Is there any advantage to replacing your white rice or wheat or oats with more exotic or less delicious grain? Short answer: No. If you are eating enough ragi, quinoa, oats or any other grain to get a notable amount of protein, iron or any other micronutrients from it, you are probably consuming far too many calories overall. If you ar...

It’s not funny how far our understanding of how muscles work and grow has progressed in the last 20 years. Few do a better job than Chris Beardsley at making the science of how muscles work accessible. He digs into new studies, older studies, puts them in context with the basic biology and presents them in simple infographics, short wr...

There is such a thing as the right amount of crazy right amount of intensity right amount of conviction right amount of intensity right amount of obsession right amount of skepticism And a degree of self awareness It’s not quantifiable. It’s for the lack of a better word: a vibe. I am all for living a long and healthy life. When your t...

The fewer moving parts, the better.' Exactly. No truer words were ever spoken in the context of engineering. Chris Cantrell I loved the squatmax MD by Brian Henessy. But we don’t get the amazing device in India. The basic idea is to take the load off the spine when you squat and put it entirely on the legs. The device does this by usin...

As the table in the slide shows, cheese contains different proportions of salt, fat and protein. Using this to illustrate two points: ** Grams of protein per 100 grams is a misleading metric. If you pack a food with enough fat and carbohydrates, you can drown out impressive protein content. This applies to all foods not just cheese. **...

Holidays, shopping, work, travel, friendships, gym equipment, clothes, books, bags, watches, hobbies, exercise and food. A few of the things we consume every single day. There is of course more to add to the list. But let’s start there. You can judge consumption on some simple parameters. Excess, like porn, is easy to call out. You’ll ...

Walking is good for you. And there are very few people who disagree with that assessment. Doctors, therapists, coaches, governments all encourage you to walk. But it’s not enough. Far from it. Walking is a low intensity, low impact activity that has many benefits that includes cognitive ones. And 4000-5000 steps a day is a terrific way...

1 Force produced is not solely dependent on the size of the muscle. This is self evident if you watch sports, athletics or martial arts. Pudgy cricketers smashing the ball 100’s of meters away, lanky tennis players socking the ball, Thai teenagers punching harder than bodybuilders more than twice their weight. Force and size don’t go h...

Every time I run into a former client, a few thoughts run through my head. Are they still training? If they are not training, what’s the trigger for the switch that can get them going again. These thoughts get especially amplified when I meet a client who got really strong, mobile, well conditioned and had a consistent, long stint befo...

People draw a clear line in their minds about cardio and strength. Cardio: running, walking, cycling, swimming, jump rope, stepper, elliptical, rowing, burpees, stairmasters. Strength: dumbbells, barbells, push ups, squats, pull ups, pulleys, cam-based machines. The thinking goes as follows: I warm up with cardio Or My doctor wants me ...

Superme is yet another entrant in the crowded protein bar space. It gets 10/10 for slickness. But how about actual content. Not the marketing content. But the actual macro content. You need to eat 180-ish calories to get 10 grams of protein. That compared with 50 calories for a scoop of whey isolate, 70 calories for a scoop of decent w...

Why do I keep arguing for increased protein intake and improving awareness of protein intake. * It’s not because I don’t think Omega 3’s, fiber and other micronutrients are important. They absolutely are. * It’s not because of the thermic effect of protein rich foods. That up to 10 percent of protein intake is used as fuel to digest pr...

You can get your favourite ice cream in 10 minutes to 30 minutes. But introduce a constraint. Make it that you need to travel 30-40 minutes to have that indulgence. Put a label on the bar marking when you are going to have it. Make it inconvenient to consume those 100-500 calories. You pause to consider the commute before you choose to...

Here’s a stupidly simple hack to be able to grapple with the problem of how much are you eating in a day. Just know the volume of the cup you are serving yourself with. A standard cup is 240 ml. Volume is measured in milliliters or ml. Knowing how much ML of rice, curd, vegetables, dal and anything that can be put in a cup whose volume...

Eat till you are xx percent full is the single most pointless advice one can give you. Your stomach is a balloon. A muscular balloon that stretches as you fill it with food or water. And shrinks as it empties. Your brain tracks this and regulates appetite. Only problem is all the other stimulus competing convincing you to eat again. Co...

Can mean two things I am so stuffed, I can’t eat another bite. This ability of a food is called satiation. It is a meal or food’s ability to make you stop eating with smaller portions or fewer bites. I am so full from my last meal, I don’t feel like eating yet. This ability of a food is called satiety. It’s a food or meals ability to k...

But how successfully you grapple with hunger will determine how successful you are at sustaining any effort to reduce your calorie intake. The context here is most of us are eating too much. And we have no clue what the right amount of food to maintain status quo or achieve a more optimal body composition looks like. When you moderate ...

1. People are living longer than ever. They are not exactly training or being very active to achieve this outcome. 2. There are always demands on your time. Exercise doesn’t feel like the most pleasurable way to spend it. 3. It is not the societal norm. Besant Nagar beach does not have the same vibe as a Bondi. Our open air gyms largel...

Trends in fitness swing violently. Call it a compulsive need for consensus or just a need for a one size fits all solution, but we need to be label something as ‘works’, ‘pointless’, ‘that will destroy you’ or ‘how are you not doing this’. Bending and straightening your spine is one such topic. Is it safe to bend and straighten your sp...

We tend to think that knowledge, once acquired, is something permanent. Instead, even holding on to it requires constant, careful effort. Maciej Ceglowski Replace the word knowledge in the above quote with strength, technique, habit, mobility, conditioning levels, eating habits, sleeping habits, laying off screens etc. Every small or b...

No one wants to die an untimely death. And our perception of what is untimely has been extended in the last 100 years thanks to basic advances in medicine, society, sanitation and food science. But there are limits to what biohacking can achieve. And the two terrific quotes below capture the current conundrum. A good chunk of affluent ...

Our training facility isn’t open all day. This is a choice I made since Day 1. And I credit my former employers The Quad in shaping this choice. We are open for what I call peak demand hours. Much like pubs and restaurants, we are open for business for a few hours in the morning, an hour in the afternoon and a couple of hours in the ev...

I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselv...

There are plenty of reasons to not train: 1. People are living longer than ever. They are not exactly training or being very active to achieve this outcome. 2. There are always demands on your time. Exercise doesn’t feel like the most pleasurable way to spend it. 3. It is not the societal norm. Besant Nagar beach does not have the same...

Instruction: * Do this like this Motivation: *Let’s do this ! Coaching: *Here is what you need to do. *This is how you do it. *This is how you should not do it. *This is how often you do it. *This is when you do it. *This is what happens when you do it. *This is when you should not do it. *Chill and don’t do this now. *This is what you...

Children watch you everyday and they learn. They learn how to eat, how to move, how to talk and what constitutes normal behaviour, attitudes, expectations and habits. By the age of 18, the average child has had 20000 meals (closer to 35000 if they eat like they do while they holiday) with their family, friends and/or loved ones. These ...

Walk for 15 mins a day Do 10 mins of breathing and yoga Do whatever activity you enjoy for 2 hours a week Play a sport once a week to stay fit If a coach, physiotherapist or doctor tells you do whatever activity you enjoy and can sustain, they are doing you a disservice. I am not sure if it’s a marketing ploy or they really believe tha...

What makes us fragile is that institutions cannot have the same virtues (honor, truthfulness, courage, loyalty, tenacity) as individuals. Taleb We depend on governments to : 1. Tax food. Some foods more than others. Protein is taxed more than carbohydrates and fat. 2. Support farmers cause it’s a difficult and often thankless job for t...

You must have heard some version of this: Fat loss is xx percent exercise and xx percent nutrition Muscle gain is xx percent exercise and xx percent nutrition Randomly assigning percentages is dumb and trying to sound precise about something you cannot be precise about. It is physics envy and it is unnecessary. I think the statements a...

Apple doesn’t care about you personally in the least tiny bit, and if you were in their way somehow, they would do whatever their might — effectively infinite compared to your own — enables them to deal with you. Brent Simmons https://lnkd.in/gAgsjaZr Atleast your favourite athletes and celebrities pretend to care about you by feeding ...