Healthy food makes for a healthy body
Now, I’m not talking about the nuts and bolts of diet plans or the grams of protein, fat, and carbohydrate that we take in. We talked a little bit about that stuff but we were thinking bigger than that. Instead of hammering on the minutia of performance nutrition we talked about the overall quality of the food we eat and our approach to food.
More on Fitness Success and Your Relationship with Food
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I’m sure you’ve heard of the “80/20 Rule” of life. If not, then here’s a quick summary: It seems that 20% of what you do is responsible for 80% of your results, and vice-versa. Another application of the rule is that in most situations you’ll get about 80% of what you want. People are always chasing that extra 20% and as a result often give up their 80% and end up far worse off.
More on Fitness Results – The 80/20 Rule
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Personal Trainer - Weight Loss - Workout Tips
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I received an email today that really got me fired up. It was from Zach Even-esh and it was titled “The Pussification of America”. For those of you who know me personally or know Zach, you know that this is a subject that fires me up. If you’re not on his newsletter list, then I’d recommend that you head over there right now and sign up.
Anyway, the thrust of his letter was that kids today are weak and out of shape. There’s too much time spent on the computer and not enough time doing work and training hard. You know what weak and out of shape kids grow up to be? Weak, out of shape, and obese adults. Those same adults aren’t as productive at work, have a lower quality of life, and have all sorts of obesity-related health issues that cost them and taxpayers money. Plus they tend to have a whiny attitude and a poor work ethic in general. Am I saying that someone who’s overweight is a bad person? Certainly not. I am saying that the lazy qualities that a lot of our kids are growing up with are not helping to shape a strong life attitude regarding themselves or others.
I was just having a discussion about this with a fellow trainer here at the gym and here’s what we thought should happen. Let me ask you to keep asking yourself, as you read this, if my proposal seems too farfetched or “unreasonable”?
More on Phys Ed – Wilkins Power Style
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Personal Training - Strength Training - Weight Gain
However, there are times when athletes need to gain weight. Between training, practices, and often a high natural metabolism, it can be tough to gain size and muscle mass. The first step in gaining weight is to just eat more and hit the gym hard. That works to a point, but often you get full and you feel like you just can’t eat any more food.
Here are three of my favorite strategies that I’ve used with my athletes to add quality food to their diet and gain good muscle mass as a result.
1. Add something to every meal. Small changes add up over time. So with that in mind one of the quickest ways I’ve found for athletes to increase their caloric intake is to find two or three small things that they like and add them to every meal. A couple of examples of “add-on” foods might be a small handful of almonds, a slice of cheese, or something to that effect.
None of these things are going to take up much stomach space or really jack up your caloric total but over the course of five or six meals per day can add up to 300-500 calories pretty quickly. The idea is that these additions are small enough so that you don’t even notice them and that they don’t affect your appetite for future meals.
2. Drink your calories. This is one of my old stand-bys. It can be hard to force down a bunch of food meal after meal, day after day. It’s simply a lot easier to drink calories than it is to eat them. Just as it makes sense to remove liquid calories from the diet of those looking to lose fat it makes equal sense to add them to the diet of those needing to add calories.
Get a decent protein or meal replacement powder, add some milk, fruit, almond butter, olive or coconut oil, or most any tasty, calorically dense, and healthy food that can be mixed into a shake. Add an extra shake to your day. Just be sure that you’re putting good stuff into this shake. This is not an excuse to start chugging sugary “weight gainer” shakes or sodas!
3. Have a daily “gotta finish” item. Some people are very goal-oriented and athletes tend to be in that group. So it sometimes makes sense to have a food or drink (see Tip #2!) that your objective is to finish XXXX amount of it by the end of the day. So mix up a big shake and put it in the fridge and start sipping on it throughout the day.
The important thing is to not allow this extra food to take the place of the food you should have in your daily diet. Too often people add this extra stuff too quickly or without much care and find that they don’t eat as much normal food. In effect they end up replacing calories and staying at the same level which is pointless.
It’s also important to note that when you’re trying to gain good weight it’s important to remember to fuel your body with good food. Too often I see athletes use the excuse of “gaining weight” to justify filling up on all kinds of shit. While I admit that you can enjoy your food and probably be a little freer with your food choices when you’re looking to gain weight that doesn’t mean that good eating and nutrition goes out the window. The reason you’re eating so much is to build a high performance machine, so don’t try to do that with inferior ingredients!
Try one or two of these strategies if your weight gain is stalled. Done right you’ll grow more muscle, move bigger weights in the gym, and keep your fat gain under control at the same time.
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Supplements - Sports Success - Personal Training - Strength Training
1) A good quality multivitamin/mineral. Try as we might to eat a varied diet, it’s unlikely that we’re all getting what we should have on a given day. Given that hard training strength athletes tend to utilize (slightly) more of many vitamins and minerals plus are just plain bigger, a multi is a good insurance policy. I try to stick with a good, healthy, natural vitamin over the cheapo synthetic ones. I like VGF 25+ by Prograde Nutrition (affiliate link).
2. A quality whey protein supplement mixed with powdered milk or a good blended protein. Strength training athletes need more protein than the normal person. Period. Sure, you can eat more meat, beans, chicken, or fish. However, that food tends to fill you up quickly plus it can be a pain in the butt with many people’s schedules. A good protein supplement can go a long way when it comes to getting extra protein down, adding some flavor to your diet, and adding an element of portability to your schedule.
The reason that I don’t just recommend pure whey protein is that it’s just so fast. Most research is indicating that your body oxidizes it so quickly that you don’t see the benefits from it that you do from a blended protein that has whey and other, more slowly absorbed proteins like casein in it. Whole milk proteins are about 80% casein and 20% whey. By adding some basic dried milk or casein protein directly to your whey shake you’ll have the best of both worlds.
3. Fish oil. I can’t say enough about fish oils. Omega-3 fatty acids used to be an important part of our diet when we consumed a lot of wild or grass-fed game. Over the past 100 years or so we’ve moved towards more of a grain-fed animal diet and eat a lot less cold-water fish than we used to. This has greatly reduced the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in our diet, so by supplementing with fish oil you’re basically adding back into your diet what already should be there.
Fish oil supplementation can:
-Improve your brain and neurological function
-Improve your skin and hair health
-Improve your eye health
-Improve your insulin sensitivity which will stabilize your blood sugar and reduce fat gain
-Reduce chronic inflammation in your joints and reduce pain
-Improve your HDL/LDL cholesterol numbers
4. Creatine Monohydrate. The supplement world is full of all kinds of overblown hype and there’s only a few supplements that have stood the test of time. Creatine is one of the most studied of supplements and when it comes to increasing burst energy and peak power performance it plain and simple works. Creatine also improves cellular hydration which allows a positive environment for growth.
There are about 1000 creatine supplements and variations on the market. This is pretty much just to pull more money out of your wallet. Creatine monohydrate powder is one of the most widely available and cost effective supplements out there. It works just the way it is. Some sugar and protein helps boost uptake of it, so eat it with a meal or mixed in one of your workout shakes. Don’t pay $75 for a bottle of plain old sugar and a few bucks worth of creatine.
5. Microlactin. Ok, this is one that a bunch of you probably won’t have heard of and for the life of me I can’t understand why it’s not more popular. This stuff WORKS, which as I said above about creatine is rare in the supplement world. I’ll let you read about it here. You’ll find that your sleep and recovery are better plus your joint inflammation will be greatly reduced. When it comes to hard training and joint recovery I consider it to be a must-have, even more so when you consider that it’s pretty cost-effective, too.
I know that my supplementation regimen isn’t all that “cutting-edge” and sexy, but that’s because I focus on the things that work. Supplements are simply adjuncts to my diet and training and I take them in only to promote optimal performance and health. If I start dumping all sorts of crap into my body then I eventually won’t know what’s working and what isn’t.
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I just had a consultation with a young man who was, as many young men in the gym are, trying to gain weight and “get big”. When the topic got on to nutrition he happily told me about his daily diet intake and supplementation. It basically consisted of a handful of protein shakes per day (various protein blends for different times of the day), a bunch of Gatorade, and an evening meal consisting of a chicken breast and brown rice. His list of pills and powders (most of them with very fierce names) was about half a page long.
Now, I’m certainly not a supplement hater. In fact, I’m a bit of a nutrition and supplementation geek and as such I really enjoy debating the effects of various substances. However, I think that many people are missing the forest for the trees when it comes to supplementation.
Let’s look at the pros and cons of supplements:
Pros:
-Convenient to carry around, generally no special care such as cooking or refridgeration is necessary.
-Very easy to mix and match for precise nutrition.
-Meal replacements and protein supplements can be used to keep overall calorie intake down as many people tend to overeat with food in front of them.
Cons:
-Missing a lot of “micronutrients” that are present in food.
-Some non-natural vitamins and minerals aren’t taken up by the body as well.
-Large, isolated amounts of some nutrients aren’t taken up by the body as well as smaller, mixed doses.
-Often meal replacements and other supplements aren’t particularly satisfying.
-Nobody wants to go out to dinner with the dude who sits there with a protein shaker.
As for the pros and cons of real food, they tend to be the opposite.
In my mind supplements are exactly that: Supplements. They are not substitutes when you look at the diet as a whole. I’m a firm believer in packing my athletes with as much real food as possible. Look, we’re omnivores, and pretty good ones at that. Our body is pretty well equipped to deal with most anything that rolls across its path and make some use of it. As a matter of fact, our nutritional needs are such that it prefers a varied diet. That’s hard to manage if you’re taking the majority of your nutrition in from the same few powders.
To sum it up, I do support judicious use of supplements for most athletes and fitness seekers, but only the basics. Until your diet is in line, supplements should take the back seat to real food. As far as the young man I spoke to the first thing I told him is to stop taking most of the crap he was loading up on and switch to the basics of good, quality food. From there he could add back in some basic supplements until he had exhausted the benefits of good training and good eating, which will be a very long time.
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It’s time for the last installment of things I believe. Let’s see if I can ruffle some feathers today!
If you missed part one of this series, check it out here!
If you missed part two of this series, check it out here!
11. Read a damn book. This could have been number one as far as I’m concerned. Thanks to the Internet (yes, I’m aware of the irony that you’re reading this online), TV, radio, and other forms of media our society has greatly lost appreciation for books. Well, books have been around for a long time and there’s a lot of old wisdom there. Do you know what smart people do? Read books.
Our kids today have shitty reading comprehension skills and even worse writing skills because they don’t read anything substantial and because the vast majority of their written communication is through text messages, chats, or emails. Now they write like they text, which makes them sound retarded.
To be able to express oneself as an educated person through both the verbal and written word is one of the most important skills that a person can have (thank you Dr. Michaud for teaching me that in the 8th grade). I firmly believe that the backbone of verbal and written skills is built through a strong reading habit. Plus there’s something about curling up with a good book that is good for the soul and the mind.
12. Rote memorization is important but it is only the first stepping stone of knowledge. The vast majority of education comes from applying and developing knowledge, not just learning facts and figures. I think that all people should develop a strong education base in their field, but many seem to feel that once the “book learning” is accomplished and the exam passed that they know all there is to know. Life doesn’t work that way.
A degree or certification merely says that you’ve learned enough of the background on a topic to be able to really learn the rest of it. That next stage of education and the mastery of your skill comes from being out there in the real world trying what you’ve learned. That’s where you’ll succeed, fail, and adapt your way to mastery.
13. If you want to look strong, you should be strong. I feel that of all fitness qualities, limit strength is probably the most important. If you’re strong, then you can improve your flexibility, conditioning, body composition, and performance far more effectively than if you’re not strong. When strength increases, all other fitness qualities generally improve. Therefore, I feel that sound and constantly progressing strength training is the key to all other aspects of fitness. Notice I didn’t say that it was the only concern, but it is the critical component of a performance and fitness plan.
It is possible to develop a lean, muscular, and attractive physique while being very unathletic and pretty weak. You’ll look strong, though. Why in God’s name would you want to do that? Sure, getting stronger isn’t easy, but sack up, grab your yarbles, and get strong. You’ll look good along the way.
14. Be right, but if you do make a mistake, do it at 100 miles per hour. My high school football coach used to tell us this all the time, and he was right. Indecision and fence-sitting doesn’t do anyone any good. So go for it. Do it. Always try to make the right decision, but even a wrong decision is better than no decision.
15. If you’re not going to lead, get the hell out of the way. Not everyone has to be a leader (that’s why there’s one leader), and even leaders don’t have to lead all of the time. However, if you’re not going to lead the pack, then don’t stand in the way of the one who does. People who do nothing but disrupt groups, derail progress, and undermine leaders are simply a cancer to the group’s success. You know what smart people (called doctors) do to cancer? They cut it out and poison it. Think about it.
Thanks for reading some of my beliefs. Hopefully some of the things I’ve said ring true with you and we’re of a similar tribe. If what I’ve said here offends you or you disagree with me, that’s cool, too. I guess we just don’t see things the same way. As always, feel free to digg, stumble, tweet, and forward this post along to anyone that you think might be interested. I’d love to hear your thoughts, too, so comment below!
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Personal Training - Strength Training - Sports Performance
If you missed part one of this series,
check it out here!
6. Sustainability makes sense; It’s just good business. I’m about as far from a dirty hippy as I can get, and my hippy friends consider me to be one of the few “open-minded capitalist pigs” that they know. While I certainly don’t wish Mother Earth any ill will, I gotta tell you that I’m not particularly overwhelmed by some need to rock the hemp clothing and drum circles.
However, I am a businessman and I’m also a “big picture” kind of person. What we have is a society that is growing (I have some opinions on that, too) and is on a rock with a very limited amount of resources. You know what happens when we run out of resources? We’re “F’ed”. So why wouldn’t we recycle, downgrade expenditures, and focus on renewable resources and technology? Why wouldn’t we also provide as much value as possible for our clients and customers, so as to develop a relationship to continue to market to them.
The “slash and burn” style of business, both physical and philosophical, is so retarded to me that it enrages me to see. On the physical side I’d much rather reuse and recycle the same lump of iron 35 times and get 35 uses worth of value from it than have to a) find more, b) engage in the expensive act of procuring more from the ground, and c) wasting MORE money, space, and time disposing of the original lump.
As a business philosophy I’d much rather sell 100 people fifteen widgets over the course of our business lifetime than try to find 1500 people to buy widgets. Anything other than a sustainability and circulating style of economy is just dumb.
7. All people aren’t created equal, but everyone has something of value. I know that I’m supposed to say that we’re all equal and have just as much opportunity and so on. That’s bullshit. The truth is that we’re not all equal. Genetics, environment, and mutation are a bitch. I am not going to be an NBA center. That is simply the way it is with my 6′1″, 265 lb frame. On the other hand, that NBA center is not going to be a Kentucky Derby-winning jockey. There’s not a racehorse on the planet that wants any part of that.
However, I firmly believe that everyone has something that they’re good at. Some people are good at a lot of things, some people aren’t. The real key is finding what people are good at, what they like doing (usually the same thing), and maximizing their contribution to society through their gifts.
I know some engineers who can barely tie their own shoes or order a pizza but can design terrific bridges. You know what? We’ll find someone that is great at tying shoes, ordering food, and keeping the Red Bull pumping to Mr. Pocket Protector so that he can work up a bridge. He’s good on the drafting table, while the supporter is good at multitasking and organizing. Both are maximizing their skillset.
8. Everyone knows something that you don’t. Intellectual snobbery doesn’t do you any good. At times in my life this has been one that I’ve had to swallow and learn the hard way. Just because you’re a smart person and you may be much more educated than the person across from you it doesn’t mean that you can’t learn something from them.
Even if the topic is one that they don’t know much about sometimes a fresh outlook or line of questioning can help you achieve further understanding. I guess I’d say that the bottom line is that you should seek to learn something from every person you meet, and know that there is something to learn if you look for it.
9. The principal of pleasure/pain and its associations rules our lives. It’s encoded in our DNA to seek pleasurable things and avoid painful things. This is what kept us alive back in the day and it’s what still rules our thoughts now. Understanding this and harnessing it is the way to achieve the life you want.
One of the interesting things about human psychology is the associations of pleasure and pain. This isn’t always as cut-and-dried as it would appear. Have you ever wondered why some people continue to do the same things over and over again even though they know that those actions will bring them misery? Chances are those are the same people that continually talk about how awful their life is, how badly they’re treated and so on. They’ve learned to associate pleasure with their complaining and the sympathy of others! So for them, the misery of whatever is going on is less than the pleasure they get from complaining about it!
If you want to change something in your life then it’s imperative that you associate displeasure and pain with the behavior you want to change, and associate pleasure with the opposite behavior. There are a plethora of resources out there on the methods by which to do this that are beyond the scope of this article, but a quick search will point you in the right direction.
10. Take information in, evaluate it critically, keep what is useful and discard the rest. There’s a saying in my line of business that says “the best strength coaches are the best thieves”. Now what that means is that those of us that are good at our field are constantly finding out new and innovative ways to improve our clients. We are on the constant lookout for new ideas. When we find one we learn about it, experiment with it, and critically evaluate it. If the idea or some part of it has merit we “steal” it and add it to our toolbox. We chuck the non-useful stuff and don’t waste time with it.
Like strength coaching, life and business presents many opportunities to learn, improve, and try the latest thing. I believe that in order to truly succeed you need to be like a sponge and try to learn as much as you can.
After soaking in that information you must then evaluate what you’ve learned and decide if it’s worth applying. This is where many people fail. They learn something new, buy into the hype, waste time and resources with things that aren’t valuable, and rather than admitting their failed experiment and moving on they continue to cling blindly to the sinking ship as it’s going down. Learn instead to constantly test and evaluate and keep putting your energy into the things that are working while ditching the stuff that doesn’t help you.
Ok, so that’s five more things I believe. I’ll be back tomorrow with the third and last installment. Thanks to all who’ve managed to read my ranting so far and again, feel free to digg, stumble, tweet, or pass this along to anyone you know that would find an interest here. Comment away below!
For part three of this series, check it out here!
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In the spirit of the new direction of this blog and to welcome many of the new readers I thought I’d put together a little post about some of my core beliefs. Whether you agree with me or not is up to you, but these are the things that my upbringing, education, life experience, and most importantly my gut tell me to believe.
So here’s Isaac Wilkins in the raw. Agree or disagree, leave some comments below! As a note: Well thought-out dissenting opinions are appreciated. Mindless douche-baggery posts will be deleted. Deal.
1. We (specifically Americans, but generally all “First Worlders”) as a society are becoming fat, weak, and lazy. It used to be that if you didn’t work or contribute to society in some meaningful way then you starved. Thanks to a semi-socialist government, our new-found Prozac-chewing mentality, and the most politically correct society ever to waddle the earth we’ve been lulled into weakness and complacency.
Competition is not only considered unimportant nowadays, it’s frowned upon. Yes, I’m one of those dinosaurs (at age 29) who believe that score should be kept in T-Ball games. I’m that jerk. Hell, most of our kids are too lazy to play T-Ball nowadays.
You know who’s fault that is? Parents. As I’m not a parent I’m not going to throw a lot of rocks on raising children, but if you can’t figure out that it’d be better for your kid to be outside playing (with other kids, no less!) than stationed firmly on their already fat ass in front of the TV or computer for over half the day then perhaps you should have thought a bit more before you decided to spawn. Congratulations on breeding a newer, lazier, weaker American.
2. Eat and live Primally; it’s what we were built for. So, whether you believe in evolution or creation (actually, I feel that they can coexist just fine if you want to go that route), it’s hard to argue with living the way that the human body used to before the “advancement” of our industrial society.
Humans used to eat food. Real food. Meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, etc. Very little grain. Very little sugar (a little honey and some fruit). Some food was raw, some food was cooked. Some was clean, some was dirty. And you know what? Pre-farming humans were big, strong, lean, generally healthy, and fast. When we started farming is when people got small, weak, fat, and chronically sick.
Our daily activities used to consist of some roaming (low energy movement), heavy lifting and carrying, and sprinting like hell (after dinner or avoiding becoming dinner). The rest of the time consisted of fairly low levels of inactivity. This is what our bodies are built for: Lots of light, general activity in all directions with brief moments of severe and stimulating activity.
The life spans were shorter than they are now as some of the big risks were: Starvation, exposure, falls/accidents, and bigger, stronger, and faster things with pointy teeth. Our society has pretty much eliminated the vast majority of those dangers. So why wouldn’t we want to use our superior security and technology to maximize our genetic/evolutionary make-up rather than mess with it by doing a bunch of crap (eating highly processed food, overmedication, hours of computer desk time, and pounding away with long duration, intense cardio) that we’re not designed to do?
3. Strength, while it has many meanings, is always better than weakness. Being weak is just that; Weak. In turn, being strong is something that allows you to be better. Being strong doesn’t always mean physically strong, and it doesn’t always mean being stiff, rigid, and immobile.
Be physically strong. If you become physically stronger than you are now you’ll look better, feel better, be able to do more, and live a much more productive life. Period.
Be mentally strong. Life throws a lot at you. Sure, you can take the abuse, turtle up, and just let everything roll you up, hoping that someone strong comes to save you. That’s weak. Or you can meet life head on, accept that things are going to get tough sometimes, get back up when you’re knocked down, and keep progressing towards your goals.
Be spiritually strong. I don’t mean religious. That’s your choice. What I do mean is developing a strong sense of self. Have you ever really sat down and thought about your life, your place in the Universe, and what you’d like to do and be a part of? No? Why not? As Socrates said:
“An unexamined life is not worth living”
Be a strong personality. Nobody likes a fence sitter, so why are you so worried about offending people that you become one? I’m not telling you to be a jerk, but since you’re an individual person you must have thoughts, stances, and opinions, right? Are your opinions and ideals not worth standing up for? This blog post is part of my journey to explain and flesh out my thoughts and opinions, and I’d love to hear yours.
4. God helps those who help themselves. Oh snap, I just said the “G” word! Whatever your spiritual or religious beliefs may be I want you to take a look around. There are tools and opportunities for success all around you. If you’re facing some problems, there is a solution available. Find it and use it.
Have you ever noticed how once you get started on fixing a problem, even if you don’t really know how you’re going to do it, that things seem to “fall into place” a lot? Whether that’s divine intervention, coincidence, or some sort of “will of the Universe”, it doesn’t matter. There’s no way just sitting there and bitching about it was going to be any better, so get steppin’ and keep making positive improvements.
5. If you want unusual results then you need to do unusual things. In every gym there are a few members that all of the other members want to look like. They’re in shape, work hard, and do “crazy” workouts. They tend to be the most intense people in the gym, the strongest, and the most focused.
Everyone wants to look like them. Do you want to know, given that I’m a professional trainer, how to look like that? DO WHAT THEY DO. Seriously. Get stronger, stop yapping on your cell phone on the treadmill, and don’t spend 20 minutes rolling around on a mat insisting that you’re “stretching” and expect to suddenly look like a Greek statue. It gives me a headache to talk to people and be told “I want to look like XXXX, but I don’t want to do all that crazy stuff that they do!”
I actually feel a headache coming on right now just from writing that down, so I’m going to stop thinking about it.
We’ll take a break now from my soapboxing, but I’ll be back tomorrow with some other things I believe. In the meantime, feel free to digg, stumble, tweet, or share this post with anyone that you think might be interested and comment below!
To check out the next part of this series, check it out here!
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