PJ’s Fitness Blog
A blog about a fitter you. Come find out what is on the cutting edge of fitness science and be a part of the ongoing conversation.
I really enjoyed the lecture with Tim Van Orden a week ago. Thank you to all who attended. I hope you agree it was a fun, informative, and valuable event. (For those of you who couldn’t attend, you can purchase a DVD of the presentation shortly – watch your Facebook, Twitter and the newsletter for the announcement it’s available.) I especially enjoyed watching those of you who attended squirm with the dilemma Tim presented to you regarding protein and fruit (among other things). I let you stew about it for a week so you would fill your heads with questions and doubts. Everyone should always question what they hear and strive to seek out both sides of every story.
Well, now you’ve certainly heard both sides! Tim’s message and website (www.runningraw.com) is certainly different from my message and the X Gym’s philosophy on nutrition isn’t it? Did he rock your world and shake your state just a smidge? I certainly hope so. Many of you wondered why I agreed to do a joint lecture with him at all, since he flies in the face of so much of what I preach.
The reason is, I don’t want you to blindly believe anyone. Not me, not Tim, not your mom, or even your doctor. What I want is for you to know that there is an amazing (more…)
I was recently asked about a current Biggest Loser TV episode, where a contestant lost 34 pounds in one week! Is this really possible?
A dietitian would calculate that someone would have to burn 119,000 more calories than they are eating to lose 34 pounds. To do this in one week, that would require burning 17,000 calories per day, or 708 calories per hour, if you stayed up for 24 hours and never went to bed the whole week. Oh yeah, and that’s just the burn rate above what you eat, so you would have to fast the whole week too.
To burn 708 calories per hour, you would have to run at a pace of about 7 mph, 24 hours per day, for 7 days straight. That would be 168 miles per day, or 1176 miles for the week (while fasting of course).
The guy that lost 34 pounds in one week weighed over 500 pounds, and even though he would certainly be (more…)
I have written more often on sugar than any other subject, and how in its many forms is the main cause of type 2 diabetes, brain damage, immune suppression (making us susceptible to many illnesses ranging from the common cold to swine flu), and that is is the main food of choice for cancer cells. These are only a small fraction of the health problems associated with sugar intake. To list them all would create a post that would be so long, most people wouldn’t even bother to read it.
The biggest concern for most people is their weight. For the first time in the history of our planet, we now have more fat people than hungry people. Another first for humans is our childhood obesity epidemic, and the associated heart disease and diabetes among these kids. I bet you can guess what the culprit is.
Sugar has been scientifically proven to be more addictive than cocaine. The sugar cartels know this, and even bank on it – in a big way. They know that sugar is killing you and making you fat. They also know it was the biggest driver of slavery in the world. Did you know that it still is? I bet you didn’t, and if you eat sugar, you are (more…)
Got Mercury?
Some of you have wondered why a Seattle personal trainer like me writes so much about food and so little about exercise. I do in fact own the X Gyms, so wouldn’t it make more sense for me to talk about exercise more than food? The reason I write so much more on nutrition than exercise is because most people want to lose fat as their top goal, and this is accomplished mainly through eating right. In fact 70% of it is due to proper nutrition and only 30% to exercise!
In this post I want to talk about toxins in fish. The reason this is so important is because toxins are stored in your fat tissues, and that makes it harder for the body to empty them back out. Clean fat cells are liberated quite easily, so fat loss is many times over easier to achieve. Your liver must also be healthy to burn fat off your body, and this can only be accomplished if it isn’t kept busy processing toxins. I just talked with an X Gym member this morning whose only meat source is fish. Many people are in this same boat, and there are very important things to know about toxins that build up in large, old fish – especially mercury.
Mercury levels in the Northern Pacific have already increased a staggering 30% in about 15 years, and are expected to rise another 50% by 2050 if China continues to build more coal-fired power plants to fuel its industrial revolution. Asia is an important source of mercury in the Pacific not only because prevailing winds carry air pollution over the ocean where it rains down, but also because ocean currents carry the pollution throughout the basin.
About 40% of all U.S. exposure to mercury comes from eating contaminated tuna from the Pacific, and roughly 75% of all human exposure to mercury comes from eating fish, according to U.S. officials. Mercury poisoning, even very small amounts, early in life can lead to (more…)
If God wanted us to be vegans, he would have created us with a mouth full of molars and four stomachs. Since we were meant to eat meat AND vegetables, vegans have to supplement their diets with certain micro nutrients if they want to truly thrive.
I’m not dissing vegans here. I do respect anyone’s commitment to a cause for any reason as long as it’s moral, but it is certainly more difficult to become healthy, and especially more difficult to be truly lean as a vegan.
I am an omnivore, but the majority of my calories come from grass fed beef, wild fish, or free range organic white meat. The rest of my calories come mostly from dark green vegetables.
At the end of each day, my total calories consumed are 4,000 or more. Since I own the X Gyms, I am mostly administrative. This means my activity level is low, my job is sedentary, and I workout a little less than 1 hour per week.
I know that my metabolism isn’t anything special, because back when I was eating different foods to the tune of about 2,500 calories a day, I was struggling to (more…)
SAY NO TO NANO!
I’m sure you have heard of nanotechnology, but have you heard of nano foods? They are microscopic bio engineered ingredients that alter the way your taste receptors work, and you may be eating them already if you’re consuming processed foods.
A nano food that tricks you into “tasting” sugar or salt when it is not really there is already being used as an ingredient in many common foods. It allows the manufacturer to claim it contains “Less Sugar” or “Less Salt,” while still offering the full taste of the previous version.
Senomyx, the biotechnology company behind this particular food additive, has already developed several chemicals that,
The topic of how sleep affects fat loss is discussed more extensively in my book, “Cracking Your Calorie Code,” so be sure to check out the big picture there, but since I finished writing it, there have been some other interesting research studies that have come out teaching us even more about how we can strategically use sleep time to burn fat.
In a study to be published in the upcoming May Journal of Psychoneuroendocrinology, scientists found that insufficient sleep disrupts the hormone balance responsible for signaling the body when it’s full. Before this study, no one had evaluated nocturnal levels of the two key energy balance hormones ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin stimulates appetite, and leptin (more…)
COOKBOOKS ARE MAKING US FATTER
A recent study showed that recipes from “The Joy of Cooking” have increased substantially in calorie count and portion size since the book’s original publication. There was a nearly 40 percent increase in calories per serving for practically every recipe reviewed.
The study focused primarily on “The Joy of Cooking” because the well-known cookbook has been updated consistently from 1930 through 2006. Of the 18 recipes that have appeared in each version, 17 have increased 63 percent in calorie count per serving, due both to higher overall caloric content and larger portion sizes.
However, Beth Wareham, editor of the 2006 edition of “The Joy of Cooking,” argued that the book has become healthier overall by cutting out processed ingredients.
For a true fat burning recipe strategy that is constantly updated and never goes out of date, go to (more…)
Have you ever wondered why the Atkins diet, South Beach diet, or other low carb programs work great until a certain point, and then fat loss levels off? People on low carb diets often go from obese to chubby and then stay there. Why does this happen? If it works so well in the beginning, shouldn’t it continue to work as long as you eat that way? The answer is no, and I will explain it to you now so you can finally crack the low carb diet code once and for all!
Have you ever felt like you are eating all the right things but just can’t lose those last 10-20 pounds? You may indeed be eating the “right foods”, and you are getting plenty of protein with gobs of water, but (more…)
If I told you about a spice that could help you burn more fat, would you start to incorporate it in your recipes? How about if I told you that it also does the following things:
* Reduces gas and bloating
* Assists in the digestion of protein
* Improves your body’s ability to digest fats instead of store them
* Promotes proper metabolism.
* Maintains and improves intestinal flora
* Improves elimination of wastes and toxins
* Rejuvenates your liver cells and recharges their capability to break down toxins
* Helps to prevent alcohol and other toxins from being converted into compounds that may be harmful to your liver
* Supports formation of healthy tissue
* Stimulates formation of new blood tissue
* Is a powerful anti-inflammatory (more…)
