Simplicity Speaks

Saturday was cold and rainy. So I spent it watching my chubby kid terrorize the bulldogs in his walker while a retrospective about the life of Anthony Bourdain played in the background. Despite being a celebrity chef, Bourdain had grown cynical of fine dining and the explosion of pretentious foodie culture, especially Instagram-driven "food porn." He now saw food like he once did, as a "normal...

Deep Thoughts On Dieting

So I’m back at it once again. Another year older. Certainly greyer. Putting myself through yet another “summer diet” despite living in a city where summer is about 6 days long. I do it for a number of reasons. I feel, move, sleep, and look better when I’m lean. Reducing bodyfat also improves many key health markers, if longevity and shit is important to you. Business wise, it helps me stay...

Ten Seconds to More Muscle

People love to dissect and analyze lifting weights. I think this is a good thing, especially from a hypertrophy or "bodybuilding" perspective. Anyone who's been at this a while will tell you there's more to building muscle (and staying healthy) than just "picking up the weights and putting them down." Like so many things in life, how you do something is just as important as what you do. And in...

What’s Making Us Fat — And What Isn’t

It's almost summer! Break out the BBQ, grill too much meat, maybe even (gasp) take your kid for ice cream. Wait, no, sorry.... You shouldn't celebrate anything -- be it a birthday or the change of seasons or any of life's blessings -- with food. And certainly never reward positive behavior with it. "After all, you're not a dog." Can we shelve this glib, condescending, diet coach bullshit? If you...

Lose Fat by Just Trusting the Process

Wow. This is what happens when you "weave" a fitness plan into your busy life (as opposed to just hopping onto a cookie cutter program), and focus on the Big Rocks. We've worked with Mariah McCullough for quite some time and she just refuses to quit -- despite facing more than her share of real life challenges along the way. Among those challenges were the days when the scale didn’t reflect the...

The Best Teacher is Experience

The past few years I've come full circle. When I was a kid through my 20’s, I wanted to be a card-carrying musclehead. I was never too concerned with the competitive side of the sport. What happened on contest day didn’t do much for me. Instead I was far more interested in all the variables that had to be considered leading up to show day, and beyond: Diet Training history Lifestyle Genetics...

When in Doubt … Work Harder.

In training, finding "your working gear" is everything. It's that zone where all the noise drifts away, allowing your brain and body to fully get in sync. Now it's not avoiding all distractions or human interaction like some insufferable asshole. (What's wrong with a pleasant exchange now and then?) It's much deeper than that. More the removal of any physical self doubt, allowing for the...