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Is Fasted Cardio Useless for Fat Loss: Part 2

Continuing from Part 1, I want to finish up looking at the oft stated, oft repeated, oft reshared statement that “FASTED CARDIO HAS NO BENEFITS FOR FAT LOSS.”    Last time I looked at some of the basic biology of fat loss along with how initial bodyfat percentage might impact on where a “bottleneck” might show up.

Following that I started to examine a paper by Escalante and colleague(s?) that also looked at the topic.  They started by looking at the acute studies which I don’t find terribly relevant.  Then they moved onto the chronic studies which are few and far between.

One was the Ramadan study that was poorly controlled and from which I don’t think you can draw many conclusions.  They next looked at meta-analysis of 5 papers pointing out that only 2 of them had BF% as an end goal.  Then they began looking at some detail at a single paper, the one that seems to be driving the idea that fasted cardio is useless.… Keep Reading

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Is Fasted Cardio Useless for Fat Loss?

While I’m waiting for more than three whole people to step up and prove that they can train harder than me I wanted to run a piece I wrote a while back and never got around to finishing.  And don’t worry, I’m not done thumping on about the failure thing, or the inability of so many supposed fitness professionals of knowing what failure actually is.

The Instagrammatization of Fitness

I’ve watched the online fitness industry develop for nearly 25 years now.  And in recent years, it’s gotten funny in a lot of ways.  Among these is the Instagrammatization where people only seem capable of communicating or reading pretty Infographics.  Said Infographics placing a primacy on being short.  Which means that they cannot convey nuance.  Rather, people tend to make singular (and often trite) absolutist statements because that’s all there is space for.

Add to this the trend where something becomes “true” by repetition. … Keep Reading

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The Reason You’re Not Losing Weight

Although I have other pieces ready, I wanted to follow up my Dumb Shit Fitness Professionals Say #1. And I wanted to do that by showing what being helpful is. To whit, I’ve redone that stupid “Eating like an Asshole” thing to be correct and useful rather than a piece of trash. So now let me show you the real reasons you’re not losing weight.

Here it is, probably the closest to an Infographic I’ll ever make.

Real Reasons You're Not Losing Weight

 

Click it to make it bigger for saving. There’s a full size version at the end of the article.

Now let me examine the real reasons you’re not losing weight.

Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight: Myths

First let me look at some of the common myths to explain why you’re not losing weight. This can’t even begin to be comprehensive so I’ve just chosen some of the more representative ones.

Insulin

The idea that insulin was the cause of obesity or could prevent weight loss can be traced to Gary Taubes.… Keep Reading

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What are Calories?

There are a lot of crazy people on the Internet.  Sometimes I have even been one of them.  But this article is about a different kind of crazy person.  I won’t name him since I don’t believe in giving crazy publicity or even acknowledging them by name but he sends myself and others in the field relentless numbers of all caps insane emails.  He’s a complete nutjob.

In the most general sense, he’s one of the deniers of energy balance and Calories In Calories Out (CICO) as it pertains to body weight and body composition.  It’s the typical bs although his newest insanity is how calories not an actual thing that exists and, by some sort of extension I guess, that the calorie model of changes in body weight is incorrect for that reason.  That is, since calories doesn’t exist, they can’t explain the changes that occur in terms of bodyweight or body fat.… Keep Reading

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10 Tips to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

As I tend to do every year, I wanted to re-run a piece I’ve been running since 2008.  It’s a bit late but there are still 3 problem weeks left until New Year’s.  I won’t put anything else up, this will give me time to work on the book before having to deal with new content.  So without further adieu, I give you the annual running of 10 Tips to Deal with Holiday Weight Gain.  Enjoy!

For the body obsessed or even normal dieters, the holiday period from around October through to January can be a true minefield. Between the specific holidays of Halloween (mercifully passed), Thanksgiving and Christmas, along with endless goody baskets and parties, folks run into problems maintaining the habits they try to follow the rest of the year.

A lot of strategies exist to deal with this time, especially among the body obsessed, although I’d consider few of them particularly healthy from a mental or psychological standpoint. … Keep Reading