Long time members of the club remember Chris Stolzman. And even newer members should remember his brother, Matt, who helped out at the gym all summer. But as much as everyone loved Matt, this post is about Chris, because he just recently was promoted to Black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, in Palmdale, CA!
Kicking Ass and Taking Names
Chris is the person who founded KnuckleUp with Morrison in Atlanta, and helped kick start the MMA fitness gym wave across the country, an action that earned him a place in the MMA Hall of Fame in Atlanta. He’s been studying BJJ since 1994, when he started training in Orange, CA  under Allan Goez.
While running KnuckleUp, Chris employed the services of Kazeka Muniz as the head jiu jitsu instructor for KnuckleUp. In 2005, he started training primarily under Kazeka, and throughout Chris’s many travels across the country, always considered Kazeka to be [...]

Original post by knuckleup

pimg class=”alignright” title=”Sweeeet!” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/honey.jpg” alt=”honey” width=”320″ height=”212″ /Today#8217;s a title=”Dear Mark” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/category/dear-mark/”Dear Mark/a question and answer post is a quick one #8211; a two parter. First, I discuss the anti-allergy merits of real, raw, unprocessed local honey and include my own harrowing experience with using raw honey to combat a pollen allergy. Then, I address the fall-from-grace of a prolific resveratrol researcher shown to have fabricated his data, and I discuss what it means for resveratrol research at large./p
blockquotepAs a side business, I sell local, raw, unpasteurized honey. I would love to see a Daily Apple column on honey and honey production (local vs large-scale (esp. from China), natural hive treatment vs antibiotic use on hives, filtering, non-homogenized vs homogenized, etc.). I often have people who are reluctant to buy my honey because it crystallizes and is cloudy.  These are natural processes and desirable characteristics as the pollen and propolis [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

pimg class=”alignright” title=”Primal Scotch Egg” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/scotchegg2.jpg” alt=”scotchegg2″ width=”319″ height=”233″ /Although its reputation is improving, British food isn’t exactly known for being haute cuisine. Unpretentious comfort food is more like it. Some might argue that it’s a little bit too unpretentious #8211; would a few more spices and a color scheme that wasn’t brown or beige really be so wrong? However, the lack of pretension is exactly what some find so charming about British food. This might explain why a traditional dish like Scotch Eggs is suddenly enjoying a new burst of popularity. It might also just be that a hardboiled egg wrapped in sausage meat and deep-fried until crispy is pure genius./p
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pReally, what could be better for breakfast or an afternoon snack than a Scotch Egg? Let’s rephrase that…what could be better for breakfast or an afternoon snack than aem Primal Scotch Egg/em? The difference is slight – a [...]

Original post by Worker Bee

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pIt’s Friday, everyone! And that means another a title=”Success Stories” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/category/success-story-summaries/”Primal Blueprint Real Life Story/a from a Mark#8217;s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me a title=”Contact Me!” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-book/share-success-story/” target=”_self”here/a. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!/p
/div
pimg class=”alignright” title=”Primal Blueprint Real Life Story” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA2009/real_life_stories_stories-1-2.jpg” alt=”real life stories stories 1 2″ width=”320″ height=”240″ //p
pMark,/p
pI just celebrated my 29th birthday, and thanks to this lifestyle, I’m almost completely pain-free for the first time in over 10 years. I made the switch about 5 months ago, but unlike a lot of people who find the a title=”The Primal Blueprint” href=”http://primalblueprint.com/products/The-Primal-Blueprint%3A-Updated-and-Expanded-%28Paperback-Edition%29.html” target=”_blank”Primal Blueprint/a, I wasn’t looking for a change./p
pIf you had asked me 6 months ago, I would have told you that [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

pimg class=”alignright” title=”The Pill” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/thepill.jpg” alt=”thepill” width=”320″ height=”212″ /Over the years I’ve received questions about the Pill on a pretty steady basis. As one female reader put it, if you go Primal and do all the work of normalizing your hormones, does taking the Pill undo all the good? Are the cautionary rumors I hear just overblown, or are there substantial risks? What about taking the Pill for a longer period of time? Does it matter if I’m 45 as opposed to 25? Clearly, there are a lot of questions and nuances here. Let’s do what we can to unpack this subject./p
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pBefore I begin, let me offer the reasonable caveats. Yes, I’m a guy writing about a women’s medication #8211; a rather personal one at that. I get it. I want to tread gently in these arenas. To be sure, the Pill marked a revolution in reproductive planning. It [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

Alright gentlemen, step away from the computer, this party is for the ladies only. KnuckleUp is hosting an entire afternoon of health and fitness activities aimed at women. It’s going to be a great time, and a great way to set a great tone for 2012!
New Year Resolved
Every year people make New Year’s resolutions to get fit and eat healthy, and probably more than a few of you reading this now did the same thing. But making a resolution is the easy part. Trying to actually live by it is a lot harder! So Amanda and Jordyn have decided to put together various activities to help you learn to live a healthier lifestyle.

Amanda and Jordyn will be hosting the event, and there’s more than a few things to get into. Amanda has been doing a great job teaching the cardio kickboxing classes, and Jordyn has finally brought Zumba to our [...]

Original post by knuckleup

I apologize for being absent the past while.  It’s been a busy last couple months, and in January…well, all hell breaks loose in January if you work in the weight loss industry.
It’s that time of year where everyone has made a resolution to lose weight and transform their bodies. And it’s the time of year where the internet is FLOODED with new diet strategies.
Some Crazy, Some Foolish, Some Dangerous…and a couple of gems.
It is also the time of year where all the new Transformation Contests start.
As you can imagine Transformation Contests + New fad diets = Recipe for diet disaster, horrible rebounds and feelings that you just can’t do it.
So, in order to do our part for helping prevent the fad crash diet mess from happening to you, John Barban and I have created a complete guide to PROPERLY managing your way through a body transformation. (This is why I [...]

Original post by Brad Pilon

pimg class=”alignright” title=”Beep Beep” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/heart.jpg” alt=”heart” width=”319″ height=”254″ /Despite its obsessive focus on a title=”The Definitive Guide to Cholesterol” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/cholesterol/”cholesterol/a levels as the ultimate arbiter of cardiovascular disease, most of the medical field agrees that plenty of other factors also contribute: tobacco usage, psychosocial stress, activity level, and genetic predispositions. In short, a diverse set of lifestyle and genetic factors are consistently associated with cardiovascular disease. This is accepted in the ancestral health community, just as it#8217;s accepted in the mainstream medical community, but the question remains #8211; why? Why does a title=”The Definitive Guide to Stress, Cortisol, and the Adrenals: When ‘Fight or Flight’ Meets the Modern World” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/cortisol/”stress/a contribute to heart disease? How does smoking tobacco increase the risk of heart disease? Why are both the sedentary and the a title=”8 Signs You Are Overtraining” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/overtraining/”overtrained/a at a higher risk for heart disease?/p
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pWell, as I#8217;m (and others [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

div
pimg class=”alignright” title=”Tiredsville” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/tired.jpg” alt=”tired” width=”320″ height=”212″ /Since we#8217;ve been on an a title=”How to Tell If You’re Inflamed: Objective and Subjective Inflammatory Markers Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-tell-if-youre-inflamed-objective-and-subjective-inflammatory-markers/#ixzz1jikqfGVc” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-tell-if-youre-inflamed-objective-and-subjective-inflammatory-markers/”inflammation kick/a the past couple weeks, I figured I#8217;d start covering some of the areas of health and lifestyle that interact with inflammation. That doesn#8217;t exactly narrow things down, seeing as how inflammation is involved in just about everything, but it does give me plenty of things to discuss. Today#8217;s topic, exercise, was a little tricky, because the relationship between exercise and inflammation is anything but straightforward, seemingly fraught with inconsistencies and facts that appear to contradict one another. Exercise reduces inflammation, but it also increases it. And depending on the context, this increased inflammation due to exercise is either a good thing or a bad thing./p
pSound confusing?/p
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pSee for yourself. Study after study (epidemiological and clinical alike) shows that extended exercise programs [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

pimg class=”alignright” title=”Fenugreek Seeds” src=”http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg158/MDA2008/MDA%202011/fenugreek.jpg” alt=”fenugreek” width=”320″ height=”212″ /Today#8217;s Monday a title=”Dear Mark” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/category/dear-mark/”Dear Mark/a question and answer post is a fun one. I look into whether a claim about fenugreek and human growth hormone by the great Dr. Mehmet Oz pans out (hint: he#8217;s off, but not by much). Then, I discuss how to strength train as a marathon runner (hint: short and intense), after which I explore the nutritional content of edible insects. And finally, in light of my recent posts on a title=”How to Tell If You’re Inflamed: Objective and Subjective Inflammatory Markers Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/page/2/#ixzz1jZEQ9kBF” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-tell-if-youre-inflamed-objective-and-subjective-inflammatory-markers/”inflammation/a, I cover the connection between eczema and a title=”Dear Mark: Gluten” href=”http://www.marksdailyapple.com/gluten-celiac-disease/”gluten/a./p
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blockquotepI watched the famous Dr. Oz. He recommended fenugreek tea as a way to naturally boost HGH levels. What say you?br /
em/em/p
pemAndrae/em/p/blockquote
pOnce in a while the Great and Powerful Oz does get it right#8230;or at least close. [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson