Month: January 2012

Finally got back on my P90X2 track again last night. I will probably do another week of phase 1 just like the original P90X to give me 3 weeks on 1 week rest. Last night’s workout went OK, I need a better stability ball though since mine is a low quality and too squishy. I was a little short on some of the moves because my quads were screaming after my KB workout the day before. I guess I hadn’t done enough squatting while I was away and the KB workout just fried me. I have to say I do like this workout, even though it is a little heavy on the balance work (it probably should be since it’s CALLED balance) like a lot of this P90X2 system. It’s a decent full body approach and I only noticed this time around how much leg work there was because of my pain levels. I probably managed around 90% of the program, I fell short on the crabby dumbbell press due to the stupid ball and I can’t quite manage the Lolasana yet but I will get there!

Time Magazine has once again proven that years of misinformation fed to us from interest groups and commodity crop behemoths is something that will take years to overcome. The article is ridiculous but the retort I found on Bulletproofexec is pretty good. Here’s a clip to get you started:

On January 4th, Sora Song of Time Magazine published an article called, “It’s the Calories, Stupid: Weight Gain Depends on How Much — Not What — You Eat.”  This is one of those articles.

The article focused on a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association titled,

“Effect of dietary protein content on weight gain, energy expenditure, and body composition during overeating: a randomized controlled trial.”

The goal was to find how over consuming protein or fat affected total weight gain and lean body mass.  Basically, does eating more of protein or fat have a metabolic advantage over the other macronutrient.

Sora Song, an editor for Time Magazine, writes, “…it’s not what you eat but how much that matters when it comes to body weight.”

Like many people, she assumes the only variable when it comes to food  is the number of calories, which ignores the role of macronutrients like protein, starch, and fat.  If it was true that the only variable that mattered was how much you ate, you could eat a low carb diet of damaged seed oils, fructose, and whole grains it would have the same effect as a high carb diet of sweet potatoes, seafood, and coconut (like the Kitavans).  As the Kitavan research shows, the difference is obvious.  While a high carb diet is not necessarily bulletproof, it’s a lot better than a high toxin diet -regardless of the macronutrient composition.

This is starting to sound suspect but if you read on you will find that the study (as is normal with “sponsored” studies) claims that you gain less weight on a low protein hig carb diet than the other way around. Unfortunately what they fail to show is that the type of weight gain on carbs is almost pure fat where the weight gain on protein is at least 50% muscle mass. But Kellogg’s don’t want you to know that, they want you to eat Pop Tarts and continue to believe eggs and bacon are the devil. It’s an interesting expose of an irrational and irresponsible article.

Good Calories Bad Calories is a great place to start if you are wondering how to make sense of it all. Move on to The Paleo Solution and you will have all the unbiased info you need to get to work. Either that or watch Fathead, it’s on Netflix now!

Also, if you want to get an idea of who is writing more sensible and helpful books, check out the review of The Smarter Science of Slim: What the Actual Experts Have Proven about Weight Loss, Health, and Fitness on the Fathead site.