-04:00

This post has been included in Scott's E-Book: "Metabolic Damage and the Dangers of Dieting". For more information on the E-Book click the banner below.

How the Definition of “Fitness” Leads to Yet Another Reality Check for You!

2011-05-02T06:00:00.003-04:00

At many of my workshops we begin the session with a basic question, and you can try this one yourself. Right now, off the top of your head, write down what you have learned to be the true definition of "fitness." Not what it means to you, and not as a personal mission statement either; simply define the term "fitness" as you know it, then come back and read the rest of this. Please go do this first.

Now, I usually use this exercise as a fundamental illustration of the paradigm blindness that exists in the industry. Almost everyone who does this exercise the first time receives a failing grade. Why? Because they cannot define fitness in real terms outside of their own industry bias. I will give you an example below. But it occurred to me just how ironic the true definition of "fitness" is, in light of the types of emails I receive and the level of struggles many of my clients endure. So let’s get into it here. But first, let me ask: are you even ready to let go of your industry bias, in regards to the definition of "fitness," in order to learn a greater, but sadder, truth?

In these workshops, before I get people to write down their definition of the term “fitness,” I give them this example: let’s say we have an author in our presence - a true, best-selling, prolific, career author. This author smokes several cigarettes while writing, and he writes for several hours each day. He admits to taking a few breaks and enjoying a “scotch neat” to relax him to keep writing. He gets no exercise at all and pays little attention to his diet. Question: is this person “fit?” Use your own definition of fitness you wrote out above to answer this question.

I will tell you in advance that most of you will be wrong in your assumption - and why? Because you’ve been led to believe something about “fitness” that is incomplete at best, untrue at worst.

I submit to you that this author is as fit or more fit than many of you who are passionately involved in the fitness industry and I will outline why below. This may be a painful pill for many of you to swallow. But if you don’t get defensive and react to this statement, you may have an “ah-ha” moment of truth and awareness by the time you finish this article/lecture. Some of you will get it, some of you won’t; and some of you will live in denial of it. But here is the truth about fitness you should consider:

How is it an author who sits at a desk and thinks and writes all day, smokes cigarettes, enjoys some hard liquor and gets no exercise or addresses his nutritional needs – how can he possibly be defined as “fit”? And how can Scott Abel suggest he may in fact be “more fit” than people who exercise, move around, pay attention to their diets, etc.? Well, here goes:

The Definition of Fitness

The most unbiased definition of fitness is this: “Fitness is the ability to meet the demands and vicissitudes of daily life, with relative ease, with some extra energy available for emergencies or unexpected situations.” This is the unbiased general and true definition of what fitness reflects in and of people. How does our author fair then? Well, if he has no physical issues from sitting and writing day in and day out, then he is fit. He is able to meet the “daily demands and expectations of his life, with relative ease.” He doesn’t need to be able to pass a cardio stress test to be fit for his life or in his life. But there is more.

The Triangle of Awareness

Most of you whom tried to define “fitness” above get a failing grade (unless you’ve attended one of my workshops) because you only entertain one dimension of the definition of the term. “Fitness,” however, does not solely exist in the physical realm. What about the aspects, of mental, emotional and dare I even say spiritual fitness? These are, after all, components of total fitness. So, in the three-dimensional sense, I submit to you, that our hypothetical author is more fit than many of you whom consider yourselves to be fit, but are in fact NOT.

I think of competitors who become so consumed with contest day that their level of mental and emotional fitness not only suffers, but is crushed. Remember the definition of fitness is "the ability to meet the daily demands of life with ease, while having energy to spare." And this definition holds in both the mental and emotional realms as well. Competitors exhaust themselves to the point of emotional and mental apathy. They have no "energy to spare" for anything else in their life. They are "unfit" and "not fit" by this real and true definition of the term. You add in the effect of metabolic damage or metabolic burnout, and then even what began as a pursuit of physical fitness is thwarted in the competitive experience.

By comparison, our author example above is looking more "truly fit" in real terms. Remember that I said this author is a career author and quite prolific, meaning he “produces,” constantly and consistently, quality material. How productive is our dieted competitor in life, by comparison? This author can mentally, emotionally and physically meet the demands of his daily life with ease. He is fit. His life does not go on hold for 3-4 months as he crushes his overall total fitness via punishing his mind, body, and spirit in another realm. Therefore he is much more fit than the average physique competitor.

And you don’t need to compete to fail the fitness definition. Many people are writing me lately having tried an internet guru’s new diet on the net. They have crashed and are not only gaining weight but suffering mentally and emotionally as well from another failed diet. Well, I’m sorry, but on the finishing end of a diet regimen shouldn’t you feel better rather than worse, physically, mentally, and emotionally? Another failed grade, only this time it's not so much because you failed the diet, but because the diet failed you.

Yes, our hypothetical author’s fitness level is looking better to me all the time. Are you getting the irony of all of this?

Let’s Get into It Then!

Some people view the pursuit of fitness as just another life stressor to add to their day. They pile their fitness goals and ideas on top of their “to do” list. Therefore it is not “freeing” as an experience, but imprisoning. The pursuit of a diet and training regimen as a “fitness” indicator is supposed to be in harmony with your life, not separate from it. A diet and fitness regimen is not an external to measure yourself by; it should be a means of self-nourishing to help you be better at everything you do. Your training and dieting “fitness regimen” should provide a means to both put more into your life and still get more out of it as well. That is what fitness means, folks. So ask yourself the honest and yet ironic question: is my diet and fitness pursuit leading me to be able to meet the daily demands of my life with ease? Pretty simple question.

What is your truly honest answer?

We need to address the elements of what fitness is supposed to be contributing to your life. Now, read below, and rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the greatest) on how your fitness pursuits (including diet and training) are leading to you meeting the true definition of the term. Remember, while assessing the points below, ask yourself the question in terms of your mental, emotional, and physical “ability to meet the demands of everyday life.” Consider how your diet and fitness pursuits contribute to these Fitness Indicators.

I have a sense of longevity, a happier, healthier life and lifestyle
I live happier because of my diet and exercise pursuits
I have better, more sustainable energy
I am now much more comfortable with myself because of my diet and training regimen
I am a much more focused person now, in all aspects of my life, both mentally and emotionally
Because of my diet and training regimen I have much greater self-esteem
Because of my diet and training regimen I fit into nicer clothes, all the time
Because of my diet and training regimen I am much more confident

You don’t even have to “rate” the above points on a scale of 1-10. You can just answer yes or no to these fitness indicators. How “fit” are you looking now, in terms of real and true three-dimensional fitness?

Are you now, having considered all of the bullet points above, "more fit" as a result of pursuing your "fitness lifestyle"? If not, then something is wrong here. And if you have a coach and still are scoring low on these indicators, then you need to fire that person!

Look at these above bullet points again and what they speak to. Your fitness and diet pursuits are supposed to be empowering to your life. They should be enhancing your self-awareness and body-awareness. They should not be making you more body-image conscious. AND SHAME ON THOSE COACHES WHOSE FEEDBACK TAKES AWAY THE FORMER AND INSTILLS THE LATTER. Fire them already!

Since when did how you look and how you feel get turned upside down with regards to the definition of “fitness”?

You need to ask yourself in terms of the bullet points (the fitness indicators) above, and in terms of the definition of fitness being “an enhanced ability to meet the daily demands of life with ease.” Is my life better, and am I more fit, because of my pursuit of the fitness lifestyle and my diet and training regimen? Many of you will find you are actually in poorer mental and emotional fitness than when you began. How upside down and backwards is that?

You need to be able to do a quick check list that enlightens the difference between what a diet and training pursuit is adding to your life and what it is taking away from it. For instance, choose yes or no for each of the following bullet points:

I have a fitness routine that works for me, mentally, emotionally, physically (Yes/No)
I have an eating plan that works for me mentally, emotionally, physically (Yes/No)
I feel results from my “fitness” pursuits, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually (Yes/No)
I see the results, in my life, and for my life, from my diet and training regimen- mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually (Yes/No)

Remember, the true definition of "fitness" is "the ability to meet the demands and vicissitudes of daily life with ease, with extra energy to spare if needs be." This definition applies to your life mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, not just physically. This three-dimensional definition of fitness leads to wellness. True fitness is the key foundation for all aspects of triumph in your life, and for your life. Our hypothetical author above is “fit.” Are you?

How “fit” are you looking now? As fit or more fit than our author example above?

It strikes me as incredibly ironic, moronic, and even sad, that when viewed this way, a simple look at the definition of fitness shows how unfit many people become by compartmentalizing the fitness pursuit into the realm of training and diet only at the expense of everything else being "better."

And more's the pity that the coaches and trainers who get away with reinforcing this “unfit” and “not fit” element of focus back onto their clients! Life-fitness, folks, is about a whole hell of a lot more than how you fit your diet and training. It should be about how well your diet and training fits you! (And yes, I use the word "fit" here deliberately)

Coaching should be about coaching people, and seeing their needs and empowering them in process. The process “IS” the result.

So again, I ask the question, "how fit are you" because of your pursuit of diet and training? Is your life enhanced?

Some of you will get it, many of you will not.

But my hope is this serves as a huge wake-up call, especially for those of you whom actually pay other people to reinforce upon you a diet and training emphasis at the expense of an ability to meet with ease the daily demands of your life mentally, emotionally, and physically, rather than empowering your ability to do so!

A focus on externals like dieting and training, at the expense of internal subjective experience, is a travesty, not a skill set.

And so, let the bomb throwing begin.

Tempo-Schmempo: Enough Already

2011-04-18T06:00:00.001-04:00

Lately I’ve been receiving a lot of letters and inquiries from trainees regarding their programs and results. There seems to be a common thread emerging. When I am asked to review their current program and I relate it to their level of experience and development, there seems to be no connection. And worse, lately there seems to be an overemphasis on instruction; particularly tempo training. I do not want to bore people with a lot of junk science here, even though I could, so I will get to the point in this piece as to why an over-focus on tempo training is actually detrimental to both short term and long term cosmetic physique goals; whether these goals are muscle development or leanness, or both.

Over-Instruction

When I look at some of these programs and the break down of reps schemes into 3-4 various tempos per rep, I ask why? Sometimes even I don’t even understand these workouts on paper. And I couldn’t imagine trying to implement them in an actual workout. As Gambetta and Santana, myself, and so many others have put it, “too much instruction kills a workout.” This overemphasis on tempos does not enhance the trainee’s workout experience because it improperly leaves the impression that the “tempo” of each rep is the element of focus. This is an emphasis on what I call “external cues.” Yet the appropriate emphasis and the one with the better pay off for short and long term gains should always be on “internal cues” of enhancing the mind/muscle connection and working as intensely close to optimum work capacity as possible. This has nothing to do with “tempos” and everything to do with what I call performance mastery. The problem for the modern trainee is the illusion that over-instruction is somehow “advanced.” Yet the actuality is that complicated is worse, not better, for performance enhancement. To be precise, “advanced” does not = complicated and just because protocol design is simple does not mean it is easy. Yet the modern trainee continues to be persuaded that complicated is = to ‘advanced.’

Fundamentals

There are two expressions from pro sports I use often to illustrate this point. One is “the devil is in the details.” And the second one, borrowed from both the NFL and my friend Trevor Timmins who is head scout for the NHL’s Montreal Canadians is that “stats are for losers.” If you study pro sports as closely as I have for some three decades now, you notice a pattern. When an amateur becomes pro, the first thing the coaches and trainers do at training camp is take them back to a focus on fundamentals. Let’s examine this a bit. Here is an athlete who has been working at his craft at a high level for a good 10-15 years by the time he is drafted: Yet once he turns pro, his emphasis is back on fundamentals. We need to apply this same emphasis to the modern bodybuilding trainee.

My focus is always on the training principles being properly applied to a trainee at the proper time, and in context with his level of development, anatomical leverage, and his goals. Fancy tempos have little to do with the application of protocol in this regard. My focus will yield results for 90% of trainees, 90% of the time. I think that is a good success formula to follow. Yet, the industry continues to extrapolate from the 10% deviation, where something may have been useful for an athlete in a particular and specific context. Then the attempt is made to generalize a “formula” to apply to all trainees. This once again represents slotting the person into the program, rather than moulding the program to suit the person. For instance if I have two trainees, and one is 6 ft 4”, basketball type build, and the other person is a more normal stocky frame 5 ft 7” build then having them both train with a “tempo emphasis” of say, 2 second concentric, 4 second eccentric, with a one second static hold; does not compensate for the difference in their unique anatomical leverage advantages and disadvantages. It’s an illusion of control with too much instruction.

It also leads to the question, “who decides?” Experts start arguing whether the 4 second eccentric should be 3 seconds, or maybe 5 seconds, arguing over scientific research, instead of assessing and evaluating the actual trainee’s needs. Is a 3 second eccentric phase better than a 5 second one? It doesn’t matter! That is an emphasis on minutia. It continues to amaze me how skinny little runts who have never been there, never done that, use scientific research to pontificate useless positions regarding training. Oh, but don’t they all look so smart in doing so – which seems to become the point I guess. It is rather quite ridiculous. Just another old man hiding behind a curtain calling himself the great and might Oz. But I digress...

The reality of the 90% application principle is as follows: A program should be about exercise selection and exercise sequence. A program should be about rep schemes and rep ranges. [b]And the focus of the program should be greater than the focus on the workout.[/b] Read that sentence again, 10 X’s! The program must consider not just the immediate, but the residual and cumulative elements of ongoing application as well. In terms of tempo, simple is better. We need to get back to a training emphasis that is scientific in structure but still enables more of “da fun” rather than “da mental” of fundamentals. And for building a physique there are two relevant cadences. And the word “cadence” is a far more appropriate term, than the word “tempo.”

Two Cadences

The two relevant cadences for a bodybuilding trainee or training for physique development- are the “explosive emphasis” and the “constant tension” emphasis. Explosiveness does not have to do with how fast the implement moves, but rather the “intent” of contraction. (here is the internal cue emphasis again.) Obviously if I am lifting a max weight for say 5 reps, and I have to control it through a full range of motion - this weight will move much slower than a lower percentage max load weight would move, even though my “intent” is to explode on that weight. (I suggest people see my 6 Days Hybrid video to see this implementation in action over the course of a program.)

The constant tension emphasis is to keep the resistance on the muscle through the entire intended ROM. I think this is where “tempo training” emphasis may have started and gotten off track. Within the constant tension application, a trainee should be free to “keep a workout alive” by varying cadence and rhythm from one workout to the next. (without getting too crazy with it.)

The training “fact” involved here is that “muscles stretched with resistance, receive the most overload.” This necessitates an emphasis on “training the muscle, not the movement.” And the trainee “fact” involved here is that subjective trainee experience of protocol is more important than blind adherence to objective instruction.
This is what I refer to as “training economy.” There seems to be a popular trend in the industry to dismiss the modern pro bodybuilder as being a result of a lot of drugs and tremendous genetics. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water here. All the steroids do is enhance the effect of the cumulative aspects of training protocol. So there are great lessons here for learning by example. If anyone was to peruse some of the pro bodybuilder video clips, you would see almost entirely a focus on the two cadences I mentioned above; with little to no focus on “tempos” being written down in a book like some biblical ten commandments. It’s this “feel” for the training experience which the high level bodybuilders establish. This is that mind/muscle connection referred to above. So in application, simple but not easy cadence would look something like this, let’s say in a shoulder workout:

Application:

1) DB Bent laterals - 4 X’s 8-15
2) Seated DB Side Laterals - 3 X’s 15, 12, 10, 8
3) BB upright rows - 3 X’s 20, 15, 12, 10
4) Overhead Cable Rear Delts - 3 X’s 15
5) Seated DB or Machine Press - 3 X’s 12-15

So in adhering to the proper cadence application of explosive reps, and constant tension reps, here’s how it applies:
The first one or two exercises of each workout has an emphasis on being “explosive” meaning controlling the weight implement in the eccentric phase but “exploding” on it to complete the concentric portion of the lift. Exercises 3-5, switch the emphasis to constant tension with no pausing at the bottom or top of the movement performance from start to completion of each rep within the set. Then, and this is important: Next workout, merely switch the order of the above exercises and stick to the same application of cadence and rep schemes in exercises 1-5. This is how the smart and intuitive pros do it. Simple, but not easy!

Occam ’s Razor

All this over-instruction and fancy recipe applications for workouts is very frustrating for me as a coach. Complicated is not better, and complicated is not advanced! I’m reminded of the scientific premise of Occam’s razor which should serve as a reminder to keep all experts in this industry focusing on what’s relevant instead of what’s new. The premise basically dictates that "when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better." And when it comes to the principle of Overload, the two cadence application is simple, and will apply to 90% of the trainees 90% of the time. The other way of expressing the rule of Occam’s razor is that “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.” The warning of the rule of Occam’s razor is to make things as simple as possible while still holding true to the general principles involved. For me, “tempo” training is just a further emphasis of the industry of making things unnecessarily more complicated than they need to be, sometimes at the actual expense of the principles involved. But again, I emphasize, simple, does not mean easy!

Or to sum up the emphasis of this article another way, “it’s hard to teach a young dog, old tricks.”

Real-World Example

I’ve had the benefit of training many top pros or alongside top pros in my day. Many examples of this come to mind. One year, the weekend of the Arnold Classic I was training early one morning alongside Dorian Yates who came in with Steve Weinberger to do legs. After a concentrated warm up Dorian set out to do leg presses. He progressed from 8 plates to 11 plates per side over the course of a few sets. I watched like a hawk of course. As soon as I knew there was value to be gained I instructed my own training partner at the time to watch and learn. It wasn’t like Steve was yelling crazy tempo’s to Dorian. Instead what you could observe was a concentrated effort of constant tension on the leg muscles. The muscles were working the weights; the weights were not working the muscles. The reps flowed with a symmetrical cadence of concentrated effort. Again, with no external cues like tempo’s to “think” about, instead the focus was all about “concentration” on the working muscles: The mind/muscle link to “feel” the every inch of every rep of every set quality.

Again, not everything that counts can be counted! But you could witness and observe the leg muscles were getting hammered with concentrated efforts where the amount of resistance being used, was secondary to the constant tension emphasis of working to failure. Intelligent training need not be complicated training.

I had to laugh as this lesson was so sorely missed on almost everyone there who “expected” Dorian to “lift” a lot more. In fact, one guy walked up to him after his last set, and said, “Just leave the weights on there, for me.” This guy, with his pipe-stem legs, then proceeds to “add plates” to the machine, and do ¼ reps, yelling and screaming as if to say, “look at me, I just out-lifted Mr. Olympia.” Good for you Pinhead, you’re a weight-lifter, Dorian isn’t!

Lessons: simple is not easy. Too much instruction, giving trainees too much to think about, rather than concentrate on, kills a workout; it does not enhance it!

I would suggest you take the time to read my book, “The Abel Approach” to further enhance your knowledge on such things. A good adjunct to the Abel Approach is my MP3 audio lecture, “The Truth About Training.” You can listen to a sample clip of that project on my website. But for full visual expression of how these two cadences would be applied over the course of an actual program for muscle development, you really should check out my video, 6 Days Hybrid Program. You can see a clip of it through that link.

Too much focus on external cues like “tempo” can have the opposite of intended effects and kill both a workout and a program – but as usual...

Some of you will get it, some of you will not.

The Self-Destructive Nature of Willpower: The Willpower Rebellion

2011-04-04T06:00:00.000-04:00

This post has been included in Scott's E-Book: "Metabolic Damage and the Dangers of Dieting". For more information on the E-Book click the banner below.

The Calories Myth

2011-03-21T06:00:00.001-04:00

One of the prevailing industry myths that just continues falsely chugging along is the myth that calories measure metabolism. They do not. They never have. If you look up the definition of “calories” in a good dictionary or reference you will see no such reference to metabolism. The simplest definition of a calorie is “a larger unit of energy - this unit of energy is equal to the heat required to raise the temperature of 1KG of pure water by 1 degree Celsius.” – Sounds pretty complicated and mathematical, and it more or less is. But what you don’t see here is a reference to metabolism and food correspondence. That’s because this is not what calories measure and never have. At best calories can “generally” assess the energy content of a food value, but this is once again unrelated to metabolism. In fact even as a measure of food values it is not very accurate. In other words, if you look in terms of the energy of vitality, or vital energy delivered by food, this calories assessment is not all that accurate.

Let’s say some on-line calories reference guide lists 100 grams of “apple” to be 70 calories (hypothetical). Well not all 100 grams apples are going to equate to 70 calories. Moreover, depending on where that apple was grown, and even compared to what section of the orchard it is in, it will contain more or less energy and nutritional value than a comparable apple of equal size and weight. What calorie-counting gives us is a less than accurate reference range of energy values in food. But let me repeat calories do NOT measure metabolism.

In regards to metabolism think of your home furnace by comparison, because your metabolism is very similar to that. It is an internal regulatory system based on sensory data that adjusts accordingly. This has nothing to do with calorie counting any more than your home temperature has to do with the temperature outside. When you adjust your thermostat and regulate the household temperature you are doing more or less what your metabolism does. You are adjusting internal environmental settings. Whether it is 15 degrees below outside or 8 degrees above outside, your furnace doesn’t register any of that. What is going on outside your home is foreign to your furnace. It only continues to adjust and regulate and keep "automatic" the temperature inside the home. Metabolism works the same way.

Metabolism can upregulate or downregulate depending on its internal data, just like your furnace adjusts output when set to "automatic," and like when Figure competitors lose their periods before (and sometime long after) competing. This is an internal regulatory response. In this case your body’s furnace is saying there is not enough fuel to maintain specific functions so it shuts them down. This would be like if you couldn’t afford your heating bill, so you decide first to set the temperature in the house a little lower, and then to shut off heat to certain rooms you seldom use. None of this has anything to do with calories. The regulatory system is internal; it is complex, and it is built to self-sustain over the longer term. This is where industry logic and calories-counting breaks down.

Calories-in, Calories-out: Stop the Nonsense

I’ve known competitors who became so calories-balanced-obsessed that they cut broccoli spears or green beans in half so it measures “right” on the scale. This is what the myth of the calories-in, calories-out logic leads to. And it’s too bad because it’s much ado about nothing. It’s a lot of mental stress over an illusion of control that simply does not exist. But the calorie balance emphasis “seems” like it exists because the industry uses it with a focus entirely in the “immediate” realm of time. But there are three realms of time the body adjusts for: the immediate, the residual, and the cumulative. And if you look at the calories-in and calories-out, calories-balance logic, over the long term, the cumulative term, it all breaks down, and it all makes little sense. This illusory focus can create havoc on the body (and the mind). The long term emphasis of the body to monitor and maintain weight is known as the biological regulatory system of energy compensation. A short term emphasis on diet via strict calories control can disrupt this regulatory system and create unwanted results (this is discussed in my new book, Beyond Metabolism: Understanding Your Modern Diet Dilemma.)

In the immediate sense, calorie counting can seem to be working. You use it to get ready for a contest, or diet for your wedding, or whatever. And it seems fairly simple. But your metabolism is like your furnace, but even better. It has a memory. It takes stalk of calorie deprivation over the long term, and it regulates accordingly. Remember, that calories equation you think is so wonderful does not measure metabolism. And as you diet using this faulty system of logic your body’s internal regulatory system is keeping score. And it will want to return itself to “normal” as soon as it can. And it will pay whatever cost there is in doing so, regardless of calories-counting. Like the furnace, if there is not enough fuel coming in, it will lower its fuel use (down-regulating metabolism to burn less calories and store more energy).

Think about this another way: if all this calories-in, calories-out, calories-balance stuff was true in terms of fat gain, then none of the other currently held modes of metabolic manipulation could work. Carbs loading would make someone fat, because they are loading on carbs while not training. And the same is true with fat loading. How is it the industry can suspend the illogic of calories-balance when entertaining the notion of super compensation – and yet still not realize the overall regulatory system of metabolism know as metabolic compensation. Over the long term it all breaks down. And this calories-balance nonsense leads to other ridiculous myths as well, like eat less food on off days from training, so you don’t get fat. Well this is just not how the regulatory compensation system of the body works. This is the faulty logic of calories-balance, which, as I said, just breaks down over the long term.

Let’s examine the actual math a little deeper, then, to illustrate the illusion of "calorie balance." If we follow the misguided notion of calorie balance, and we project it over the long term, then we come up with answers that simply make no sense. For instance if we apply the logic of calorie balance, then taking in even 20 extra calories per day, will in fact, over 25 years period make all of us obese. First let’s examine what 20 calories even feels like. 20 calories is about the equivalent to half a large plain rice cake! 20 calories is less than a single bite of a croissant. 20 calories is less than two ounces of your favourite soda, barely more than a sip. 20 calories is less than three potato chips. 20 calories is about two bites of an apple. Get the picture? And yet if we use the calories-in, calories-out, calories-balance logic-then this 20 calories makes us all obese in a 20 year period.

Here’s the math. There are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. 20 extra calories per day X’s 365 days per year = 7300 calories, more than two pounds of fat. Over a 20 year period then, we would all gain 50 lbs and be obese by clinical standards. So, clearly something else is happening. By example, I have a female client who weekly goes out for a “cheat meal” with her husband and always partakes she says, in a bottle of wine, and a piece of cheesecake or something similar with dinner. These two together are well over the 20 calories of overeating listed above (10 to 20 X’s more in fact). And she is not all that regimented on diet during the week either. Yes, she follows protocol, but she isn’t cutting asparagus spears in half either. So by the calories balance formula she should be about 30-40 lbs heavier within the year. But this is not what happens with her. Why? BECAUSE CALORIES DO NOT MEASURE METABOLISM. You cannot externally control a complex internal regulatory system. But you can in fact disrupt and damage it by trying to do so.

As another example, our industry and the diet industry love to use sleight of hand studies and agenda to prove various diet “systems.” Almost all of them now mention "man in nature" or how man’s metabolic regulatory system developed. They use this to pump up the marketing of their diet strategies. And they almost always mention that man in nature never struggled with bodyweight or body fat. Indeed. But then they leave something out, don’t they? The evolving homosapiens they speak of were not walking around with food scales and calorie equations either, were they? Up until the 1900s very few people even knew what a calorie was. Man’s metabolic and biological struggle was one of survival, not weight maintenance. In that context as well, the whole calorie-balance idea breaks down. Everyone talks about the “feast or famine” nature of man’s metabolic evolution. When it was "time to feast" he didn’t “fatten up” much. The body’s regulatory compensation system took care of that. This external illusion of control of “calories balance” did not exist in our ancestors, not in the way proponents of modern diets like to push it on us as “proof” of their modern diet strategies.

The result of all this faulty logic is misplaced blame. Most of you end up blaming yourselves for not being able to follow rigid calorie control over the long term. Yet you fail to realize your body itself is rebelling against this external illusion of control (again, read my book). En masse it has been so drummed into your heads that calorimetry measures metabolism, that you end up just judging yourself and questioning your willpower when the calories-in/calories-out formula ends up failing over the long term. What you should be questioning is the rationale behind this faulty formula. It doesn’t work – it never worked – it will never work. The problem is that consumers in this industry approach research more as a religion than a science.

Science demands interrogation; religion is insulted by it.

Science endeavours to guard against false convictions; religions demands strict adherence to ideology. And this is really why most people can’t see through the calorie myth. The idea to just “eat less” and “burn more than you consume,” sounds great. It even sounds “mathematical.” But if this could work for longer than the course of time that will power will allow, then why wouldn’t everyone just stay in killer shape year round? Why? Because it doesn’t work that way!

And conversely you are also led to believe that muscle burns more calories than fat: This brings you right back to the same old calories equation again. – But even this is faulty logic for most people. (let’s exclude hard core competitors who take lots of drugs like GH, thyroid, steroids etc) The fact is if you replace 5 lbs. of fat with 5 lbs. of muscle – which is not easy by the way – you would increase your daily caloric expenditure by a whopping 24-25 calories per day! That’s right – the equivalent of less than a whole plain rice cake. And while you lose that fat and replace it with muscle guess what happens along with that transformation? Your body’s compensatory system kicks in to make you hungrier from the ongoing exercise which produced the transformation. Once again, the internal regulatory system, trumps the external illusion of control of the calories-myth!

I could go on, but that should give you enough to chew on for now. I really hope this blog inspires you to read my new book. If not, at least think about what is presented to you “as science” and stop following diet and fitness industry hype as if it were some religious truth.

The Calorie Myth? Stop torturing yourself!

As usual, some of you will get it, some of you will not.

Insulin Resistance? Stop the Nonsense

2011-03-07T06:00:00.009-05:00

...with relevant commentary by medical practitioner, and medical researcher and lecturer Dr. Philip Yoon, MD, MBA, CCFP(EM), FCFP Chief, Department of Emergency Medicine, Professor of Medicine.

As a preamble to this piece, which turned out to be more of an article than it is a simple blog post, I would like to publicly thank Dr. Philip Yoon for taking the time to add commentary to my writing below. Dr. Yoon is a very busy man and. like me, he values his time immensely. So we should all be grateful he would take the time to lend his considerable opinion to something like a blog entry of mine - THANK YOU, DR. YOON.

Oh how the fitness industry loves its little myths and clings to them regardless of science. And I must say the “science” of late isn’t exactly all that articulate and definitive either. But I have written about “scientism” before so I will leave that aside for now. Let’s just say a little science in the wrong hands is a dangerous weapon wielded on the uninformed. The issue with the diet and fitness industry is that they seek to “use” science to fit into an agenda. They want to sell you diets and programs.

Therefore, getting scientific information from the fitness and diet industry means it has already been filtered by them. Real science seeks the truth. It has no agenda. It has no perceptual filter. And let’s be clear, a “research finding” is not hard science. It is quite easy to interpret any research in many particular ways and means, especially if you are not educated regarding how to look at scientific research.

My 2010 Workshop Workbook, took to task many “assumed” nutritional facts. But none of this stops the machine of industry. Diet and fitness industry product promoters know they need “science” to promote agenda. People should be viewing with scepticism any such research used by these industries. They need to present certain research as “fact” so that they can promote one size fits all programs and diets.

Paleo diet, Atkins, and many others use bogus research or take research completely out of context in order to sell products en masse. But often what can be studied from the microscope is not nearly as informative and accurate as what can be observed from the macroscope. This is the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. These promoters of “diets” need a “hook” for agenda. For these particular diets and most of their off shoots, the “hook” is the anti-carb bandwagon. But before you hop on it, let’s just examine one truth, shall we?

Most promoters of low carbs to no carbs diet, or no starches want you to believe two things. The first is they want you to believe that insulin resistance is ‘an absolute’ and a modern probability of genetic predisposition. Secondly, they want you to believe that ‘man in nature’ ate primarily a carbs-free diet. Well neither of these two assumptions is true.

For the purpose of this blog I am only going to address insulin resistance. (I think there is more on this as well in my download lecture, The Science Behind the Cycle Diet, as well as in my audio download, The Truth About Diet.)

Insulin Resistance
(This is some unrelated science so you can skip it, if you like.)

Insulin resistance is often correlated to what is now known as Syndrome X. By definition, insulin resistance (and its extreme of Syndrome X) is characterized by “a collection of metabolic and hemodynamic disorders associated with coronary artery disease believed to be secondary to pronounced insulin resistance/hyperinsulinemia.” Syndrome X itself represents at least 4 elements which commonly occur together. These are central obesity (that apple shaped middle of the body) dyslipidemia (this just means elevated triglycerides with depressed HDL levels), hypertension (high blood pressure), and hyperglycaemia (high blood sugar).

The diet and fitness industry want to connect the dots of extremes of insulin resistance to “scare” you away from carbs. (Fear is often used as a marketing tactic) Unfortunately you do not really get the whole truth about insulin, insulin resistance and carbohydrate metabolism by relying on the paradigm blindness of the fitness and diet industry. So allow me to explain all of this to you, so you can stop being duped into thinking “carbs are bad” and into having buzz words like insulin resistance being used to promote bad science. Moreover let me reassure you that you are NOT carbohydrate resistant, no matter how many bogus questionnaires can be set up to get you to think that way.

Important Concepts: Let’s Examine the Facts Shall We?

We all know insulin to be a storage hormone, or as I like to say, “a storage hormone with bias.” And when we discuss insulin resistance we must always discuss the meaning of the word hyperinsulinemia.

Hyperinsulinemia

Hyperinsulinemia means exactly what you think, hyper = too much; therefore, hyperinsulinemia just means too much insulin. Fine: Most people stop there and therefore mistakenly believe that insulin is the problem and you must limit insulin production. Well the absurdities of that statement would take a chapter in a book to explain. But just let me say, that is an absurd notion (unless you are medically diabetic of course).

In real science although some statements can be made “in general” that never means they are “absolute.” In terms of insulin resistance, it is not hyperinsulinemia that is the problem; it is the receptor. The cells are producing enough insulin but insulin receptors elsewhere in the body become insensitive the circulating insulin. More often than not “events” have occurred to cause eventual down-regulation of the insulin receptor. And the events I refer to here are almost always a matter of genetics, lifestyle, and body weight. The truth is about 80% of people with type 2 diabetes insulin resistance are obese. 80 percent! The other 20 % are almost always genetically predisposed to genetic material coded for the production of an abnormal receptor-in other words they have inherited a genetic problem that does not allow the insulin receptor to work properly. As you can see this doesn’t even remotely tend to describe active individuals or more or less people of normal or regular body weight.

In terms of lifestyle and environment high fat stores down-regulate insulin receptors. This of course causes a resistance to circulating insulin. (Think of trying to pour water in a glass when the top of the glass is covered with cellophane with a pin hole or two in it.)

Without getting overly scientific here, the truth is and the conclusion is that insulin resistance is not endemic to everyone on the planet-not even remotely. Genetic predisposition and lifestyle are the most important contributors to insulin resistance. Hyperinsulinemia is just a commonly used buzzword in the fitness and diet industry that is overused without contextual relevance.

Insulin Sensitivity and Related Arguments

The solution to insulin resistance has nothing to do with creating fear over the insulin hormone, which is ridiculous. The solution lies in creating a receptor which is simply more sensitive to circulating insulin. You do not accomplish this by avoiding foods which cause insulin to rise or even to spike. These notions run counter to our evolved physiologies. And to tell the truth there are many other foods which cause an insulin spike besides just carbohydrates.

Insulin sensitization is accomplished in very simple ways. Exercise and healthy diets are two of them. That’s right, the fact you exercise regularly is actually a treatment against insulin resistance. And healthy eating does not mean “low carb eating.” It simply means avoiding eating an abundance of processed and refined foods, as well as avoiding overeating. This is the plain truth. When proponents of specific diets try to convince you that the reason you cannot meet your diet goals is because you are predisposed to insulin resistance, they are simply speaking in fantasy. They are either uninformed on what science has to say, or they are charlatans promoting an agenda. Reducing body fat by portion control alone can lead to insulin sensitization. This was one of the points made by brilliant nutritionist Mark Haub, whose weight loss diet was dubiously labelled, “The Twinkie Diet.” Of course his results sent shock waves through the nutrition and diet industry. They completely missed the point of his research and they were the ones to label the diet, “The Twinkie Diet” to make it easier to cast doubt and aspersions on his conclusions. I discuss the relevance of Mark Haub’s work in my new book, Beyond Metabolism, Understanding Your Modern Diet Dilemma. The simple truth is calories control at relative caloric deficits, combined with regular exercise, is the surest means of guarding against insulin resistance. It has little or nothing to do with low carbs diets.

The Mistaken Logic: The Untruth

The mistaken logic portrayed by the diet and fitness industry works like this: Hyperinsulinemia is a marker for several diseases. And carbohydrates ingestion causes the greatest release of insulin. Therefore the conclusion they jump to is that if you avoid carbohydrate intake or keep it to a minimum then you avoid hyperinsulinemia and therefore avoid insulin resistance. This is nonsense.

The real truth is yes carbohydrate ingestion causes the release of insulin. But carbohydrate ingestion does not cause hyperinsulinemia. That is an unethical leap from science to agenda. The argument that X=Y and then Y=Z, does not mean X=Z. The problem is the insulin receptor, not insulin in and of itself. Stop the nonsense. The truth is high complex carbohydrate diets can lower insulin levels. And for athletes or anyone in intense regular training, a higher carbohydrate diet is truly the “correct” one.

I do not know of a single athlete outside of the fitness industry who even attempts to train competitively with a low carbohydrate or keto-type diet.

Lie #2: Man in Nature Ate a Low Carb Diet and Therefore So Should You

This lie for some reason keeps gaining more and more traction. But like the old saying goes, if one million people believe a lie, that still doesn’t make it a truth. I’ve been studying populations and cultural eating history in depth for about two years now, even more actually. I can tell you man evolved as an omnivore. He ate what his environment provided. For the Inuit generations ago, yes this meant whale meat and whale blubber and mostly protein and fats. But for almost all other developing cultures, starch became the main food staple that guaranteed survival of the species. In Asia, this need was met with rice, in North and South America the need was met with corn; in Eastern Europe and Islands the need was met with “tubers” (potatoes) and other available starches. It is a “myth” that man ate a starch free diet and thrived on it. Most of early man’s pursuit of food was one of calories, not macro proportions. Any other depiction is simply untrue.

A look at the epidemiological data and meta-analysis shows the traditional diets of most cultures consisted primarily of complex carbohydrate content, very little fat, and of course higher fibre. This is the tendency across cultures when such foods were available. This is how our cultures evolved and this is our true inherited nature of metabolism. Syndrome X and atherosclerotic disease were virtually unheard of in any culture until the era of mass food production and processing. There are plenty of studies as well as my own practice that clearly indicate that insulin resistance can actually be lowered with a high carbohydrate, low fat, calories controlled diet which includes some exercise.

And what about performance?

There is absolutely little doubt that sports performance and brain function are both impaired by low carbohydrate diets, regardless of calories level. And the reverse is also true. A low calories diet, with substantial starch carbohydrates produces higher performance and improved sense of well-being. And real science backs this up.

One study was designed to look at carbohydrate intake performance. The great thing about this study which made it especially viable is that it compared an individual’s performance against himself on various diet strategies. Participants exercised to exhaustion after following varying diets for 3 days. The diets were either high-fat diet, normal diet, or high carbohydrate diet. On the high carbohydrate diet performance was best by far. High carb intake led to much higher glycogen content in the muscles. (And for knowing the importance of that, check out my audio download, The Truth About Diet.) Moreover, the higher carbohydrate group was able to exercise three times longer before exhaustion compared to their own selves on the high fat diet (180 minutes vs. 57 minutes). The benefits of this cannot be understated to anyone who understands the exercise principle of work capacity. Lower carbohydrate diets just lead to a quicker draining of glycogen reserves. This is akin to driving with your gas tank being half-diluted with water.

Then why all the buzz about low-carb diets and insulin resistance?

Well the buzz is all about the agenda of the fitness and diet industry combined with the ever increasing numbers of insulin resistance in the general population. However these numbers are skewed. Most people who develop insulin resistance have a long history of overeating and overeating highly processed and refined carbohydrates and fats at that. Once again, the logic is just faulty to the point of being ridiculous.

For someone eating a whole foods diet with no commercial cereals or commercially prepared foods, carbohydrates will not be a problem. In fact, in the context of a whole foods, unprocessed diet intake, high carbohydrates are the way to go; they're better for performance, better in terms of the likelihood of long-term diet compliance, and better for a general sense of mental and emotional well-being.

To summarize, insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia are mostly associated in real life with diets that are considered “diets of modern western culture.” This means diets that are mostly composed of high fats, unhealthy fats, processed, refined carbs and prepared commercial foods. If that description fits you then you need a new diet strategy. If it does not fit the way you eat, then stop letting diet and fitness industry fear-mongering affect your thinking.

Hyperinsulinemia results because of a rigid cell membrane environment from excessive and prolonged intake of saturated fats and/or refined processed carbohydrates. Because of these factors the body must pump out more insulin than normal to attempt to bring down blood sugar. It is the fat on the insulin receptor that is the key problem. This is what hyperinsulinemia is and what causes it. It is not a reason to avoid whole food, starchy carbohydrate consumption.

The simple scientific truth that is unarguable is that regular exercise, both or either aerobic or anaerobic can be prevent insulin resistance by improving insulin sensitivity and controlling body weight. Avoiding starchy carbohydrates is a losing proposition in terms of long-term diet sustainability and wellness. Only people with a marked agenda would argue otherwise. If you exercise regularly and eat healthy then you are not likely insulin-resistant, you only think you are!

So let me be perfectly clear in conclusion:

Insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia do not cause weight gain or a tendency to be overweight. Insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia are the results of being overweight! Let’s get this science right side up, and stop selling diet agendas to perfectly healthy people. If you eat well and exercise then most likely... you are not carb-resistant!

STOP THE NONSENSE!

And Now Relevant Commentary by Dr. Philip Yoon, MD, MBA, CCFP(EM), FCFP Chief, Department of Emergency Medicine

A couple of years ago, I attended to a 22-year-old male bodybuilder who presented to the Emergency Department with a chief complaint of “constipation.” Upon questioning, he indicated that he had not had a bowel movement in over 12 days! Furthermore, he had spent the last month taking a “meat only” diet – advice he got from his “coach.” “Why did you go on this diet?” I asked. “Because I was told it would let me cut weight and look huge,” he answered sheepishly. I asked him if he thought it was a good idea when he first got the advice. “Well, no. But I needed an edge,” is the response I got.

In the course of my assessment, I also found several electrolyte abnormalities, a resulting cardiac rhythm abnormality and a state of dehydration bad enough to require an 18-hour ER stay so that I could correct his fluid and electrolyte problems as well as administer several enemas… I would’ve used dynamite if I could.

Scott Abel has expertly articulated what low carb diets and insulin resistance is all about. The misinformation surrounding these topics is not only unhealthy, but it can be downright dangerous. Limiting the intake of carbohydrates can induce a state called “ketosis”, and this facilitates weight loss through the induction of urination. The resulting metabolic derangements and dehydration can lead to constipation, fatigue, kidney stones, abnormally low blood pressure, and other major complications.

The human body is an incredibly complex machine involving an unimaginable number of inter-related biochemical mechanisms that allow it to perform all of the daily functions of life. The body has a tendency to always maintain a state of “homeostasis” – a stable equilibrium between interdependent elements. Unfortunately, many of us impose all kinds of extreme conditions on our body to upset that equilibrium, which consequently leads to our body “rebelling.” Overuse a muscle and it will tear. Underuse it, and it will atrophy. Treat it right, and it will perform. The same goes for nutrition.

We all know that the human body needs protein, fats AND carbohydrates. Disrupt that balance and eventually your body will decompensate – sometimes in gradual, subtle ways, and in some instances in a very dramatic fashion. Insulin secretion is a NORMAL function of our bodies, and carbohydrate metabolism is a NORMAL function required for physical and mental activity. I must echo Scott’s warning that fear is often used as a marketing tactic to scare people into thinking insulin and carbohydrates are the villains of a healthy state. Obesity and inactivity are the real villains (and unfortunately some of us fight bad genetics, but even if you are genetically predisposed to developing diabetes, a balanced proportion of carbohydrates in your diet and regular physical activity will still help and certainly will not harm you).

We are frequently peppered with claims of “special diets” doing all kinds of amazing things from rapid weight loss to increased energy to superior athletic performance. You will hear the “carbohydrate is the culprit” philosophy (as exemplified by the Atkins and Zone diets) or “fat is the enemy” mantra of the Ornish diet. What is ideal is something that we all already know and has withstood the test of time – a balanced, clean diet with an appropriate regular exercise program. Portion control, consistency, and the limiting of processed foods (usually the center aisles of your local grocery store) are some of the obvious pillars of healthy eating. And here is the real secret for weight loss: Calories expended by physical activity must be greater than calories ingested. Yup – it has always been that simple, yet as Scott has explained, the fitness and diet industry will try to convince you that it is something way more complicated than that.

In the quest for that “edge,” many of us are like my patient that I described above. We are tempted to deviate from common sense because our fear, anxiety, and weakness convince us that we will fail without some sort of “extreme” or “special” measure. We look “out there” for the answer among all sorts of claims that our boring and dull (yet tried and true) balanced diet and regular physical exertion will harm us or lead us to failure. We really only need to look within ourselves for strength, discipline, and the enjoyment of maintaining a healthy life.

Phil Yoon, MDMD, MBA, CCFP(EM), FCFP Chief
Department of Emergency Medicine
Professor of Emergency Medicine

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Scott Abel for providing me with this opportunity to comment on this important topic. Scott is a true scholar in that he carefully and thoroughly considers much data around nutrition and fitness. He has translated his experience into wisdom for all. I feel privileged to be able to add to his blog. - PY

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References (added by me, not Dr. Yoon)
You on a Diet, 2006

“Role of Diet and Exercise in the Management of Hyperinsulinemia and Associated Atherosclerotic Risk Factors.” (American Journal of Cardiology, 1992)

“Insulin Resistance, Hyperinsulinemia, and cardiovascular disease. The need for novel dietary prevention strategies.” (Basic Research in Cardiology, 1992)

“High-Carbohydrate, high-fibre diets increase peripheral insulin sensitivity in healthy young and old adults.” (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1990)

American Diabetes Association Guidelines

Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, 10th edition. (This book has substantial other references and sources on this topic as well)

Mission Statement and Commentary

2011-02-21T10:20:00.001-05:00

I think since my last couple of industry blogs it has become obvious to me that I need to make some kind of commentary here. Since my last blog post I have turned down coaching requests from five different pro card holders. One was a bikini pro, three were Figure Pros, and one was a male pro bodybuilder. I screen all potential clients, just like I wish all potential clients would screen their coaches. I could not find it within myself to say yes to coaching these “pros.” I certainly have nothing against them. But I need to make clear something which I thought was rather obvious by now. “Pro card” standing and even “competitor” standing does not mean a whole lot to me. I am not “impressed” just because someone has or is qualified to compete for a pro card. I spent many years inside that world and I left it for a reason. As the saying goes, “been there, done that, earned the T-Shirt, and earned the hat.” So what? I find no challenge in that for me anymore. And I also find it a bit hypocritical as a coaching pursuit. Frankly, for me there is no challenge in dialing someone in to their best-condition-ever for the stage. It is not nearly as complicated as other coaches want people to believe. And what’s more I have trouble with it now, because I see what competing can do to people on a scale I never could have imagined before.

I find it awkward for coaches to advise women to take male hormones, anti-estrogen drugs, thyroid hormone, beta agonists, Growth Hormone and whatever else to compete in a contest that is supposed to consider “femininity” as a judging criterion. I also find it completely beyond unethical to counsel any competitor that these things are safe, “as long as you know what you are doing.” And such comments usually come from people who have never consulted with doctors, endocrinologists, pharmacists, or anyone of accredited expertise. And I think any rational person who has been where I have been in the industry and seen what I have seen, would also more than likely come to the same conclusion. So, let me be clear here: I am out of the hardcore end of the competition industry. I thought that much would have been obvious to readers.

I had to turn down these potential clients because they admitted that they suffer many of the things I write about in my articles and blogs. And yet, they were under the mistaken impression they can “compete their way to wellness.” I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but for the majority of people I assess, competing is the source of the problem, and not the solution. One young lady even asked me if I could recommend a coach who could help her deal with her food/eating issues while still training and dieting for a pro card. These two things cannot mutually exist, so I had to turn her down. I would love to help her, and I would even bet dollars to donuts that she will be back. But no one can reconcile eating/diet/food/weight issues or metabolic damage while thinking they can compete at the same time. It is not possible. And this is not "opinion."

Let me be clear: the demographic of the hardcore competitor is not my target audience or my client-base, and it has not been for quite some time. As I said I find no challenge in that world for me, and I no longer relate to it in any way. I don’t understand such an obsessive pursuit that is willing to put real life on hold and risk real social, psychological, and metabolic damage in doing so. Why would anyone want to take such a risk? Because they think it leads somewhere? Please! As the song goes, “You’re going somewhere, but I’ve been to somewhere, and I found it was nowhere at all.”

But I can address the world-wide demographic of the clients I do have. I have several demographic types of clients who challenge me and my expertise. First, I have people who just want to be challenged by fun programs that will fit into the scope of their life. Their fitness goals are less grand but more realistic as well. They want their diets and fitness pursuits to be a part of their lives, and not consume their lives. I like the challenge in that. I like the authenticity of that as well. And I like that this requires coaching that is productive in terms of lending to someone’s life and not detracting from it. I have clients who also want to hone their bodies, and devote a lot of time and energy to that pursuit as well. They just do not want to have to take pharmaceutical enhancements to do so. I enjoy the challenge of this demographic as well. I also have clients who want to work on a more positive and empowering body image for themselves. I find this group challenging for me, and allows me to stretch my coaching muscles in many other areas beyond diet and program. And of course I have clients who are athletes who need a unique combination of various training techniques and challenges, and this always keeps me on my toes. I like that my client-base has expanded well-beyond the competitor stage.

And far and away my most challenging group of clients are those former competitors or extreme dieters who have developed eating/food/weight/diet issues because of competing, or they have developed metabolic damage, or they have developed psychological and behavioural issues from competition experiences and dieting. I find this demographic most challenging for me. I also feel I owe them all I can do for them.

I am well aware there are certain websites where competitors go and my name is persona-non-grata. So be it. These websites would also have wannabe competitors believing that the risks of competing are minimal. They would have competitors believe the risks of metabolic damage are over-stated; and they would have wannabe competitors believe that the psychological damage is a non-issue. (And I won’t even address the “drug-counseling” that goes on.) Well I just simply choose to defer from taking part in all of that.

I am deluged each and every year by a new batch of burned out competitors who have issues most people cannot even imagine. And if I had a dime for every time I heard the line, “I wish I had listened to you the first time I read your stuff...”

I know its popular now to attack me on various competitor sites as well. It is what it is. “Kill the messenger” is the tactic of the weak, and those who choose to live in denial. I understand it. But there is also a level of insecurity behind it as well. Many of these wannabe experts and online Gurus are simply intimidated by what they do not understand, or whom they cannot understand. I am also not surprised that many are hostile toward my being unimpressed by a pro card status in the physique industry. I understand all of it. But the level of attacks makes little sense. I am not pursuing securing the business of the hardcore high level competitor. You need not worry about me, in terms of being the enemy and competing for the client-base of the modern competitor. I don’t really care if I ever train another competitor ever again. Like I said, there is little challenge for me in that pursuit. And I would rather be part of the solution to what I have uncovered. The unfortunate thing is that these other “Gurus’” perceive a “me vs. them” thing going on. It need not be that way at all. You don’t need to hate chocolate to love vanilla. We need not be enemies. We should be on the same side. And that is looking out first and foremost for the well-being of our clients. That should make us brothers in arms. Unfortunately that is not reality.

But I will deliver the truth. I will not stop. I will speak about what I know, what I see, what I research and what it tells me. My goal is to be of service, not to pad my resume. My “reputation” is something I care less about each and every year. If the truth makes people uncomfortable then they need to look in the mirror, I think. I am not out to attack anyone personally. The truth is not about personalities, but about methods of madness. And something needs to be done, and people need to speak up for real knowledge instead of what passes for it, and for real coaching instead of what passes for it. The truth has no agenda. I understand my Blogs and works have been restricted or banned on certain sites. And I get intense and quite vulgar hate mail as well after each one. But I also get tremendously touching personal letters from people who need and want my help. And these letters far outnumber the bitter ones.

Social media is still getting my stuff out there and delivering my messages. And this may be on a much more restricted scale now, but I am fine with that. It seems my writings and my works are finding an audience. This tells me that other people relate to the truth I am speaking.

I also like the changes these new kinds of clients have brought to my life, and the direction it has taken me in my research and my abilities. I like that people who attend my workshops are doctors, biologists, PHDs, coaches, athletes. My last workshop had doctors in attendance, Olympic Team coaches, former Olympic athletes, PHDs, and mentoring students of my own.

I like that I get phone calls from graduate students who quote my work in their graduate thesis. I like that I receive calls from doctors who are beginning research in these areas of body image disorder, metabolic damage, diet-induced eating disorders and the like, and they want to talk to me. I have learned you cannot fully grab onto to something new until you completely let go of something old. The modern hardcore physique competitor is not my client-base and not my client-niche and not my interest. I have let go of that world-so you can all stop being so threatened by me.

But I have an ever growing client base of regular people who want a little more out of life and some expertise to guide them. And let me also be clear on this mission statement as well: I am also here for the rest of my career for anyone who ends up unfortunately ravaged by their competitive experience, either emotionally, psychologically, or metabolically. And I have to say, working with people from all walks of life is much more challenging, much more invigorating, and much more rewarding for me as well.

I wish metabolic damage didn’t exist. But it does. I wish competing didn’t induce eating disorders and food issues. But it does. I wish competing didn’t lead to broken marriages and ruined relationships, but it does. I wish competing didn’t ever lead to serious psychological and emotional issues. But it does. I wish competing didn’t lead people to be so insecure for the rest of the lives about their bodies, comparing the body they live in most of the time, to the unsustainable stage-body, they achieved for a matter of hours. But it does.

I just could not turn my back on all that I was witnessing in the competing game. I decided to look into it, maybe do something about it, maybe help a few people. I had no idea just how pervasive the damage really is. And now those floodgates have opened. And now I know. Many of you do as well, although you won’t admit it on public forums. What I fail to understand is the level of attack I receive for trying to do some good. But I am good with that. I learned a long time ago that as a leader you must be willing to stick your neck out; and when you do, there will always be people who will see that stretched neck as a chance to lop off your head. I am into my fourth decade of professional coaching now. I don’t think I am going anywhere.

For me coaching is rewarding because it is not about me. It is about my clients. I choose to coach wellness above all. And wellness is a blend of coaching someone not just to what is achievable, but to what is sustainable as well.

I guess you could consider this a combination of a mission-statement and personal commentary.

Some of you will get it; some of you will not.

How Extreme Diets and Contest Diets Can Precipitate Eating Disorders and Food Issues

2011-02-07T05:43:00.006-05:00

Many of you have written me to either thank me for the last Blog post or to ask me to expand on it some more, so I will do so here. The first point to make is that there is absolutely no doubt that extreme diets-and this includes contest diets, can lead to eating disorders and disordered eating: food issues/weight issues/diet issues etc. And this is not “opinion.” This is well researched fact. Anyone who tries to present a counter-position to this is either ignorant of the research or just plain irresponsible. Does it happen to everyone? No. Can it happen to everyone? Absolutely. And the point to make here is that if you are reading this and you suffer from some sort of post-diet eating or food issue, the fault is not your own. It doesn’t mean you are weak in character or whatever other things you have been told. So let’s examine how extreme diets can lead to eating and food issues. This is in fact well-researched and highly regarded material. It just has not been applied to the fitness industry before-and more’s the shame in that.

Let’s talk about the realities of contest dieting. By nature contest diets are extreme. And they are extreme because they necessitate taking the body beyond comfortable and natural physiological bodyweight set points to force lower bodyweights and lower body fat levels in order to be “stage-ready.” To pretend this is without consequence is to choose observational-blindness. The following is a brief delineation of how contest diets lead to eating disorders, food issues etc. Some of you will get it. Some of you will not.

The strict contest-diet eliminates not only food quantity but food variety as well. While in this state of caloric deprivation, restriction, and rigidity-competitors are also overwhelming their bodies with physical demands of training. And when combined with calories-deficit this training consequence has various levels of emotional impact as well. Most competitors find themselves far more emotionally sensitive near the end of a contest-diet run.

During the course of the contest-diet the physical state of hunger, and the emotional state of exhaustion create a heightened sense of arousal. This arousal exists on two fronts. One is the level of competitor exhaustion. This becomes an actual emotional state- and all intense emotional states-especially negative ones-seek relief from being in that state. Furthermore the heightened sense of emotional arousal combined with physical hunger leads to a cognitive association to food as reward. As the contest draws nearer the emotional arousal level which seeks relief becomes more intense. The cognitive association of connecting food-reward as part of the celebration of the contest date becomes more intertwined.

And it also becomes much more intense. Some competitors are not able to sleep for days before a contest-not just because they are excited for the contest-but because they anticipate being able to break their emotional exhaustion and hunger by finally having this anticipated food reward. Food becomes associated with emotional reward, celebration, achievement etc. And as the contest looms, the anticipation of the food reward becomes more intense. This is known in psychology as “attention-bias.” Food as reward starts to take on more and more focus and attention and stronger and stronger emotional value as well. Anyone who has competed understands this to be true.

Unfortunately, they just have never had the potential consequences of this explained to them.

For weeks before the contest there has developed a strong and emotionally-connected attention-bias toward food indulgence. And this is made more intense by diet deprivation and food denial. (This is all well-documented among diet researchers.) This is known as sensitivity-bias. This means when an emotional reward is denied, as in food deprivation, it ends up creating even greater psychological value in a person’s mind. Once this happens it sets in motion a cycle of behaviour to pursue the object of the emotional reward. And this pursuit now has incredible emotional power behind it. This is actually an inherited survival trait from our ancestors. It helps focus our attention on immediate survival needs.

The actual competition phase of food restriction without relief-combined with physical exhaustion sets a cycle of behaviour in motion. And that cycle is to pursue food as an emotional reward. This has little to do with metabolism and everything to do with survival instincts. This cycle is often referred to as “cue-induced-anticipation.” The psychological attention- bias created by food restriction and denial sets in motion a heightened emotional state. And this state is one that not only anticipates food as reward, but heightens the reward value of food by doing so.

The diet has created a strong cognitive association to food as an emotional reward. And the state of physical hunger and exhaustion has also created an emotional state that seeks relief from being in that state. This is all quite natural and quite predictable really. Anyone who has been around an extreme dieter can bear witness to their lack of patience, irritability, and what I call competitor ADD. This is all a consequence of the heightened emotional state of arousal and hunger-both of which seek relief. So, since relief is imposed upon the competitor by delay; the result is various levels of emotional agitation. And this state also seeks relief.

Then contest day comes and goes. Immediately the competitor takes part in a food reward to celebrate the achievement and to relieve the acute hunger state and the heightened state of emotional arousal. Two things are happening here. Once the pursuit of food reward is achieved and indulged in, this heightens the anticipated emotional value of having a stake in food as being emotionally rewarding. It is not going to stop just because the contest is over. This is now a “process” and it plays itself out in repeated cycles. This has nothing to do with metabolism and everything to do with emotional states.

The problem is that the process of dieting for a contest induced heightened emotional states on many fronts. These states are either rewarded or relieved now, with food. Food becomes the object of reward, attention, and emotional value. (Believe it or not, emotionally-speaking this is not far off from a toddler who seeks out his “blankie” for emotional relief and reward: It is the same level of cognitive association happening-and the resultant cue/urge/anticipation/reward/habit cycle.

There are two major ways (as well as some minor ones) this emotionality plays out. When you expect the indulgent food to bring pleasure (as in say, post-contest anticipated meal) this expectation amplifies the reward. This is called positive reinforcement value. And when you expect the food to bring relief from distress (as in say physical hunger and physical exhaustion) this is known as negative reinforcement value. And this also serves to intensify the reward.

So what we now have is a post-contest, post-diet situation where the emotionally rewarding value of food indulgence is magnified many times over. And this is registered in the psyche as a direct connection.

This leads to the psychological concept of “expectancy.” See, now there is an associated and “expected” response in the reward center of the brain that food indulgence delivers psychic reward; in either of the ways mentioned above. The actual act of eating the indulgent food is now to attain the desired emotional reward, not the actual value of the food experience. So, at this point food becomes something else entirely in the brain. It is no longer the taste of the food the person craves, but rather the emotional pay off he/she expects to get out of it. And remember this pay off can be some kind of emotional reward or distraction, or it can be the payoff of relieving unwanted current emotional states-boredom, worry, anxiety, whatever.

As most indulgent eaters know -this cycle of urge, desire, anticipation and relief, can take on a life of its own. This is no longer a diet or metabolic issue. It is now an emotional awareness issue. And if one diet attempt leads to another, (as it does in competitors one contest to the next) then this intense focus on food as reward can become a crushing obsession leading to diet/eating/food issues; and the accompanying mental and emotional torment.

For example I’ve often witnessed and written about the post-contest period for competitors. It often leads to post event depression. I’ve likened this in previous articles to post-partum depression. The competitor works long and hard toward one goal; but that goal comes and is gone in a moment. This leaves a tremendous emotional vacuum. And for some competitors this emotional vacuum leads to post-contest depression, anxiety over post-contest weight gain. More often than not it leads to the state of dysphoria (emptiness). All of these represent, you guessed it, “heightened states of emotional arousal.”

HOWEVER, the pre-contest experience has led to the competitor to associate food as an emotional reward-one that relieves unwanted emotional states; and this cycle still has tremendous emotional reward value. It should be easy to understand then that in the post-contest period, any heightened state of emotion, even boredom, can lead someone to seeking food as a reward. And the reason is because this process has been set in motion by ill-fated deprivation diets that create emotional states that seek both relief and reward. This process is not only likely to continue in the post-contest period, it is just as likely to intensify as well.

This is how extreme diets and contest-diets can lead to intense eating disorders/disordered eating/food/weight and diet issues as well. It is quite understandable and even predictable for certain personality types. Not many coaches are going to make this kind of psychological assessment in regards to a wannabe competitor’s pre- contest psychological preparedness. Still others will try to pass all this off as "nothing to worry about" or "that’s his opinion."

Well, this is not "opinion." This is the latest arena of psychological research in to eating/diet/food issues. Not facing this is irresponsible. It would be like a coach telling a parent of a young child that there is absolutely no risk in their child playing tackle football, even without a helmet. I’ve lost count of how many competitors, pro-competitors and retired competitors I know of, who have food/eating/diet/weight issues ruling and ruining their lives. It is simply time for some clear and honest awareness. It is time for some experts to emerge who want to be part of the solution; and not part of the problem.

Now, I can’t possibly lay out all the nuances of this discussion in a single Blog post. But my new book is going into this in much further detail. The point I would like to make for now, to any and all of you, is this:

If you suffer from some kind of post-diet or post-contest eating disorder, or food issues of any kind, you are not alone. And you are not weak, and you do not have some kind of character flaw. Psychology easily and readily explains how and why this happened to you. But the way out is not another diet and not another contest. Those will only guarantee the cycle continues. Get help, and get support. Just reach out to someone qualified to help you.

Some of you will get it; some of you will not. Some will want to deny it as well. And more is the pity in that.