If you don't think hot dogs are junk food, then call up a YouTube video showing how hot dogs are made. North Americans especially love their hot dogs, as do I.
There are scores and scores of different brands of hot dogs in the US and Canada, especially locally-made regional favorites like Nathans in New York City and Redondo in Hawaii that people are partial to. But few of these are in the "more healthful" category.
"Healthful" does not necessarily mean "healthy" but rather in my definition "less junky."
To ease your conscience at this summer's cookouts try Hebrew National not just for taste but for quality: kosher means products have to meet strict guidelines for cleanliness and higher quality ingredients. Hebrew National makes a number of choices which score very high in most taste tests. Another choice is Trader Joe's which score lower in taste tests overall than Hebrew National, but score well for incorporating higher quality ingredients.
Inner turmoil: opposite problems but the same tactic: denial.
Celine Dion absurdly claims she's not anorexic while Mindy Kaling celebrates her weight gain. Both are spinning the consequences of their poor fitness decisions as "positive body image."
Neither injecting one's muscles with vegetable oil (or worse), nor getting surgical implants in any way resembles real muscle. It does however cause others to question the user's mental stability.
For better or worse our bodies in their present state serve as a mirror to what’s been going on inside our heads.
This is the reason that some people are so obsessed with their body image and become so upset about being negatively judged based on the state of their bodies.
We alone are responsible for the condition of our physical self. No one is withholding food or shoving food down our throats. No one has us hogtied motionless to the sofa in front of the TV.
Its all on us. There is no convenient villain or circumstance we can blame for the body we currently inhabit by choice, because good or bad, we do this to ourselves. And deep down we all understand this to be true, which is why looking and feeling like crap is such a polarizing and heavily-defended issue for so many. We can blame others for failed romance, friendships, careers, investments and everything else, but we alone have to take responsibility the present condition of our bodies.
Searching for workout inspiration online is a big deal, music being one very popular motivational tool. Music might get you going but it doesn’t produce results other than maybe helping burn a few more calories. If burning calories is your top priority, then have at it.
However most people who join a gym are looking to change their body—its shape, firmness, attractiveness, health, flexibility. To change these things, dedication to proper form while executing proven exercises is required. Music has nothing to do with proper form, but rather for most it serves as a distraction just to get them through what they have decided is an unpleasant experience—their workout.
Looking around at my gym the other night I was heartened to see two outstanding physical specimens, something rare at my local gym. What they and I had in common is we were the only people present out of thirty-five or more members who were not glued to our phone. Both of these guys were focused completely on their workout and the results of their focus were self-evident.
"You cannot possibly be bored
with your workout once
you see positive results
from your workout."
Interacting primarily with one’s phone at the gym, of all inappropriate places, is the norm nowadays. Why do people need this distraction? It flies in the face of common sense. They join a gym, pay their money, allot the time, get dressed, show up, then sit immobile on a machine or bench for 5 minutes or more at a stretch between each uninspired set, scrolling, swiping, and adjusting their music playlist. They accomplish little to nothing with regards to the essential purpose and goals of gym-going.
Hearing people complain about being bored with their workout when they have made no effort to learn the basics of exercise itself is as baffling as it is hilarious. You cannot possibly be bored with your workout once you see positive results from your workout. Boredom comes from seeing no results, and that’s entirely one's own fault. The basics of proper form and proven exercises are right there on our phones, but people are doing everything imaginable other than learning how to work out. Not one of the many who I see sitting idle on a Hammer Strength machine is ever watching a video showing them how to properly use that machine. In the hundreds of times I have glanced at what people are doing on their phones at the gym, only once have I seen anyone watching an instructional workout video.
People use their phones as a distraction from the fact they are not achieving results, rather than utilizing it as a ready tool to attain results.
In our Nation's police departments, not only is there no program of psychological testing in place for police academy candidates so as to root out those emotionally unfit for the job, but once training is over, police officers are never again tested for physical fitness or ability.
The way man since the beginning of time has kept errant members of the group in line is by shaming.
It seems the need to be liked/respected is built into human DNA, so historically the majority of people have reacted positively to shaming by other members of the group.
What has changed in recent years is the popular response to shaming, which is anti-shaming. Rather than change their errant ways—whatever these might be perceived to be— people instead demand that others simply stop shaming. Ironically, this is accomplished by their shaming of the shamers.
Body shaming is an important example. The state of our bodies is a literal mirror image of our inner self esteem. If we have high self esteem we care for our body, its health, its appearance, its strength and mobility. To intentionally live inside a vehicle that one is willfully sabotaging day in and day out broadcasts the worst possible negative message about that person's self esteem. Rather than accept the obviousness of this, and change their ways, Deniers go in the opposite direction, continuing self-sabotage while claiming critics are wrong to shame them for it.
Nothing changes the truth that everyone is totally responsible for their own body, despite the upwelling of pushback by those who, having compromised their bodies, refuse to take responsibility for that. And nothing will change the mindset of those whose ability to just get through another day is wholly dependent upon their lying to themselves.
Pretending to be proud of a wrecked body, or worse, claiming “every body is beautiful in its own unique way,” is perverse. This is a health issue, and willfully compromising one's own health is perverse. No one who has ever shed their obesity or regained their health has ever regretted doing so.
Joe Rogan's guest explains that the shortage of candidates for Special Forces
is due to an increasingly weak and obese population.
In a desperate attempt to gain likes and viewers, so-called “fitness experts” online make all kinds of outlandish claims about workouts, foods and supplements.
One common claim is that one workout tool—barbells vs. dumbbells vs. machines vs. fitness bands—is superior to another. The fact is, muscle resistance is muscle resistance. Your target muscle doesn’t know the difference.
Performing biceps curls using a barbell, for example, locks you into an arc you cannot deviate from, which can detrimentally impact your shoulders, elbows, and wrists. Using dumbbells instead allows each arm the freedom to arc independently of the other, avoiding injury and wear and tear on joints and tendons, thus providing a superior flex, pump and result.
Using fitness bands for biceps curls, as well as some biceps machines, eliminates the “resistance dead zone” that is part and parcel of the pathway that dumbbells and barbell take, thus providing resistance throughout 100%, rather than 80%-90%, of the arc of the movement.
The biggest mistake we make with regards to our workout is not mixing it up, not trying new exercises or re-working the old favorites. There are literally thousands of videos on YouTube in the bodybuilding/workout/fitness genre, all free for the viewing.
The main reason for people’s progress leveling off is their lack of self-education work done OUTSIDE the gym, which most efficiently can be accomplished by auditioning videos to determine what might work best for you.
That anyone is so clueless as to not understand that playing with their cell phone at the gym totally defeats the purpose of their being there in the first place is stupid enough, but Men's Journal, clearly conflicted on this issue, thought it necessary to reference a Kent University study carried out to determine if this might indeed be the case. Apparently the obviousness of gym cellphone obsession diminishing muscle-building results had so eluded a significant percentage of the population that a major university was compelled to devote time and money to reach this conclusion. https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/heres-how-your-phone-could-be-ruining-your-workout/
People who tell me this seem to have the time to watch TV, play video games, troll on Facebook, go out to a bar and more. As dumb as this sounds, even crazier are those who claim they don’t have the time to eat "right," or even eat, period.
We all have the same 24 hours in our day and we alone choose what to do with them. My advice to people is, don’t work out if you don’t want to. And just keep eating crap if that makes you happy—but just shut up with the excuses and justifications for doing so. Nobody wants to hear them.
The great 19th century strongman/bodybuilder George Hackenscmidt said:
“If you don't find the time to get fit and healthy, you are going to have to find the time to be sick and miserable.”
The New York Times is a great newspaper in many respects, but its repeated failure when it comes to Fitness and Nutrition is unforgivable in light of the many inconsequential, oddly biased and downright silly articles it has featured regarding this genre. This so-called "study" involved a whopping 12 individuals—which disqualifies it as a study. For the Times to give it such importance is stupid: The article is HERE. The vast majority of fitness/nutrition articles on mainstream websites (think major newspapers, magazines and "news" sites like Huffington Post) are not authored by fitness professionals, fitness authors like myself, or accomplished athletes, all of whom have first hand personal experience to draw upon. These articles rarely, as I have long pointed out, include a recent photo of the author so we might assess them physically as to their qualifications. However in the case of the NYT article referenced above, the picture suggests a late-middle aged lady who does not work out. It has been made clear that the great NYT doesn't feel the need to either have a fitness editor, nor publish the writings of fitness professionals. Having been employed by many magazines and newspapers over the last 40 years I can say that the majority of published non-news articles you and I read on any given subject are not authored by "experts" in the field. I myself have been assigned to write articles on a subject I knew little about and thus had to do a lot of research in order to come off as someone seemingly in the know. This process describes the work of the majority of writers from all eras. Despite a lifelong dedication to fitness and nutrition, of the scores of articles I have been assigned as a writer, not one article in the fitness/nutrition field was ever assigned to me, but rather in three instances to colleagues who had little if any experience or expertise. One editor had the gall to demand I provide the necessary information to a totally unqualified author, basically acting as his unpaid ghost writer. What is wrong with people? This is why we need to be wary of what we read, especially when presented in a way as to make the author appear to be an expert in the field. Unless their CV is referenced to support their qualifications regarding the subject matter at hand, they rarely are.
As my readers know, I love to hate GQ Magazine. So after reading the latest installment of their ongoing feature about what other people eat, called “Real Life Diet”, I was heartened to see my new hero, New York Magazine’s Katie Heaney, step in and do the heavy lifting for me on this one:
There is so much absurdity that goes on at the offices of Conde Nast’s Idiot Child that it’s hard to know where to begin. A “style editor” who literally walks down the street looking like a homeless person, complete with a shoelace tied round his waist to hold up his destroyed jeans would be one good example. And some of the clown outfits in their Best Dressed feature. But I digress.
This “Real Life Diet” feature is moronic for its showcasing and celebrating so-called male “celebrities” suffering from and fully embracing their eating disorders. I’m on the fence about how irresponsible shit like this influences susceptible individuals, as I feel if someone is too stupid to look things up on Google that maybe Darwin’s Law should be allowed to prevail. But I also smell bullshit throughout many of these “Real Life Diet” features, knowing that the interviewee—if not totally pulling our leg—is undoubtedly NOT eating as claimed.
The audience however is responsible as well, as we are all free to pick who we wish to follow, to listen to, to believe, and if one chooses the latest trendy flax/kale/charcoal/coconut water nonsense being spouted by the Eating Disorder-Intermittent Fasting-Cleansing Crowd over meat/whole grains/vegetables, concluding that the latter is nutritionally superior for both good looks and good health, then have at it.
