How the “Pause-Button” Mentality Can Ruin Your Health & Fitness

And why getting a “fresh start” is never the magic bullet you thought it would be.
by Dr. John Berardi, PhD, Precision Nutrition

“I’ll resume healthy eating after my vacation… once the baby is born… after Dad gets out of the hospital… January 1… Monday.” While this kind of “pause-button mentality” seems reasonable, it could be ruining your health and fitness. After all, what’s the harm in taking a break from a nutrition and fitness plan when you’re: leaving for vacation, completely swamped at work, pregnant, or just after delivery, injured, or caring for an ailing family member?

The thought process boils down to this: If I miss some workouts, eat the wrong things, skip the homework… I fail.Aren’t I more likely to succeed if I take a break, just until I have the time to do it right?

This is what I call the “pause-button” mentality. Now, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s normal — even commendable — to want to do your best. To consider taking time to regroup and then resume (or start over) when life feels easier. At the same time, this completely natural and well-meaning impulse is one of the fastest, surest, most reliable ways to sabotage your plans for improved nutrition, health, and fitness. Here’s why — and what to do instead.

Starting fresh after you lose your way is a really comforting thought. That’s probably why New Year’s resolutions are so popular, especially following the indulgence-fueled holiday season. Give me that cheesecake. I’ll pick my diet back up on Monday! In fact, we’ve learned in our that the idea of a do-over is so alluring you don’t even need a mess-up for the pause-button mentality to take over.

Here’s the problem: The pause-button mentality only builds the skill of pausing. Whether it’s tomorrow, Monday, next week, net month, or even next year, hitting that imaginary pause button gives you some sense of relief. It allows you a little respite from what can be a really tough slog. This perceived relief is compounded by the illusion that if we “start fresh” later we can find the magical “right time” to begin.

Listen, I get it. It can feel absurd to try to improve your eating and exercise habits while you’re in the midst of chronic stress / looking for a job / starting a new job / going on vacation / caring for aging parents / raising small children.
That’s probably why there are so many 21-day this and 90-day that plans out there. What adult has more than 90 days to go after their fitness goals with an all-out effort?

But what do these intense “fitness sprints” teach you? The skill of getting fit within a very short (and completely non-representative) period of your life. What don’t they teach you? The skill of getting fit (or staying fit) in the midst of a normal, complicated, “how it really is” sort of life, the one we all live regularly.

This is why the yo-yo diet thing has become such a phenomenon. It’s not about willpower. It’s about skills. In most fitness scenarios, you learn how to get fit under weird, tightly-controlled, and very temporary life situations.
What you don’t build is the ability to get and stay fit under enduring real-life conditions.

That’s why it doesn’t stick. Not because you suck. But because the natural and predictable consequence of having a limited skill set is short-term progress followed immediately by long-term frustration.

What will be different next time? I remember having lunch with a colleague who swore up and down that his low-carb diet plus daily running was the secret to staying in shape. I had to follow up with a painful question: “Well, why aren’t you actually in shape?” After a long pause, he said: “Uhh, I’ve had a hard time sticking with it. We just had our second child. The holidays just ended. I just switched jobs.” He trailed off… “But, once everything settles down, I’ll get with the program and get in shape again! I guess I’m just on a little break.”

This story illustrates the point perfectly. Here is someone who’s built his fitness on a house of cards. He knows only one thing: How to get in shape by following a very challenging program when the conditions are perfect. And whenever life isn’t perfect, which is most of the time, he hits the pause button. He waits for a better time. All the while losing the health and fitness he previously worked so hard for.

That’s why, when someone mentions pressing the pause button, I usually ask: “What will be different when you come back?” Nine times out of 10, the honest answer is nothing. Nothing will be different. Life is just…happening. And it’ll happen again in January, or after the baby is born, or after Mom gets better, when your job settles down, or at any other arbitrary point you pick. And what then? I’ve wanted to press “pause” myself! If you’ve ever felt like pressing pause, or you feel this way right now, it might help to know I’ve felt exactly the same way.

A few years back, my wife and I decided to renovate a home. During the reno, we lived in a tiny apartment above my in-laws’ garage. At the time I was also starting up Precision Nutrition. Every day we’d wake up and get straight to work. At the end of the day, we’d drive 1 ½ hours to the new house to chip away at the reno. Then, late at night, we’d drive 1 ½ hours back and fall into bed. Repeat.

At first, I thought there was no way to exercise. My schedule was completely packed, I had nowhere to work out, and my eating was less than ideal. But after a couple of weeks I realized that something was going to be better than nothing.

The renovations would continue. Running a business would only get more demanding. And we were planning to have our first child. I realized I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t press pause. Because, if I didn’t continue, there’d never be that “perfect time” to hit the play button again. I needed to find a way to squeeze in some kind of workout, however quick, easy, basic, and unglamorous.

Let’s just accept that life has no “pause” button. The key lesson here is that, like it or not, the game of life keeps going. There is no timeout. There’s never going to be a moment when things are magically easier. You can’t escape work, personal, and family demands. Nor can you escape the need for health and fitness in your life.

Here’s a thought experiment: What if you tried to hit pause in other areas of your life? Imagine you’re up for a big promotion at work. For the next two weeks, all you want to do is focus on mastering an upcoming presentation to win over your boss. Trouble is, you’ve got a spouse, two young children at home, and the usual array of household and personal obligations.

Honey, you say to your spouse, I’m just gonna press pause on being a spouse and a parent for now. I’ll be staying at a hotel. Don’t contact me. I don’t know about you, but that would NOT go over well in my family. You can’t really press pause — and you definitely can’t hit reset — on being a spouse or a parent. Just like you can’t stop showing up for work and expect to keep your job.

Generally, when it comes to life, we know we’re not always going to be on our A Game. Sometimes we’re superstars. Most of the time we just do our best. We muddle through. We keep going. So why do we expect it to be any different with health and fitness?

In my case, above, I hired a coach and we came up with a simple workout program that met these criteria: No more than 3x a week. No more than 10 minutes per session. Has to be done upon waking up, right next to the bed. Requires no equipment. I did that for about 6 months. Was it the Best Workout Ever? No! Did I end up, after 6 months, fitter than ever? Heck no! But was it better than hitting the pause button and doing nothing? You bet!

See, perfectionism is not the point. “Completing” a program is not the point. Being the “best” for a tiny window of time is not the point. The point is to keep going. Sometimes awkwardly, sometimes incompetently, sometimes downright half-assed. But to keep going nonetheless.
 
The “all or nothing” mentality rarely gets us “all”. It usually gets us “nothing”. That’s when I propose a new mantra:
“Always something”. Instead of pressing pause, adjust the dial. Nowadays I like to think of my fitness and nutrition efforts as a dial. There are times when I want to dial my efforts up, and times when I want to dial them down. But I never want to turn the dial off completely.

Here’s how this plays out in the context of my life. Sometimes, say when I’m training for a track competition or concentrating on a particular goal, my fitness dial might be tuned to 9 or 10 out of 10. Channel 10 means I work out every day. Every meal is planned and carefully considered. I think a lot about fitness. And not much about anything else.
Work, family, hobbies… they’re all in maintenance mode (with the permission of the people this affects, of course).
 
However, as I write this, my life involves the following: Settling into a new home, conducting major home renovations, raising 4 children, one of them still a baby, running a growing business with nearly 100 team members. So, these days, the dial rarely goes past 3 or 4. I work out, maybe, three days a week and most of my meals are just “good enough”. For the record, I’m totally cool with that. There is no guilt about having my dial set a little lower. What’s most important is that the dial is still set to “on”.
 
The important lesson: There’s a big difference between tuning your dial to 3, 2, or even a 1, and turning the whole thing off. And when you realize how do-able — and effective — channels 3 and 2 and 1 can be, you see that there’s never a good reason to hit “pause”. I get it. It’s easy to discount the lower channels. Especially when you’ve done more in the past. But remember your new mantra…ALWAYS SOMETHING!

Perfection never happens in real life. We’re always going to be doing the best we can with what we have, and that’s okay. We can still make progress toward our goals and still improve our health and our fitness – whatever’s going on in our lives.

That progress doesn’t happen if you “press pause” and wait for a better time. It doesn’t happen if you say “I’ll squat again once the Dad situation resolves itself”. Or if you ask for a re-do next week, next month, next year.
 
It’s about health and fitness in the context of real human life. And, just like the rest of life, we’re all just doing the best we can in challenging, complicated circumstances. We are all living messy, imperfect lives. We are all human. If we can just keep moving forward, no matter what happens, no pause buttons, no do-overs, we win the game. Here are a few strategies for getting out of the pause-button mentality and into a more realistic, effective, sustainable way of thinking.

What to do Next: 
 
1). Try the dial method. Think of your fitness like a dial that goes from 1 – 10. If you were to dial it up to “10”…
What would your workouts look like? What would your nutrition look like? What other actions/habits would you practice in that scenario? If you were to dial it down to “1”… What would your workouts look like? What would your nutrition look like? What other actions/habits would you practice in that scenario?
 
Giving thought to your life right now, where is your dial set? Would you like to make any adjustments? Could you move the dial up a channel, or even half a channel? If so, what would that look like? On the other hand… Should you move the dial down a channel so you can stick with health and fitness even during a difficult time?
 
2). Aim for a little bit better. An all-or-nothing approach usually doesn’t get us “all”. It usually gets us “nothing”. You know what actually works? Small improvements done consistently over time work, we’ve seen it again and again. You might be trying to make a decent meal out of hospital cafeteria food, gas station food, or airport/airplane food. You might be spending hours awake with a newborn in the middle of the night, or stuck in yet another full-day meeting. These aren’t ideal scenarios, but they’re not necessarily hopeless either. Think. Look around. Get creative. See if you can find some small — maybe minuscule — way to adapt and make improvements.
 
3). Anticipate, strategize, plan. Since we already know that stuff is going to go wrong, the best thing we can do is anticipate and make plans for how to deal with it when they do. A simple way to do this is by answering two questions:
   a). What is likely to get in the way of what I hope to accomplish?
   b). What is something I can do today to help me keep going when I face those obstacles?

For some people, that might be a certain day where they prep food for the week so they won’t be scrambling for healthy meals on busy nights. For others, it might mean having a healthy meal-delivery service on speed dial or healthy snacks at the ready when there’s no time for any prep at all. Have a downsized workout plan designed that will allow you to do “something” rather than nothing.

Don’t be surprised and dismayed when things go haywire. They will at some point. Just arm yourself with the best tools and strategies so you can stay in the game when you’re thrown a curveball.

Let’s take this one step further: what, you may ask, are 10 small actions you could take each day to further your health and fitness goals even if you’re crazy busy?

   1). Cut the portion size of some questionable food you’re eating in half.
   2). Do 10 countertop push-ups while you’re in the kitchen or bathroom.
   3). Add 1 serving of a healthy veggie to any meal (including breakfast or snack).
   4). While watching tv, during commercials (or before or after the show you’re watching in the case of Netflix or Amazon), do 20 high-knee marches or run in place for 1 minute.
   5). Purposefully park further out in any parking lot so you can take more steps.
   6). Drink one glass of water before you eat any meal or snack.
   7). At the end of the day do some stretches.
   8). Read 1 health-related article every day.
   9). Do 15 big arm circles in each direction (or shoulder rolls if you have shoulder problems) when you get up in the morning.
   10). Sit on the edge of your bed and do seated trunk twists or elbow to opposite knee 10 times each direction before you go to bed (or when you first get up).
   Can’t do all 10? Fine! Do 5! That’s still 50 actions taken at the end of 10 days. Don’t like my list? No worries! Come up with your own ideas. I dare you! 😊

How Science Will Explain & Fix Fake News

BY DAVID COWAN

The instant, global spread of information through the Internet clearly benefits us as individuals and as a civilization. But the Internet can also be wielded to spread disinformation, a formidable downside of the technology that we’ve recently labeled “fake news.” Simple web publishing tools enable anyone to fabricate stories that appear identical to legitimate journalism, which prompts social media users—both human and robotic—to share them as easily as real news. Fake news, crafted to exploit us, wreaks havoc on our health, finances and politics.

Reality constrains the quantity of real news stories, but our boundless imaginations unleash a torrent of fake stories that now overwhelm our news feeds. Not only does fake news deceive us, it undermines our trust in legitimate news sources. This is the real catastrophe and, many believe, the objective of Russia’s fake news campaign leading up to the 2016 U.S. elections. Fake news threatens the institution of democracy itself, because an uninformed public cannot make sound governance decisions.

Fake news, crafted to exploit us, wreaks havoc on our health, finances, and politics.

Many groups have tried to stem fake news through various fact-checking initiatives that have all failed, because they fundamentally misunderstand the problem. Some employ human editors, who cannot possibly keep up in any useful timeframe. More scalable schemes crowd-source the work, as though the public could possibly know what is happening elsewhere in the world. Others employ machine learning, as though reality follows some recognizable pattern. Others use automated reference-checking to verify facts elsewhere online, defying the very definition of “news.” Some internet media platforms necessarily publish “both sides of the story” side by side, serving up contradictory facts that guarantee misinformation and confusion. Some find the problem so intractable that their only remedy is to “educate the public” that news sources simply cannot be trusted, and that truth is a matter of opinion always “worthy of respect.” […]

Read the complete article

 

An Inconsistent Truth

You may remember a movie called An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. Although I didn't see it I heard there were many dire predictions.The Earth's temperature would rise to dangerous levels along with the polar caps melting causing the seas to rise flooding all the coastal cities and many other disastrous events would occur. What happened?

http://humansarefree.com/2018/01/al-gores-10-global-warming-predictions.html

Yet, politicians continue to shout out the same global warming narratives Mr. Gore claimed would happen without looking back at his predictions.

 

 

How Often Should You Do Heavier Strength Training?

By Julia Malacoff

More people are lifting weights than ever, and we are psyched about it. There are so many health benefits to pumping iron, not to mention the mental perk of feeling like a total badass who can toss around weights like it's NBD. But as the interest in lifting—and lifting heavy—has skyrocketed, you might wonder: Is it really healthy to go all out all the time? Here's what you need to know about lifting heavy, including how often you should really be doing it.

What counts as lifting heavy? First up: Before you can think about how often you should be lifting heavy weights, you should know what "lifting heavy" really means. As with many things in health and wellness, it's not so straightforward.

"Heavy lifting" for the person who is working out just for general strength and fitness means using a weight heavy enough to where you can do no more than 4-6 repetitions per set, according to James Smoliga, PhD, NSCA-CSCS. "However, sets of eight to 12 repetitions are generally considered a good range that helps people to build a combination of strength and muscle size." So, for most people, the heaviest weight you can lift for eight to 12 reps of an exercise can be considered lifting (relatively) "heavy."

Why should you lift heavy? Plain and simple, whether you're working out for health purposes or aesthetic goals, lifting weights should be part of your routine. "Studies have shown that participating in strength training can have a number of benefits, including improving body composition, building lean muscle, decreasing fat mass, improving flexibility, and increasing bone density, which can help decrease the risk of osteoporosis later in life," explains Stephanie Paplinskie, a certified strength and conditioning specialist in Ontario, Canada.

But you don't necessarily have to be lifting crazy heavy to reap these benefits. In fact, it's better if you incorporate a mix of different types of strength training, from lighter weights with higher reps to heavier weights with lower reps. "You should seek to include a combination of intensities in your resistance training programs to ensure variety, prevent plateaus, and decrease the risk of injury," says Paplinskie

Adding in some heavy weight training can definitely help mix things up, though. "I believe that incorporating some heavy lifting can be beneficial for the average person, just for some mental stimulation as a change of pace from the usual workout," says Smoliga. "It can also be good for when individuals have hit a 'plateau' in their training." To keep seeing results after you've been working out for a while—whether you're after fat loss, strength gains, or more lean muscle mass—some heavy lifting is a good idea.

But you shouldn't overdo it. For the average exerciser, pushing yourself too hard could even harm your progress. "By going too hard, too often, the muscles and connective tissue cannot fully adapt to the training session," explains Smoliga. "This may simply mean that you are improving your fitness, but not as efficiently as possible."

Working out at a high intensity too frequently also ups your risk of developing overuse injuries (which tend to happen gradually), or overtraining syndrome. "This manifests itself in different ways, but can cause negative changes in your moods, emotions, sleep patterns, and metabolism," says Smoliga. To avoid overtraining, here's his general advice: Don't target a specific muscle group until the soreness from the previous workout goes away. Though the science behind recovery is a little more complex (your muscles are still recovering even after they're no longer sore), this is a good rule of thumb, he says.

So how can influencers and athletes lift so often and still see progress? Their lifestyle allows them more time to recover. "A professional athlete who works out extremely hard and can then spend the rest of the day recovering and taking in proper nutrients will be ready for the next workout a lot quicker than a busy person working 60 hours a week for their career, caring for a family, while also sacrificing sleep," Smoliga points out. True that.

Okay, so how often should you lift heavy weights? Experts agree that 2-3 days per week of heavy lifting is enough for the average person. While some more experienced lifters and bodybuilders like to work specific muscle groups on specific days, Schoenfeld says most people can see benefits from doing a few total-body lifting workouts per week that incorporate the main functional movement patterns. "I'd recommend some kind of hip hinge movement (like deadlifts or kettlebell swings), some kind of push (like push-ups or presses), some kind of pull (like rows or pull-ups), and some kind of squat or lunge," she says.

It's also important to note that intensity plays a role in gauging weightlifting workouts, and that's a different measure than "heavy." "You will get the most out of the workout if you put the muscle under a lot of stress," says Smoliga. "So, if you are aiming to do three sets of 10 repetitions, that 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th rep of each set should start to feel very intense. I often ask the athletes I work with how many more repetitions they could have done at the end of the set. If they say more than one or two more repetitions, I definitely know they're not using a heavy enough weight." No matter how many repetitions you're doing or what weight you're using, you should feel like the last few reps are HARD, and any weight should feel "heavy" at that point.

Use these tips if you're new to heavy lifting. Ready to get started? Here are a few final things to keep in mind.

1). Pain doesn't necessarily equal gain. Your lifting workouts should be hard—but not too hard. "You don't need to feel like you're dying in order to get results!" says Schoenfeld. "The key is to move really well within your training. The more exhausted you are, the more your form will break down, and the higher your risk of injury will be."

2). Form comes first. "Mastering proper technique is essential before one begins to lift heavy," says Smoliga. "Much like a person can get better at any movement through regular practice, the same holds true for weight training. If you have practiced the movements with good technique using light weights, as you move to heavier and heavier weights, you will be more likely to continue using good technique. This helps you get the most from your workout while also reducing the risk of injury."

3). Stick with what works. There's a reason why staple exercises like squats, deadlifts, and presses are present in most lifting programs. "You also don't need as much variety as you might think you do," says Schoenfeld. "Just because an exercise is new and sexy doesn't mean it's necessary or particularly beneficial to your goals. You don't need to do 12 different triceps exercises per workout; a couple will do just fine."

Calories In/Calories Out vs Hormones? Which One Is It?

By John Berardi, PhD, Precision Nutrition
 
When it comes to body change, there’s no topic more polarizing than “calories in vs. calories out.” Some argue it’s the be-all and end-all of weight loss. Others say it’s oversimplified and misguided. In this article, we explore every angle of the debate from “eat less, move more,” to hormonal issues, to diets that offer a “metabolic advantage.” In doing so, we answer—once and for all—how important calories in vs. calories out really is, and discuss what it means.  

CICO is an easy way of saying:
   When you take in more energy than you burn, you gain weight.
   When you take in less energy than you burn, you lose weight.

This is a fundamental concept in body weight regulation, and about as close to scientific fact as we can get. Then why is CICO the source of so much disagreement? It’s all about the extremes. At one end of the debate there’s a group who believes CICO is straightforward. If you aren’t losing weight, the reason is simple: You’re either eating too many calories, or not moving enough, or both. Just eat less and move more.

At the other end is a group who believes CICO is broken (or even a complete myth). These critics say it doesn’t account for hormone imbalances, insulin resistance, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and other health problems that affect metabolism. They often claim certain diets and foods provide a “metabolic advantage,” helping you lose weight without worrying about CICO.

Neither viewpoint is completely wrong, but neither is completely right, either. Whether you’re a health and fitness coach tasked with helping clients manage their weight—or you’re trying to learn how to do that for yourself—adopting an extreme position on this topic is problematic; it prevents you from seeing the bigger picture.

This article will add some nuance to the debate. I’ll start by clearing up some misconceptions about CICO. And then explore several real-world examples showing how far-right or far-left views can hold folks back and rethinking common misconceptions.

Much of the CICO debate—as with many other debates—stems from misconceptions, oversimplifications, and a failure (by both sides) to find a shared understanding of concepts, so let’s start by getting everyone on the same page for a change.

CICO goes beyond food and exercise. There’s an important distinction to be made between CICO and “eat less, move more.” But people, especially some CICO advocates, tend to conflate the two. “Eat less, move more” only takes into account the calories you eat and the calories you burn through exercise and other daily movement. But CICO is really an informal way of expressing the Energy Balance Equation, which is far more involved.

The Energy Balance Equation—and therefore CICO—includes all the complex inner workings of the body, as well as the external factors that ultimately impact “calories in” and “calories out.” Imperative to this, and often overlooked, is your brain. It’s constantly monitoring and controlling CICO. Think of it as mission control, sending and receiving messages that involve your gut, hormones, organs, muscles, bones, fat cells, external stimuli (and more), to help balance “energy in” and “energy out.” It’s one hell of a complicated—and beautiful—system.

Yet the Energy Balance Equation itself looks really simple. Here it is: [Energy in] – [Energy out] = Changes in body stores. Body stores refers to all the tissues available for breakdown, such as fat, muscle, organ, and bone. I purposely haven’t used “change in body weight” here because I want to exclude water weight, which can change body weight independent of energy balance. In other words, water is a confusing, confounding variable that tricks people into thinking energy balance is broken when it’s not.

With this equation, “energy in” and “energy out” aren’t just calories from food and exercise. As you can see in the illustration, all kinds of factors influence these two variables. When you view CICO through this lens—by zooming out for a wider perspective—you can see boiling it down to “eat less, move more” is a significant oversimplification.

Sometimes directly; sometimes indirectly, but make no mistake, even when you’re not “counting calories,” CICO still applies. CICO might sound simple, but it’s not. There’s no getting around it: If you aren’t losing weight, you either need to decrease “energy in” or increase “energy out”, or both. But as you’ve already seen, that may involve far more than just managing your plate or spending more time at the gym.
To help, here are common energy balance challenges. In each case, it might be tempting to assume CICO doesn’t apply. But look a little a deeper, and you’ll see the principles of CICO are always present.

CICO Challenge #1: Underestimating calorie intake. It’s insanely easy to miscalculate how much you’re eating, as it’s usually unintentional. The most typical ways people do it:
   They aren’t aware of what “a portion” of a food really is (don’t read the labels, guesstimate, etc).
   They totally underestimate the portions they’re actually taking (For example, without precisely measuring “one tablespoon of peanut butter,” it might actually be two, which adds 90+ calories each time you do it)
   They don’t track bites, licks, and tastes of calorie-dense foods. (For example, your kid’s leftover mac and cheese could easily add 100 calories)
   They perceive a “handful” as being the same as ¼ cup (it isn’t).
   They don’t record everything in the moment and forget to log it later on.
   They “forget” to count foods they know are unfavorable or wish they hadn’t eaten.

Don’t believe this can be a big issue? A landmark study, and repeated follow up studies, found people often underestimate how much they eat over the course of a day, sometimes by more than 1,000 calories. I’m not bringing this research up to suggest it’s impossible to be realistic about portion sizes. But if you aren’t seeing results on a low-calorie diet, it’s worth considering that underestimation may be the problem.

CICO Challenge #2: Overeating on the weekends. Work weeks can be stressful and when Friday night rolls around, people put their guard down and let loose. (You probably can’t relate, but just try, okay?) Here’s how it goes: Let’s say a person is eating 1,500 calories a day on weekdays, which would give them an approximate 500-calorie deficit.

But on the weekends, they deviate from their plan just a little. Drinks with friends and a few slices of late night pizza on Friday An extra big lunch after their workout on Saturday Brunch (with champagne) on Sunday (“Hey, it’s breakfast and lunch, so I can eat double!)

The final tally: An extra 4,000 calories consumed between Friday night and Sunday afternoon. They’ve effectively canceled out their deficit, bumping their average daily calories to 2,071. If you have slashed your calories dramatically, but you aren’t seeing the expected results, look for the small slips. It’s like being a metabolic detective who’s following—perhaps literally—the bread crumbs.

Generally speaking, in addtion to tackling challenges like the ones discussed above, your calorie management efforts may require you to:
   1. Improve the quality of what you’re eating in addition to reducing the quantity. Just by improving the quality of your calories, you may be able to eat more food with better satiety and fewer total calories consumed (example: a cup of broccoli vs a cup of potato chips).
   2. Increase your daily non-exercise movement by parking the car a few blocks away from your destination, taking the stairs, and/or standing while you work 
   3. Tinker with the macronutrient makeup of what you eat. For example: eating more protein and fiber, or increasing vegetables and lowering fats, and similar tweaks.
   4. Consider temporarily tracking your food intake—via hand portions or weighing/measuring—to ensure you’re eating what you think you’re eating (as closely as reasonably possible)
   5. Experiment with the frequency and timing of your meals and snacks, based on personal preferences and appetite cues
   6. Evaluate and correct nutritional deficiencies and/or food allergies and sensitivities, for more energy in everyday life and for workouts)
   7. Get more high-quality sleep to better regulate appetite, hunger hormones, improve recovery, and increase metabolic output
   8. Try stress resilience techniques like meditation, deep breathing, and spending time in nature
   9. Trade some high-intensity exercise for lower-intensity activities, in order to aid recovery and reduce systemic stress


CICO Challenge #3: “I’ve been eating the same way forever, but suddenly I started gaining weight.” Can you guess what happened? More than likely, “energy in” or “energy out” didchange, but in a way that is subtle, unnoticeable.
The culprit(s) could be:
   Slight increases in food intake, due to changes in mood, hunger, stress, or other circumstances (work, home, or social)
   Unrecognized decreases in physical activity and/or exercise
   An increase in the amount of energy absorbed—caused by new medication, an unknown medical condition, or a history of chronic dieting
   Physiological changes that resulted in fewer calories burned during exercise and at rest
   The onset of chronic pain, provoking a dramatic decrease in non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)
   Significant changes to sleep quality and/or quantity, impacting metabolic output and/or food consumed
In all of these cases, CICO is still valid. Energy balance just shifted in subtle ways, due to lifestyle and health status changes, making it hard to recognize.

CICO Challenge #4: “I can’t stop gaining weight, so it must be my hormones.”  
Hormones seem like a logical scapegoat for weight changes, and while they’re probably not to blame as often as people think, hormones are intricately entwined with energy balance. Even so, they don’t operate independently of energy balance. 

In other words, people don’t gain weight because “hormones” directly.  They gain weight because their hormones are impacting their energy balance.This often happens during menopause or when thyroid hormone levels decline. Take, for example, triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4), two thyroid hormones that are incredibly important for metabolic function. If levels of these hormones diminish, weight gain may occur. But this doesn’t negate CICO: Your hormones are simply influencing the “energy out” portion of your energy balance.

Research suggests people with mild (10-15% of the population) to moderate hypothyroidism (2-3%) may experience a metabolic slow-down of 140 to 360 calories a day. That can be enough to lead to weight gain or make it harder to lose weight. Mild hypothyroidism can be so mild many people don’t experience a significant shift in metabolic activity, making it a non-issue.

Critical factor: your results aren’t just diet dependent. They’re behavior dependent. Maintaining a healthy body (including a healthy body weight) is about developing consistent, sustainable daily habits that help you positively impact “energy in” and “energy out.” This might be accomplished while enjoying the food, by:
   Being mindful of having a balanced plate of proper protein, fiber/veggies, rational starch.
   Eating until you’re 80% full
   Eating slowly and mindfully
   Eating more minimally processed foods (aka, fresh foods)
   Getting more high quality sleep
   Taking steps to reduce stress and build resilience
   Kick your workouts and general movement up a notch (JUST 1 notch, not 3)

It’s about viewing CICO from 30,000 feet and figuring out what approach feels sane—and achievable—for you. Sure, that might include a plant-based or a keto diet, but it absolutely might not, too. And you know what? You can get great results either way.  

Hoaxed!

REVIEWS BY MICHELLE E. AINSWORTH

In 1980, Alan Abel hoaxed the New York Times into prematurely reporting his death. Thus, in September 2018, his obituary in the same newspaper carried the unusual heading “Alan Abel is (really) Dead.” The contrast of that prank to the President of the United States calling climate change a “hoax” exemplifies the breadth of what can be meant by the word, and makes the concept and consequences of hoaxes worthy of renewed study. Two new books examine the history of hoaxes from different intellectual perspectives. In Bunk, poet Kevin Young uses primary sources to analyze the history of hoaxes, with an emphasis on racial issues and recent fabricated writings. In contrast, the much shorter book Hoax, coauthored by an anthropologist and a science writer, uses secondary sources and full-page photographs to introduce hoaxes of all types, times, and places.

Bunk opens by discussing the racism of the early “humbugs” of iconic 19^th century U.S. entrepreneur P.T. Barnum, including the slave he claimed was 161 years old, and the African American man Barnum eventually advertised as a missing link in the then new Darwinian evolutionary theory. I found it exciting that Young explicitly linked the popularity of these exhibits to the rise of scientific racism, discussing the work of eminent mid-19^th century natural scientist Louis Agassiz and skull measuring anthropologist Samuel G. Morton. (Skeptic readers will appreciate that Young relies on the analysis of late 20^th century skeptic Stephen Jay Gould’s Mismeasure of Man, noting that part of the problem was what we would now call confirmation bias. After his death Gould was himself accused of mismeasuring Morton’s data in a widely discussed article, but subsequent analyses vindicated Gould. Too bad he isn’t still around to join in the debate.) Science appears elsewhere in Bunk too: the séance craze piggybacking on science is mentioned, the hysteria theories of Charcot are discussed, and Oliver Sacks work on the fallibility of memory is noted.

Young’s real contribution, though, is in offering a racial interpretation of hoaxes not so obviously about race. Three examples are his analysis of the 1835 claim by the newspaper the New York Sun of life on the moon (falsely citing real astronomer Sir John Herschel), the late 19^th century popularity of spiritualist seances, and the 1917 Cottingley fairy photograph hoax by two girls. Young argues that in each of these hoaxes, the fantastic beings inhabited an imaginary world that was tellingly similar to the real one.

The Cottingley fairy discussion includes the memorable line that for people of the time it was a “comfort to know fairies fluttered among them in a world changing at the newly discovered speed of light.” Young’s discussion of the Cottingley fairy hoax also exemplifies the thoroughness of his research, as he notes three points missing from most accounts: fairy proponent Arthur Conan Doyle’s father’s priorfondness for painting fairies, skeptic James Randi’s discovery of the source illustrations used to create the hoax fairies, and the late 20^thcentury confession of one of the hoax’s perpetrators. […]

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