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The Truth about Silo Science and the Misinterpretation of Research

October 3, 2012 by

Here’s the first part of this month’s UNCENSORED Podcasts Season 2.

Today’s topic: Silo Science.

What is Silo Science?

Silo science is focusing on one specific area of research without seeing how it affects other areas. In the case of diet and fitness it’s looking too closely at one spot without seeing the bigger picture and how all systems of the body are related. – John Barban

The real science is different from what you hear from media.

Silo science is like doing a research, but with your blinders on.

Why?

Because silo scientists are focusing only at one specific area and ignoring the rest. But as we know, your body functions as a whole system, so looking into what’s going on in one area and ignoring anything else is not very useful for us in real life.

However, this type of research is exactly what’s misused online. It’s gotten to a point where people are now confused about science and the human body.

The truth of the matter is you have to look at the bigger picture, you can’t take only what you like and ignore the rest.  Which is exactly what most the fitness marketers and journalists are doing.

No supplement does just one thing, there’s always more to the story.

Case in point, Ever took a pill and experienced side effects?

Every time you introduce something into your body there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

Most people understand this with drugs, but almost no one considers this possibility with supplements.

Not only do people who use silo science try to make a point about how the body works, they often leverage only the abstract or headlines of some papers to conform the research for their benefit.

You should especially be aware of the perfect answers about hormones you see online nowadays, because most people never bother looking at the whole picture, only the results you desire.

Today we are going to look at the reality of the research and it’s misinterpreted online and in fitness media.

In today’s UNCENSORED training, you will also discover:

  • How the mechanics of a study works and what we look at in the research
  • How the study gets funded and why it matters to you who funds it
  • Why everything you see online should be taken with a grain of salt
  • How many people actually participate in the study (less than you think) and how this affects the results of that study
  • How robust the studies actually are (not as much as the media would have you believe)
  • Anything that has a dose response will or can have side effects
  • The reality of people doing the whole gotcha with science argument and scare mongering you into buying new products that you don’t need
  • How to find out if people quoting studies really understand what they are saying or if they just read the abstract at pubmed

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Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: , ,

Eat for “Flavor” & The 6 Step Recovery Method from Orthorexia

September 19, 2012 by

Here’s the second part of this month’s UNCENSORED Podcasts Season 2 on Orthorexia.

Check out the first part here: The Side Effect of Modern Society and Even Scientists Can’t Escape

What we covered in the first part:

  • We’ve talked about how certain foods can completely mess up your personality and social identity
  • You learned why people in the fitness industry feel superiority over you because of their diet choices
  • You discovered why you should bother tracking and testing things related to nutrition and not just training
  • You learned about the connection between people suffering from orthorexia and drug addicts
  • You also discovered what’s really in the root of the search for healthy eating and if that goal is really achievable
  • You learned that orthorexia is a marketing driven eating disorder and that the food and fitness industry are making billions just from people getting fatter every year

Let Go of the Good Food/Bad Food Belief

You need to learn to let go of the good food, bad food belief and dump all the bad food lists. And instead start focusing on the foods that taste good, are filling and make you feel great.

It’s a mind shift and a whole different perception, especially if you have been exposed to the mainstream fitness media for the last couple of decades.

Ask yourself this question: ” What do I like to eat?” And eat exactly that!

A lot of people will be thinking that this statement means you can eat burgers and ice cream all day long. Well, that’s not true. Nobody can do go on a diet like that and that’s a pretty boring lifestyle to have.

There are lots of food choices, if chicken with broccoli and chocolate with ice cream are the only meals you know you are limiting yourself and preventing yourself from tasting some amazing foods that are also rich in nutrients.

Get a variety in your diet and start experimenting with different cuisines. Just ask yourself, what exotic meal you haven’t tried yet?

Believe it or not, there are other foods and meals outside the “healthy” recommended by fitness media and “unhealthy junk food” like chocolate or burgers. There are a lot of other options and they can be very tasty.

Today John Barban and Brad Pilon will show you how to switch  from good/bad thinking into “eating what I really like and what makes me feel good” and “what would be the best and most tasty option for me?“.

If you’ve heard the first podcast and you’ve read so far then you understand what’s the point of it, but you may still be unsure of the whole process, so before you listen to today’s episode where John and Brad discuss this in great detail, let’s look over the steps you can take to recover from Orthorexia and start eating for flavor:

  1. Realize that any health message is a marketing message
  2. Understand that you won’t cheat death, and especially not by choosing different foods
  3. Create new food lists, but assign them different meanings (e.g. rank them by flavor)
  4. Make a list of foods that makes you bloated or that you are allergic to
  5. Evaluate every food on those lists based on how much you enjoy it, how many calories it contains etc.
  6. [you will have to listen to the interview for this one :)]
There is a lot of choice outside the traditional healthy and unhealthy lists AKA good foods/bad foods. European and Asian cuisines are very rich in different flavors and tastes, just start experimenting. Today we are going to give you the permission to do that and explain you why it’s beneficial and how to go about it.

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Filed Under: Fat Loss, Food, health, Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: , ,

The Side Effect of Modern Society and Even Scientists Can’t Escape

September 5, 2012 by

Here’s the first part of this month’s UNCENSORED Podcasts Season 2.

This month’s topic: Orthorexia.

What is orthorexia?

Orthorexia comes from obsession with avoiding foods that are perceived to be unhealthy. In the academic field it’s believed to be a mental disorder. This disorder can lead to severe malnutrition or even in some rare cases death.

Orthorexics usually have low self-esteem, because they blame themselves rather than their diets for their constant hunger and the resulting cravings for foods they’ve labeled as forbidden.

It’s a pretty serious topic, and if you follow any of the dietary advice from conventional fitness media you may very well develop this disorder yourself.

The moment you label something as forbidden, you are f*cked, because sooner or later you will break and overeat on it.

It’s quite a contradiction when you think about it, because orthorexia in it’s essence is an unhealthy obsession over healthy food.

So instead of restricting calories, orthorexics restrict food choices that they or a perceived authority labeled as bad and unhealthy.

The whole idea of Anything Goes Diet that we preach here at Adonis Index is that you can have whatever you want.

Some people misunderstand this statement and think you can fast food 24/7.

They are missing the point.

The idea is not to eat everything you can, the idea is that if you can limit the amount to fit in your caloric plan, then you can fill it with some things that are higher in fat, sugar and salt e.g. ice cream, burger, pizza and donuts.

With this mindset you will not fall victim to labeling certain foods as bad or unhealthy and won’t develop orthorexia.

Why People Want to Eat Healthy?

The whole issue around orthorexia is that it happens in a very specific environment, in an environment that you are most likely part off.

How come that I’m so sure you are part of that environment? Well, if you weren’t you couldn’t be reading this article, because you couldn’t afford a computer or iPad.

Orthorexia is an issue that appears in modern societies where there’s an abundance of food.

There seems to be a big contrast in the food availability.

It’s pretty hard to find a country where there is  not enough food for everyone to have a balanced diet.  In most cases, people are starving  or they have an over-abundance of food (i.e. 3rd world countries vs. Europe and US).

The abundance of food coupled with our  highly modernized society influences people to live a healthier lifestyle.

Of course there is nothing wrong with that, it’s just that human nature  tends to want to take things to an extreme level.

Which raises a few questions:

What do we want to achieve with our lifestyle?

Why do we search for better choices in our lives when we can buy everything we desire?

Let’s kick off this month of uncensored with a very fundamental question.

Why do you want to eat healthy?

Just STOP and  think about it.

The answer is not simply, because you want to be healthy.

There is more to it.

Do you want to live longer?

Do you want more fulfilling life?

Do you want to be healthy so you can see your grandchildren?

What’s the reason for you to search for better options in your life? And that can ultimately lead you to developing disorders like orthorexia?

In today’s UNCENSORED training, you will also discover:

  • How a simple thing like food that has nothing to do with us and in any way was meant to define your personality, can screw you up
  • Why certain people (yes the ones in this industry) feel superiority over you, because of their diet choices
  • Why do you feel ashamed about your diet choice and what leads self-punishment and guild with your food
  • What’s in the root of people’s search for better food choices and why nutrition will never be an answer to “cheating death”
  • The truth about how people make their food preferences, it it because they want to eat those foods or because some dietitians put importance on certain items?
  • Discovering whether you function on logic or emotional belief system
  • Why tracking and testing your results matters
  • How to stop letting food destroy your relationships
  • How orthorexia is same as drugs

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Filed Under: Food, Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: , , ,

What Supplements Should You Take to Help You Achieve Your Health & Fitness Goals?

August 15, 2012 by

Here’s the second part of this month’s UNCENSORED Podcasts Season 2.

The topic?

Supplements.

Here’s what you discovered in the first part (link to the 1st part here):

  • What a supplement is, how the industry got started, and what it has evolved into
  • What is the definition of supplements in various countries and why it matters
  • How important supplements are
  • What’s the lifecycle of a supplement product
  • How the process of putting new supplements on the market works
  • How come government regulators have no control of what’s on the market
  • What ingredients are added into supplements are useless and serve just as marketing

“Will These Supplements Help Me?”

Often times guys on the Internet and in our community ask us “What supplements should I take?” or “Will this supplement help me?”.

Should you take those? Are they worth the money? How will you track the results? Or will you just go by the “feeling”?

The issue is that it’s impossible to answer those type of questions.

If you want an accurate answer that can actually help you (not the generic crap found on the web) with your fitness goals, you need to get clear on what is it you really want and what do you expect out of the supplements.

Another thing that will determine what supplements to use and how much of it we will recommend you taking is your budget, how much money can you spend on supplements? 50 bucks? Or 1000 bucks? That’s a pretty big difference. Somebody who is a sponsored athlete or works in a supplement lab will have different options than a college student.

For example a question “Will this product give me the body I want?”or “Can this product do what I want it to do?” is way better and gets to the point of what you really expect from it.

But even those two questions aren’t perfect, when you start thinking about it, you’ll soon find out that it’s not that easy to figure out the right question (after you listen to the podcast, try to come up with a good one and share it in the community so others can comment on it).

This is just one way of looking at it, another way would be to take a different approach and actually set your goals first and then try to match the right product to that desired outcome.

However, in this case you will find a pretty nasty barrier.

And that’s the fact that supplements contain a lot of ingredient that will have absolutely zero effect on your body.

When you look into each product you will see a bunch of stuff you have never heard about, but almost always there will be one big ingredient that’s usually responsible for all the results. In many cases it will be creatine, or caffeine, depends on the supplement.

Why is that?

Well, the top selling supplements are exactly the same as ten years ago and they will most likely be same as the best selling supplements ten years from now.

There is just a couple of items that are packaged in a thousand different ways.

The product isn’t what’s different, they are roughly the same, it’s the marketing around it that makes all the difference.

Supplement companies fight a difficult challenge and that’s pointing out the ingredient.

Nobody gets excited about plain Creatine monohydrate anymore, simply because it’s been around a while. So, they have to sell some “enhanced version” of creatine to pump up the sales.

It has nothing to do with finding some new amazing and proven ingredient that nobody has ever heard about and adding it to the current product, it’s just a simple desire to sell more products.

Today John Barban and Brad Pilon will reveal more information about the supplement industry and also coach you on how to ask the right question and how to find supplements that will help you with:

a) Building Muscle

b) Losing Fat

c) Improving Health

d) Boosting Energy

In today’s UNCENSORED training, you will also discover:
  • How to approach weight loss supplements and what do they really help with (hint: they are not burning your belly fat)
  • What are the realistic expectations for using the supplements that are on the market
  • What supplements companies are should be trustworthy (bigger or smaller? Why??)
  • How the Natural Standards Database (you have access to it in the immersion account through cockpit) can help you pick supplements
  • Step by step how to intelligently choose and test supplements
  • What side effects really are and how it applies to you when you take supplements (or drugs)
  • Pilon’s sneaky techniques he used to sell supplements in the past

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Filed Under: Podcasts, Supplements, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: , , , ,

All About Supplements Part 1

August 1, 2012 by

Getting in shape and staying in shape can be viewed as having a two pronged approach.

What should you take?

1. Diet

2. Workouts

However if you’ve got the budget it can also have a third prong – Supplements

In the order of importance I would say diet and exercise are 1 and 1A. You can certainly get in great shape without every using a supplement, but if budget allows there are some interesting supplements that can likely help you along the way.

To be clear, they are called ‘supplements’ for a reason…and that is because they’re not meant to replace diet, or replace exercise, but only to supplement the work you are already doing in the kitchen and the gym.

So what is a supplement anyway? Do you even know? The definition of a supplement changes from country to country as does the requirement for scientific proof of the efficacy and safety. The concept of ‘supplement’ is a legal definition based on the governing bodies of your given region. A supplement can be legal for sale in one country and illegal in the very next country over (United States vs Canada for example).

The legal definition and status of a supplement can change throughout it’s lifecycle as well. In some cases a supplement can be in a grey area where it does not have government approval for sale, but it’s not quite illegal yet either. In these cases the supplement in question is being sold while it’s legal definition is ‘pending approval’. In some cases a product can be determined a drug and thus illegal for sale as a supplement.

If you’ve been a regular consumer of sports/bodybuilding supplements over the past decade then it’s likely you have taken a product that has been re-categorized as a drug and thus illegal. In some sense you could even say that you’ve been taking a ‘banned’ substance that would definitely have you failing a drug test in any organized sport!

Supplement manufacturers move fast getting new products onto the market. So fast that in some cases regulatory bodies cannot keep up with the pre-market regulatory review process to determine if a product is safe and effective for sale. Some products can gain a significant market share while regulators scramble to figure out what is being sold and if it should be classified as a supplement or drug.

This is a dynamic struggle between supplement manufacturers and regulators, and it’s been going on since supplements hit the market. As long as supplement manufacturers can find new ingredients and new derivatives if existing ingredients there will always be this grey area between what is known and studied, and what is new and not fully understood yet.

In this first part we discuss the definition of what a supplement is, how the industry got started, and what it has evolved into.

John

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Filed Under: Supplements, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: ,

Eliminate Inhibitors and Muscle Growth Will Be The Default State of Your Body

July 4, 2012 by

Welcome to Season 2 of our UNCENSORED Podcasts!

What really is muscle growth? Do you think it has been studied and understood by scientists?

In the bodybuilding community, there is a strong belief that we don’t have any research on muscle growth and muscle building.

That’s not true.

There are a ton of papers on this subject, the results are just not what we would like them to be, that’s why it’s usually brushed under the table.

A New Way of Thinking about Muscle Growth

We’ve always been lead to believe that you need to “boost your muscle growth”, find ways to eat more protein, more calories, basically do everything you can to stimulate your muscles to grow even more.

The only issue with this approach is that you can’t do it, because it’s impossible without the use of drugs.

Today, Barban and Pilon will show you how the typical approach, as explained by others who focus on bro-science in this industry, is completely the opposite to how your body REALLY works.

To explain this in simple terms, let’s imagine your body works like a car and you are the driver. In this case, you would have one foot on the gas and the other one on the brake. However, in this case, you can’t press your foot further down on the gas pedal: you already are crashing the floor with it.

What you need to do is something else – you need to completely remove the other foot from the brake. Because once you get your other foot off the brake, the car starts going forward. To complete the analogy, your body starts growing.

So instead of trying to “force” your muscles to grow, you just need to remove the inhibitors that are preventing you from reaching your golden body shape.

The minute you are born, you start growing, but let’s take away juvenile muscle growth and even steroid induced growth from this to make things really simple.

Now, you may be saying, if this is true then why don’t I already have a 20 inch bicep, right?

Well, here’s how this works. Your body has a predefined way of growth, so if you are supposed to be 190 pounds at 6’1” it will try to get there by default and it will ALWAYS try getting there until you are 190 and 6’1”.

If your body isn’t where it should be yet, then it’s not because you haven’t done enough to boost the growth, yet it’s rather because you haven’t removed the things that are preventing your body from growing the way it wants.

Let me repeat: Your body wants to grow, however there are roadblocks called inhibitors that are preventing it from growing.

These inhibitors can be nutritional, environmental and even mental. There are also genetic inhibitors that keep the body from uncontrolled or unchecked growth, which like it or not is not something you would want. (ex: a tumor or cancer is an example of uncontrolled or unchecked growth)

So some inhibitors have to be there.

In essense, what you can do is find a way to remove some of them, so your body can reach it’s full potential.

In today’s UNCENSORED training, you will discover and learn:

  • Why removing inhibitors is a way to go to build more muscle
  • How many calories you need to eat to build 5 pounds of muscle a month
  • Some of the inhibitors that are preventing your body from growing
  • Why studies on rats are completely irrelevant when making a point about human body
  • Why ‘extra’ protein will not help you build muscle
  • The reason behind “How I gained 30 pounds with this workout” marketing stories and why they’re all likely true, and also to be expected
  • More insights from the Disinhibition theory of muscle growth that makes most fitness marketing seem outdated
  • Why running marathons might be detrimental to muscle growth

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Filed Under: Muscle Building, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: , , , ,
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