Podcast with Cassandra Forsythe

Book review

If there’s a woman in your life who’s considering weight training (or a man in your life who trains women), The New Rules of Lifting for Women is an excellent introduction to the field of women and weight training.

NROL is written by a kickass trifecta of three major names in the business.

Lou Schuler is a well-known fitness journalist who has written several books, including The New Rules of Lifting, The Book of Muscle, and The Home Workout Bible. He’s been a contributor to Men’s Fitness and Men’s Health, serving as the fitness director of the latter for several years.

Cassandra Forsythe is emerging as one of the most authoritative voices in women’s nutrition and training. She’s a Registered Dietitian who holds a PhD in Kinesiology, an MSc in Human Nutrition and Metabolism and a BSc in Nutrition and Food Science. Her main research interests are low-carbohydrate nutrition, dietary fatty acids, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, weight-loss, female-specific nutrition and training, and the female athlete triad. Her other book is Women’s Health Perfect Body Diet: The Ultimate Weight Loss and Workout Plan to Drop Stubborn Pounds and Get Fit for Life

(She’s also, by the way, pregnant. We explore her insights on being an unusual combination — a serious female athlete, Dr. Nutrition, and pregnant — in the podcast.)

Alwyn Cosgrove is one of the best-known strength coaches in the biz. He’s a former Taekwon-do international champion who now works as a strength and conditioning coach with a wide variety of clientele, including several Olympic and national level athletes, five World Champions and professionals in a multitude of sports including boxing, martial arts, soccer, ice skating, football, fencing, triathlon, rugby, bodybuilding, dance and fitness competition.

Podcast with Cassandra Forsythe

Cassandra and I get chatty with it for nearly an hour. Topics covered:

• What was it like to be part of the NROL team with Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove?
• The awesomeness of
  • female muscles and strength
  • mountain biking
  • tire flipping
• Cassandra’s early background as a gymnast and lifting after a serious spinal injury
• What happens to women’s bodies when they weight train
• Training with dudes in the gym
• Challenges encountered in training more seriously, and confronting taboos about women’s weight training
• Problems in finding social support (especially from other women), and why push presses aren’t necessarily compatible with bridesmaid’s dresses
• Disordered eating and “exercise bulimia” among “ordinary” women — “healthy” and “unhealthy” approaches to exercise and food
• The female athlete triad
• The myth and pressures of “perfection” and the reality of being an “imperfect expert”
• The role of stress in women’s lives and why we need to lighten the hell up
• Pregnancy, nutrition, and weight training — including sugar cravings, boot camp, and log pressing while pregnant
• The up-and-coming areas for women’s nutrition and fitness
• What’s wrong with kids these days

As Cassandra points out, it’s unusual to have a podcast with two women weight trainers chatting so honestly about the realities of training and bodily experiences. But that’s just the kind of good stuff that Stumptuous.com is devoted to bringing to the people!

Listen online by clicking below:

Or download in MP3 format for good listenin’ on your iPod. (65 MB – yeah, it’s a biggie!) Right-click on the link, if you want to save to your hard drive first (recommended).

Book review

As I’ve mentioned, NROL is a super introduction to the field of women and weight training, and it’s solidly backed by coaching experience and scholarly evidence.

This would make a great gift for your mom, sister, girlfriend/wife, best friend, etc. — anyone who’s considering weight training but hesitant about whether women should do it. It would also make a great gift for folks who may know their way around the gym a little, but want to become more grounded in some of the fundamental principles of program design and sports nutrition.

The first section of the book provides a primer on sex-based physiology, and why women and men should train the same: with relatively heavier weights, higher intensities, and more challenge overall.

The first section debunks common myths — most notably that women will “get too big” from weight training; that certain types of training can make muscles “longer”‘; and a key point: the myth that men’s and women’s muscles are substantially different.

It explains why weight training is essential for all women, not just athletes, and how weight training improves health, leanness, athletic performance, and daily-life function.

The first section also explains much of the logic behind the training plans provided: the importance of progressive overload, which exercises to choose and why, and why not to waste your time with gender-specific “toning”. (It explains why kickbacks suck. Hooray!)

The second section provides nutrition basics such as how many calories active women need, why protein’s important, and how to supplement with post-workout recovery nutrition. It suggests meal plan and preparation techniques, and there’s no fancy weird stuff or secret/magical ingredients — just clear, basic ideas for organizing your nutrition.

The third section provides a step-by-step, carefully crafted workout program in great detail. If you follow the program closely (and you should, if you want to reap the benefits), it’ll take around 6 months to complete. The lifts are basic yet effective. There’s lots of variation to keep you learning and interested.

Total beginners might be slightly intimidated by the presence of complex exercises such as squats and deadlifts — but hey, they can just come here and get help figuring out the technique!

All in all, this is a super starter text for anyone interested in women’s weight training.

Part 1: A Philosophy of Strength Training

Part 2: Perfecting Your Kettlebell Form

Part 3: Olympic Lifting for Beginners

Part 4: Warmups, Workouts, and Barbell Complexes

I’m not a huge Christmas fan. I score much farther along the “naughty” than “nice” continuum, and I deliberately opt out of the retail madness that characterizes North American commercial culture from late October to early January.

Thus, imagine my surprise when a few days before Christmas 2009, Santa visited me anyway. (Perhaps an administrative error at the North Pole. There are a lot of details to coordinate, after all.)

Yes, Santa visited in the form of a nice uniformed man (potentially a wise man; no evidence to confirm or deny) bearing a wondrous gift: four (!!) Dan John DVDs.

Joy to my world!

Now, regular readers will know how I feel about Dan. (See my review of his recent book, Never Let Go, here.)

Dan, to give you some context, is the Strength Coach and Head Track and Field Coach at Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper, Utah and contributing writer to Men’s Health. He’s won the Master Pleasanton Highland Games twice, American Masters Discus Championships several times, the National Masters Weightlifitng Championship once and holds the American Record in the Weight Pentathlon. (He also does a bunch of other amazing stuff, by the way, which you can see by reading his full bio.)

And he’s one of my heroes.

I’ve been a huge fan of his since I painstakingly printed out his early Get Up newsletters many years ago.

These newsletters contained Dan’s thoughts on life, lifting, and moving heavy objects around. They were incredibly clear, incredibly practical, and incredibly real. Each article was a gem containing existential truths, Dan’s characteristic salt-of-the-earth humour, and damn good ideas.

These articles hold up well even many years later, when the Internet crawls with self-proclaimed gurus and experts. Everywhere you look, someone is selling you the Great Fat Dissolving Solution or How To Add 200 lbs To Yer Bench Press.

Much of it is crap or simply a cursory treatment of the subject. Frequently, the person writing it has never trained a single client.

But Dan has seen hundreds — possibly thousands — of trainees over his decades of training, trainees who range from “picked last in gym class” to elite athletes. He knows what works – what really works.

And, like me, he doesn’t make people do stuff that he hasn’t tried himself. He is his own best guinea pig who’s kept gym journals dating back to 1971. Much respect.

Dan’s now distilled his vast knowledge into his book Never Let Go, a new website, and now, four excellent DVDs.

Podcast

Dan blesses us all with his Sermon of Squat.

Getting these DVDs gave me a good excuse to screw up my courage and call the great man himself. Here’s a half-hour chat between Dan and I, in which we cover:

• his basic philosophy
• the importance of making mistakes
• how to start out
• which exercises are key to a good program
• strength standards for women — how do you measure up to a high school girl?
• which supplements you should take (and the supplement store marketing scams)
• how to tell when an athlete’s career will be over in 2 years (surprising tip!)
• how to age well and why it’s important to stay strong for life

Click to listen!

Direct mp3 link for non-Flash (right-click or CTRL-click to save to your computer first)

Aside from that burlesque/wrestling show I once went to, in which two tiny Mexican wrestlers — one dressed as a clown, the other as Darth Vader — chased a burlesque dancer dressed as a pinata, my conversation with Dan ranks as one of the greatest moments of my life. (I edited out the first fifteen minutes of me screaming like an 11-year-old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert.)

DVDs

Back to the DVDs. You can see samples here.

Let me put this clearly: If you are interested in strength training, and you can only afford to buy four DVDs, buy these. If you never own or view any other DVD, you will pretty much have everything you need in these four items. (They’re also available individually, of course, by following the links above.)

They aren’t fancy videos. No star wipes, fitness models with pneumatic breasts, or multiple cuts per minute. Neither Guy Ritchie nor James Cameron was involved.

You’re getting Dan in his natural habitat — the gym — teaching average folks how to squat, press, swing, do Olympic lifts, and more. Cinematically this is meat and potatoes.

But meat and potatoes is what Dan does best. (His tagline: “I said it was simple. Not easy.”)

Each minute of these videos is packed full of wonderful tips, tricks, and insight. For example:

• there are four levels of strength coaching — and the first is “do no harm”
• your ass is actually important to your overhead press
• if you’re an athlete, chasing absolute strength may harm you
• the goal of a coach is to keep the goal the goal (Whoa.)

Practical, pragmatic, thoughtful, and infused with Dan’s trademark folksy wit and laid-back, avuncular style, each DVD provides:

• theory and practice for strength training as a general domain of expertise (which applies to anyone interested in learning to lift weights, or lift weights better, not just people working as “personal trainers” or strength coaches)
• instruction and insight into the fundamental lifts (squat, press, swing, Olympic lifts, etc.)
• mobility and stability principles
• modifications for different lifters or needs

In the world of slick yet content-free fitness video production these DVDs stand out as a breath of fresh air and the voice of reason, just like Dan himself.

As an oldest sister myself, I always wanted someone to look up to — someone who’d tell me the real deal about men, women, periods, getting into shape, being my own best friend, and how to dress myself. She’d be compassionate and encouraging, but honest. She wouldn’t let me get away with BS, but she’d always be in my corner.

Strength trainer Rachel Cosgrove is that woman to her clients.

Along with Mr. Rachel Cosgrove, aka some guy named Alwyn whom nobody in the strength training field has ever heard of, she runs Results Fitness in California. And let me tell you, it’s a pretty special gym.

Walk into Results on any day of the week and you’ll behold a room full of women lifting heavy — women squatting, deadlifting, Olympic weightlifting, bashing out sets of kettlebell swings or sandbag lifts, hauling shipping ropes or in other ways having their asses kicked.

This is unusual in and of itself, but even more unusual is that the majority of these women are “plain folks” of all ages, leaning more towards the “office worker” than the “WNBA player” or “superninja” end of the spectrum. Truly, it is spectacular.

Now Cosgrove has encapsulated her generous but firm approach into a wonderfully comprehensive book on women’s training and nutrition.

It’s always refreshing to read something that encourages women to train heavy and hard, as well as to nourish themselves adequately.

Cosgrove explains why the traditional women’s magazine fitness and nutrition “advice” (lift light, do lots of toning reps, do cardio till your feet fall off, live on 1200 calories of rice cakes, etc.) sucks, and her clients’ results speak for themselves. Moreover, Cosgrove provides her own experience to demonstrate that hours of low-intensity cardio don’t do — pardon the pun — jack squat.

But aside from good advice, Cosgrove gets into female-specific concerns, devoting large sections to periods, PMS, life stresses (e.g. child care), etc. This is sorely needed now that women are training seriously more than ever and need good guidance about how to address their natural hormonal fluctuations and physiological considerations — particularly in a fashion that is not condescending or dismissive. Cosgrove addresses biomechanical problems common to women, such as quad dominance, poor core stability, and the consequences of wearing high heels.

More unusual, Cosgrove tackles women’s “horizontal hostility” — aka backbiting, sniping, and/or self deprecation — head-on. “End body bashing,” she writes, celebrate your accomplishments, and don’t be a crab in the bucket. In other words, don’t pull other women down just to make yourself feel better. Don’t focus on perceived “flaws”; help yourself and other women develop strengths. It’s a uniquely collective, chick-positive approach in an industry that is often “every woman for herself”.

Cosgrove’s Fit Female Credo

1. Act as if you are a fit female.
2. Get out of your comfort zone.
3. Fuel your body to be fabulous!
4. Train hard or go home.
5. Get hooked on feeling fit, not a number on the scale.
6. Be an early riser.
7. Make rest, relaxation & regeneration a priority.
8. Obstacles will arise — anticipate them!
9. Keep a journal or a blog.
10. Eliminate the negative people known as crabs and surround yourself with positive people.
11. Think about your thoughts.
12. Attitude is everything.
13. Manage your stress.
14. Put an end to body bashing and instead celebrate your strengths.
15. Don’t rely on will power. Have strategies.
16. Stop rationalizing and making excuses.

What distinguishes this book stylistically is its clarity of voice. It’s well-structured, easy to follow, and above all, honest and forthright.

Cosgrove recounts her own struggles with body weight/fat and eating, describing her journey from cardio queen through triathlete through fitness model, and finally arriving at a place where she felt productive and satisfied. This is not a perky, post-adolescent, surgically produced cheerleader but a real woman, warts and all, dealing with Thanksgiving dinners and life stress and love handles and injuries, just like the rest of us.

And throughout the book we meet the other real women who are Cosgrove’s clients, everyone from Gerry (pictured here) to Lori, who writes poignantly:

“I can look at a photo album of myself over the past 20 years and in the photos where I am overweight and out of shape were also the times in my life when I did not have control of my life. Such a time was this past year when my life went spiraling out of control. Along with the spiral came the pounds. True, I had just had a baby (no easy feat at my age, 42) and true I had just been through a traumatic relationship with an abusive alcoholic. After going through days and weeks where I was so depressed I could barely get out of bed (only to care for my newborn, to eat, or to use the bathroom), I had finally had enough. I did what I always did when my life had tilted too far: I got back in shape… Not only did I physically get into shape, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually followed like stepping stones.”

Oh yes, and apparently Cosgrove knows the secret to getting a fantastic ass. What is it? Well, you’ll just have to read it and see! Thank me for the recommendation when your glutes are like two springy cantaloupes!

Also check out the interview/podcast I did with Lierre about her experiences on PrecisionNutrition.com!

Yet I am also an omnivore who struggles with the ethical questions of where food comes from and how it gets to me. I am a person who cares for others — both human and non-human — and a person who abhors oppression, violence (OK, at least the nonconsensual kind), and corporate degradation of our food quality and moral responsibilities (both to one another and to the living creatures we consume).

I am repulsed by the alienation that the industrial food production system has engendered. I am distressed that so many of my peers do not know what Brussels sprouts look like in the wild, or that they think meat comes in square packages.

And I am, quite frankly, pant-wettingly-scared about the ecological apocalypse that surely awaits us after pesticides, petroleum-based fertilizers, and the obliteration of biodiversity and natural life cycles via genetic modification of monoculture crops (including sterilized seeds) have had their way with the planet.

And yet, an omnivore I remain.

How, then, do I eat ethically?

Perhaps at no other time in history have we been so preoccupied with such questions of food ethics.

While various faiths have developed assorted food rules concerning preparation and consumption for thousands of years, most folks were nevertheless more concerned with the question of having enough to eat. The question of what to eat was generally secondary. And the question of why we eat was probably not on the table at all.

For the average person five hundred years ago, a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou was pretty much as good as it got. Now here we are, munching our way into the 21st century, idly contemplating more existential questions as we stuff our gob.

For some people, such issues are not so idle. Rather, for conscious eaters, these questions strike at the heart of what it means to be an ethically acting individual. Or how to live in good health. Or how to care for the environment.

Lierre Keith has tackled all of these questions throughout her life. Like many people, she assumed that being vegan was a good way to implement her desire to care for her health, animals, and the environment. She diligently followed a vegan lifestyle for two decades.

Then, she writes, her body gave out. Wracked with pain from a degenerative spinal condition; with insulin whiplash; with depression and cognitive problems; and with plain old hunger — all of which, she says, were caused by twenty years of self-imposed malnutrtition in the name of ethical eating — she knew she had to change.

At first, she denied the evidence. Like Fox Mulder from the X-Files, she wanted to believe: that her choices were leading to a more just world, and a more sound body. Eventually, however, the cracks in this worldview turned into chasms.

Her epiphany came in two parts: an episode of somnambulist euphoria involving a dish of sour cream, and a desperate moment of shame and fear when a kindly Chinese medical doctor informed her with gentle sadness that she had no chi. Her life force, she writes, was ebbing away. (I actually cried while reading this part.)

And thus, also like many people (who are often less inclined to discuss the transition publicly), she began eating meat again. The decision resulted in a slow climb back to (partial) health,  but filled her with such angst that she set out on a quest to reconcile her new dietary choices with her worldview.

The result is a stunning, profound, beautiful book.

Keith’s writing is superb: clear, authentic, and honest. She builds her case with skillful prose and powerful vignettes that offer glimpses into her old and new lives. She hides little, it seems: we follow her digestive challenges, her bleak and bedridden depression, her existential struggles, and her adventures in chicken-raising.

Such vignettes, alternately heart-wrenching and hilarious (including a deeply funny attempt to release garden snails into the wild rather than harm them), are set against a backdrop of some of the liveliest science writing since Carl Sagan.

Readers with specialized formal expertise in biological sciences may take issue with the nuances of some of Keith’s data or scientific claims, but anyone with a scientific bent will appreciate Keith’s joy and wonderment at discovering the fascinating natural world. Her journey spans soil biology, microbiology, plant chemistry and communication, ecology, agricultural science, nutrition, physiology, neuroimmunology, and global political struggles.

Throughout these voyages, Keith develops her argument: that a plant-based monoculture of a handful of crops (e.g. wheat, soy, and corn) has actively harmed us, other living organisms, and the delicate balance of ecosystems. Such monocultures not only contravene the rules of biodiversity in the natural world, but also provide opportunities for corporate control of food systems.

Furthermore, evolutionarily speaking, these monocultures do not produce the foods that evolution intended us to eat. Emerging research indeed suggests that a grain-based diet does us few favours:

• antinutrients in grains inhibit proper vitamin and mineral absorption;
• gliadin, lectins, and other inflammation-causing proteins eat their way through our guts;
• opioid compounds in wheat activate similar brain pathways as addictive drugs and trigger us to overconsume; and so forth.

Moreover, soy has moved from an industrial waste product to an industrial waste product with a genius PR team. (For more on this, see Kaayla Daniel’s work and our interview with her in Vol 6 of Spezzatino magazine.) Plant-based eaters who consume soy as a “healthy” staple/meat alternative risk serious health consequences, especially when consuming soy in significant amounts (as with soy milk, tofurkey, and the like).

Thus, she argues, by embracing and promoting an entirely plant-based lifestyle, well-meaning vegetarians inadvertently (and ironically) create a situation that is unsustainable, unhealthy, inappropriate for local ecosystems (e.g. attempting to grow prairie crops in regions that are actually forests), dependent on petroleum-based fertilizers and large corporations, and above all, ignorant of how biological systems actually work.

But what of the question of harming animals? Nearly all right-thinking people will agree that factory farming is a scorched blight both on food quality and animal dignity. Very few would argue that such a system has actually made food better, though it has certainly succeeded in turning flesh into a more productive commodity.. It has not made us healthier, nor engaged us more intimately in caring for non-human species.

The industrial food system does not nourish our bodies, our souls, or the land. Quite the opposite: it has produced diseased, distressed animals and a big pile of crap — figuratively (in the form of processed garbage non-food) and literally (in the form of effluent caked on to confined beasts and sprayed into fields of sludge, there to contaminate groundwater and sear the ground beneath it).

Yet does this by extension suggest that eating animals is inherently wrong or immoral? Keith says no.

Death is part of life, she writes. Everything dies. Everything is eaten.

In an interesting intellectual approach, she does not argue that eating meat is more or less “right”, but rather that apprehending the natural world as a complex web of life and death — with death a necessity rather than an awkward, unmentionable, or avoidable outcome — reflects a grown-up view of reality that faces nature’s unpleasant truths head-on. Eventually we have to acknowledge that our goldfish is not sleeping and there is no Santa Claus.

Likewise we have to acknowledge that food is a complex cycle that does not begin with a grocery store. We may be saddened by this reality but it does not go away for wishing.

In addition, Keith points out, what of the non-cute and/or tiny creatures that we must harm in order to facilitate agriculture? We destroy billions of soil biota, insects, and small animals. We drive out birds, rodents, amphibians. We drain wetlands and raze forests. How many bugs equal a cow? How many mice equal an ear of corn?

While it does not form a significant part of the book, Keith points out the links between social oppression and our attitudes towards consumption. These links are not as facile or self-evident as one might think.

Often, a meat dish at a lefty potluck is as welcome as a turd in the punch bowl. I’ve often experienced disparaging comments about my food choices from well-meaning people (which, ironically, is the same thing that happens to vegetarians).

How could I tell such well-meaning folks that the experience of catching my own fish (with another, smaller, fish, as if I needed another reminder of everything being eaten), killing it myself, preparing it with care, and then eating it within a few hours filled me with a more profound sense of wonder and responsibility towards nature’s bounty than any trip to a crunchy health food store would ever accomplish?

I don’t need a course in environmentalism to appreciate the impact of my life choices on other creatures when I am directly involved in the food chain. I don’t need a course in anatomy to know that I should carefully save and cherish each part of this animal whose life I claimed. By implicating ourselves in this cycle, states Keith, we assume true responsibility for others and ourselves.

There is a proverb that says one does not become fat on food that one prays over. I choose to interpret this to mean that when we force ourselves to confront nature red in tooth and claw, to assume responsibility for our place in it, to experience wonderment at its miracles, and to share the harvest in a context of care and joy, we are wiser about what we consume.

Put down the cookie and drop the donut. Hard, isn’t it?

For all of us who’ve ever found ourselves going into autopilot as we spoon peanut butter from the jar at 2 am, or who’ve ever found ourselves staring at the shiny foil bottom of a chip bag wondering what the hell just happened, or who keep their medicine cabinet well-stocked with Pepto-Bismol… this book is for you.

This book is also for the rest of you (who possibly don’t exist) who don’t understand how people can do such silly things. You 1% who claim to be satisfied with a single square of chocolate, listen quietly without interruptions.

If you’re from, say, rural Asia or eastern Africa, walk around any mall in the United States and you’ll be flabbergasted at the flabbitude. It’s a situation unlike any other in human history: the widespread wide-load consequences of abundant overnutrition and sedentary living.

While traveling through the southern US and stopping at a Denny’s, I had the inspiration to make a movie called, simply, Eating. The movie would be a montage of mouths chewing and slurping the vast portions of sugar/fat/chemical-laced slurry that passes for comestibles in North America.

Not surprisingly, the top-selling drug classes in the US are drugs to treat the aftermath of overeating. #1 are gastro-esophageal reflux (GERD) medications, while #2 are statins, which purportedly lower cholesterol, which supposedly is good for us (let’s leave that discussion for another time).

It’s tempting to think that overeating and its symptomatic consequences — obesity, chronic diseases, etc. — represent a failure of individual will. We just eat too fucking much because, well, we are weak. A well-known bodybuilding writer once quipped that he was going to write a very simple diet book called Don’t Eat So Much, You Fat Fuck. (I assume this would go along with Saturday Night Live’s infomercial for a financial management strategy called Don’t Buy Stuff You Can’t Afford.)

But is it really that easy? Are we all just moral weaklings? Lazy? Stupid?

When I was fat, I certainly wasn’t. I tried hard to eat well and get regular activity. And I was in grad school, so my stupidity was debatable. (Probably a different, more masochistic, kind of stupidity. I digress.)

Now that I’m fit, my desire to eat delicious things — way past the point where I should quit — has not gone away. I’m just better at managing the insatiable reward system of the brain, and I avoid many of the foods that trigger the NOM NOM NOM response. But you know what? The Pepto Bismol is still in my medicine cabinet and I’d be lying if I said it was unopened.

So what’s up with the fill ‘er up?

In this insightful book, author David Kessler explores the mechanisms behind overeating. Why do we eat too much? Why do we eat things that we know we shouldn’t? Why do we eat well past the point of satiety — often well into the territory of pain?

Important systems in the brain and body control appetite (the desire to eat), hunger (the physical manifestation of needing food), and satiety (feelings of fullness and satisfaction). These systems have done us very well for millennia.

However, these systems evolved in conditions of food scarcity and irregularity. They evolved when food was high-fibre, often high-protein, and high in naturally occurring “good” fats. And they evolved in conditions where we might have to trek many, many miles to get that food. We evolved to run after beasts, to scoop fish from streams and oceans, to scrabble roots out of the soil, and to pluck tiny berries from bushes as we walked and walked and walked. Sweetness signaled “good to eat” and “fruit”. Salt came from the sea, or from the blood of animals freshly killed.

We did not, in other words, evolve to manage an overstimulating environment replete with artificial fats, mountains of sugar, constipatingly fibreless hunks of gluten, artificially generated scents that remind us of sizzling meat on a grill or fresh strawberries, nor a host of other chemicals that stimulate our reward pathways.

Our brain is wired for the savannah, but it’s getting Dairy Queen and corn dogs. Is it any wonder the poor dear is going haywire?

Kessler explores the ways in which the commercial food industry has manipulated the contents of prepared foods to ensure that these foods hit our “on” switch. There is more sugar. More fat. More salt. More perceived — but not always actual — flavour. All of these chemicals stimulate our brains’ reward systems.

This is not surprising. What is novel is the degree to which this manipulation occurs. Every last detail is considered: look, feel, texture, graininess or smoothness, the speed at which a food melts or crunches, the sound it makes when your molars grind or the lid pops, how it’s arranged on a plate or in a package, what you have to do to get it (ie the “food ritual”, eerily similar to the smoking ritual), the nuances of smell (one chemist explains that he can take a basic cooked beef flavour-scent and layer additional notes on top: grilled, roasted, even barbecued outdoors — entirely in a test tube).

Meta-food issues are also addressed: for example, just like real estate, overeating is location location location. Mice fed tasty treats in a certain location will come to prefer that location, even if they didn’t like it at first. If we were served scrumptious chili cheese dogs in a dirty alley, we’d eventually find ourselves cruising that alley, stepping over garbage as we salivated. 

Also interestingly, eaters prefer multisensory experiences. Once, years ago, in the throes of PMS insanity, I assembled and devoured horrid little sandwiches from two potato chips and peanut M&Ms as filling. This “PMS crunch” combo of crispy-crunch + sweet + slightly bitter + fat + salt is no doubt the secret behind the abomination known as chocolate covered pretzels. The more flavours, textures, and stimuli can be jammed in there, the better. Thus, chicken wings are glopped with blue cheese dip (with added sugar); fries are drowned in bacon/cheese/sour cream; double-deep fried nachos are suffocated beneath groaning layers of cheese (from a mix, also sugared), previously frozen and reconstituted avocado, and sour cream that probably contains no actual cream but rather hydrogenated corn or soy oil and emulsifiers.

Foodwise we’re like crazy cat ladies who hoard old shopping bags and bits of string. The more we can jam in there at once, the better. Thus, companies seductively offer us sprinkles, toppings, sauces, cheesy chunks, nummy bits… preferably all gunked into a bucket with a fried egg on top, as per Mr. Creosote’s menu order in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life.

Kessler interviews food scientists, neurobiologists, food industry executives and average people. The food industry exec confesses that companies are well aware of the research — such as the study showing that mice who are normally self-regulating will gorge themselves sick on Froot Loops and other “supermarket foods” — and they use it to their advantage. The food industry, remarks the exec, “is the manipulater of the consumers’ minds and desires.”

Kessler’s thorough explanation creates a damning critique of a deeply cynical industry obsessed with squeezing every last drop of profit out of consumers’ vulnerabilities and cheap commodities. That supersized drink — composed of colouring, water and syrup — you just ordered? 90% profit for the company. Costs them 5 cents to make while you pay $1.59 and think you got a great value.

“Our job,” says one food industry scientist, “was to sell more syrup.”

The worst part, as Kessler observes, is that we often don’t truly enjoy this consumption. The experience is contradictory: we eaters want it, but we don’t.

Even while we’re stuffing our faces, we’re experiencing a kind of artificial hedonism rather than a deep, existential enjoyment. Afterwards, of course, as the stomach cramps roll in like intestinal tsunamis of guilt and we’re left with empty packages, we’re certainly unhappy. As one “average person” remarks about one of her favourite junky snacks, “I do not want them, but I cannot control my desire to eat them.” 

Throughout the book, Kessler captures, with a deep compassion as well as medically informed insight, the complex experience of overeating. The real people’s stories ring painfully, heartbreakingly true.

He points out that because of this dysfunctional food environment, the majority of us are actually disordered eaters without having official “eating disorders”. To me, this is a fascinating insight. 

Problem drinkers often refuse the label of “alcoholic” because they don’t drink in the morning, or throw up, perhaps. Men who abuse their partners resist the title of “wife beater” because, y’know, it doesn’t happen often, and we were both mad.

Likewise, most of us would not self-label as “disordered eaters”, but that is exactly what we are. Our evolutionary physiology is out of whack with our modern environment. The result is chemical chaos, mismatched stimuli-responses, and a perfectly good body that we understand as messed up. As Kessler demonstrates through numerous examples, our bodies are doing the best jobs they can; it’s just that the tools they have currently suck, and there are agents who, like medieval demons, prey on our (very) soft underbellies.

So what do we do?

One answer is simple: Get away from the foods that make us cuckoo. Get away from the foods that tweak our brain the wrong way. But it’s not simply an issue of self-deprivation, for that only reinforces the cycle. As Kessler notes, rats who are intermittently rewarded will still seek the reward — for as long as it takes.

Rather, it’s about choosing — and seeking — foods and behaviours that affirm our brain’s chemistry and body’s operational controls while actually nourishing us.

As Kessler also notes, if we are immersed in this environment, we cannot rely on our intuition any more. We cannot always trust our perceptions. We inhabit an environment designed to mess with our reality in all kinds of ways: artificial boobs, electric lights at night, fast-paced work demands, close-up visual tasks, chemical stimulants in the morning and depressants in the evening. The days of the savannah are long behind us.

Kessler argues that “we need to replace chaos with structure”. Our lizard brain can keep on handling our breathing, heartbeat, pooping, and running away from angry dogs, but it’s time to put the recently evolved logical brain in the driver’s seat for most of our experiences. We evolved those food impulses, but we also evolved a very good thinky brain that can solve mathematical equations, produce symphonies, and write TPS reports.

Use that thinky part.

Recognize that we’re being miscued, led astray, and BSed by food companies that mean to do us harm. Recognize that what we feel in the immediate moment may not be “real” or ideal for us. Re-adjust our conception of how much we should be eating — since food companies have rapidly increased the suggested portion sizes beyond the actual mechanical capacities of the human stomach. Recognize, as Kessler suggests, that we are in “food rehab” like any other type of addict. We will inevitably relapse, but we have to get back on the horse. 

Don’t feel shame. Feel inspired to action. You can take control, he says. With some self-knowledge and critical thinking, we can all take control back.

And this is not, he concludes, about self-denial. It’s about claiming our evolutionary birthright: food that genuinely replenishes our needs, that tastes truly (not artificially) good, that makes us feel joyful rather than stuffed/guilty/overstimulated, and that works with our body’s chemistry rather than bludgeoning it into whimpering, masticating submission.

Dan John, Never Let Go: A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning. On Target Press, 2009.

To every teacher who’s demotivated a student, every anal-retentive bodybuilder-by-numbers who worries about fluffing up their “upper biceps”, every gym salesperson personal trainer who can’t teach the foundational lifts, every sports science egghead who can’t apply their own concepts to make people actually better, and every sucky coach who can play well but can’t communicate the basic skills that athletes need, I say: Follow the gospel of Dan John and learn ye the error of your ways.

Dan John is like that mysterious guy at the bus station who appears one night when you’re drunk and high and just recently dumped by your longterm partner and considering a cheap trip to anywhere. He fades out of the fog at you like some kind of strongman wraith and dispenses plainspoken homilies that you didn’t even know you needed. When he says them, you’re all like, “Where the hell have you been all my life and why was I wasting my existence until this moment on Muscle and Fitness back issues?” 

It’s like he can reach inside your brain and with a thumb and forefinger that can crush coal into diamonds (but is usually reserved for crushing cans of beer) he extracts the essential truth of humanity, as experienced via a hundred-rep squat set.  Then he hoists a caber, winks, and stomps away on tree-trunk legs.  

You’re left with a size-12 thumbprint on your soul and a sudden desire to sober up, squat real deep, quit your job, and polish the iron in John’s Utah garage gym.

If Chuck Norris had a love child with a 32nd dimension spirit guide, it’d be Dan John.

Dan John is the real deal. He’s that guy you call when you need any kind of problem solved. He’s a shoot-from-the-hipper, a straight-talking Everyman who has peered into the abyss and casually crushed out his cigarette on the face of existential dread like it ain’t no thang. 

I started reading Never Let Go while sitting on a deck with a friend who was reading a newspaper. By the second page in, I was exclaiming, “Let me read you this funny bit!” By the fifteenth funny bit, I gave up on interruptions and just read it out loud for several hilarious pages. We followed Dan’s adventures through crappy workouts, the Velocity Diet, ridiculous contests of strength, and coming to terms with his belly devouring his belt. We plowed through programs to get strong, programs to get fast, programs that would probably, in the end, make me a better person for doing them as well as a better lifter. 

Throughout it all, Dan’s honest, forthright voice shines through. He speaks simple truths in simple words, but as with many things in life, the simplest things are the most challenging — and the most life-changing. Be strong. Lift heavy. Lift real things. Train outside. Challenge yourself. Eat real food. Treat the weight with respect. And of course, when it counts, never let go.

News flash: exercise is good for you.

Sure, we all know it.

But do you know why?

And do you know the many hows? Judging from a lot of traditional medical advice, most folks have failed to appreciate the plethora of ways in which exercise can treat, heal, and even cure. Bed rest is commonly prescribed, particularly for older people. Yet according to Blech, this is likely the worst advice someone can receive!

The book opens with an apt quote from philosopher Blaise Pascal: “Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.” This is, essentially, Blech’s foundational premise.

He’s concerned that although the therapeutic value of exercise is well-known in clinical and exercise physiology circles, this insight hasn’t trickled down to the general consciousness as well as it should. As a result, “patients and physicians alike far too often try to fix medical problems with drugs, high-technology procedures, and simply resting in bed.”

Indeed, the market for pharmaceuticals is ever-increasing. But do we need many of these costly and potentially dangerous therapies, and should their use be so widespread — especially when a potent treatment is as close as our front door, and as complicated as putting on a pair of walking shoes?

Blech reviews a variety of common health conditions such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and back pain along with aging in order to demonstrate (with well researched sources) that exercise offers profound benefits in treating and preventing many of the chronic diseases that plague us.

For example, breast, colon, and prostate cancer levels are lower in active people. The beneficial effects of exercise in this case are due to lowered body fat (which decreases the amount of chemical secretions that may stimulate cancer growth), enhanced immune systems, and lowered levels of stress (which again can produce high levels of damaging hormones and chemicals). For people with cancer and other chronic diseases, exercise drastically improves quality of life.

Aging is often viewed as an inevitable shuffle towards decreptitude and decay. And yet, says Blech, much of what we expect as “normal” aging is simply disuse. We don’t have to accept a slower pace, dissolving muscle tissue, falling down, and chronic pain as just part of getting older. Indeed, he says, we should not accept it. Exercise keeps us young, keeps older folks vigorous, and lengthens our lives overall.

One of the more interesting topics is the relationship between mental wellbeing and exercise. Blech describes a psychiatrist who combines therapy with exercise sessions, interacting with patients while they both walk on treadmills.

Such a practice has roots in the “walking meditations” of monks. The intricate Celtic mazes were often used as paths for monks to follow as they engaged in spiritual deliberation, but the practice is common to devotees worldwide.

Indeed, the common assumption that the mind cannot influence the body — and, indeed, is an entirely separate entity from it, like a smart little driver perched atop a big, stupid car, is now heavily questioned. “The body builds the mind as well as itself,” states Blech. “If you exercise your muscles, you practically flood your gray cells with fresh nutrients and growth factors.”

While it’s tempting to assume that Blech would assign us all gym memberships and have us sweat to the oldies, he is careful to point out that exercise is life — and we are not separate from it.

“Exercise” is not a special thing that we need to go elsewhere to do; we all have the potential to move around at every moment, and to incorporate it into our daily existence. Our species evolved quite well without spandex and spin classes, after all.

Enter the NURU reference cards. These cards are aimed at “the man or woman who wants to look good and feel great without having to hit the local gym”. It’s a pack of cards with exercise pictures, descriptions, and workout instructions for low-tech exercises.

The first thing that appeals to me about these little doodads is the price. They’re cheap. For $10 you get a stack of 30 little cards that clip together like a keychain. You can stick them in your purse, pocket, or workout bag.

The second thing that appeals to me is their design. They’re well laid out, attractively presented, and manage to stuff a whole lot of great, useful information into a tiny package. Most cards have some kind of thoughtful illustration of muscles, exercises, or exercise concepts. There is a glossary of common exercise terms, and some guidance on staying motivated.

The cards cover the basics of strength training, with some surprisingly informed advice, such as an emphasis on interval training. This isn’t the usual dumbass muscle mag crap: they debunk myths about women getting too big, and spot reduction (I was disheartened to see, however, that they do reproduce the “only squat to parallel” myth but hey, it’s probably too much to hope for.) Muscle groups and their functions are depicted and described well. There are suggested variations for different ability levels.

I even found an idea for something I’d never seen before: using a towel wrapped around one’s foot for a resisted row. Clever! I also liked the table chin-up, which was something I’ve used with clients; nice to see that other people don’t find the notion totally insane.

There are also ideas for low-tech cardio — I was gratified to see that burpees made the list, horrid yet brilliant creatures that they are.

If you’re looking for a handy portable reference, I’d definitely recommend them.

Usually the secret to us doing something is that we want to get it done. So we’re “too busy” to scrub out the toilets or balance our chequebooks but never too busy to read the comics. It’s a question of where we choose to direct our efforts. Here are some tips to help you get that butt into the gym. None of these are lazy-proof, since it only works if YOU want to do it anyway. But hey, they can’t hurt.

make working out a priority

First off, you have to decide that working out is an important part of your daily and weekly routine. Often it’s not that people don’t have time for working out, they just put other things ahead of it. Decide in advance how much time you have available. Don’t overestimate it—be realistic. Can you find 4-6 hours a week? I think you can dig those out of somewhere. Establish these hours as your own and assign them top priority.

keep a workout journal

Keeping a journal of your workouts not only contributes to a streamlined and organized workout, but it also helps you organize your time and keep thinking ahead about your next workout. Planning workouts in advance gives them kind of an official stamp like an appointment you have to keep. Once you have an idea of what you’ll be doing for each workout, you can get in and get out with maximum efficiency.

make it fun

Activity should be fun. The body loves to move. Try a bunch of activities and see which ones you like. If you don’t like one, try another one. There are a zillion choices, from archery to… uhhh… zamboni chasing. Who knows, you could uncover a secret talent for windsurfing, belly dancing, or unicycling. Make a point of enjoying your exercise time. Work out in a pleasant space either by yourself if alone time is important to you, or with a friend if you prefer. Laugh between weight sets. Put on music that gets you going. Get outside if you can. Enjoy yourself! More on having fun

surround yourself with motivational things

Find a muscle or fitness mag that you like, from Girljock to Flex and read it. Put up a really unflattering photo of yourself struggling to open a jar while wearing a giant muumuu. Buy nifty new workout clothes that you enjoy wearing and leave them lying around. Paint “NIKE” across your fridge next to the articles you snipped out from the newspaper about fitness helping you live longer. Whatever! Keep motivational things around to remind yourself of why you took this weird hobby up. Often all we need is a small external cue to give us that little push.

have someone else motivate you

Like many things in life, working out is sometimes best done with someone else. If you have a workout partner you can motivate each other, or you can motivate yourself through sheer shame of public failure, heh heh. Deciding not to go to the gym when no-one knows or cares is like that tree falling in the forest… Also, get involved in a Usenet newsgroup such as misc.fitness.weights or misc.fitness.misc or another online forum. Talking to other like-minded people helps keep you interested in the subject and you can learn plenty of new things. Get to know the person at the gym’s front desk. Think about how they’ll miss you if you don’t show up (or how they’ll be really happy they took all your money and didn’t have to do anything for you).

keep a routine

When I was a kid, Saturday mornings were for doing housecleaning chores. I dreaded those Saturday mornings and even now the idea gives me the willies but at least the house got clean. Now that I don’t bother to assign a day to it, the house gets cleaned less often, which is fine because I don’t care. But the lesson here is that even unpleasant things get done if we assign them a place in our routine. Doing the laundry, taking out the garbage, doing our tax return, etc., all have a place in the routine cycles of our lives. Why shouldn’t working out have the same status, especially because it’s NOT unpleasant? Organize your day and week so that you know Wednesday at 7 p.m. you should be ripping apart the gym, and even what specific pieces of equipment you should be leaving smoking in your wake.

mess with your head

In this endeavour we call all learn from Homer Simpson, a man who doesn’t let his brain push him around. I like to tell my brain one thing then do another. For instance, I get bored easily when doing cardio. So I tell my brain that we are only going to walk for 30 minutes. What I don’t tell it is that I’m going to walk in one direction for 30 minutes, and then somehow I have to get home. Ms. Brain goes along happily with the idea of a 30-minute walk and never really minds when she discovers she has to do 30 more. Tell your brain you’re just going to the store so it lets you get out of the house. Then take the long way there with your legs in charge of the action. Get off the bus two stops ahead so you have a 15-minute walk home.

Your brain being, well, smart, likes to think in terms of numbers and time and quantities. If you tell it that you expect to do only 6 reps with a certain weight, it’ll cash out after 6 right on schedule. So don’t approach your lifting with a number in mind. Just get in there, and when your brain says, “Well, that’s six; time to stop!”, you tell it that when you said six you meant eight. “Oh, my mistake!” your brain will say, and out come two more reps. Then tell your brain, “Look, I just bet some biker guy a hundred bucks that I could do TEN reps on this! Do you want to get publicly mocked??” “Fine,” says your brain, “Ten reps it is.”

There are a lot of mind games you can play with yourself to get that stick-in-the-mud brain out of the driver’s seat. When I am about to approach a particularly scary squat, I simply tell myself calmly that I have a choice: either get the reps I want or fail at the bottom and leave it on the safety rails. 99% of the time, I get the reps I want, because I’ve given myself a safe option for failure if I need it, as well as a clear course of action: either do the reps or leave it on the bars.

keep yourself free of injury

Nothing takes the wind out of your sails like a nagging injury. It can take down even the most diehard athlete and send them into a depressive slump. Be careful with the activities you choose, and learn how to do them intelligently and proficiently. Increase your workload gradually. Increase either intensity or duration, not both together. If you feel bad pain while training, stop immediately. Don’t ever push through an injury thinking it will get better. Most of the time, it won’t. Keep yourself whole and you’ll keep yourself motivated.

More on injuries

consider the alternative

In response to the question: How do you stay motivated? Charlie Moody wrote on misc.fitness.weights:

I look in the mirror: if I see any trace of the sad, exhausted, pale, weak, fat, whipped wage-slave desk-jockey I used to be, I’m ready to lift some weight. I’m reminded of my sister (nothing personal), who’s spent her life doing all the stuff other people want her to do, and all the stuff she figures she should do. A couple of weeks ago, she asked me with tears in her eyes when would it be her turn to have a life and do what she wants? All I could tell her was, “It’ll be your turn when you get off the hamster wheel and take a fucking turn.” It’s up to you. No one else. You’ll find the time to work out when you DECIDE you’re gonna work out. You’ll eat and rest and take care of yourself because you decide you deserve it, you need it, you want it, and NO ONE is going to keep you from it. Not even you. I’m a beginner, too, and no-one’s gonna watch what I eat for me, no-one’s gonna lift an ounce of my weight. I can make up any story I want about it, but stories are bullshit: I can be a warrior, or I can be a victim. For the warrior, no excuses; for the victim, only excuses.

In my case, my family history is a ticking time bomb. Between the osteoporosis, colon cancer, cardiovascular disease, hypothyroidism, joint troubles, back pain, and stress/cognitive/anxiety disorders, I have a full slate of potential genetically linked disasters. On the plus side, all of these things respond to and can be controlled or even prevented by exercise and good nutrition. Watching family members succumb to these things is difficult, especially since many of these conditions did not have to occur, or could have been reduced in their severity.

To be perfectly frank, I am going to be in seriously deep shit if I don’t take care of myself. I don’t have the kind of genetics that allow me to smoke a pack of unfiltered Gauloises a day, chase it with a rasher of bacon, and live to 120. The writing’s on the wall: unless I want a premature and probably unpleasant demise, I’d better get off my butt and keep moving.

Now in my thirties I find myself considering my own mortality more and more. I watch people around me get consumed in their careers to the detriment of their relationships and own wellbeing. I see them park themselves at their desks for twelve hours a day, popping anti-inflammatories to control the RSI and the backaches. I watch them drink, smoke, and live on takeout food. And I watch them start to crumble, piece by piece.

I’ve decided that I’m not going to die until I’m damn good and ready. I’ve also decided that every year of life that I am generously granted is going to be spent pursuing optimal health: physical, mental, and emotional. No job, no lifestyle is worth the damage that inactivity and poor eating causes. Am I drinking seaweed juice and living in an oxygen chamber? Hell no. A good quality of life includes pleasures like tasty food and getting out of the house, getting dirty, getting a few scrapes. But it also means constant maintenance in the form of self-care. This is a small rent to pay for getting to live in such a cool apartment!

The alternative to exercise is sedentary living and inactivity. The alternative to eating well is cheating the body of what it needs. The alternative to a healthy lifestyle is self-destruction. The alternative to feeling fit and energetic is feeling like a bag of reheated dog poop. The alternative to growth is stagnation. Which one sounds better to you?

By the way, don’t you have a 3 pm appointment with a chunk of iron?

Reviewed by Erin Weiss-Trainor

Having experienced the joys of being pregnant three times over for a total of 839 days (who’s counting), it’s clear just from watching Lauren Brooks’ latest DVD, Baby Bells: Fit Pregnancy Workout With (Optional) Kettlebells that it would have been a great addition to my training regimen as I aimed to stay fit and strong as each of my babies grew. Similar in training structure and instruction to Brooks’ first DVD, Baby Bells offers a variety of lower intensity and equipment options, along with modified positions to accommodate a wide range of abilities and the changes in a woman’s body as pregnancy progresses. For those who have used kettlebells in the past, and are looking to continue training during their pregnancy, this DVD is a great follow-up to Brooks’ first DVD, The Ultimate Body Sculpt and Conditioning with Kettlebells.

With a more mellow and calming feel than her first DVD, Lauren, 6 ½ months pregnant with her second child, introduces viewers to the benefits of exercise during pregnancy and the precautions that need to be taken when exercising during pregnancy, as outlined by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Encouraging participants to listen to their bodies and always err on the side of caution, the DVD takes viewers through a three-part workout where three to five exercises are completed circuit-style and then repeated.

Along with bodyweight exercises such as push-ups, many of the standard kettlebell exercises, such as two-handed swings, sumo squats, one-arm rows, step back lunges, and tricep presses are included. Lauren shows how kettlebell size should change with each exercise and gives options to perform these with dumbbells or bodyweight alone. As Lauren demonstrates the higher intensity versions, an inset video provides alternatives for modifying the position and range of motion of the movements. Participants are encouraged to take as much rest as they need between exercises, and between sets within each part. Paired with a joint mobility warm-up and a cool-down with stabilizing and stretching geared specifically to target muscles and joints that are under more stress during pregnancy, the entire workout takes just over 35 min and can easily be performed anywhere with little to no equipment.

For experienced kettlebell users who want to experience increased energy and strength during their pregnancy, and prepare their bodies for an easier delivery and recovery from childbirth, this DVD provides a complete and enjoyable way to do so. With less specific instruction on kettlebell form than the first DVD, those who are both pregnant and new to this type of training can get the same benefit, but would be best to stick with bodyweight or dumbbell options. Learning the basic kettlebell movements is best mastered when a woman’s body is not going through the many changes of pregnancy, or having to worry about a cumbersome belly.

Something about watching Brooks swing the kettlebell around her gorgeous belly makes you appreciate the strength and power of a pregnant woman. Once again, Lauren inspires. While many women may use the excuse of pregnancy to literally “eat for two” and stay away from the gym, the energy that Lauren radiates proves that making fitness and healthy eating a priority even during pregnancy is good for mom and for a healthy baby.

Lauren Brooks is a fitness and strength trainer in San Diego, CA. Lauren earned her B.S. in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Fitness, Nutrition, and Health from San Diego State University. Lauren Brooks is certified by the American Council on Exercise and Russian Kettlebell Challenge.

Lauren’s site |  Previews of the DVDs