We fail because our goals are not sustainable. We jump into a weight loss journey and think we need to deprive ourselves—cut things out—and that we need to be 100% disciplined, up at 5a.m. every day getting in a run, hitting the weights in the evening after work. If that doesn’t fit into something that seems like fun or that seems like you can maintain for a while, well, don’t do it.
Doesn’t matter how dirty you train if you can’t test clean. ::note: while the focus of this post is on the importance for tested athletes to know the ingredients they’re ingesting for competition purposes, it’s equally as important for the nontested or nonathlete consumer to know what they’re putting in their bodies. the information herein is pertinent to all informed supplement consumers::
I have an entire drawer dedicated to supplements. It started small, more like a pharmacological junk drawer housed in a manageable tupperware container under the bathroom sink. But through years of bodybuilding shows and powerlifting meets, bulking phases and prep cuts and a few bouts of good old fashioned self loathing it’s grown to now take up an entire towel drawer spanning five feet across and two feet deep, built straight into the bathroom wall above the drawers of extra sheets and pillowcases, and actual bath towels.
As I was writing some emails to prospective clients, the wordpursuecame up a few times. At first, I didn’t even realize it was the name of the intraworkout supplement from Subject Zero. But as the client and I kept talking, she kept using that word. Because the word kept popping up, I really wanted to see what the definition was and why we might choose that word over another. Why not just say, “I want to lose the baby weight?”
We’ve already covered calories in general, and nutrition/performance synergy, but what about the big three? No, not squat, bench and deadlift, the real big three: macronutrients (macros)—Protein, fat, carbohydrates. The celebration and consequent demonization of macros is foundational to the diet industry, and even those attitudes seem to change with the wind.
All too often, we see people working their tails off in the gym, year after year, and failing to make any serious changes to their physiques. There could be any number of singular reasons for this, but they typically can be summed up within the notion that, “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”
Vitamin D3 is formed by the action of ultraviolet radiation from sunlight on a cholesterol derivative (7-dehydrocholesterol) in skin. A lot of people even in warm weather climates are Vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D is metabolized in the liver and then in certain kidney cells, which results in 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D and that is what you see in blood work to determine if you have a Vitamin D deficiency.
There is so much information out there and new studies are coming out all the time. All of this is great but sometimes it can get a little overwhelming and people spend way too much time reading instead of just starting. Knowledge is great, so I definitely recommend reading what you can and learning from the people who have been there and done that, but the best advice I can give you is just get started and adjust as you go.
