Nutrition is an interesting topic. For some, they treat it like religion. But it isn't like religion at all. It doesn't matter what I believe. Instead what should matter is what the research tells us to be true. We can decide to accept science or not.Only once we move beyond the idea of nutrition as a belief system can we address any of the questions we may have with the foods we eat.And there's a particular order, or hierarchy, of how to address our nutrition. This concept was proposed by Tom Venuto and works quite well.Before we get to addressing the layers of this hierarchy of this concept we need to understand the context of the situation. For this blog we are writing with the end goal being fat loss. The prescription would differ for someone with a performance goal or looking to add lean mass.The first place to start is to answer the question 'how much should we eat?' If we get this part wrong it's a lot harder to achieve our goal and can add frustration to positive efforts.In order to determine your daily caloric requirement we need to know about the individual. The sex of the individual - Men require about 12-13% more calories than women. If you eat according to portion size this is 1/8th and can be used to estimate energy when plating out meals. The age of the individual - A younger person will require more than a older person. For adults our caloric requirement will decrease by about 3.8 cal/year. The individual's occupation - Someone with a desk job will require less nutrition than a very active occupation like a bike courier. The individual's activity - Not counting work-related tasks it helps to know if the person moves a lot or not.And as we mentioned this...

Have you ever heard something related to health and fitness that you just know to be true? I'm talking about the things every fitness professional and even a number of regular health nuts know as well. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself 'where did this information come from?' or 'how do I know this to be true?'. Because when we stop and think about it this way we can end up scratching our heads wondering how we did come to believe whatever it is that we believe. Consider for example the notion of the window for post-workout nutrition timing. This is the idea that to maximize your results in the gym you need to follow your training session with carbs and protein as soon after your last set as possible. Now before we get to the truth about post-workout nutrition let me tell you a story. This is one I'm stealing from nutritional expert Alan Aragon and it goes something like this. A family has a special recipe for pot roast. It is the family's special meal and all relatives and friends know about it and look forward to having it at gatherings. [caption id="attachment_3922" align="alignleft" width="222"] Sometimes info gets accepted because of tradition. Besides the specific cooking instructions there is one unique step involved in preparing this family's special meal. And that is that after all the seasoning and preparing but before cooking the pot roast you cut off one third. One family member asked her mom 'why do we cut off 1/3 of the roast?'. And the mother replied 'it's your grandmother's recipe so you'll have to ask her'. So the girl calls her grandmother and asks the same question. Her grandmother answers that many years ago when they started making pot roasts they didn't have a big...

I might be contradicting myself here but it's got to be done.'How so?' you might be saying to yourself.Well for a while I was encouraging you to do something nutritionally that I believed was in your best interests. That would give you better results related to weight loss and performance.But maybe I was wrong. (said in a whisper so no one can hear me)What it is that I had you doing was reading food labels. So how can this be a bad thing? Why would I suggest you stop doing so? Well for three reasons.Reason #1 to Stop Reading Food Labels - You are being misledI wouldn't go so far as to saw you are being lied to but consider the following titles on food packages:'made with real sugar''all natural''organic''95% fat free'So how are these titles on packaging misleading? Well there really is no benefit to eating real sugar. It still causes an insulin spike and puts the break on your fat burning.What about 'all-natural' and 'organic'? Well just because something occurs naturally doesn't mean it's healthy and a good idea to put it in your mouth. Heck, in the case of arsenic, it can kill you.And organic, well often times this is marketing-hype imo. If you eat organic for environmental reasons, do organic bananas leave a smaller organic footprint to ship to Canada than regular bananas?Reason #2 To Stop Reading Food Labels - It's less about the caloriesAsk most people what they check when they read a food label and what is the most common answer? Calories. We still believe, incorrectly, that a calorie is a calorie and we simply need to create a deficit or surplus in order to have the best results.The truth is that it's probably more important to consider the quality and timing of your food selections rather than the calorie count....

Hi there: Last weekend we met for our weekly stairs workout. Everything was as per usual leading up to the workout. Rest was good. Motivation to train was good. I had hydrated well before the workout and had breakfast before training. As we showed up for the workout we began with a general warm-up consisting of an easy jog around the soccer fields. From there we went into our dynamic warm-up, some skip drills and then a short jog over to the stairs. After a few leg swings and some ankle mobilizations we then proceeded to walk up the first flight of stairs. By the top of the stairs everything was feeling loose, warmed up and ready to go.But I wasn't feeling too hot. I wasn't sure why but thought the feeling would pass.So we proceeded on with the workout. And I was having difficulty getting my legs going. You know the feeling I'm talking about? Even though you've gone through a thorough warm-up your body still feels sluggish.Well that's how I felt. Add to that my heart rate was at or above the normal level for this type of workout. Then I realized what I had done wrong. The day before I had made an omelet. And whenever I cook I like to make extra on purpose. This saves me time then next time I go looking for something to eat.So when I woke that Saturday morning all I could think about was the left over omelet calling to me from my bed. 3 eggs, a good dose of shredded cheddar, more than enough bacon with some peppers. After getting ready I was in the kitchen warming up these left-overs and looking forward to my pre-workout meal this omelet would make.Bad idea.I should have known better. When we load the...