I’m sure some people who hear this are mortified. I remember having a debate with one of the football coaches last year regarding this subject. The conversation ranged from Creatine being unsafe to it being down right tainted. Each subject that was presented to me I debated with evidence. I have a host of reasons why I encourage my son to take Creatine. The most important being that I am 100% confident that the use of Creatine is safe for him [1].
My Reverse – Part 2
“I’m investing in my metabolism” I told myself, and I believed all of it would be worth it in the long run. At this point, I was eating about 3200 calories on average while weighing just 3-4lbs above my contest weight. Looking back, I would now go as far to say that at this point I looked better than I did during any point of my contest prep. I was eating 1,000 more calories than any leg of my diet, but really that was the only thing I had going for me. [Read more…]
Optimizing Your Digestive Health
Whether you are gaining, maintaining, or cutting, having a digestive system which is functioning smoothly can be life-changing. No one wants to walk around bloated, sluggish, and “backed-up”. The challenge is, when things aren’t working properly and we’re feeling frustrated, it can be difficult to determine what the true cause of our digestive distress is. A few recent consultations on improving digestive functioning prompted the idea for an article on this topic. Over these next few paragraphs, my goal is to equip you with a variety of ideas and strategies that can help you improve your digestive functioning if, and when, you experience issues.* [Read more…]
Another Tool for Nutrition Programming – Calculating Your “Activity Factor”
I could be dating myself here, but about 10 years ago when I was a gym owner and spent a lot of time training general population clients, there was an accepted principle that to calculate a persons’ caloric requirement for weight loss you simply had to multiply their bodyweight in pounds by 10 (or 10kCals per pound.) [Read more…]
Behavioral Modifications For A Successful Recovery Diet
I’ve written before about how one of the hallmarks of a great career-bodybuilder is the ability to voluntarily add body fat without much psychological stress.
To those who have never been stage lean, this seems absurd. But to those of us who have spent months or years in severe caloric deficits, it’s an easy trap to fall into. [Read more…]
Factors that Influence Human Eating Behavior
When did eating get so complicated? I imagine the first humans reading the title of this article then bursting into howls of laugher saying, “You eat when you’re hungry and when there’s food available! Article done!” And while I wish it were always that simple, unfortunately, the motivation behind human eating behavior is more complex.
Programming A “Lean Bulk” Without the Weight Gain
A good percentage of athletes we work with want guidance on if they should work to gain, cut or maintain. I’ve dealt with that question 4 times this week alone. Athletes want our professional opinion of what exactly the focus of their programs should be geared toward. Probably the most important aspect of any program is that it has purpose. With that being said there is a great deal of context that should be taken into consideration, hence why we hold hour-long consultations. [Read more…]
A Logical Structure To Engraining Nutritional Habits
Hey 3DMJ’ers, this was originally a blog post I made for our compadres over at DeNovoNutrition.com as a part of the “Elements” series. I wanted to repost it here because I think it gives some very useful systematic approaches to putting an optimal, flexible approach to your nutrition on “autopilot” (after some hard work of course). Check it out below!
The Elephant in the Room: Emotional & Other “Non-Physiological” Reasons for Eating – Part 3
Welcome back to the final installment of our emotional eating series. In this last piece, we will cover the emotional eating cycle and the steps to break it.
To help with overall flow and coherence, this final segment is covered via video in place of the article format used in parts 1 and 2.
One final point I want to make before getting into today’s topic, is how to get the most out of it: [Read more…]
The Elephant in the Room: Emotional & Other “Non-Physiological” Reasons for Eating- Part 2
Welcome back to part 2 of our mini-series on emotional and other non-physiological eating behaviors. Now that we’ve identified some of the major reasons for eating, other than being physically hungry, how do we resolve them? Do we even need to resolve them?
I’ve grouped these emotional and other non-physiological reasons for eating into three main categories: 1) Normal behaviors (given modern culture, traditions, etc.), 2) Neutral but potentially destructive behaviors, and 3) Behaviors we need to address. [Read more…]