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Cooper wrote this comment yesterday that has been ringing in my head ever since: “I had to train myself that nothing bad was going to happen to me if I just ate less!”

What Are You Afraid of Anyway?

This is a telling line about the bang up job the diet and fitness marketers have done spreading lies about the ‘dangers’ of eating less. This is nothing more than pure fear mongering, it’s socially irresponsible, it’s deceitful and it really does ruin people’s lives.

This problem is so systemic that even well intentioned health care practitioners are also promoting this sort of unfounded ‘danger’ (as we discussed in this previous post ->Does Your Doctor Know Best)

In fact it’s not a stretch to suggest that the entire supplement and modern healthy food movement is entirely based and dependent upon this fear. And as we’ve discussed this fear even gets in the way of personal and family relationships precisely at the moment when someone overcomes this fear (but the others haven’t).

If the mass population accepted the fact that their weight loss issues (and most if not all of their lifestyle health risk factors) would be solved by eating less food (and doing some…any exercise) what value would a ‘healthy food’ or supplement be?

Would anyone ever buy a supplement to help with their weight loss or general health? Would anyone actually seek out and pay a premium for organic, or low fat options, or whole grain or high fiber or vitamin enriched options or whatever other BS is being peddled in the name of health?

Not likely.

Most of the ‘nutrition’ industry is dependent on a mass fear of eating less. Unfortunately this completely destroys most people’s ability to enjoy food at all…instead eating becomes an event wrapped in waves of guilt and personal shame.

You’ve got to hand it to them…they’ve done a masterful job of bending our minds in the effort to sell more useless products…They’ve managed to take one of the most pleasurable and fun things in life (FOOD) and make you feel completely crappy about it…and then of course they are standing there with the solution to make you feel better (insert healthy food item, supplement etc…)

However. Once you remove the fear of eating less (as many of you have experienced) food becomes fun again and we can eat what we like and still be satisfied and proud of our bodies too.

John

“LESS” is the dirtiest 4 letter word the food industry has ever heard. When it comes to weight loss “LESS” is the only word worth hearing.

You'll never see a message of eating LESS

Apparently Michelle Obama is waging a war on childhood obesity (it still fascinates me how the white house must declare war on everything)

Of course this war will go nowhere and nothing will come of it besides a few watered down recommendations to “eat more healthy foods”

The key point here is the words “LESS” and “MORE”

Psychologically they are the big words in the statements of “eat LESS calories to lose weight” and “eat MORE healthy food choices to lose weight”

The only words that are of any real consequence in the above statements are “LESS” and “MORE”

The actual foods you choose are irrelevant to weight loss.

If Mrs Obama’s campaign is to have any real legs it must include the word “LESS” but if history is any indication there will be massive pushback from every arm of the food industry to block any government mandated message of consuming LESS of any food item.

How would you feel if you made or living selling beef products and her campaign explicitly stated to eat LESS beef…it wouldn’t be long until you were scaling back, getting laid off or closing up shop.

Same goes for everyone other type of food.

The point is that we’re already at a status quo of too much food and the food industry is entrenched with strong lobbies and ties within the FDA and USDA to squash any message of eating LESS of any food.

This is why Mrs Obama will fail in her attempt to do anything whatsoever about obesity in children or adults.

Until the message of eating LESS is allowed to be freely communicated, most people will be hopelessly looking for what special food they can eat MORE of it lose weight…how ironic!

This message of more vs less is the topic of todays philife podcast. Check it out here: Eating More vs Eating Less

John

Yesterday we talked about the reaction other people will have when you successfully lose weight. In many cases the reaction is negative!  Here are some pics of me at my lightest weight in the past 15 years, I”m about 176lbs in these pics and my buddies rip on me for being “Skinny” or “tiny” now…Do I really look “skinny”?

A quick browse of yesterdays comments make’s it apparent that the reaction other people have to seeing someone lose weight is rather bizarre. I believe that it is rooted in the insecurities of the person who is seeing you lose weight (in many cases they would also like to lose weight but haven’t managed to so far).

This can become and sinister situation when friends, nurses, doctors, health care providers and even family members can ex-communicate you or lecture you about the dangers of weight loss. This is an unfortunate side effect of their own cognitive dissonance, lack of understanding and in many cases disappointment/shame in themselves for not achieving the same results you have.

It’s a tricky road to go down when you start making real positive changes in your life while others around you do not. They may feel as though you are surpassing them and leaving them behind. Of course this is not your intention at all, you are simply doing something for you. And if you’re anything like me you want to bring them along with you.

Heck I want to bring EVERYONE with me (hence the blog, the Adonis Index, Venus index and what I do for a living)

Unfortunately it’s not possible to bring everyone. In fact it’s hard to reach even some of the them (even if it’s those people you know who desperately want to change)

As someone whose made a real change your best effort can only be to lead/guide others who are willing to follow, and then gracefully accept that the majority are not yet ready and are simply scared.

Once you accept this fact, it’s much easier to deal with their criticism as you will realize it’s not about you at all and only a projection of their own fears.

John

P.S. Ladies, I’ll be doing a teleseminar in the near future about the Venus Index to explain what we’re up to. I’ll post about it when we’re getting ready, prolly in the next 3-4 weeks.

A friend of mine just had her annual check up and everything came back A-ok. She is actually about 1 inch away from having a perfect Venus Index score as well! In other words, girl is in great shape with a great body.

With that said she wants to lose about 3-4 pounds for her ideal Venus Index shape. She can run 10 kms in less than 50 minutes, she’s got great muscle development and is stronger than almost any girl I’ve ever seen in the gym.

Her check up numbers were great across the board and her cardiovascular fitness is at the elite athlete level.

So far this isn’t much of a story, now here is where it gets interesting. She told the nurse that she was interested in losing a bit more weight…at which point the nurse proceeded to tell her: you don’t look like you need to lose any more weight”…and “you’re in a healthy weight range for your height”…and then pointed out that “exercise can be addictive” and handed her body image pamphlets assuming she had some sort of psychological problem.

Of course all of this information is coming from a middle aged female nurse with about 40-50 extra pounds of fat to lose.

My friend just responded with a polite smile with no intention of heeding any of the nurses advice and warnings.

This is good example of how the established medical profession misses the point on issues of exercise and fitness.

First of all its difficult to take weight loss advice from someone who is overweight.

Second, doctors and nurses understand the relative range of what is generally considered a healthy body weight. But this is just a range and estimate for the mass population. Each individual will have a specific body weight that he or she will look their best at, and no doctors chart will necessarily show this. (incidentally that is what the Adonis Index and Venus Index are for…an indication of what we think is your best look for your height)

It’s unfortunate that even a nurse and doctor would discourage someone from trying to lose a couple pounds in an effort to look better and be happier with their body.

It’s as if the nurse had been trained to tell everyone to be happy looking painfully average and that it’s somehow pathological to want to look better than average.

Interestingly, the overweight nurse was much more worried about my friends intention to lose a bit more weight…whereas the physician who was in good shape himself thought nothing of it.

Perhaps a little personal envy and bias even crept into the nurses cautions and warnings to her.

Regardless of the source of the warning, this is still a good example of how mainstream medical professions are not a place to go looking for advice on achieving your best looking shape. It’s just not what they’re trained in.

Don’t let other people talk you out of shooting for your best look, because your best look is going to be a healthy look.

John

I’m bumping this post this morning. I’ll be back in a few hours with a new post.

Working off of yesterdays discussion about the emasculation of the modern man it seems appropriate to bring up the concept of meme’s and specifically the meme of the modern man.

Ideas are like viruses. If it gets in you, its almost impossible to get rid of

First we need to define what a meme is:

MEME: A meme ( rhyming with “cream”⁾ is a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. (wikipedia)

The idea of a meme was postulated by Richard Dawkins and he suggests that memes as similar to genes and get passed along from one generation to the next. Obviously this is a simplistic explanation but it will suffice for this blog post.

For our purpose we’ll consider the meme of the modern man to be the bundle of images, ideals, ideas, representations, expectations and attitudes we’re passively expected to see in a modern man.

Over time these memes evolve, but for them to evolve in the direction of true freedom and self actualization they require effort and push back from people who are being suppressed and against those who would rather put us into boxes.

We don’t have to go too far back in history to find that at some point black men wouldn’t be included in the meme of modern man but rather in the meme of slave. Since the emancipation and the 13th amendment to the constitution slavery was abolished and the integration of black men into the meme of modern man began.

In more recent years the acceptance of homosexuality and the idea that sexuality is actually a continuum and not a dichotomy is the next and latest evolution of the meme of modern man.

This meme is constantly evolving…and in these two examples it’s evolving towards more freedom and natural rights that all men have.

No matter how many ways an organized government apparatus or social organized construction tries to contain and strip away natural rights, there will always be a break point where the push back for freedom overwhelms and the natural rights are restored.

It’s not exactly simple and in many cases blood is shed, but the natural law eventually wins out.

The point is that there are immutable truths about freedom and natural law that are inherent in sentient beings like us. And no matter how many societal constructions/laws/rules are put in place, if they do not fall in accordance with this natural law and right to freedom, they will, eventually at some point collapse.

John

P.S. The next discussion on this topic will be the feminist movement and how it’s had the single biggest impact on the lifestyle and meme of modern man…and how this too is not in accordance with natural law and eventually will collapse.

This is an interesting point that came up in yesterdays rather lively discussion and it’s something that has been irritating me for a while, so I think it’s about time we talk about it.

What Happened to All the Men?

Keeping in the spirit of items that seem to have become taboo to talk about, I want to bring up the issue of the modern emasculated man.

To say it bluntly, it seems that the modern industrialized societies are breeding emasculated men. This is not to say that there must be a difference between the basic human rights of men and women, because there simply isn’t. Women and men are all human and have the same natural rights.

BUT, there is a difference between what is male and what is female. There is a difference between what is masculine and what is feminine. It seems that these difference are not an issue we’re allowed to talk about.

There is a feminist movement, but there isn’t a masculinist movement. (I think a movement promoting either case is ridiculous)…to be clear, I’m not promoting the suppression of women’s rights. Like I said before, we’re all human and deserve the same right.

Traditionally and psychologically women are attracted to masculine attributes that we associate with a ‘man’s man’. Just like men are attracted to feminine women.

This doesn’t mean you cannot be sophisticated, well spoken, and it doesn’t mean you have to wear a hard hat to work and have callouses on your hands. It just means that you still need to be masculine.

This however seems to be harder to do than it sounds. So what is being masculine? Does it mean you have to be a cage fighther? Do you have to get your hands dirty at work? Do you have to be a soldier?

Is a man supposed to show sensitivity or not? Is he supposed to be a leader or take orders? Can he wear a suit to work or does he have to wear steel toe boots?

What is a man supposed to look like? A case can be made that as a man becomes emasculated from these other factors he also gives up on his body image.

I think the answer has to do with having strength in your own character and standing for something you believe in (including what you think a man should look like). This is something that is easier said than done and in our given societies it seems to be much easier to fall in line and to do as your told than it is to stand for something even if its not a popular stance.

The underlying issue of it all is freedom.

Freedom to have an opinion and act on it. Freedom to stand for something. Freedom to express your beliefs.

Given the structures that we’re constrained to live within, it is difficult to actually be who you really want to be without breaking some sort of rule, whether it is a social meme or some inane law. This renders many men nothing more than overgrown children constantly asking for ‘permission’ from their boss, government, and in some cases spouses (seriously asking if they can go out and play…), and getting scolded and further emasculated when they don’t do as they’re told. In this sense you could say the world is populated with few MEN and many BOYS.

A lack of freedom to think for yourself and express it is what I believe to be at the root of the modern emasculation of men.

The state apparatus is what I consider to be the biggest contributing factor to this problem as there is a law for just about everything and anything you can think of doing. On top of that there is an every increasing set of social definitions and patterns you are being forced to fit into…none of which you have chosen, all of which are being forced onto you.

We’ve got to get back to some middle ground where men can be men again without worrying about political correctness and having to take courses on gender roles in society.

The last time I checked I’m pretty sure women still like men who look and act like men.

So ladies, what do you want a man to be?

Fellas, what do you think it means to be a man?

John

Yesterdays post generated an interesting discussion, and one of the comments stimulated today’s post.

Logic vs Emotion

I want to thank Irene for her comment because it forced me to elaborate my point and also clearly demonstrates the issue at hand and reason for yesterdays post in the first place.

Yesterdays headline was written in order to get attention, the more attention the headline can grab the more people will give a read and hopefully a good discussion will start. This is just standard stuff and how all media function.

From there Irene pointed out that she didn’t understand the point of my post and questioned if I was perhaps starting a fat person haters club.

Obviously on a blog it’s difficult to properly express emotion with written words. To be clear I was writing from a logical position centered around my stated hypothesis about the human reaction to bodyfatness.

However, I cannot control the emotional lens you filter your reading through. I’m sure if 100 different people read yesterdays post there were 100 unique emotional reactions to it.

The potential emotional reactions to yesterdays post is the whole point of why yesterdays post is so difficult to talk about. How do we bring up the topic of body shape and body fatness and our reactions to it and keep the emotion out of it? It’s difficult to come to a logical conclusion if the discussion is clouded by emotion.

Getting to the root of the reaction seems to be one of best starting points to find a solution. BUT if we can’t find a way to talk about it we’ll never get going on a solution.

So, I’m asking you, how do we talk about it?

John

I”m sure the headline of this post will have a number of groups of people up in arms. But I don’t care what anyone else thinks, because it’s true.

100 out of 100 people will say the statue on the left looks better

The fact is most if not all humans find excess bodyfat repulsive, and or disgusting. I’m not referring to these words in the pop culture definition, but I’m referring to them with regards to their dictionary meaning.

Whether the fat is on YOUR body or someone else, you will most likely have some sort of aversion response to it. You’ll eventually hate yourself for the extra fat if it’s on you, or you’ll start to find ways to avoid, discriminate against and steer clear of fat people.

I think there are a number of reasonable and plausible reasons why we have this kind of response to fat, and it’s quite a taboo to talk about it (which is total BS) The first step to fixing any problem is talking openly and frankly about it so here goes…

Why we find fat disgusting and repulsive:

1. It’s a signal of death (or the opposite of health): In other words as you watch some one gain excessive amounts of weight you can easily make the argument that you are literally watching them commit and slow suicide.

2. It’s a signal of unfairness (and ultimately your death because of the fat person): In other words the fat person next to you will consume more than their fair share of food and will literally be taking the food out of your mouth and putting into theirs. In other words, while they are overeating themselves to death, they are starving you to death!

3. It’s a sign of a lack of control (of ones emotions, body, and life in general): This may lead others not to trust a fat person…hence the reason there is a weight bias when employers are interviewing for jobs. All things being equal, if you are hiring a new person at your company, would you pick the fat candidate or the candidate who is in shape (if their credentials were equal)

People who put on increasing amounts of weight had to get the food from somewhere. Since food is scare that means there is less of it to go around for you if the fatties are eating up more than they need. (of course this is exactly what is happening globally, but that is a much more complicated issue)

So they are stockpiling food on their bodies in the form of fat which they don’t need, and leaving you with less food.  From an evolutionary stand point it doesn’t seem fair that one person would eat more than their fair share of food while others are left with less.

Of course I’m not suggesting that a fat person actually takes food right off of your plate. Indeed there is more than enough to go around (at least in modern industrialized countries) but I think this is where our repulsion and disgust response to body fat is rooted…it’s unfair, and its unhealthy.

Ironically having more doesn’t do them any good, it actually makes them worse off.

So that is my theory. I’ve yet to talk to anyone who actually likes the look of excess fat, and considering the intense desire people have for weight loss it’s not a far stretch to suggest the desire for it is deep rooted in our primal emotional responses like disgust and repulsion.

So, there you go, I’ve put it on the table…what do you think?

John

I hinted at this a little bit yesterday. I’m in the middle of a 5 day weight loss experiment. As I”m writing this I’m in hour 88 of 120.

Here are the coles notes so far.

Lost 9 lbs: started at 186lbs – currently at 177lbs

Waist measurement has decreased almost half an inch.

Shoulder measurement is steady.

Strength is consistent (going to they gym in a few mins and I’ll report in on how it went)

So I’ve got about 32 hours left on this experiment.

I’m not using any supplements or drugs, not eating any special foods, not doing any cardio or any extra exercise at all.

My guess is that I can get to 175 within the next 32 hours.

Either way I’ll post my progress and where I end up tomorrow.

I’ll be doing a live teleseminar in a couple weeks to discuss the whole thing and you can ask questions about it too, so I’ll post that link when we’ve got the event set up.

John

I haven’t told any of you yet, but as of the moment I am writing this I’m in the middle of a 120 hour (5 day) weight loss experiment.

Arnold and the boys were constantly experimenting

I’m documenting it on video and you’ll all get to see it when I’m finished.

I’m just testing a few theories out to see what kind of results I’ll get. The actual methods I’m using aren’t exactly ground breaking…they’re pretty simple…but weight loss itself is pretty simple anyway.

Having a theory is one thing, putting it into practice is another. You and I could read every weight loss book ever written and debate the merits of each for the rest of our lives…but until we try them we’ll never really understand what they’re like.

There is a difference between the knowledge you get from reading about something, and doing something. It’s this second kind of knowledge that I’m interested in. –> Experiential knowledge.

I’ve tried just about every ridiculous diet there is. I’ve tried all kinds of muscle building diets, supplements and drugs.

Sure I read about each things before I tried it…but the key point is that I tried it, I tried them all.

The sum total of my experiences have led me to my conclusions thus far..and that is as follows:

1. To lose weight you must find a way to eat less calories than you burn (and enjoy the process)

2. To gain muscle you must continuously lift more weight (and enjoy the process)

Everything else beyond these rules is minutia.

Your body is your experiment. No matter what diet or workout philosophy you read about you still have to give it an honest try before you know if it will work for you (and work over the long term).

For me, weight loss and weight maintenance is easiest with Eat Stop Eat.

And of course the muscle building program I wrote is what I follow (I would never follow another persons workouts)

So that’s what I do.

What do you do? (and I don’t care about what you READ about, I want to know what you DO)

John