Jerome Armstrong

20/05/2024

Both the flat bench and incline bench equally grow the mid and lower chest. (Link in comments). Influencers who tell you that you need to hit muscles from a wide variety of angles are just plain wrong.

Pick movements that you feel you can execute at a high level. Train as hard as safely possible. Your body will tell you when you've had enough.

Everything else is diet.

17/05/2024

95+% of your results in the gym comes down to these three things:

✅ Train hard enough
✅ Eat enough protein
✅ Eat enough, but not too much carbs/fat

Almost everything else is just marketing.

If you're not seeing the results you think you should, message, text/Whatsapp (12622367456), or email me ([email protected]) and let's set up a time to talk.

12/05/2024

Redesigning this page (formerly 18 Minute Fitness training studio).

Big things are coming. Stay tuned.

19/04/2024

💯 - it's a conflict of interest. Friendly reminder that Type 2 Diabetes is a disease of chronically elevated blood sugar, NOT insulin resistance. Stop consuming carbohydrates and your blood glucose, insulin, and A1C will normalize quickly

That insulin resistance is your body doing what it is supposed to do - keep cells from absorbing a potentially damaging amount of glucose. It's called the Randle Cycle. When cells are replete with energy substrate they try to lock the doors from the inside to avoid taking up more.

When people inject insulin in superphysiologic amounts, the doors are essentially being kicked in and the cells are forced to take up more glucose from the bloodstream. This is because elevated blood sugar causes glycative damage to blood vessels, organs, and nerves.

The solution then is to stop eating carbs, NOT to match your insulin to your carbohydrate bolus. Address the root cause.

16/04/2024

Mainstream dietary guidelines are a joke. Two alcoholic drinks a day are fine, but we need to limit red meat to far less than that?

The former is a known class 1 carcinogen and the latter is a food we've been eating in large amounts for the overwhelming majority of our time as a species.

Correlation doesn't equal causation. Epidemiology is the science of drawing inference from correlation and association. But spurious correlation leads to outrageous recommendations.

Make it make sense.

09/04/2024

Fast food has more heavy metals than the EPA allows for in water. 👇

29/03/2024

👇 Dropping this here for all the trainers, bros, and bodybuilders who still talk about microtrauma.

28/03/2024

Counting calories fails again. When trying to gain weight for a lipid experiment, Nick lost almost a pound by adding almost 2000 calories a day from butter.

Link:

First... PLEASE, watch to the end... there's a twist and I want you to see it, hear me out, and contemplate the "WHY" of this video. Not the "click bait" you...

28/03/2024

Sugar is poison. It's NOT the preferred fuel of the body. In fact, the need for dietary carbs is ZERO. your body makes all the glucose it needs and no more.

23/03/2024

Calories: the word EVERYONE in the fitness industry uses incorrectly.

Calories are a unit of heat. It's conventionally used to approximate the mass of food that people are eating. Similarly, people say that you gain weight from eating too many calories, but since the body doesn't convert mass into energy or energy into mass, the statement is literally incorrect.

The body converts mass into other mass. As such, people should be talking about the law of conservation of mass, not the law of conservation of energy. If the pilot light in your water heater goes out, your water heater will lose a lot of calories, but the mass remains the same.

Anyone who talks about a calorie deficit or surplus is just plain wrong.

The better way to track food intake is to track your macronutrients. Eat the same foods at the same time of day, see how your body responds, and adjust portions accordingly.

22/03/2024

Time restricted eating isn't killing you. Yet another example of how studies are often grossly misrepresented.

20/03/2024

There are 10000x more pesticides IN your produce than ON it.

Why is it that people will obsess over an article like the first picture, but turn a blind eye to the second? Ames' paper points out there are over 60 known carcinogens in brussel sprouts.

And these aren't things we're spraying on them - they are naturally occurring compounds within plants meant to protect them from predation. There's a reason that if you were to go out into the wild, 99+% of all plants are toxic to humans.

I know this is controversial, but there's a reason I source all of my claims. But don't take my word for it. Read Ames' paper yourselves and draw your own conclusions.

19/03/2024

Another Example That Carbs Slow Metabolism:

In this documentary, the filmmaker worked with a nutritionist to come up with a diet where he eats the SAME number of calories, only emphasizing "healthy" foods containing added sugars. Over the course of his experiment, he GAINED 22 lbs.

The number one criticism of this documentary is that not enough effort was made to make sure he's eating the same number of calories. But if going to a Dietitian and having them come up with a meal plan for you isn't accurate, then just how accurate is the average person tracking their food?

Your metabolism is highly dependent on the food you eat. Too many people interested in health and fitness are myopic in reducing things to a single calorie count. Our bodies don't work that way. Whether we gain or lose fat is mediated by hormones, NOT availability of energy substrate.

Anyone reducing diet to calories and calories out is doing you a great disservice. And quite frankly they don't know what they're talking about.

19/03/2024

Humans are obligate carnivores

19/03/2024

Lower Carbs = FASTER Metabolism

In this study, people eating THE SAME NUMBER OF CALORIES across different macronutrient ratios had their resting and total energy expenditures measured.

The group eating the fewest carbs burned about 300 more calories a day.

Here's a simple argument:
Not all calories are equal. Since all calories are not equal, counting calories is an inefficient way to approximate food intake.

Or

Carbs slow your metabolism.

Can you lose weight eating carbs? Yes.

But you're far more likely to hit your goals following a more efficient approach. And if the CICO paradigm is true, burning an extra 300 calories a day adds up to a 31lb weight loss over a year.

Cut carbs. Cut weight.

18/03/2024

Fixed it, but otherwise 💯.

If you're forcing yourself to endure things you don't enjoy, you'll never have lasting results. There are very few hard truths in the fitness industry. There are only better and worse ways to achieve the same goal.

17/03/2024

The US Dietary Guidelines first came out in 1980. Coincidence?

17/03/2024

This is why people struggle with nutrition advice. 🤡

In Greger's defense, the full context is coke is only better than milk in response to stimulating IGF-1. I'd still respectfully disagree.

But headlines like this only exacerbate the confusion people have around diet.

Here's a blunt truth about diet: you need protein. You need fat. You have ZERO dietary need for any carbohydrates.

16/03/2024

Keto > Mediterranean Diet for reducing the severity of psoriatic arthritis. The Mediterranean Diet group has zero improvement in symptoms whereas the keto group had significant improvements.

Plants are inflammatory. Your body needs meat and fat.

16/03/2024

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐃𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤:

In this study, almost 40 people were put on a very low calorie diet (900-1000 calories/day) for 28 days. Just under 40% of the participants lost less weight than the CICO model predicts, and two people GAINED weight.

If you have an almost 40% failure rate, I'd say your hypothesis is faulty.

The problem with counting calories is you're using a measure of heat energy (calories) to approximate the macronutrient mass of your food. It is much more accurate just to track macros.

This study also shows what I've been saying for a long time: metabolism is ADAPTIVE. Prolonged massive food restriction will SLOW your metabolism.

The better approach is to eat the right foods and let your hunger and satiety signals tell you when you've had enough. Add proper strength training. If you do both of those, you're 90% of the way there.

Link:

10/03/2024

Just going to leave this here...

Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9794145/ #:~:text=It%20is%20worth%20noting%20that,of%20Crisco%20oil%20%5B2%5D.

07/03/2024

Most of what you see in the grocery store isn't food. It's food like substance and it has no place in your diet or pantry.

And I don't buy the idea that it's more expensive to eat healthy. It really isn't. For $10 you can have a value meal from McDonald's or 2lbs of beef and a dozen eggs (more food than you'll probably eat in a day).

It's literally cheaper to eat the healthiest foods on the planet than junk food. You'll also drastically improve your health and energy while saving money. It's a win win.

05/03/2024

𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐅 𝐈𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐎𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐭:

If you were to try and live off of one single food for as long as possible, without any multivitamins, what would allow you to live the longest with the highest quality of life?

This is how I think we should look at determining which foods are healthy and which ones are not. What is healthy, if not something that allows us to promote and maintain life and vibrancy?

Red meat is the most nutritionally dense food on the planet. It's so healthy that you could live a lifetime solely on red meat. No plants come close in this regard.

We need to stop overcomplicating nutrition, and use a little common sense.

02/03/2024

The easiest way to save money on food is simply to cook more at home.

Another interesting point is the average family spends more money on bakery foods than beef. Yet for some reason the narrative is we need to eat less beef and processed foods are fine in moderation/can be healthy.

01/03/2024

Ultra processed foods are not healthy. Yes, the US government is promoting a diet made up of 91% UPFs.

This is misanthropic and immoral.

To further complicate things, most dietitians and nutritionists are required to adhere to the government guidelines at the risk of losing their accreditation or license.

The mainstream dietary guidelines are wrong. Plain and simple. Look at the explosion in obesity, diabetes, cancer rates, and lifestyle centric disease since the first US dietary guidelines came out.

As much as I love talking about exercise, the real battle in health and fitness needs to be fought on the dietary front. Most of what you see in the supermarket is not food. It's an imitation. It's a highly processed box of the slow and gradual decline of your health.

Anyone who views diet primarily through the lens of body composition instead of health should not be listened to. When you fix your health, your body will respond with positive changes and composition.

Stop poisoning yourselves and your family with this garbage.

25/02/2024

This is EXACTLY why the diet heart hypothesis is an outdated paradigm.

06/02/2024

If most pregnant women follow the Standard American Diet, could an argument be made that veganism is less healthy than the SAD?

Link: https://nypost.com/2024/01/28/lifestyle/vegan-women-run-higher-risk-of-pregnancy-complications-study/

27/01/2024

𝐀𝐝𝐚𝐩𝐭. 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐞. 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞

After two years, I've decided to close the in-person training studio, but this is just the beginning of 18 Minute Fitness.

Truth is, exercise does basically nothing for weight loss. Any trainer who talks about burning calories with exercise is ignorant or lying. Your metabolism is adaptive - Herman Pontzer's research proved this and it has been recreated by scientists around the world.

Personal trainers need to be better and quite frankly most are a complete waste of money. If they tell you to lift explosively, emphasize powerlifting or CrossFit lifts for casual gym goers, talk about exercise burning calories, encourage zone 2 cardio or heart rate zones, do group exercise classes, tell you to train 3+ times a week... Honestly they're preaching outdated information at best and dumb and dangerous information at worst.

This is why since I've launched my business I've constantly openly challenged trainers to rebuke a single point I've ever made or to defend their training philosophy. No one has taken me up on that offer.

In order to help the most people as effectively as possible, my business needs to change. I'll be focusing far more on diet/accountability coaching as this is what really produces results.

And as you may imagine, I'll continue to do so in my blunt, no BS way you've come to know and expect.

-Jerome