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The Truth about Silo Science and the Misinterpretation of Research

October 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Here’s the first part of this month’s UNCENSORED Podcasts Season 2.

Today’s topic: Silo Science.

What is Silo Science?

Silo science is focusing on one specific area of research without seeing how it affects other areas. In the case of diet and fitness it’s looking too closely at one spot without seeing the bigger picture and how all systems of the body are related. – John Barban

The real science is different from what you hear from media.

Silo science is like doing a research, but with your blinders on.

Why?

Because silo scientists are focusing only at one specific area and ignoring the rest. But as we know, your body functions as a whole system, so looking into what’s going on in one area and ignoring anything else is not very useful for us in real life.

However, this type of research is exactly what’s misused online. It’s gotten to a point where people are now confused about science and the human body.

The truth of the matter is you have to look at the bigger picture, you can’t take only what you like and ignore the rest.  Which is exactly what most the fitness marketers and journalists are doing.

No supplement does just one thing, there’s always more to the story.

Case in point, Ever took a pill and experienced side effects?

Every time you introduce something into your body there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

Most people understand this with drugs, but almost no one considers this possibility with supplements.

Not only do people who use silo science try to make a point about how the body works, they often leverage only the abstract or headlines of some papers to conform the research for their benefit.

You should especially be aware of the perfect answers about hormones you see online nowadays, because most people never bother looking at the whole picture, only the results you desire.

Today we are going to look at the reality of the research and it’s misinterpreted online and in fitness media.

In today’s UNCENSORED training, you will also discover:

  • How the mechanics of a study works and what we look at in the research
  • How the study gets funded and why it matters to you who funds it
  • Why everything you see online should be taken with a grain of salt
  • How many people actually participate in the study (less than you think) and how this affects the results of that study
  • How robust the studies actually are (not as much as the media would have you believe)
  • Anything that has a dose response will or can have side effects
  • The reality of people doing the whole gotcha with science argument and scare mongering you into buying new products that you don’t need
  • How to find out if people quoting studies really understand what they are saying or if they just read the abstract at pubmed

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Filed Under: Podcast, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: , ,

Eat for “Flavor” & The 6 Step Recovery Method from Orthorexia

September 19, 2012 by 2 Comments

Here’s the second part of this month’s UNCENSORED Podcasts Season 2 on Orthorexia.

Check out the first part here: The Side Effect of Modern Society and Even Scientists Can’t Escape

What we covered in the first part:

  • We’ve talked about how certain foods can completely mess up your personality and social identity
  • You learned why people in the fitness industry feel superiority over you because of their diet choices
  • You discovered why you should bother tracking and testing things related to nutrition and not just training
  • You learned about the connection between people suffering from orthorexia and drug addicts
  • You also discovered what’s really in the root of the search for healthy eating and if that goal is really achievable
  • You learned that orthorexia is a marketing driven eating disorder and that the food and fitness industry are making billions just from people getting fatter every year

Let Go of the Good Food/Bad Food Belief

You need to learn to let go of the good food, bad food belief and dump all the bad food lists. And instead start focusing on the foods that taste good, are filling and make you feel great.

It’s a mind shit and a whole different perception, especially if you have been exposed to the mainstream fitness media for the last couple of decades.

Ask yourself this question: ” What do I like to eat?” And eat exactly that!

A lot of people will be thinking that this statement means you can eat burgers and ice cream all day long. Well, that’s not true. Nobody can do go on a diet like that and that’s a pretty boring lifestyle to have.

There are lots of food choices, if chicken with broccoli and chocolate with ice cream are the only meals you know you are limiting yourself and preventing yourself from tasting some amazing foods that are also rich in nutrients.

Get a variety in your diet and start experimenting with different cuisines. Just ask yourself, what exotic meal you haven’t tried yet?

Believe it or not, there are other foods and meals outside the “healthy” recommended by fitness media and “unhealthy junk food” like chocolate or burgers. There are a lot of other options and they can be very tasty.

Today John Barban and Brad Pilon will show you how to switch  from good/bad thinking into “eating what I really like and what makes me feel good” and “what would be the best and most tasty option for me?“.

If you’ve heard the first podcast and you’ve read so far then you understand what’s the point of it, but you may still be unsure of the whole process, so before you listen to today’s episode where John and Brad discuss this in great detail, let’s look over the steps you can take to recover from Orthorexia and start eating for flavor:

  1. Realize that any health message is a marketing message
  2. Understand that you won’t cheat death, and especially not by choosing different foods
  3. Create new food lists, but assign them different meanings (e.g. rank them by flavor)
  4. Make a list of foods that makes you bloated or that you are allergic to
  5. Evaluate every food on those lists based on how much you enjoy it, how many calories it contains etc.
  6. [you will have to listen to the interview for this one :)]
There is a lot of choice outside the traditional healthy and unhealthy lists AKA good foods/bad foods. European and Asian cuisines are very rich in different flavors and tastes, just start experimenting. Today we are going to give you the permission to do that and explain you why it’s beneficial and how to go about it.
Filed Under: Diet, fat loss, Food, Health, Podcast, psychology, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: , ,

The Side Effect of Modern Society and Even Scientists Can’t Escape

September 5, 2012 by 1 Comment

Here’s the first part of this month’s UNCENSORED Podcasts Season 2.

This month’s topic: Orthorexia.

What is orthorexia?

Orthorexia comes from obsession with avoiding foods that are perceived to be unhealthy. In the academic field it’s believed to be a mental disorder. This disorder can lead to severe malnutrition or even in some rare cases death.

Orthorexics usually have low self-esteem, because they blame themselves rather than their diets for their constant hunger and the resulting cravings for foods they’ve labeled as forbidden.

It’s a pretty serious topic, and if you follow any of the dietary advice from conventional fitness media you may very well develop this disorder yourself.

The moment you label something as forbidden, you are f*cked, because sooner or later you will break and overeat on it.

It’s quite a contradiction when you think about it, because orthorexia in it’s essence is an unhealthy obsession over healthy food.

So instead of restricting calories, orthorexics restrict food choices that they or a perceived authority labeled as bad and unhealthy.

The whole idea of Anything Goes Diet that we preach here at Adonis Index is that you can have whatever you want.

Some people misunderstand this statement and think you can fast food 24/7.

They are missing the point.

The idea is not to eat everything you can, the idea is that if you can limit the amount to fit in your caloric plan, then you can fill it with some things that are higher in fat, sugar and salt e.g. ice cream, burger, pizza and donuts.

With this mindset you will not fall victim to labeling certain foods as bad or unhealthy and won’t develop orthorexia.

Why People Want to Eat Healthy?

The whole issue around orthorexia is that it happens in a very specific environment, in an environment that you are most likely part off.

How come that I’m so sure you are part of that environment? Well, if you weren’t you couldn’t be reading this article, because you couldn’t afford a computer or iPad.

Orthorexia is an issue that appears in modern societies where there’s an abundance of food.

There seems to be a big contrast in the food availability.

It’s pretty hard to find a country where there is  not enough food for everyone to have a balanced diet.  In most cases, people are starving  or they have an over-abundance of food (i.e. 3rd world countries vs. Europe and US).

The abundance of food coupled with our  highly modernized society influences people to live a healthier lifestyle.

Of course there is nothing wrong with that, it’s just that human nature  tends to want to take things to an extreme level.

Which raises a few questions:

What do we want to achieve with our lifestyle?

Why do we search for better choices in our lives when we can buy everything we desire?

Let’s kick off this month of uncensored with a very fundamental question.

Why do you want to eat healthy?

Just STOP and  think about it.

The answer is not simply, because you want to be healthy.

There is more to it.

Do you want to live longer?

Do you want more fulfilling life?

Do you want to be healthy so you can see your grandchildren?

What’s the reason for you to search for better options in your life? And that can ultimately lead you to developing disorders like orthorexia?

In today’s UNCENSORED training, you will also discover:

  • How a simple thing like food that has nothing to do with us and in any way was meant to define your personality, can screw you up
  • Why certain people (yes the ones in this industry) feel superiority over you, because of their diet choices
  • Why do you feel ashamed about your diet choice and what leads self-punishment and guild with your food
  • What’s in the root of people’s search for better food choices and why nutrition will never be an answer to “cheating death”
  • The truth about how people make their food preferences, it it because they want to eat those foods or because some dietitians put importance on certain items?
  • Discovering whether you function on logic or emotional belief system
  • Why tracking and testing your results matters
  • How to stop letting food destroy your relationships
  • How orthorexia is same as drugs

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Filed Under: Food, Podcast, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: , , ,

What Supplements Should You Take to Help You Achieve Your Health & Fitness Goals?

August 15, 2012 by 1 Comment

Here’s the second part of this month’s UNCENSORED Podcasts Season 2.

The topic?

Supplements.

Here’s what you discovered in the first part (link to the 1st part here):

  • What a supplement is, how the industry got started, and what it has evolved into
  • What is the definition of supplements in various countries and why it matters
  • How important supplements are
  • What’s the lifecycle of a supplement product
  • How the process of putting new supplements on the market works
  • How come government regulators have no control of what’s on the market
  • What ingredients are added into supplements are useless and serve just as marketing

“Will These Supplements Help Me?”

Often times guys on the Internet and in our community ask us “What supplements should I take?” or “Will this supplement help me?”.

Should you take those? Are they worth the money? How will you track the results? Or will you just go by the “feeling”?

The issue is that it’s impossible to answer those type of questions.

If you want an accurate answer that can actually help you (not the generic crap found on the web) with your fitness goals, you need to get clear on what is it you really want and what do you expect out of the supplements.

Another thing that will determine what supplements to use and how much of it we will recommend you taking is your budget, how much money can you spend on supplements? 50 bucks? Or 1000 bucks? That’s a pretty big difference. Somebody who is a sponsored athlete or works in a supplement lab will have different options than a college student.

For example a question “Will this product give me the body I want?”or “Can this product do what I want it to do?” is way better and gets to the point of what you really expect from it.

But even those two questions aren’t perfect, when you start thinking about it, you’ll soon find out that it’s not that easy to figure out the right question (after you listen to the podcast, try to come up with a good one and share it in the community so others can comment on it).

This is just one way of looking at it, another way would be to take a different approach and actually set your goals first and then try to match the right product to that desired outcome.

However, in this case you will find a pretty nasty barrier.

And that’s the fact that supplements contain a lot of ingredient that will have absolutely zero effect on your body.

When you look into each product you will see a bunch of stuff you have never heard about, but almost always there will be one big ingredient that’s usually responsible for all the results. In many cases it will be creatine, or caffeine, depends on the supplement.

Why is that?

Well, the top selling supplements are exactly the same as ten years ago and they will most likely be same as the best selling supplements ten years from now.

There is just a couple of items that are packaged in a thousand different ways.

The product isn’t what’s different, they are roughly the same, it’s the marketing around it that makes all the difference.

Supplement companies fight a difficult challenge and that’s pointing out the ingredient.

Nobody gets excited about plain Creatine monohydrate anymore, simply because it’s been around a while. So, they have to sell some “enhanced version” of creatine to pump up the sales.

It has nothing to do with finding some new amazing and proven ingredient that nobody has ever heard about and adding it to the current product, it’s just a simple desire to sell more products.

Today John Barban and Brad Pilon will reveal more information about the supplement industry and also coach you on how to ask the right question and how to find supplements that will help you with:

a) Building Muscle

b) Losing Fat

c) Improving Health

d) Boosting Energy

In today’s UNCENSORED training, you will also discover:
  • How to approach weight loss supplements and what do they really help with (hint: they are not burning your belly fat)
  • What are the realistic expectations for using the supplements that are on the market
  • What supplements companies are should be trustworthy (bigger or smaller? Why??)
  • How the Natural Standards Database (you have access to it in the immersion account through cockpit) can help you pick supplements
  • Step by step how to intelligently choose and test supplements
  • What side effects really are and how it applies to you when you take supplements (or drugs)
  • Pilon’s sneaky techniques he used to sell supplements in the past

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Filed Under: Podcast, Supplements, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: , , , , ,

Can You Go Past Your Genetic Ideal with More Protein?

July 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Here’s the second part of this month’s UNCENSORED Podcasts Season 2.

Here’s what you discovered in the first part (link to the 1st part here):

  • What’s catch up growth
  • What’s the disinhibition/inhibition model and how does  it apply to muscle growth
  • How taking drugs basically means adding another engine to your car (body) meaning what bodybuilders do, doesn’t apply to your case in any way
  • That fitness media completely loses touch with scientific research
  • You can’t stimulate your body to grow more than it’s designed to, you can only remove inhibitors to allow your body to keep growing to its full ideal
  • Different inhibitors that are preventing your muscle from growing
  • That almost every single image you see of bodybuilders is enhanced, but after a while you’ve gotten used to it and started thinking of it as your genetic ideal

What Role Do Protein and Amino Acids Play in Muscle Growth?

It’s generally accepted that higher amino acid intake allows for muscle synthesis in the otherwise fasted state, but…

Can higher protein intake stimulate more muscle growth?

…the truth is, you can’t eat your way to muscle growth.

That’s just not going to happen.

In reality your goal should be to hit an adequate amount, in both calories and protein. Everyone thinks the key is in some sort of excess, but that’s the “stimulation model” forced at you by fitness media.

You have to realize that everybody has an energetic reserve. In fact a large person can go days without eating and still not have it affect the metabolic processes in his body.

It’s no the deficit itself that’s the determinant, but the ability to handle it, which depends on the amount of the reserve. In other words, the leaner you are the more and more frequently you will eat.

…And what if you try to eat more?

Well, in a nutshell your body deals with excess by burning it, storing it or by getting rid of it.

So, let’s say you buy a weight gainer product and you try to dose your way up to bigger muscles.

Well, once you listen to todays podcast you’ll understand that you’re consciously investing in storing these excess calories as fat! That sucks, doesn’t it?

But that’s pretty much what the food and supplement companies are selling you. You are paying to be fat, how crazy is that?

Now that applies mostly to excess calories, but too much protein works almost the same. Most guys think you have to take a protein shake five times a day and even in the middle of the night, because your “body is starving“, right?

The truth is that your body is pretty well-designed and it handles excess protein in a smart way – it stores it as a reserve and uses it during your fasted state.

There is a sweet spot to every biological process. You can also imagine each process as a spectrum. On the left side you have a malnourished, 14 year-old marathon runner and on the right side you have the wanna be bodybuilder who is mega dosing calories and protein, but he is just getting fat. Both are extremes, you want to be in the middle, eat enough protein and calories to maintain what you have and build even more muscle while losing all the fat and getting ripped.

One of the keys to understanding how all this works is realizing that your body is not static, it’s dynamic.

Your body is breaking down and building things up every day – you are not built of the same stuff as you were a year ago.

Just like your bank account, something goes in, something goes out, so over time it may look the similar, but it’s never the exact same money.

In today’s UNCENSORED training, you will discover and learn:

  • What’s the genetic ideal and genetic ideal shape for you and if you can go beyond it
  • What role does protein play and what you need to do to remove protein intake as an inhibitor
  • The answer to whether extra protein intake helps with muscle building
  • What happens when you get from the adequate intake spectrum below to the low levels of caloric and protein intake or on the other hand to high levels of excessive intake
  • What are your only ways of affecting the shape of your body
  • How the environment you live in translates into your ability to get in shape
  • What body are you capable of building when you remove all of the inhibitors
  • What’s novel stimulus and how it relates to muscle growth
  • What’s the difference in muscle gains and strength gains
  • If small forearms are preventing you from making your arms bigger
  • How a calf injury can mean shoulder pain and inability to work out properly
  • Revealing an argument why you should fast to remove yet another inhibitor
  • Whether working out and or running is removing an inhibitor, introducing new inhibitor or accelerating your growth (hint: it’s not the one you think)
  • How to look at your life with a new mindset and target all the inhibitors and remove them

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Filed Under: Muscle Growth, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: , , , , ,
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