Fitness Contrarian

If you have never run three miles before but have always wanted to, follow my program outlined below. The goal of this program is to get you running three miles at about a 10-minute pace after six weeks.

This is a beginner program so I’m assuming you have not been running and may be out of shape. If you are in shape you can skip the first couple of weeks and jump in at Week Three or Week Four, or wherever you feel comfortable (…)

I’ve written a number of articles on long and hard workouts and have been telling my personal training clients for years that “when you workout hard it should be short and when you workout long it should be easy”. Yet this is a common sense concept that most fitness enthusiasts can’t accept. One of the biggest mistakes you can make with your exercise program is to have the mind set that more or harder is always better.

The whole purpose of exercise is to build a stronger healthier body. To achieve this, you want to spend your time wisely by building yourself up and not chronically breaking yourself (…)

Researchers have concluded that avoiding weight gain, not taking hormones, exercising and limiting alcohol, are the best ways to lower your risk of breast cancer. One of my favorite newsletters, Nutrition Action, had a great article about how to lower your risk of breast cancer. The article pointed to these four factors as being the [...]

Here is a list of some of my favorite snack combinations. When combining and choosing different foods for healthy snacks, look for three things: protein, healthy fat and low glycemic carbohydrates. Low glycemic carbohydrates release sugar into the blood stream slowly over time.

Look at snacks like little meals. One of the big mistakes people make when choosing snacks is not balancing the snack with good nutrition (…)

One of the supplements I take every day is omega-3 fish oil. Its becoming harder and harder to find goods sources of omega-3 oils in the US. Fish is one of the few foods that is high in omega-3 oils but wild caught fish is expensive and not always available or in season.

After reading about all the proven benefits of omega-3 oils a few years ago I started taking a fish oil supplement. I made a video this past winter about the fish oil supplement I take every day and it is being featured on Men’s Fitness web site called Code Liver Oil is a Great Source of Vitamin D. Check out the video below about the cod liver oil supplement I take every day and some of the benefits of taking it (…)

If I had to choose between working out in the gym for an hour a day and them sitting behind a desk as opposed to living an active lifestyle by moving around all day long, I would pick an active lifestyle hands down for good health.

Going to the gym for an hour every day is a good idea but you can’t count on that alone for all your daily activity. One of the most under-rated aspects of good health is low-level easy movement all day long. You can’t be a couch potato just because you went and worked out for an hour (…)

I can confidently say that if you eat heavily processed foods on a regular basis you will be shortening your life. Research has found that being over weight is responsible for 216,000 premature deaths each year and the over consumption of processed foods are a major contributor to the obesity epidemic in the US.

Processed foods are loaded with sugar, salt, trans fats, preservatives and empty calories. Everything you want to avoid in your diet is in processed foods. Most people know that processed foods are not good for (…)

Conventional wisdom will tell you that eating the yolks of eggs will raise your cholesterol and lead to heart disease. Here at Fitness Contrarian; however, we feel the opposite. Egg yolks are the most nutritious part of the egg.

Whole eggs have been a corner stone of my breakfast for years. One of my favorite breakfasts are three large whole organic eggs made in an omelet with half an avocado and a few slices of tomato. First, I heat up the pan with medium to light heat (…)