Blog

Field notes from the gym.

Over a decade of writing on training, nutrition, and mindset by coach Jack Holiday — equal parts science, contrarian opinion, and dry humor.

All posts

• ★ Nutrition

  Start Here: How to Eat

  The one idea behind everything we teach about food — stop dieting, start eating for health. A plain-English door into the Nutrian approach.

  5 min

• ★ Mindset

  P-Factor™!

  P-Factor™ is the willingness, the eagerness with which we give ourselves P ermission to P Hail.

  4 min

• ★ Essays

  Jack LaLanne

  Died, January 23, 2011, age 96.

  3 min

• ★ Nutrition

  Hunger

  We see them in the supermarket line, with their basket absolutely full of cakes and muffins and soda pop and fatty meats.

  6 min

• ★ Training

  How Muscles Work

  One of life's real fascinations, the human body and its functioning.

  5 min

• ★ Nutrition

  Obesity

  Hardly anyone eats to satisfy hunger.

  9 min

• Nutrition

  Day of Reckoning

  There's a link between diet and acne.

  2 min

• Training

  How Things Work

  It's so interesting, how the brain works, or the mind-body connection, or the CNS-PNS, central-peripheral.

  2 min

• Nutrition

  Supplements

  Let’s start with the word itself.

  5 min

• Nutrition

  Cheats

  Any food that has ever been a powder is a processed food.

  4 min

• Nutrition

  More Endless Harping On and On about Diet Again

  It's not a health kick.

  4 min

• Nutrition

  Cookies

  There is nothing more emotional than food.

  3 min

• Nutrition

  More Endless Harping On and On about Diet Again

  It's not a health kick.

  4 min

• Nutrition

  Your Colon & YOU!!

  It's hard know how to begin.

  4 min

• Essays

  Paean

  This royal shape of kings, this scepter'd trunk, This bodiment of majesty, this form of Mars, This other ecstasy, demi-delight, This figure built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand…

  1 min

• Training

  Stretching

  Stretching isn’t about being able to do splits.

  4 min

• Essays

  Hey dude,

  like I was totally waiting for you.

  1 min

• Nutrition

  Recipes —

  \— by which is meant the things you should do to increase the rationality, quality and/or hygiene of your life: 1.

  3 min

• Training

  Lower Body

  A meaningful exercise program will exploit the fact, even if it's not consciously understood, that the body can be divided into three large functional units: the upper, pushing-pulling structure of…

  4 min

• Nutrition

  Dances with Polar Bears

  There is no difference between animal and plant fat.

  5 min

• Nutrition

  Carbs, Inc, Etc.

  Food as medicine. We already know it's a drug, but how about its ability to actually make us well?

  5 min

• Training

  Wrong Theories

  The Good Thing About Damage...

  2 min

• Nutrition

  GI Tractate

  This is just some basic stuff.

  2 min

• Mindset

  Communication

  They say some large percentage of communication is nonverbal.

  2 min

• Essays

  Convergent Evolution

  It's great when things say what they are.

  1 min

• Nutrition

  Everything There Is to Know about Diet, Part Two

  Perhaps, as is the bias of some incomparably knowledgeable authorities, a purely vegetarian diet is likely to be optimal for some large fraction of humanity.

  3 min

• Nutrition

  Everything There Is to Know about Diet, Part One

  It's not as much as one might suppose.

  5 min

• Mindset

  An Ever-Expanding P-Factor List

  I'm: hot digesting / hungry sore / sick / tired not focused / not there / not feeling it annoyed / distracted depressed weak old consumed with self-loathing and want to look bad very complicated…

  1 min

• Nutrition

  Everything There Is to Know about Diet, Part Two

  Perhaps, as is the bias of some incomparably knowledgeable authorities, a purely vegetarian diet is likely to be optimal for some large fraction of humanity.

  3 min

• Nutrition

  Industrial Carbs

  If chronically elevated insulin levels have an almost one to one correlation to excess body fat, how do we account for thin diabetics?

  2 min

• Nutrition

  Recovery Drink

  For any endurance workout, or where there's been a lot of sweating, it is just necessary to replace not only the water you've lost, but the, yes, nutrients in that sweat.

  2 min

• Essays

  Burn

  The wind blows, clouds flow, rain falls, sunshine, moonlight, wind, rain, hot, cold.

  1 min

• Training

  A Very Boring List of Overtraining Symptoms

  Morning pulse higher by five or more beats per minute Abnormal rise in heart rate upon standing, or pre- or post-workout Slower heartrate recovery after workout Poor posture, slouching Loss of drive…

  1 min

• Nutrition

  The Voices in Your Cells

  Maybe there's no better analogy-- ones about the same, but no better — so let's just go ahead and use it.

  4 min

• Nutrition

  Threshold Nutrition

  There is a threshold level for glucose, below which insulin is benevolent.

  4 min

• Mindset

  Note to Self

  Sometimes it's just about reminding people of what's important.

  1 min

• Essays

  InfiniDinoPro™!

  Dear Bob Dude -- Thank you so much for your fantasticInfinite Dinosaurs Program ™!

  3 min

• Training

  Middle Body

  We've looked already at the lower body.

  5 min

• Training

  Wrong Theories, pt. II

  Climbing Higher than Possible Another wrong theory.

  3 min

• Essays

  A Few Observations

  Beautiful: because caprice is delightful, and meaning is invented, and because butterfly wings do not cause chaos; ...

  1 min

• Nutrition

  What To Eat

  We start with common sense.

  5 min

• Training

  At Sixes and Eights

  Let's keep it simple.

  3 min

• Nutrition

  Protein

  There's quite a bit of controversy about the appropriate amount of protein required by various activity levels.

  7 min

• Nutrition

  Tonic

  It is required that one use a little common sense.

  3 min

• Nutrition

  Cravings

  Cutting down animal products in the diet is a generally wise choice.

  8 min

• Training

  Strength

  Let's start with some basics.

  6 min

• Training

  Strongmen

  You've noticed in the old movies, the strongmen?

  4 min

• Training

  Athleticism

  An athlete is someone who uses his (her) whole body to accomplish "sports" goals.

  4 min

• Nutrition

  Day of Reckoning

  We have little jokes, but it is serious business.

  3 min

• Nutrition

  You gonna finish that?

  It's time at last to look at hunger.

  3 min

• Essays

  A Brief Bio of FW

  Across countless millennia, mere men have admired, nay, revered FW to the fullest extent that the human heart is capable.

  2 min

• Nutrition

  Mess Call

  "Glycemic load has no long term impact on weight loss, study" So goes the headline.

  2 min

• Mindset

  The Rules

  It's obvious, but the obvious bears repeating.

  3 min

• Nutrition

  The Best Diet

  If you don't eat right, well, you do it to yourself: snotty, sore throat, etc.

  3 min

• Nutrition

  Big Suppluh

  All this talk about Big Pharma.

  3 min

• Training

  HGH

  age 57 age 69 Dr. Jeffery Life.

  1 min

• Nutrition

  Pulp

  Juicing is not actually all that incredibly great an idea — mostly what you're getting is the carbs and some colored water — good nutrients in that, but it's only part of what should be available.

  2 min

• Nutrition

  What Carbs Are For

  There are three kinds of macro nutrients, the caloric nutrients: protein, fat and carbohydrates.

  4 min

• Essays

  Kiai!

  This one is laughable, several times.

  1 min

• Nutrition

  Fuel to the Fire

  A fit individual can maintain a constant healthy bodyweight for an entire adult lifetime.

  3 min

• Nutrition

  The Good with the Bad

  Meat, including red meat, or bacon, or lard, seems — according to actual evidence, rather than the common bias that plagues dogmatic but non-evidentiary medical belief — to play no role in creating…

  3 min

• Essays

  Economics According Two Cows

  Versions of this have been around for 80 years.

  3 min

• Training

  Getting Fit

  It's not AEROBICS: low-grade arm-flapping and slow slog-jogging.

  1 min

• Nutrition

  More on the Bottom Line

  The metabolism of fat people seems to run as fast or faster than that of lean people.

  3 min

• Nutrition

  Hot Calories, Cool Calories

  Vegetarians burn hotter than meat-eaters, per The China Study.

  2 min

• Essays

  Do you...

  suppose you should buy this book: "Correctly English in 100 Days(Shanghai Correctly English Society, 1934)"?

  3 min

• Nutrition

  Glucose, Glycerol, Glycogen, Glycemic, Triglycerides, Thermogenesis — Too Many Dang Words That Look Alike

  All calories are, by definition, thermogentic, heat-producing.

  2 min

• Mindset

  Weakness

  You know what weakness is.

  3 min

• Essays

  Wax Man

  No, this time he's just gone too far.

  1 min

• Essays

  Ever Faithful

  United States Marine Corps Corporal Jason Dunham died April 22, 2004, of wounds sustained April 14 from an ambush in the Iraqi town of Karabilah.

  2 min

• Essays

  A Few Non-participants in the CrossFit Ethos

  Emperor Nero Germanicus, Roman Emperor (54-68 AD) Vlad III, akaDracula, Prince of Wallachia and Impaler, 1431-1376 Donatien Alphonse François, author and Marquis de Sade, 1740-1814 Oscar Wilde, poet…

  1 min

• Training

  Rewrite

  Exercise, in a gym, say, is not about the movements you see there, or the weights being moved.

  4 min

• Training

  Heavy Holds

  Warming up. It's not even 600 pounds.

  1 min

• Training

  The FitWorks Promise:

  After a nice pre-workout protein drink, and a little warmup, how about some core work?

  1 min

• Essays

  Live the Difference

  Just a little instant info on male/female brain differences.

  3 min

• Training

  T

  Part of the trouble with contemporary gym training is that it thinks it's a lot more scientific than it is.

  4 min

• Training

  Training

  It's a necessary part of fitness, training.

  3 min

• Training

  Second Place

  Dig this! Aerobics is groovy, man.

  3 min

• Essays

  The Age of Aquarius

  The fish have been in the news lately.

  5 min

• Mindset

  Responsibility

  Yeah, it's a McGuffey Reader slash Book of Virtues sort of word.

  1 min

• Nutrition

  Sick

  Behold! The exotic super berry from the dripping bowels of the Amazonian Rain Jungle!

  4 min

• Mindset

  Commonalities

  It's sad, when we look at each other with harsh, with impersonal eyes.

  2 min

• Mindset

  Motivation

  It's not an entirely rational process.

  2 min

• Nutrition

  Unexpected Fruits

  Cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, pumpkins, dates, strawberries, chili peppers, allspice, eggplant, lychee nuts, pepper, rosehips — all fruits.

  4 min

• Essays

  Still Crazy

  President Garfield was killed by Charles Julius Guiteau, who wanted to be made ambassador to Paris.

  3 min

• Training

  Apples to Apples

  The workout that the FW crew did onJan 6 is a good demonstration of the power of the Power Grid.

  2 min

• Essays

  Incurring Debt

  Bob Dude sent FW an email, asking that it be posted, with the above title.

  4 min

• Essays

  The Memory of Roses

  George Will has written in achingly poignant prose about the long decline of his aged mother into the oblivion of dementia and the final release of death.

  4 min

• Nutrition

  More re Diet

  Diet. It's so hard. It just always needs reinforcing.

  4 min

• Mindset

  Stuff

  Catch that show about “Hoarders”?

  3 min

• Mindset

  Human

  Poignant isn't the right word.

  2 min

• Nutrition

  Academic Standards

  The inevitability of calories.

  2 min

• Essays

  Tisquantum

  That's "Squanto's" real name, in Algonquian.

  4 min

• Mindset

  Faults

  There's a part of us that might ask, what's the use.

  4 min

• Essays

  Letting Off Some Steam

  Counterintuitive ain't the half of it.

  4 min

• Nutrition

  Diet as Alchemy

  The Surgeon General's Office instructs us that "Overweight and obesity result from excess calorie consumption and/or inadequate physical activity." Oh.

  3 min

• Mindset

  Seduction

  FW was listening to Satan one evening while working out.

  4 min

• Nutrition

  Unknowable Things

  No one knows the difference between animal saturated fats and plant saturated fats.

  3 min

• Training

  How Things Work

  It just seems so interesting, how the brain works, or the mind-body connection, or the CNS-PNS.

  2 min

• Mindset

  Boxes

  It seems intimidating, at the beginning.

  1 min

• Mindset

  Mindful of Small Things

  God? Who is this "God" person people keep yammering about on TV and the radio?

  1 min

• Essays

  Marketing

  Are you sad? \— \— Distres sed?

  1 min

• Essays

  Unforgiven

  Deserves got nothing to do with it.

  2 min

• Nutrition

  Some Mockery, Then Some Information

  People are saying that they're feeling differently about you.

  3 min

• Essays

  A Product Review

  I made the mistake of going to the so-called "Infinite Dinosaurs Total Fitness Personal Training Boutique" for about three times.

  3 min

• Training

  Getting Serious

  Being sedentary is certainly not the same as sloth.

  3 min

• Essays

  Bob's Photo Album

  Bob is a bodybuilder.

  2 min

• Essays

  Strength through Joy

  This is the original sketch for the KdF-Wagen — Kraft durch Freude.

  1 min

• Essays

  Bob's Abs

  If we could read minds, what, what indeed might we discover?

  4 min

• Essays

  Blink

  Monsieur le Docteur Joseph-Ignace Guillotin did not invent that instrument which bears his name.

  6 min

• Mindset

  Time's Arrow

  It is not possible to reach back through the years and take hold of the child we once were, distraught over a skinned knee or a broken toy or an absent loved one.

  4 min

• Mindset

  Looking Like Something Else

  It's great to be what you are.

  1 min

• Training

  Power Math

  There's no doubt that a powerlifter has a lot of strength.

  4 min

• Essays

  Poto and Cabengo

  Isn't it hard? Isn't it hard, being human?

  3 min

• Training

  Upper Body...

  does two things. Pushes and pulls.

  2 min

• Nutrition

  Omega-3

  Personal and professional experience consistently demonstrate that doing very intense exercise for many months or years without taking sufficient or sensible recovery breaks will lead to some pretty…

  5 min

• Nutrition

  Transfats

  We've all heard by now that transfats are a problem.

  5 min

• Mindset

  Departures

  Dignity is in our bearing, not some incidental of environment or happenstance.

  1 min

• Nutrition

  Long Life, Prospering

  Usually those Yahoo or Hotmail homepage health articles are pretty useless.

  4 min

• Nutrition

  Wrong Theories

  The Good Thing About Damage...

  2 min