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Is Fasting Bad for Women?

December 19, 2012 by 5 Comments

Here’s the next episode of the UNCENSORED Podcasts Season 2.

Today’s topic: Intermittent Fasting, Intermittent Feeding and Gender Differences

Could Fasting Actually be Bad for You?

What are the Benefits of Intermittent Fasting?

Could one benefit be a goal to achieve 0% BF?!

Of course not!  When incorporating fasting into your lifestyle you should know what to expect and understand why you are doing it.  Do you want to create room for extra weekend calories? Or use fasting as a tool to lose one additional  pound each week?

When our friend Eric tried fasting at about 7% body fat before his competition he could hardly push to the 24 hour mark and felt terrible. Was this a surprise? Not really.

If you are already ripped, you can’t expect to fast four times a week for 24 hours.  The less body fat you have the more your body will try to “protect it”.

This is something most people don’t realize and even major fitness articles are wrong when they state “Fasting doesn’t work” or  “Intermittent Fasting is Dead” and so on.

Truth be told, intermittent fasting has become quite popular in 2012.  As the trend follows with everything that receives a lot of attention and popularity, there is always some negative feedback attached as well.

Today, we will analyze a blog post from a woman who tried fasting and misunderstood the effects of dieting on her hormones and blamed fasting for being unhealthy. We will also cover her false conclusion of a famous mice study on fat loss and fasting.

John Barban and Brad Pilon will also show you the difference between intermittent fasting and intermittent feeding and explain which is more useful as a fat loss or bodyfat maintenance tool.

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

  • Different fasting protocols you can follow and how to determine which one will fit you the best
  • How to make (intermittent) fasting sustainable
  • Discover at what point you have to reduce the frequency and length of your fasts
  • How to optimise the whole process of dieting so you get the results, feel good, and don’t burn out
  • Learn whether there any “side effects” of dieting or  intermittent fasting/intermittent feeding
  • What steps to take when you read other blog posts about intermittent fasting and want to remain objective
  • How to take into account your limits when training, dieting and fasting
  • What fundamental questions to ask yourself when you reading an article/journal which quotes a research study
  • The second part of the  Eat Stop Eat lifestyle you can’t forget about
  • What the signals indicate you to stop fasting
  • The difference between intermittent fasting and intermittent feeding and when to use them

 

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

Phi-Life Series: The Untold Difference of Marketing Fitness Claims in North America

December 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Today we bring you another podcast from our phi-life series.

Today’s topic: Geographic Influence On Claims

If you take a look…You will begin to realize the many different forms of advertising that exist in the marketplace.

Did you know that advertising claims in the health and fitness industry are regulated differently in each country?

For example, in one country a product might claim to help you lose 10 pounds in 30 days, while in another country  that same product  will claim up to 20 pounds of weight loss!

This is true because from a marketing perspective, what might work in one country might not work in other. We actually find this happening quite often.

North America is a prime example.

You can have the same product for both the  U.S. and Canadian market. However, each country will have a completely different claim.

What the companies are able to get away with saying depends on their government’s regulations.  If you live in the U.S., you may be accustomed to hearing certain phrases such as, “Lose 30 pounds in 30 days” or when marketing muscle building products usually to men something like “How to build 20 pounds of lean muscle in the next 4 months.”  These phrases are commonly found in TV ads and  fitness magazines. However, if you tried to marke the same product with this claim in Canada you might lose millions, because people simply wouldn’t believe it to be possible and nobody would buy.

The claims that you’re exposed to on a regular basis in your home country will have an effect on where your “BS radar” is set.

If you showed the U.S. ads to Canadians they would be very skeptical, however for U.S. viewers transformation from fat-average to fitness model in couple of months might not be that thrilling or impressive at all.

What’s even more interesting is how all the media channels tie-in to one another.

Ever thought to yourself, “If everyone keeps saying it, it must be true right?“.

That’s the very moment your judgement becomes clouded by media and your your skeptical eye begins to  diminish.

Today Brad Pilon and John Barban will discuss how claims on print media, video media and product packaging vary in different countries and why that affects your buying decisions.

You will also learn and discover:

  • The difference in what the government allows you to be exposed to and what you then believe is realistic to achieve
  • Why consistency in print, visual, website commercials matters and how it affects your judgement
  • How marketers used a false unsupported claim “U.S. Formula” to boost sales in North America
  • That you are more  of “a product of your own environment”  than you may think
  • That if you can predict the greatest possible claim people will accept, you will make a lot of money
  • If it’s possible to know which claims are true
  • Why the claims can be so different from country to country, but people have the same physiology

Listen to the podcast here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Filed Under: Phi Life, Podcast Tagged With: , , , ,

Phi-Life Series: The Real Story Behind Supplement Packaging

December 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Today we bring you the first of many podcasts from our phi-life series.

Today’s topic: Supplement Packaging

What do you think is the most important thing in supplement development?

If your answer was ingredients, you would be incorrect.

Do you think supplement packing is not important? Do you think that you make your buying decision only based on the ingredients? You might be surprised…

When developing a new product, the supplement developers actually work backwards from packaging.

In reality the package is what will sell the product, not the ingredient. The ingredients are pretty much the same across all the products, so that’s not what sets a specific supplement apart or even what will make you choose one for purchase.

One can hardly imagine how complex the process of just “creating the package” really is.

It’s not only the color of the supplement that matters. It’s the questions of whether you put the ingredients into capsule or powder form? If so, do those contents belong in a  bottle or package?

Packaging is the first impression a customer will have with a product.

The next step of the process is figuring out what to say, what font to use, what colors to use, what fitness model to endorse the product with what particular claim and much more.

You simply cannot sell a supplement without the right package and claim, because that’s what drives sales.

Everything must fit together, the claim has to fit the cover and everything has to be in-sync from a buyer’s perspective.

Packaging is utmost importance for a supplement company. In today’s podcast you will  discover just how much it matters and what really goes into packaging   design.

This is not to tell you that supplements are evil and should be avoided at all costs., Quite the opposite, certain supplements can help you with your fitness goals. However, understanding whats goes behind the scenes will help you pick the supplements you really need and avoid spending money on products that are useless to you, but may look very appealing at first.

Today you have a chance to get inside the heads of previous supplement developers – John Barban and Brad Pilon.

You will also learn and discover:

  • What colors entice you to buy
  • The reason some supplements are on the market (not all supplement are backed by clinical studies)
  • The exact steps that take place before the supplement is put on the shelf
  • [For supplement developers] How to make an impression on your customers and stand out in competition
  • How package size correlates with the magnitude of promised results
  • How supplements can get away with outrageous claims
  • How your thought process as a customer affects package development
  • If it matters whether the supplement cover looks pretty or not

Listen to the podcast here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Filed Under: Phi Life, Podcast, Supplements Tagged With: , , , , ,

DEXA Results from Slow Bulking and Muscle Imbalance Correction Training

November 21, 2012 by 1 Comment

Here’s the next episode of the UNCENSORED Podcasts Season 2.

Today’s topics: Body Composition Analysis – DEXA Results

You can use DEXA scan to track down effectiveness of your training and diet.

From season one of uncensored podcasts you already know how you can use DEXA to track your progress.

But did you know that it’s also a very useful tool for experimenting with your body?

Check out how John and Brad used DEXA scan to measure effectiveness of the things they were trying in the last couple of weeks. Each of them tried a different thing.

John’s Experiment – Muscle Imbalance Correction Training

As you may already know know John can’t do barbell bench press, because off his shoulder issue. The last time he got his DEXA the results were astonishing, on his right side there was almost 2 pounds less lean mass (shoulder and arm). That’s a pretty big difference, it was obvious that the right side was significantly weaker and less developed.

Because of this, he decided to try to bring the right side back to normal, so both of his shoulders and arms would be balanced.

Now this is tricky, because if you just do barbell based exercises, one arm will work harder than the other and you will only make the problem worse.

So how would you go about it?

And how do you track such is small difference?

You can’t even go just by feeling and strength, you need to get another DEXA done to confirm the results.

John decided to create a specialized plan for himself and get another DEXA scan done at the end of this test to see what he could do about this.

As it turned out, you really can affect one side of your body and bring your lagging part back to normal to balance them out.

Surprisingly the answer wasn’t more weight, but more work and better muscle activation – as John shares in today’s episode, he had to take more time to warm up the right side to achieve the same activation throughout his regular workout.

Listen to the podcast for more information on this experiment.

Brad’s Experiment – Slow Bulking

As Brad confesses in today’s episode, he really wanted for bulking to work and I mean who doesn’t, eating more for more muscles? Sounds like a bodybuilder’s dream.

Well, the reality is different and rather boring.

In the past Brad has tried every way you could think of (and more) to make bulking work. He tried the standard 6 meals a day, 300 grams of protein, cheat days and even cheat weeks with 10 000 calorie intake and no result at all…well he did gain fat, but that’s not what he was really after.

So, it’s safe to say that bulking doesn’t work.

Then a couple months ago he thought about another way of trying bulking. He realized that each time he would try it, it would be a very quick process, never slow. So he decided to go about bulking up slowly, just a couple hundred calories here and there, he didn’t change his workouts, recorded everything and did a DEXA scan after the experiment was after.

If you wanna find out about the whole process and more importantly the results, go down and listen to the podcast.

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

  • How to prepare the muscles that you have hard time activating for the workout
  • How can you bring up a lagging part back up to balance it with the rest of the body if lifting heavier doesn’t help
  • What is slow bulking  and whether it can work for you
  • How you can get your goals hijacked with focusing on strength gains
  • Why it’s important to stop chasing weight at some point and what’s more important when the goal is muscle growth
  • How if you are not careful “body building” can turn into weight lifting and power lifting and why this is dangerous to your physique goals
  • Is there a relationship between being well trained at a certain movement/exercise and looking good? (The answer to this might surprise you)
  • How DEXA can help you see clearly through fitness disbeliefs and help you discover what truly works for your body and what’s just BS you should avoid

 

Filed Under: Food, Muscle Growth, Podcast, 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

IMMERSION Clients May Login and Download Podcast Here

Not a Venus Index IMMERSION client? Click here to find out more… and hear a weird story too

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

IMMERSION Clients May Login and Download Podcast Here

Not a Venus Index IMMERSION client? Click here to find out more… and hear a weird story too

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