I Am a Punching Bag.
I weigh 200 pounds, I am six feet tall, and I’m going to laugh at you as you punch and kick me. I will not move, but you will not quit.
I sit, silently watching you do pushups next to me. I feel your legs clutching at me as you do sit-ups. I can smell the slightly acrid smell of your sweat, rich with adrenaline as the class pushes you further than you thought possible.
I hear the instructor barking out combos, 1-2-1-1-3-2. I see the apprehension pass fleetingly over your face as you try to remember the punches that those numbers mean and the look of satisfaction as it comes to you. I feel your blows, but they don’t faze me.
Every day, I watch you come and sweat. I see your pain. I see your struggle.
But I also see your triumphs.
Your Victories.
The way your face becomes tranquil […]

Original post by knuckleup

In 2006 I started Mark’s Daily Apple in an attempt to get the word out about the Primal lifestyle and to help as many people as possible. And while the blog traffic grew and grew each month and I was able to connect with thousands of people via email, the forum and the comment boards something was missing: one-on-one, in-person interaction. I wanted to meet you guys and gals, and as I came to understand, you me. So, in 2010 my team and I put on the inaugural PrimalCon – a 3-day, total-immersion experience of expert-guided workouts, play, leisure, classroom education, camaraderie, and of course, extraordinary Primal feasts. It was a blast, and while I plan to continue to organize and put on these annual events (PrimalCon II is coming up this April!) there is still something missing. More PrimalCon! Realistically (and unfortunately), PrimalCon can’t be a weekly, or […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain

When you meet Shauna James Ahern, or Gluten-Free Girl as she’s known to her adoring followers, it is not the burden of having celiac that comes through — quite the opposite. It is her relentless upbeat attitude that seems to guide her through her days. She writes and cooks beautifully, informed of course by her need to avoid gluten, but without it feeling burdensome.

In fact, Shauna, who lives with husband Daniel and daughter Lu on Vashon Island (a ferry ride away from Seattle), says that the what influences her cooking most is what is in season. “Living on a rural island has made our food much more humble and better, I believe. I never thought kale could be so exciting! We have a few farm stands on the island that we visit often. There’s never anyone there. We just put our money into the coffee can.”

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<p>The basis of Tabata Training is 4 minutes of intense interval training/circuit training. What you are doing is taking an exercise we'll use sprints as an example here.</p>
<p>Sprint as hard as you can for <strong>20 seconds</strong></p>
<p>Walk for <strong>10 seconds</strong></p>
<p>Repeat 7 more times for a total of <strong>8 sets</strong>.</p>
<p>So what you have is a total of <strong>4 minutes of workout time</strong>.</p>
<p>Tabata Training can be done with a number of different exercises the idea is to use an exercise that gets the whole body involved or at least the major muscle groups.Tabata Training can be done with Barbells, Dumbells, Kettlebells or just Bodyweight exercises. I'll give you some other exercises and routines to try in a minute but first let me give you some background and how Tabatas work.</p>
<p>Tabata Training was developed by Izumi Tabata (imagine that) at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan. They did a study […]

Original post by WP-AutoBlog Import

IFBB Fitness Pro Jodi Boam showing there’s a whole bunch of ‘functional’ in those muscles.
No point to this blog post other than a little bit a motivation to train hard in the gym…
Oh..and I know you’re all going to try those chin-ups she does…

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Original post by Brad Pilon

One of the great things about our growing community is how people like Denise Minger have emerged from near obscurity to become recognized leaders in certain areas. When it comes to parsing the scientific studies, very few people have the combination of skills, understanding of the scientific method and probability, AND the willingness to dig deep into the minutiae to get to the essence of a study. Denise is one of those rare people. If you haven’t read Denise’s take-down of the China Study, you owe it to yourself to do so.
Lucky for us, Denise has taken the time to dig into the latest research on diet and breast cancer in today’s guest post. (Thank you!) Without further ado, Denise…
If you’ve been scanning the health news lately (or live within earshot of some gloating low-fat adherents), you might’ve noticed a flurry of recent headlines linking fat and cholesterol to […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

Clipped from: www.anythinggoesdiet.com (share this clip)

via s.tt
John Barban’s new book “The Anything Goes Diet” is finally finished, and..it’s AWESOME.
I’m really impressed with how well this book turned out.
It’s practical, and doable without being overly sciencey or complicated.
In short, it’s the perfect compliment to Eat Stop Eat.
Check it out by clicking the picture above or go to:
www.JohnsNewDiet.com
BP

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Original post by Brad Pilon

An alarming new health trend has medical professionals scurrying around issuing dire warnings of impending doom and death. As a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal relays, consumers are taking their health into their own hands by foregoing expensive, redundant doctor’s visits in favor of mail order lab tests. Blood lipids, A1C, vitamin D, C-reactive protein – you can get just about any lab value tested online, no insurance required. Lipids run between $30 and $50, A1c between $25 and $40. Even people with (overpriced) insurance and high deductibles are skipping the doctor. This is part of an overall larger worldwide trend toward going it alone. The home blood glucose monitoring industry, for example, grew from $3.8 billion worldwide in 2000 to $8.8 billion in 2008.
What should we make of it?

Now, I like the sentiment – after all, this blog’s readership is comprised of hundreds of thousands of readers who […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

Diabetes is that rare brand of nasty disease that fails to strike real, visceral fear. It doesn’t carry the weight of a cancer or an AIDS or a heart disease. It’s something you get, like a gut, a long list of prescriptions, and a walker, as you grow older. People just live with it – millions upon millions across the world – and are rarely shocked or surprised to hear that others have it. Their ranks are ever growing, with, if a recent study on the effects of gestational diabetes on the fetus has anything to say about it, much of the conscription taking place in the womb. It’s called intergenerational diabetes, and it means that pregnant women with diabetes or even just poor maternal glucose tolerance could be turning their little ones into future type 2 diabetics. This is fetal diabetes without a genetic component; this is epigenetic […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

Complete 5 cycles of:
6 Hammer Around-the-Heads, each direction
10 Hammer Shovels, each direction
12 Hammer Slams, each side

How-to:
Warmup: 15 forward-to-back shoulder dislocates, 2 Grok hangs.
Before you do anything else, procure the proper equipment. This workout is designed around a sledgehammer, which you can find at any hardware store for around thirty bucks. I use a 16-pounder, which may not sound like much, until you try to handle the thing by holding onto the very end of the handle and find it feels like triple the weight. Mess around with some in the store and choose the one that is legitimately hard for you to support. You can always choke up on the handle to move your hands closer to the weight and, thus, make things easier until you’re ready to progress, but you can’t add weight to a too-light hammer. Buying a light hammer will end up a waste of money.
If you […]

Original post by Worker Bee 2