foods

ARE YOU DIET FLUID? I'm a "dietary agnostic." Or, if I were to use more current social parlance, you could call it "diet fluid." In other words, I don't believe any one type of eating is inherently better – from a health perspective – than another. Further, as a student of human physiology and...

There's an implicit understanding that organic foods are healthier for you to eat, but the reality of organic food is a little trickier. First of all, there's a hugely common misunderstanding of the true nature or purpose of organic food in that it's not about making you healthier (you...

When it comes to having success with training and nutrition, psychology trumps physiology. Here are five reasons why that's true, along with what you need to know to avoid the mistakes that hinder your gains. 1. Eating High Reward (Supernormal Stimuli) Foods High reward foods are very calorie...

YET ANOTHER REASON TO AVOID INFLAMMATION Gaining fat increases low-grade systemic inflammation, leading to a mountain of health problems. Sure, everyone but Lizzo knows that, but now we have another reason to avoid gaining fat: the resulting inflammation makes everything taste bad except junk...

WHAT EXACTLY IS A PROCESSED FOOD? Nutrition writer Michael Pollan has famously written, "Don't eat anything your great-great-great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." That's a pretty good way to think about processed foods. Clearly, your great-great-great mee-maw would take one whiff of...

THE ONLY WAY TO COMBAT THE INFLAMMATION EPIDEMIC If you trawl through medical data long enough and hard enough, you might begin to suspect that inflammation is the cause of virtually all disease. Asthma, several types of cancer, bone health, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, heart disease, eczema...

SUSPICIOUS SYMPTOMS Leaky gut is an ailment a lot of people suspect they have, but often can't prove in the doctor's office. What are the symptoms? An assortment of things that might seem totally unrelated at first. Here are the common ones: Severe joint and muscle pain Frequent migraines and...

It's that time of year, when even the most anti-cosmetic guy thinks a little bit less about his lifting totals and a little bit more about how he looks in his spandex lifting suit. If that just made you throw up in your mouth, or made you want to punch me in the face, you don't have to keep...

Ahh, the lean bulking diet; say what you want about the merits of trying to add pounds of muscle without adding a single ounce of extra bodyfat, but as a nutritional consultant I can tell you one thing: some of these lean bulking diets are the most meticulous and repetitive things the world has...

Better Erections, Better Health Sexual Health: The Boner Study Researchers published the results of a study that monitored over 50,000 men for 30 years. The men were periodically asked about their ability to achieve and maintain an erection, tracking back to 1986. This data was compared to...

The ketogenic diet has been around for centuries. Ketosis is the transferring of the body’s primary energy source from carbohydrates to ingested and pre-stored fat, resulting in the creation of ketones. Its benefits range from fat loss to blood sugar regulation, and as such, the keto diet...

by Jillian Babcock We know that what we eat greatly influences our physical health and mental well-being. It may not come as a surprise, then, that due to how nutrients in foods impact our blood sugar levels, gut health, neurotransmitter production, and many other functions, our diets...

by Jenn Sinrich All those things you’ve been hearing lately about the gut being central to our overall health? Accurate. In addition to breaking down food and absorbing vital nutrients, the gut is an important component of our immune system, preventing many harmful pathogens from invading the...

by K. Aleisha Fetters, C.S.C.S. As if Whole30 weren’t popular enough already, the recent release of The Whole30 Cookbook has turned the diet into more of an internet-wide craze. Still, for as buzzy as Whole30 is, it’s pretty misunderstood. We talked with top registered dietitians, as well as one...

by Lauren Del Turco, CPT To say the paleo diet has gotten a lot of attention over the past few years would be an understatement. The trendy eating philosophy suggests we eat like our cavemen ancestors once did, loading up on grass-fed animal proteins, eggs, seafood, veggies, fruit, and nuts and...

by Darley Stewart You probably hear a lot about inflammation and inflammation dieting, but it can be hard to separate the facts from the noise. Common health problems–everything from heart disease to arthritis to dementia–are linked to increased levels of inflammation and oxidative damage, which...

by Darley Stewart You probably hear a lot about inflammation and inflammation dieting, but it can be hard to separate the facts from the noise. Common health problems–everything from heart disease to arthritis to dementia–are linked to increased levels of inflammation and oxidative damage, which...

by Lauren Del Turco, CPT For plenty of people, calories are king. We watch, count, and talk about calories an awful lot—but is there a difference between a PopTart calorie and a broccoli calorie? And do we really need to whip out our calculators every time we sit down for a meal? First things...

by Maggie Ethridge Most people won’t debate the importance of taking a daily multivitamin, but what you might not realize is that the type of multivitamin you take is also important. Plenty of adults simply aren’t getting enough vital nutrients. Even those of us committed to a healthy lifestyle...

by Christina Heiser The word ‘alkaline’ is all over Instagram and health food labels—but as trendy as it is (and cool as it sounds), do you know what it actually means? Let’s take a trip back to high school chem class. Remember the pH scale? In case you forgot, it’s a way of measuring how acidic...