You hear it all the time: “I need to lose weight!” And the instrument you use the most to track your progress - the scale. But do you just want to lose weight indiscriminately? The answer, if you haven’t already guessed, is a emphatic NO! That’s because when a person decides to lose weight, they will usually go on a ‘diet’ and eat less so they weigh less. However, your loss of weight can come
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Last blog we talked about how willpower is a construct of the mind. If you believe it is capped, then you have just capped yourself. On the other hand, if you don’t believe there is a willpower limit, then you will continue to do things that are good for you and for your future. This trains your dorsal striatum to side more with your prefrontal cortex of your brain - the logical side. This blog
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Continuing from last week’s blog on why it’s so hard to go to the gym, we explore the topic of willpower. As mentioned last week, the ego depletion theory has been challenged numerous times to the point now where I no longer believe it to be true. I must admit, that at one point I did believe in it. It made sense and had some studies done by psychologists that support the theory. But
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The Body Mass Index (BMI) has long been used by doctors and health professionals as the main screening tool to determine your health risk of metabolic disease. Even to this date, your physical check-up examination will tell you your BMI results. Unfortunately, studies have shown it to be highly unreliable and that there are better screens out there for you to check if you are at risk. Firstly, why is the BMI screen unreliable? The
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Are you mindful? Recently, there has been a huge focus on the word mindfulness. Why is it such a big deal? Is it really that useful or is it just another one of those hippie, healthy fads from California that will come and go? Here’s Olive Branch’s take on mindfulness. It’s a superpower. Except that it isn’t a modern thing. It’s been around for ages as described in the earliest literatures of Buddhism, which existed
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Survivorship Bias Similar, to my earlier blog Misconceptions: Swim, to have a swimmer’s body! this blog talks about the perils of the pervasive cognitive flaw - survivorship bias. Exercise programs that you frequently read on fitness magazines and social media platforms almost always depict a famous athlete giving his/her workout routine and telling you should follow it too if you want to get a big chest, skinny waistline, broad shoulders, slender legs, 6-pack abs,
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Don't want to build muscle? This is a very common question that I get asked especially by women when I suggest that they add some strength training into their routine. From my experience, it’s very hard to convince many women to build muscle. This may be related to a mild stigma in society against women building muscle for fear of looking “butch”. But another reason many women hesitate
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Hey guys, I’ll be writing a new line of blog posts called: “Misconceptions in Exercise & Nutrition”. They will be shorter in nature and are aimed at debunking the misconceptions about fitness and nutrition that are widespread in the media and society. The first one in this series is the common belief that you have to sweat a lot to get a superior workout. Now if you are
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