I hardly notice the guy behind me, grunting like he's having an orgasm. Instead, I'm zoned in on the second hand of my stopwatch. It’s like a one-direction metronome. Tick, tick, tick. A text notification pops up on my phone screen and I quickly wipe it away without looking at who it's from. Tick, tick, tick. From the corner of my eye I catch a lady doing some movement she must have seen from a Jane Fonda video. “That’s not going to do anything. Eyes on the clock,” I think.  Tick, tick, tick. Whenever my mind wanders, I draw it back to the stopwatch. I programmed this block of VIGOR Strength Athlete with 30 second rest periods, and lots and lots of sets.  I find myself cherishing every second of my rest periods, never feeling like they're long enough. Though I don't often include such short rest periods in the training program, I did so in this training block for a few reasons: To increase muscular stress by keeping rest periods short enough that you don't fully recover before the next setTo use lighter training loads light enough to give joints and the nervous system a break (we worked them pretty hard in previous training blocks)To improve physical stamina and “staying power” by doing much more work in each session than usual  I planned these short rest periods specifically for the phyical benefits. I wasn’t expecting the mental effects, including better focus, reduced stress, and mental refreshment. Multitasking My Training Sessions Several years ago, I developed a bad workout habit. It isn’t as dumb as drinking beer before a workout, or smoking cigarettes after. But, it’s dumb nonetheless. In an attempt to be more productive during my rest periods between sets, I’d answer emails, respond to comments on Facebook, reply to text messages, research topics for articles, or even knock out a few sentences of blog post drafts. I thought I was more productive, making use of every nook and cranny in my daily calendar. And while I might have made a tiny bit of progress in my to-do list, multitasking during my training sessions affected me my mental outlook in a way I didn’t understand until recently. You know how silent it seems when you sit in your car after being at a concert? You don’t realize how loud it was until you sit in your car in silence. I didn’t realize how frazzled I felt following my workouts until I finished my workouts without feeling frazzled. My recent training sessions, with only 30 seconds to rest, didn’t allow me to multitask. And by eliminating the multitasking, I no longer felt frazzled. It reminded me of a book I read least year, Deep Work by Cal Newport. I remembered reading about Newport’s explanation of task switching and attention residue. Task-Switching and Attention Residue Task-switching is the mental and physical act of turning your attention from one topic, activity, or problem, to another. In my case, I’d focus all my attention on executing an exercise, and then 15 seconds later turn my attention to a work-related task. Two minutes later, I’d try to mentally let go of whatever I was working on, and put my complete focus on another set. I’d repeat that cycle over and over for my entire training session. Just as your exercising muscles produce a byproduct called lactate, task-switching produces a byproduct called attention residue. It’s leftover mental and emotional attention, hanging on in your head, from a previous task as you begin a new one. As attention residue builds up, so does your level of stress and mental fatigue. Of course, this issue isn’t unique to the gym. It’s everywhere.  Workplace Interruptions, Productivity, and Employee Satisfaction A 2011 study showed that knowledge workers get interrupted 85 times per workday. That’s more than 10 times an hour in an 8-hour shift! And that was 2011. It’s probably much worse today. Some research also shows that it can take up to 15 minutes after an interrupti...

Tom Nikkola Audio Articles

My 30-Second (Accidental) Meditation Experiment

Judging by its recent popularity, you might think the health benefits of collagen are new discoveries. However, an original "girl boss" named Hildegard of Bingen first wrote of the pain-relieving effects of collagen in 1175. Living in medieval Germany, St. Hildegard was a Benedictine abbess and polymath. She was a writer, composer, philosopher, and Christian mystic. Not surprisingly, she was pretty smart when it came to holistic medicine too. I imagine her looking at a pot of stew that had cooled, wondering if the fatty gel that sat on top of the stew had any health benefits. Maybe she scooped it off and ate it. And after repeating for long enough, perhaps she noticed a difference in how her joints felt. Who knows... At the impressive age of 77 years old, she wrote about the pain-relieving benefits of collagen. She lived another four years. Living to 81 years old was pretty impressive back then. But enough about St. Hildegard of Bingen. Let's get into the health benefits of collagen. Over the last several years, collagen has become one of the most popular nutritional supplements. How did this waste product of meat, poultry, and fish processing become an anti-aging, injury-healing, joint health-inducing superstar? What is collagen? What should you look for when buying a collagen supplement, and how does it fit in with your high-protein diet? Read on and find out. What is Collagen? Collagen provides a scaffolding for most of the tissues in your body. It connects muscle to bone and bone to bone, while also building cartilage that lets your bones slide over one another without causing pain in your joints. It keeps your organs in place...for that matter, it keeps your face in place too. It isn’t as hard as bone, but is stronger than muscle tissue due to its amino acid structure. Collagen makes up about 30% of the total protein mass in the body, and 70% of the dry weight of the skin dermis. As you age, collagen breaks down. Exercise and overuse can also cause collagen breakdown. Collagen breakdown can lead to connective tissue injuries like torn bicep tendons or Achilles tendons, loss of joint cartilage, saggy skin, wrinkles, and cellulite. Anti-aging doctors have been injecting collagen into patients' faces for quite some time, in hopes of restoring their youth. As you age, you lose collagen, making your face droop and your lips get smaller. You've probably seen at least one celebrity who's taken their collagen treatment to an extreme. Though it may not produce an immediate effect, it's possible you could look and feel younger by consuming, instead of injecting collagen. Eating Collagen Helps You Grow Collagen In case you need another reason to get off the vegan bandwagon, you only get collagen by eating collagen.  Meat has collagen. Mushrooms don’t. Poultry has collagen. Peanuts and potatoes don’t. Fish has collagen. Fava beans don’t. If you want the benefits of collagen, you’ll need to eat or supplement with collagen. There’s no plant on the planet that contains collagen. That said, even meat-eaters often miss their opportunity to consume collagen in everyday meals. Chewing tendons, bones, and skin isn’t that appealing, unless you're eating slow-cooked ribs at a barbecue restaurant. Actually, crispy chicken or turkey skin, or pork rinds are pretty good, too. But, you’re probably not eating them every day. For the most part, the collagen-containing parts of meat, poultry, and fish have been seen as waste products. Hides, bones, and tendons usually get tossed aside. Interestingly, this is how the whey protein market evolved too. Whey was once seen as a byproduct of cheese manufacturing, and tossed aside. Yet it’s the highest biological value protein source on the planet, and a staple in the diet of health and fitness folks everywhere today. Biological Value Contrary to whey protein, which has the highest biological value,

Collagen Peptides: Health Benefits For Your Knees, Cheeks, Lips and Hips

It's a common question, especially in the fall. Although the majority of people I know don't get the flu shot, across the population, that's more the exception than the rule. It shouldn't be surprising that most opt in for the vaccine. Advertisements, commercials, and signs make you think it's "just what you do" in October. I was recently in line at the pharmacy, waiting to pick up my prescription for Armour thyroid. Being at the back of the line, I stood next to the hand sanitizer dispenser. That stuff you slather on your hands that's supposed to kill 99.99% of viruses and bacteria. When I got to the front of the line, I was offered to get a shot that put some of those viruses in my body that the hand sanitizer was supposed to kill. Modern-day medical irony. I skipped both options. But it got me thinking about the flu shot and the fact that I haven't addressed it in an article before. I'm often asked why I choose not to get the vaccine, but hadn't put my thoughts on virtual paper to address it. If you're for, against, or a fence-sitter when it comes to the flu shot, I hope this article gives you some stuff to think about, to lead to other conversations, and in the end, to help you make your own, informed decision rather than following the herd. Here's a couple of questions to help open your mind. I'm not going to answer them. I'm just going to open with them: Why are people so quick to jump on board with getting a flu shot, or having their kids get it, when there's barely any long-term research to show it won't have side effects?Why are some of those same people so quick to question the safety of natural health products that have been safely used for thousands of years? Perplexing, isn't it? Influenza-Like Illness vs Influenza More than 200 viruses can cause Influenza-Like Illness (ILI). As the name suggests, ILI causes flu-like symptoms without being caused by the influenza virus. Symptoms of Influenza-Like Illness include: Runny noseCoughAchesHeadacheFeverFatigue and weaknessSore throat More than likely, when you were a kid, your parents let you skip a day of school where you laid under a blanket on the couch, drank Sprite, and watched boring daytime TV. Once in a while, you'd get a second day off of school, but most of the time, you were well enough the next day to go back to school. Getting the flu was unfortunate, but not surprising. It just happens, and most of the time, it's no big deal. Today, it's become a big deal in part because there's money to be made, but I won't go there in this article. Maybe another time. So, the fall is flu season. Sometimes you get "the flu" from the influenza virus. Sometimes you get "the flu" from something else. Of those who experience influenza-like illness, only 7-15% of cases are caused by influenza viruses. The flu vaccine targets those 7-15% of cases caused by the influenza virus. How Does the Flu Vaccine Work? You might think the flu shot gives you some sort of superpower to combat the flu. That’s not how it works. The flu shot doesn’t guarantee you’ll avoid the flu. It reduces the likelihood you'll get it, if you're exposed to the same strain the vaccine was designed for. When someone says, "I've gotten the flu shot for 10 years in a row and I haven't gotten the flu one time," their avoidance of the flu and getting the flu shot could be pure coincidence. "When someone says, "I've never gotten the flu shot and I never get the flu," that could also be coincidence. When someone says, "I got the flu shot and the next day I felt like I had the flu," that could absolutely be the result of the flu shot. Influenza A, B, and C and the Vaccine The viruses that cause the majority of ILI come from one of two groups, Influenza A and Influenza B. There's also Influenza C. Each of those groups is made up of many different virus strains. At the beginning of each year, researchers and scientists try to guess which o...

Are you going to get a flu shot?

Which is the best diet for building a long-living, lean, fit body; low-carb, keto, low-fat, or high-protein? If you're looking for the short answer, it's a high-protein diet. Does that mean low-fat or low-carb diets never work? Not necessarily. In this article, I'll explain a little of the pros and cons of each diet. By the end, you should be able to see why a high-protein diet is the way to go for almost everyone. Before getting to the diets, though, I need to address some basic nutrition science, and tackle the topic of why "calories in, calories out" isn't as simple as your smartphone app would have you believe it to be. Calories, Macronutrients, Basic Math Obviously, the foods we eat contain calories. You see them posted on packages, restaurant menus, and alcohol bottles. When it’s not labeled, you can find it online. We’ve grown to love the idea of counting calories because…well, we can count them. Not accurately, but we’ve been led to believe we can count them with a reasonable amount of accuracy. We know that our love handles, saddle bags, and double chins are storage pouches of the calories we ate but didn’t need. And we believe that the way we get rid of them is to simply eat fewer calories. To a certain extent, it does work. When I was 15 years old, my ski jumping coach told me I needed to lose weight in order to be more competitive. I knew about calorie counts back then, so I decided to eat no more than 500 calories per day. I filled up on diet pop and soda water, ate a few ounces of lunch meat each day and some vegetables, and once a week I went to the convenience store so I could splurge on salsa sandwiches. Within a few months, I dropped my 5’10”, 154 lb frame down to 137 lbs. I looked more like a meth addict than a ski jumper, but the scale said I did a good job with my diet. Oh, in case you’re judging my parents, I lived in a dorm at Northern Michigan University, where they had an Olympic Training Center for ski jumping, for my junior year of high school. My parents were horrified the first time they saw me after my “successful” weight loss at a ski jumping tournament. And herein lies one of the biggest problems about using only calories as a means of weight loss.  You lose as much muscle as you lose body fat. And at an extreme, you can cause significant damage to your metabolism, such as diet-induced hypothyroidism. The Flaws In Calories In, Calories Out At an extreme, like my 500 calorie diet, you can lose weight. It’s a dumb way to do it, but it’s possible. More often, though, people are encouraged to follow a long-term, chronically restricted diet to “slowly” lose weight. This is just as bad as my asinine anorexic method. But, probably more frustrating because you live in constant deprivation, but don’t see any results from your efforts. We’ve been sold the idea that weight loss and weight gain is just about calories for decades now. It goes something like this: A pound of fat contains 3500 calories. Therefore, to lose a pound per week of body fat, you just need to eat 500 calories per day fewer than you burn. In business, this is called spreadsheet math. Spreadsheet math doesn’t account for any variables outside of the simple formula put into the spreadsheet. Just as businesses don’t grow according to numbers put into a spreadsheet, you don’t lose weight according to formulas either. The calories in, calories out equation doesn’t account for the following: Calorie counts on food labels and nutrition sites are not accurate.People who estimate the amount of food they eat consistently underestimate their carbohydrate and fat-containing foods, and (from my experience) overestimate the amount of protein they eat.Your resting metabolic rate varies dramatically based on lifestyle and nutrition choices.The calorie expenditure on your favorite piece of cardio equipment, or on your heart rate monitor or movement tracker,

Low-Carb vs Low-Fat vs High-Protein: Which diet is best?

There are no good reasons to eat gluten. There are numerous reasons to avoid gluten-containing foods. This includes babies as much as it includes adults. Yet, parents are often encouraged to give their kids cereal once they start eating whole foods. Perhaps, these findings from The Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) will help you rethink eating it, or at least recommending it for young children. Based on results of studying more than 80,000 children, researchers in Norway found that gluten consumption at 18 months of age dramatically increased the risk of developing Type I diabetes. Type I vs Type II Diabetes Type I diabetes doesn’t get as much attention as type II. Of the roughly 23 million people in the US, diagnosed with diabetes in 2016, just under 6% were diagnosed with Type I, while 91% were diagnosed with Type II. The remaining were diagnosed with other types of diabetes. Type II Diabetes Type II diabetes is largely preventable, and often curable, as it’s more of a lifestyle and diet related disease. Muscle loss from a lack of exercise, and excessive carbohydrate consumption are the main causes of Type II diabetes.  Intense strength training and carbohydrate restriction, along with supplementation and/or medication can often reduce or eliminate the severity of type II diabetes. At least, it can be resolved if it isn’t so severe that the type II diabetic has totally worn down his or her pancreas. Type I Diabetes Type I diabetes is an autoimmune condition, though. The body’s immune system perceives the beta cells of the pancreas as a pathogen and attacks them.  Without functioning beta cells, the pancreas cannot produce insulin, and the body cannot regulate blood sugar. It isn’t a death sentence, as type I diabetics can inject insulin each day to keep blood sugar in check. However, blood sugar does need to be closely monitored throughout the day, and the diet of a type I diabetic needs to be closely managed. Type I Diabetes, Babies, and Gluten Type II diabetes isn’t something that happens overnight. It usually takes years of poor diet and lifestyle choices. During that time, people often ignore the signs, such as rising blood sugar levels or insulin resistance, body fat gain, fluctuating energy levels, and other symptoms. However, the effects of type I diabetes can occur much faster, and are more significant. Especially when a child develops type I diabetes. It’s not like he or she knows enough to say, “Mom, Dad, I don’t feel right.” So, I hope this finding from the research study I mentioned above sends a clear message to parents considering giving their kids gluten-containing foods: For every 10 grams of gluten consumed per day at 18 months of age, the risk of developing Type I Diabetes later in life increases 46%. The researchers found the average child at 18 months consumed almost 9 grams of gluten each day. Of course, with averages, that means some kids are consuming much more. Scary! More Than Just Gluten Gluten isn’t the only thing that compromises the health of a baby. The type of delivery, whether the baby is fed breast milk or formula, and the mothers diet and lifestyle during pregnancy also play a role. For example, a study published in Nature recently looked at the gut bacteria of 600 healthy newborns, delivered vaginally or through cesarean section. Those delivered through C-section had more gut bacteria found in hospitals, many of which are pathogenic bacteria instead of healthy bacteria. More and more research shows that the makeup of the gut bacteria affects the health of the body, and the integrity of the digestive tract. Anything that compromises the digestive tract could allow gluten to be even more problematic. Read more: Health Benefits of Probiotics: Your Guide Of course, sometimes a C-section is unavoidable. I just bring it up because I’d expect babies born through C-section would ha...

Gluten Consumption, Babies, and the Risk of Type I Diabetes

One in three people sleep less than seven hours each night. One in three people are obese. There might be a connection there. Although everyone who’s overweight or obese isn’t sleep-deprived, and some people who are sleep-deprived might stay skinny, sleep definitely plays a role on body composition for most of us. A new study shows sleep debt causes you to store more fat, even when your diet remains unchanged. It also leaves you less satisfied from your meals, which could cause you to eat more than you need. On top of that, a second study just published shows that sleep debt isn’t just a problem for adults. It shed more light on the impact it has on adolescents, especially girls. I’ll touch on these recent findings below, but if you want a more in-depth article on the importance of sleep, and how to improve sleep quality and quantity, check out my article Sleep: The Ultimate Guide For Your Health. Not surprisingly, it's one of the three synergistic health habits I discuss in my ebook, The First 3 Habits of VIGOR(ESS) Health. Short-Term Sleep Debt, Body Fat, and Satiety The first study looked at the impact of sleep debt during a typical workweek. Prior to beginning the study, fifteen healthy, young men spent a week at home, getting 10 hours in bed each night. Note: The researchers could only account for time in bed (TIB), not for actual hours slept, to run the study. That’s why I use the usual phrase “time in bed” instead of hours slept. Then, they checked into the sleep lab, where they got 10 hours of time in bed for another three nights. That's 10 days in a row with 10 hours in bed. You might be wondering, "How can I get in on one of these studies?! Ten hours would be amazing!" Following their first three nights at the sleep lab, they were restricted to just five hours of time in bed for five nights in a row, similar to the lifestyle many Americans live each week. After those five nights of sleep restriction, they got two more nights of 10 hours time in bed to see if they recovered. Rather than looking at the impact the sleep debt had on breakfast the next morning, which is what most research has already reviewed, this group wanted to look at the impact of sleep debt on dinner, the biggest meal of the day for most people. Dinner remained the same on all nights, including the nights they got 10 hours of bedtime. So, the only difference in everything was the time in bed. The participants blood sugar fluctuations were the same after the nights with 10 hours or five hours of sleep. But their insulin levels were higher on the days following their shortened sleep. Without a change in blood sugar, insulin levels increased. Insulin increases fat storage, which the researchers saw based on the lab work they performed. In essence, the simple act of restricting sleep caused the participants to store more fat. On top of that, they felt less satisfied from the meals they ate. Given the opportunity to eat more, they probably would have. And, had they eaten more, based on their insulin levels, they would have stored more energy as fat. This explains why people can get fatter without a change in diet, or why they can’t lose weight if they try to diet while in sleep debt. The other interesting finding was that even after the two additional nights of 10 hours of sleep, their hormone levels had still not returned to normal. Teenagers With Too Little Sleep Are More Likely To Become Overweight Too Another study, just published in the Journal of The American Medical Association, Pediatrics, looked at the sleep patterns and body composition of 800 adolescents.  Not surprisingly, the less sleep they got, the more likely it was that they’d be overweight. That shouldn't be a surprise. What was a surprise was that those who went to sleep later, or who went to sleep at inconsistent times, were more likely to be overweight, regardless of the difference in hours they slept.

More Evidence Sleep Debt Makes You Fatter

Without question, the dumbest advice any trainer has ever said is...”you need to keep changing things up and keep your body guessing.” This ridiculousness is still getting passed around from one wannabe fitness “expert” to another. In reality, it’s flat-out wrong. You Need Progressive Resistance In every other area of knowledge and skill development, people understand the importance of slowly building upon the experience and skills you’ve developed in the past. Fitness is no different. For your body to get stronger, fitter, and healthier, you need to methodically add progressive stress or resistance to what you’ve done in the past. This fundamental concept is called the SAID Principle: Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. You adapt to the specific physical stressors you face. Because my main objective on this site, and in my training program, is to help people build strength and lean mass to support health, fitness, and longevity, I'll use strength development as an example. You Develop Strength In 3 Steps Think about the first time you did something like a Barbell Reverse Lunge. It probably felt awkward. Your legs wobbled like you were drunk. You might have even lost your balance and tipped over. Assuming you kept at it, the next week, you probably moved more comfortably. You might have completed more reps or added a little weight to the bar. Your coordination and skill improved, making your movement more fluid and efficient. The first step in improved strength comes from improved coordination.  Then, once you got the coordination down, you were able to handle much more weight. Each week, you added 10, 20, maybe even 30 more pounds. Your strength grew so fast you started to wonder if one of your supplements had something illegal in it. This is common in all movements, and especially with novice lifters. Once you've developed coordination, your nervous system starts using more of the muscle you have already. The second step in improved strength comes from your nervous system engaging more of the muscle you have to complete the movement. You actually have enough strength to lift a car off a child trapped underneath it. It’s just that your nervous system keeps you from using that kind of strength because you’d do a ton of damage to your muscle tissue, ligaments and tendons. The bragging rights of lifting a car won't be worth it if you're confined to a hospital bed for months afterwards. That said, you can lift more weight, safely, than your nervous system allows you to in the early stages of strength training. By repeating the same movements over time, it realizes it can handle more weight without injury, so you gain a significant amount of strength without building more muscle. Eventually, you'll reach a limit of strength with the muscle you have. At this point, the only way to continue increasing strength is to build more muscle. The third step in improved strength comes from building more muscle. Unfortunately, most people don't make it to this point. They give up on their program, because they haven't seen results yet. Or, they move onto a different program because they like the idea of variety. As I often tell clients, if you want get results, you need to commit for the longterm, and remain monogamous. If you play the field with fitness program, you'll end up disappointed by the results, and end up making the all too common excuse, "Nothing ever works for me." As we often tell our grandson Asher, patience is a virtue. You don't get to the third step without getting through the first two. VIGOR Training is Training, Not Entertaining “Yeah, but Tom, I like more variety in my program.” I get it. Our attention spans are so short today that we have a hard time even reading a short message like this one from beginning to end. We crave variety, novelty, entertainment. VIGOR Training isn’t an entertrainment.

Dumb Advice: Change Your Workouts Up To Keep Your Body Guessing

"I want to do squats but they hurt my back." "Every time I do bench press, it hurts my shoulders." Do you ever get sore somewhere that you weren't really training the day before? Maybe your back has more delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) than your legs after a leg workout. Or your neck aches after doing upper body exercises. Or, maybe something hurts during an exercise that you aren't really training? If so, you're not alone. In fact, one of the most common excuses people have for not strength training is that it causes pain in areas it shouldn't cause pain. Though there are cases where people have structural dysfunction, or perhaps a past injury causes significant problems, in most cases, there is... nothing wrong with their bodynothing wrong with the exercisesomething wrong with their technique The purpose of an exercise is to train the muscles involved the movement. That might seem like an obvious statement, but it's often overlooked. For example, if you're supposed to do 8 reps of squats, your legs (quads, glutes, and hamstrings) are the main movers in that exercise. If your back starts to get sore or tired first, your back is doing more of the work than your legs. When I was young, I only cared about the weight on the bar and the reps I could complete. I thought that as long as I used more and more weight, and got the set done, my body would adapt and make me stronger, no matter how ugly my technique was. Today, I care more about longevity, health, and fitness. Those are the same objectives I have for VIGOR Training. Athletic performance only matters as long as you're fit and healthy. When you train legs, train your legs as hard as possible without sacrificing form and putting stress on your back. When you train your back, keep the focus on your lats, traps, rhomboids, etc., and not on your biceps and forearms. When you train chest, keep the focus on your pecs and not on your shoulders and triceps. Part of the process of improving with strength training is to improve your mind-muscle connection. Make sure you're working what you're supposed to be working, and not what you shouldn't be. That will resolve at least 75% of the aches and pains people experience when strength training. Of course, improving your mind-muscle connection will also make your working muscles more sore the next day. But as you know, we learn through pain and suffering. If after training, you're sore where you shouldn't be, and you're not sore where you should be, then your technique is probably the problem, not the exercise. VIGOR Training Members, if you're wondering about your technique on a movement, or you're getting sore in places you don't think you should be, post a video in the Facebook group and I'll give you some guidance on how to improve. Pathemata mathemata!

Why You’re Sore Where You Shouldn’t Be

Within 24 hours of starting VIGOR Training, half of the member-athletes send me a message, wondering what diet they should follow. Outside of training for a physique competition or a special event, like a wedding or class reunion, I usually steer people away from a specific diet. Note: if you do have a special event and need to get lean quickly, check out 28 Days: Four Week’s of Fat Loss. I’m not saying diets don’t work. They just don’t work long-term. In fact, most people end up worse off a few months after the end of a diet than if they’d never followed a diet to begin with.  Instead of following a diet with a bunch of strict rules, I encourage you to adopt a handful of guidelines, and change the way you think about eating for the rest of your life. These are the first five (and most important) guidelines to adopt. In this order: Work up to eating a minimum of 1 gram of protein per pound ideal body weight every day. Increasing protein intake alone has a significant effect on body composition, recovery, satiety, and more. Most people experience a significant difference in how they look, feel, and perform, after making just this one change!Eat no more than four times per day, and ideally two or three, while still adhering to guideline 1. When I say “eat,” that includes snacks. In fact, don’t snack. Growth hormone levels rise about three hours after a meal. If you’re constantly putting food in your mouth, you miss out on the fat-mobilizing, muscle-building benefits of growth hormone. I’m not saying you should start intermittent fasting; at least not yet. Just stop eating between meals. When you get up from the table, you’re done.Save your carbs for dinner. Unless you’re a competitive athlete, you don’t need to eat carbs earlier in the day. They’ll only make you crave more carbs, cause your energy levels to rise and fall, and make it harder to use fat for fuel. Research shows that when people eat the same amount of carbs, but eat them all at dinner time instead of spread across the day, they get leaner.Stop eating about three hours before bed. I mentioned growth hormone already. When your blood sugar and insulin are high from a meal, it blunts growth hormone secretion. Elevations in melatonin and growth hormone help your body rebuild muscle tissue, repair itself, and mobilize more fat for fuel. Growth hormone and melatonin should peak just after falling asleep.Eliminate gluten. Like don’t eat any. Gluten offers no value for your health, and carries numerous risks. Those who have gluten allergies and sensitivities are fortunate because their body clearly says, “Stop eating that crap!” Unfortunately, the long-term damage gluten can do doesn’t always show up as an allergy or sensitivity. Instead, it can contribute to numerous other health problems years down the road. Don’t eat it. You can find almost every food you like to eat in a gluten-free version instead. It might take you three months to make these five guidelines a consistent part of your lifestyle. It might take two years. I'm certain that once you do, you'll be glad you did. Are there other ways of making your diet work harder for you? Yes.  Are some food sources better than others? Yes. But the finer details don’t matter if you’re not consistent with the first five points above. Like many of my methods, this is counter to the “track every macro, weigh and measure your food, carry your food with you wherever you go” BS sold elsewhere. My hope is that in ten years, when you pick up a restaurant menu or consider the question, “What should we have for dinner?”, you’re still guided by the habits you developed in VIGOR Training, not beholden to the macronutrient counts from an app on your phone.

Which Diet Is Best To Start With?

Somewhere between what your ego would have you do, and your body wants to do, there's a middle ground of enough weight to make progress, and not so much that you’re going to get hurt. As long as you work within the boundaries I set in whichever VIGOR Training program you follow, which includes your sets, rep ranges, and rest periods, you will make progress as long as you remain consistent. How much weight should I use or reps should I do? For most training sessions, each set of each exercise has a target rep number. For example, it might be “Back squats for 4 sets of 10 reps.” Unless I specifically say, "You must hit 10 reps," use the rep range I highlight in the app. In the case of a 10-rep target, the range is 6-10. If you can't get 6 reps, the weight is too heavy. When you're able to get 10 reps on all sets, increase the weight the next training session. In this way, your goal is to either get more reps with the same weight as last week, or use more weight, even if you’re at the lower end of your rep range.  All that said, the first week of a new block of training often requires a little guesswork. By the second week, you should know how much to use. By the third week, you'll probably be increasing the weight on that specific exercise. Because the app stores all of your previously logged training sessions, you can easily look back at what you've done, and strive to do more the next time. Some sessions you might get just one more rep per set. Others, you'll be able to bump up the weight significantly. How many warm-up sets should I do? For the first exercise of any major muscle group, I recommend anywhere from one to four warm-up sets. The heavier the weight you use, the more warm-up sets you should use.  Warm-up sets don't get entered into the app. Should I use the same weight for all sets, or increase the weight through the sets? "Pyramiding" your sets means that you increase or decrease your weight, while also decreasing or increasing your reps.  It's one of many methods for designing training plans. If I use this method, I'll be clear about it in the instructions. Most of the time, I expect that you’re using the same weight for all working sets. Putting these together... Using the back squat example again, let's say your working set weight is 225 lbs. You warm up with just the bar for a set of 5-10. Then, you do a set of 5 with 135 lbs. And another set of 3-5 with 185 lbs. After a little rest, you do your first working set with 225 lbs. for 10 reps. Your second set, you get 10 again. Then, on your third and fourth sets, you get 8 and 9. You'd stay with that same weight the next week, assuming the training session is the same, and go for 10 reps on all four sets. After that, you'd bump up the weight.

How much weight? How many reps?

In terms of your training, I believe tempo is one of the most important concepts you need to wrap your head around. Tempo is the speed with which you move the bar, dumbbells, plates, or your body during a repetition. Tempo: reduces the risk of injuryallows for greater stress on the muscles with less stress on your connective tissuecontrols one of the variables in your training to ensure you progress from week-to-week Tempo measures the speed of your repetition in four parts: Eccentric – movement with gravityPauseConcentric – movement against gravityPause For most of your training blocks, I don't vary your tempo much. When I don't call it out for a specific movement, I usually expect you're using a tempo of 2010. Two seconds on the eccentric (lowering the bar on bench, descending toward the floor on squats, allowing the bar to rise on pulldowns), no rest, one second on the concentric (pressing the bar toward the ceiling, standing back up, pulling the bar down). By using at least a two-second count on the eccentric, it forces you to maintain control throughout the whole range of motion. ALWAYS REMAIN IN CONTROL OF THE MOVEMENT. Look around at the gym and you'll see people swinging, jerking, or flailing weights up and down, thinking that they'll get stronger simply because they're using more weight. To the contrary, they'll probably end up injured. At best, their ego will get bigger but their body won't get stronger. Focusing on tempo every session keeps your ego in check, keeps you in control of the movement, overloads your muscles better, and in the end, gets you better results. Remember, if I ever happened upon you while you're in the middle of a set, I should be able to say "FREEZE" and you could immediately stop in whatever position you were at that moment. If you couldn't do that, you wouldn't be in control.

What is the purpose of tempo in your training?

I have a number of guidelines for VIGOR Training, but just one rule: Don't Lose Muscle! Muscle loss contributes to: insulin resistance and diabetesloss of strengthreduced metabolic rateflabby arms and squishy legsloss of joint integrity Research shows that as you age, a lack of lean mass is worse for longevity and quality-of-life than being too fat. I'm not trying to convince you to look like a jacked-up meathead. This is about health, fitness, and longevity. You should strive to build enough muscle that people believe you spend more time at the gym than at a fast food restaurant, though. So, if the rule is "Don't Lose Muscle," what causes muscle loss? Excessive endurance training. Calorie restriction. Insufficient dietary protein. Lack of sleep. Chronic stress. Hormone imbalances. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying it's okay to be fat as long as you have enough muscle. Excessive body fat is still bad for your health and longevity. But if you try to get rid of the extra body fat by following a calorie and protein-restricted diet and doing a ton of cardio, you're headed for trouble. Anyway, this is the lens through which I view all nutrition, exercise, supplementation, and lifestyle choices. I hope, over time, you will too. If a diet, exercise, lifestyle, or supplement choice has the potential to cause accelerated muscle loss, it's a non-starter for me. If you'd like to read a little more on the importance of muscle, check out my article 7 Body and Mind Benefits of Building Muscle.  I try to simplify the process of getting and staying fit, while inspiring you to put in the work necessary to make it happen. Following the rule of "don't lose muscle" is a great place to start.

Don’t Lose Muscle

What are adaptogens? How do you use them? Do they actually work? They are a standard part of traditional medicine. However, in North America, they often get dismissed as a useful tool for supporting your health. In this article, I explain what they are, how they work, and review some of the health benefits of adaptogens. I also highlight some of the best adaptogens for you to start with. Don't Be Misled or Misleading As you'll see, adaptogens can be helpful for almost everyone. But they're not magic. I'm tired of people making exaggerated claims about supplements, essential oils, and other health products. Though these natural products can help to support your health, they don't work if your nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle choices are a disaster. As I say in one of my Tom Nikkola 365 messages: Subscribe to Tom Nikkola 365 to get quick tips like this every day. Many of the health problems people face today, including stress, low libido, low testosterone, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, etc. are the result of poor nutrition, lifestyle, and exercise (or lack of it) choices. An adaptogen will have little to no effect if: you lack sleepyou don't get to the gym and workoutyou hang around with energy-sucking, pessimistic peopleyou don't eat enough protein to support your body's recovery needs Just taking a supplement, essential oil, or adaptogen isn't going to fix the problem. At a minimum, you need to be consistent with The First 3 Habits of VIGOR(ESS) Health. Then, in terms of supplements, start with The Foundational Five before investing in adaptogens. If you're not willing to tackle that stuff first, don't waste your time and money on adaptogens. And please...don't get suckered into buying something from someone who's selling you a solution to your problems that's just a pill or powder. Especially if they don't follow the fundamental health habits above themselves. Assuming you have those habits in place, using adaptogens each day is a great way to further support your health, so let's keep going and find out why, and then which ones to use. What are Adaptogens? Adaptogens help your body maintain metabolic balance. For example, if you feel overly excited or anxious, an adaptogen may have a calming effect. In you feel low or down, it could have an excitatory effect. For those familiar with Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, adaptogens are nothing new. For those who’ve grown up with conventional, Western medicine, they might sound too good to be true. The main problem with them becoming accepted in the West is their general, rather than specific effect on the body, and difficulty in pinpointing exactly how they work. Like essential oils or hemp oil, adaptogens contain dozens of compounds that act together in an entourage effect. When you take one of those compounds out of the whole, it doesn't always have the same effect as leaving it with the other compounds. Western doctors and scientists often want to isolate individual compounds to test their effects, and end up seeing minimal effect compared to the combination in the body. Then, they shrug them off as ineffective.  With all that said, there is now plenty of convincing research supporting the health benefits of adaptogens. So, any doctor who shrugs them off today isn't keeping up with the research. How Adaptogens Work In 1998, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defined an adaptogen as a new kind of metabolic regulator that has proved to help in environmental adaptation and to prevent external harm.Liao L, et al Brekhman’s and Dardymov’s 1969 definition is easier to understand. They said plant-originated adaptogens: Reduce harm caused by stressed states, such as fatigue, infection, and depressionHave a stimulating or excitatory effect on the bodyStimulate without side effects like insomnia or a significantly increased metabolic rateDo not cause harm to the body

The Best Adaptogens For Health and Fitness

Hydroxytyrosol is one of the key healthy-promoting compounds of the Mediterranean diet. Based on the research I reviewed, I feel like this nutraceutical hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. In this article, I’ll answer the following questions: What is hydroxytyrosol?What are the health benefits?Are there any side effects?How much should you take? The Mediterranean Diet Paradox Long before the Keto craze, or the vegan agenda, the Mediterranean diet was recognized as one of the healthiest diets. Or, to be more accurate, the diet of some cultures living around the Mediterranean Sea was recognized as healthier. They experience better health and longevity than those living in many other parts of the world. However, this reality has been perplexing for nutrition and health researchers. People eat high-fat foods, drink lots of wine, and even smoke cigarettes at higher rates than average. Yet, they live longer and suffer less disease. There must be something in their diet or lifestyle that protects them from the lifestyle and nutrition choices that, according to “science” should kill them. Mediterraneans eat a lot more olives and drink more wine than other cultures. As it turns out, these dietary staples contain some pretty powerful compounds: hydroxytyrosolresveratrolmelatonin Red wine provides mainly resveratrol and melatonin, and a small amount of hydroxytyrosol. Olives, on the other hand, are the primary source of HT. The fatty acids of olive oil promote brain health and prevent neurological disorders, inflammatory complications, and cancer. Wani TA, et al.  Regular consumption of olives, or more precisely, the fatty acids in olives, is associated with: Lower risk of neuropsychiatric disordersLower risk of lateral sclerosisBetter motor coordinationPrevention of osteoarthritis, when combined with exercisePrevention of atherosclerosisRelief of symptoms of colitis These health benefits aren't necessarily from the fatty acids in olive oil. They're from the hydroxytyrosol. What is hydroxytyrosol? Hydroxytyrosol (HT) is a polyphenol found in olive fruits and olive leaves. It’s also found in red wine, although the concentration is much lower than in olives. Along with another compound in olives, oleuropein, HT gives extra-virgin olive oil its distinctive taste. Extraction of HT from olives usually requires solvents like methanol and hexane. However, it is possible to extract HT with water alone. When choosing a supplement, I’d recommend using only hydroxytyrosol extracted with water. It eliminates the possibility of any leftover solvents from ending up in your system. Hydroxytyrosol is rapidly absorbed in the small intestine and reaches peak blood levels within 5-10 minutes. Hydroxytyrosol is the only phenolic compound that is able to cross the blood-brain barrier, which allows it to also absorb free radicals throughout the central nervous system.Ziosi P, et al. When you metabolize the neurotransmitter dopamine, you produce a modest amount of hydroxytyrosol. Diseases that lower dopamine levels, such as depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, and Parkinson’s, would also cause very low levels of hydroxytyrosol. As a supplement or nutraceutical, it’s essential to take it with fat. The fat enhances its absorption. What are the health benefits? As I researched hydroxytyrosol for this article, I found a dizzying number of research-supported health benefits. Much of the research is based on cell cultures and animal studies. Some is based on research in humans. When you combine the scientific evidence with what's seen in population-based research of Mediterranean people, you end up with a pretty convincing argument in favor of increasing HT consumption. Mitochondrial and Metabolic Function Your life depends on your mitochondria, teeny-tiny power plants found in almost every cell of the body. Most known diseases result in some kind of dysfunctional mitochondria....

Hydroxytyrosol Health Benefits

I'm often asked, "What are the best supplements to support my health and fitness goals?" People ask for one of three reasons. They: Have never used supplements, and are utterly confused about where to begin.Take handfuls of supplements every day, and have pill fatigueHope there's a shortcut to their fitness goals by popping some pills. Some want to know the best weight loss supplements. Others look for the best muscle building supplements. And still others are hoping there's a cure for...you name it. Before I take people down the path of finding the perfect natural product for a specific goal, I first help them understand the importance of building a solid base of nutrition, and complement it with the right exercise and lifestyle choices. As I often say... No supplement is so good it can offset the effect of a poor diet. No diet is so good that it can't benefit from supplementation. Of course, diet alone won't get you to your goals. You also need to consistently follow a good workout program, and get good quality sleep. Anyway, before I recommend supplements for weight loss, muscle-building, brain health, or any other goals, I always start with what I call The Foundational Five. Here they are. Article Shortcuts1. High-Quality Multivitamin2. Fish Oil3. Magnesium Glycinate4. Vitamin D (Cholecalciferol)5. ProbioticSummary 1. High-Quality Multivitamin A high-quality multivitamin tops my list of the best health supplements. Imagine building your dream home without using any screws, nails, glue, or caulk. You could use all the best wood, granite, and glass available. But if you don't have the materials to tie it all together, your home won't stand very long. It's the same thing with the value of a high-quality multivitamin. You could buy the best quality meat and fish, eat organic vegetables, and drink raw milk straight from a grass-fed cow. Yet, if you still lack the micronutrients necessary for a healthy metabolism, your body won't hold up the way it could. Keep in mind that when I recommend a high-quality multivitamin, I mean high-quality. Here's what to look for in a high-quality multivitamin: Natural folate, not folic acid (labeled as Metafolin®, L-5-methyltetrahydrofolate, or methylated folate)Methylcobalamin instead of cyancobalaminMineral glycinate chelates (i.e. magnesium bisglycinate, magnesium glycinate)Both K1 and K2Exceeds Daily Value (DV) for most micronutrientsEfficacious doses of any extra ingredients to enhance the formula Those are starting points to help guide you away from crap, and toward quality. It's not an all-encompassing list of what it takes to make the best multivitamin. I use and recommend: Thorne Multi-Vitamin EliteYoung Living Master Formula 2. Fish Oil Fish oil takes the #2 spot in my Foundational Five, the most important supplements for health. According to one survey I found, almost 63% of people knew they did not get enough omega-3 fats in their diet. However, only 26% of people supplemented with omega-3s. Omega-3 fatty acids play an essential role in your brain health, as well as the function of almost every system in the body. Like micronutrients, omega-3s are more than important. They are essential for health. High-quality fish oil is the best way to increase your omega-3 fatty acid levels. The following are some of the benefits of supplementing with fish oil: Enhances fat loss*Supports healthy lipid and glucose levels*Increases protein synthesis and supports gains in strength and lean body mass*Supports normal inflammation levels*Enhances immune function*Supports cognitive / brain function*Supports a normal stress response*May reduce some symptoms of depression*Enhances eye health*May lessen chances of infant allergies if used during pregnancy* The core of their benefit comes from how they affect your cell membranes. When your omega-3 levels are high enough, your cell membranes can easily transfer nutrients into the ...

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