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Nutrition Research: Problems Measuring Calories

May 24, 2010 by

Nutrition researchers are trying to determine what the best weight loss diet is, and in order to do this they must account for all the calories a person eats before they make any conclusions. This however is a bigger challenge than you might think. It has become apparent that people cannot accurately report how many calories they are eating on a regular basis. In fact chronic under-reporting of calories is one of the most common and pervasive issue in diet/health/fitness research.

Whether it is due to embarrassment or lack of memory, people will simply get it wrong when they are asked to report how much they’ve eaten. This makes studying diet and weight loss almost impossible as there is no solid conclusions that we can make about dieting other than the fact that people won’t admit what they’ve eaten.

In this audio training session we’ll discuss the issues with nutrition research and why the results are hard to measure. We’ll also talk about the permission to be light, to wear a size medium shirt and the difference between shirt on big and shirt off big.

(Download Transcription: “Problems Measuring Calories“) [pdf]

John

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How Do You Measure Muscle Mass

May 17, 2010 by

Working out with weights builds muscle mass, this we know for certain. The amount of muscle you can gain is what we don’t know and it’s very difficult to measure.

Most supplements companies and fitness marketers will use a bodyweight claim to display increases in muscle mass.

But is bodyweight is notoriously bad at predicting or displaying changes in muscle mass over the short term, and very limited over the long term as well.

Many factors determine your bodyweight such as hydration status, the amount of time since your last meal, the amount of food mass in your stomach/intestines, fat mass.

It’s not uncommon for an average man to fluctuate between 5-7 pounds in a given day simply from food and liquid intake (and water and mass loss from sweating and just going to the bathroom to make a ‘deposit’)

The large daily fluctuations your body can go through make it very difficult to detect much smaller changes in muscle mass.

In other words, it’s virtually impossible to measure a 3-4 pound gain in muscle over the course of a year or two if you daily bodyweight can change as much as 5-7 pounds (and thats assuming you don’t gain or lose any fat mass at all).

Unless you have access to a body composition lab (such as those found at a university) you’ll only be left guessing at your muscle mass and change in muscle mass.

For this reason I’ve developed a new muscle mass measurement tool that will allow you to determine your relative muscle mass. This tool will also allow you to track any changes in muscle mass (weather you gain or lose muscle).

This is a new and more accurate predictor of muscle mass that corrects for fat mass, somatotype and changes in non-muscle lean mass…it’s called the Muscle Index and it will be the new standard in muscle measurement.

In todays podcast we discuss how the Muscle Index tool is built and why it’s a better measurement than bodyweight or any other predictor of muscle mass.

John

(download transcript here)

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Steroids The True Stars of Bodybuilding and Fitness

May 10, 2010 by

The true stars of bodybuilding, pro and amateur sports and fitness competitions aren’t the people, it’s the drugs. Many top athletes, bodybuilders, fitness models and even celebrities are on some combination of various physique enhancing drugs.

The following list is just an example of some of the drugs a typical bodybuilder might use to build muscle or reduce bodyfat.

Oil based testosterone injectable

Water based testosterone injectable

Testosterone derivative tablets (dianabol, anadrol, anavar etc)

Injectable testosterone derivatives (deca durabolin, winstrol, primobolan)

Growth Hormone injection

Insulin injection

IGF-1 injection (insulin like growth factor)

Oral clenbuterol tabs/liquid

T3 (thyroid hormone)

HCG (Human chorionic gonadotropin)

Diuretics (oral and injectable)

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but rather the most commonly used and popular ones.

Bodybuilders are the extreme and set the stage for what the upper limit of use and abuse is. From there fitness/figure models, pro athletes and celebrities who use drugs will be using some lesser combination of the same drugs that bodybuilders use. This is the trickle down effect from the extreme.

In todays podcast we discuss how pervasive drug use is in bodybuilding circles and how it’s obscures our perception f what we think it an attainable ideal body shape, size and proportion.

John

P.S. For a good example of a steroid free bodybuilder vs a known steroid user check out this link: EUGEN SANDOW

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Ideal Proportions Are The Goal

May 3, 2010 by

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What Causes Muscle Growth

April 26, 2010 by

There are many factors that influence muscle growth including:

Genetic predisposition

Age

Training Program

Training Status (beginner vs advanced)

Injuries

Pain Tolerance

Drug Use

You’ll notice that nutrition isn’t one of the factors. Once you’ve hit your daily require of how much protein you need to gain muscle then there is little nutrition can do for muscle growth, but this fact is largely ignored by the supplement and bodybuilding community hence the ‘eat to get big’ mantra.

In this podcast we’ll discuss:

What causes muscle growth

The main drivers to muscle growth

The misinterpretation of calories for muscle growth and the limited role nutrition plays.

How to properly view muscle growth (balloons not bricks)

John

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Health, Fitness, BMI, and AI…Are They Connected?

April 19, 2010 by

Health and Fitness are poorly defined terms and can only really make sense when you apply your own personal definition. With that said there are general definitions that most people will accept as having at least something to do with both health and fitness.

Health seems to have something to do with reducing risk of premature death and disease, namely having favorable blood markers for disease such as total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, HDL/LDL ratio, Triglycerides, glucose, insulin, blood pressure and heart rate.

Beyond that, reduced stress and how you feel in general are probably the most important indicators of health.

Fitness on the other hand seems to refer to movement and capacity to be active.

So far there isn’t one measurement that indicates health AND fitness, until now.

I think the Adonis Index ratio might the one measurement that indicates both health and fitness.

In recent years height to waist ratio has gained favor over BMI as a better indicator of health and disease risk for lifestyle disorders such as cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes.

But height to waist ratio doesn’t say much about fitness. I think the addition of the shoulder measurement and thus the Adonis Index ratio is a more complete measurement of both health and fitness.

Having and healthy and fit body is synonymous with having a body that other people will admire.

In todays podcast we discuss:

1. What health means and how we measure it

2. What fitness means and how we measure it

3. What the look of a healthy body is

4. BMI vs Height to Waist Ratio vs Adonis Index Ratio as markers of health and fitness

5. A personal health perspective vs a global health perspective

6. What to do when you’ve made a big time change in your health and fitness

John

p.s. Here is the awesome thread in the forum that we talk about in the podcast (there are multiple pages, click through to the 2nd or 3rd page for the cool before and after’s).

p.p.s. (Brad edit) Something’s up with the comments, I’ll get them fixed today hopefully)

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