Pissed Off Personal Trainer

In Part 1 I gave a theory of Genetic Potential (GP) and Part 2 a theory for Natural Potential (NP) but life is never so simple as to evoke one theory at a time. So what if you have an individual with high GP and high NP BUT that individual due to environmental, and other factors, is not maximizing either. So you have got an overweight 19 year old who spends their days sat down, watching Netflix playing computer games etc and has a terrible diet. The environment changes and the individual chooses diet XXXX and starts doing basic exercise (walking etc) but predominately less sitting. 3 months later that individual has lost a good load of weight and is now singing the praises of diet XXXX. Well we see this all the time. Every single diet has someone who lost loads of weight 'just' by following that diet. A percentage of followers of every single diet then use these super responders as justification of the miracle of their diet (and to the determent of every other diet). Yet th

In part 1 I presented a theory and ramblings for genetic potential (GP) and tried to give some real-world figures for reference. Now I want to present another theory/idea that has been rattling around in my mostly empty head for ages, Natural Potential (NP). This time I want you to imagine living in a world with little to no automation, no shops, cars or even mobile phones. Food had to be gathered, grown or hunted. Essential items had to be foraged, carried and so on. Physical training doesn’t exist, its an unkown concept. In this world you are going to fitter, stronger and more mobile than someone who doesn’t train in the modern world because your ability to move and carry is essential to surviving and you do it all day every day. This is your Natural Potential. In 2020 many, well far too many people are not even close to the NP because they simple do not move enough. They are in negative fitness equity before the even start training or exercising more often. Therefore, w

Most people don’t have any real idea of how fit/strong/fast etc they could actually be. They don’t have a reference point or a realistic comparison to gauge this from. Imagine if you live in a world where your parent where both former professional athletes. They had earned good money as athletes and one parent was now a coach, the other a specialist sports physiotherapist. You parents were able to train, coach, mentor you from the perfect age in order to develop you into the best athlete in the sport, ever, dominating the sport and breaking the world records. This feat was aided by the fact that you parents' passed on the genetics that made them elite in their sport, and past on their work ethic to maximise those genetics. Consider this point your genetic potential (GP) . Described above is too perfect, it rarely happens as far too many variables must line up to make this all possible. However, we all have a GP it just may not be enough potential to make us elite sports m

The question about fitness qualifications came up on Twitter today. This quick (hopefully not too many typos) post aims to explain the state of play of fitness qualifications. What many people do not understand is that the Fitness Industry has little, to no, regulation (I'm writing as UK based, but there are few differences worldwide). The official information from the UK government National Career Service agrees: The same website lists the following for Personal Trainer. So based on this you do not need any qualifications. However, it is unlikely that you would get insurance without being qualified. You wouldn't get car insurance without some form of drivers licence. But your clients don't ask you for proof of insurance...... The vast majority of gyms would not hire people without qualifications despite this lack of official guidelines. A general overview of the courses most gyms recognise is as follows: Level 2 Fitness Instructor (FI) This is the

Up next is Nina Teicholz of Big Fat Surprise fame. Is she being misleading, dishonest or has she uncovered a massive conspiracy that fat is good, carbs are bad? You decide? 1. A brilliant Twitter Thread that gets better with every read. Nina tweeted a link to an article about a study she had not even read and then comes up against the scientists who ran the study. 2. Lots of content here from Carbsane including book reviews, fact checks and just how much Nina copied Gary Taubes (not a good thing) The Carb Sane Asylum The sponsorship of studies is only an issue if you dont like the results. But of course stories shared over twitter trump science evey time. At least her book stands up....oh shit the-big-fat-surprise-a-critical-review-part-1/ More to follow.

If low carb diet work for weightloss (and it does), then why do low carb authors distort, mislead, cherry pick and makes stuff up in their books. This post is designed to serve as a library of these wrongs for Gary Taubes. It's up to you to decide what is going on here. 1.  An Open Letter to Gary Taubes Highlights include: "That’s four experts for just one article saying you did not relay the reality of what they were telling you, and instead twisted the facts to push your own preconceived narrative." 2.  Interfering with the Kevin Hall NuSI Study after the results of the study did not support his insulin hypothesis of obesity. The details below were tweeted by Kevin Hall. Further details covered in this article  THE COLLAPSE OF A $40 MILLION NUTRITION SCIENCE CRUSADE 3.  Kevin Bass created this excellent thread on Twitter. Highlights include: when I was reading GCBC, I was struck with two facts: first, Gary's unparalleled grasp of