Currently viewing the tag: "swimming"

calories burned with kettlebell swings - boost metabolismYou can’t out-exercise your mouth.

It is a fundamental truth and a brilliant evolutionary strategy.  Exercise has many interesting impacts, both positive and negative, but if you’ve been chronically obese, I want to encourage you not to start here. Not only are you putting your heavy, out of shape body into an increased risk of injury, but until you’ve been successful in the one exercise that ALWAYS works, you’ll simply eat your way through any progress.

What is this magical exercise? Isometrically clench your teeth in the presence of fattening foods and excess calories.  It’s necessary to control appetite, not “fuel Read Full Article →

Irisin transforming fat to BATWe take a quick break from our macronutrient discussion to talk about some really exciting news in the hypothermics world that showed up in the last two weeks. It’s great when new data shows that old thoughts might be wrong.  This one comes from researchers at Harvard Medical School (and a host of other institutions).(1)  These scientist discovered a new hormone, irisin, named after the greek goddess iris – the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods.

What is most exciting is that this hormone could be another piece of the “calorie” controversy – the irritating paradox of calorie Read Full Article →

Personal perspectives are always plagued with some set of bias.  For example, there are those that look at the great Egyptian pyramids as incredible acts of engineering prowess and still others that see the same building as representing a society that built with diminishing ambition (psssst, a joke). There is always an absurd way to categorize things and any time you base a theory, concept, or idea on a false premise, eventually that idea will crumble.

People can sell “snake oil” for a while, but eventually it will catch up with them and the facts (not opinions, perceptions, or feelings) Read Full Article →

I’m not much of a swimmer, but I want to be.  In 2011 it is a major personal fitness goal to try to swim more frequently. The interesting irony is that I was in the pool and spa industry for about a decade and yet I wasn’t ever a swimmer. Most are not; in fact, health and fitness isn’t very common in the industry at all.  There seems to be more focus on fountains than fitness.

It’s the first day  of summer here the the Northern Hemisphere…to all of the readers in the Southern part of the world, you are Read Full Article →

With just two fingers you can prove how easy it is to adapt to cooler temperatures and lose weightIt’s a simple test to demonstrate that your body doesn’t require a perfect temperature to be comfortable, it has a range of temperatures that are comfortable.  Part of our amazing evolutionary survival is the ability to adapt. Not all adaptation happens genetically, it can be driven intellectually as well.

Changing the temperature of the environment around you is one of great examples. Read Full Article →

© Eric Ford-Holevinski, Used with Permission: www.ericfordh.com/wimhof

Normal people do not have this [boost in metabolism], because they are simply not trained. Shivering is a pathetic response.”

Now that is an interesting response to a question about being packed in ice for an hour and forty-five minutes. When I first started to study the human thermoregulatory system, I found many links on the internet to the “Iceman. Read Full Article →