Quacks, hacks, hucksters and charlatans
Quacks, Hacks, Hucksters and Charlatans
This is all about history and understanding it better. Please focus on the historical aspects of it. And just try to be aware of some of the bad people out there and some of the bad advice they give out.
Nutrition and exercise: hucksters and charlatans
Key concepts are taking the good advice along with the bad, and then filtering out the garbage, but not throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Please check out Paul Bragg and Jack LaLanne first:
Don’t read the rest of the article until you read those two guys Wikipedia pages. This page is a history lesson, not an advice column!
They gave people a lot of bad advice. For example, they fetishise raw vegetables. They over emphasise salads (to the point of absurdity), and they ruin juicing of vegetables and fruits by encouraging stupid combinations and inappropriate choices of vegetables. They also demonise basic staple foodstuffs such as white bread, white rice, plain potatoes and white pasta. And they muddy the waters when it comes to processed and refined foods. They put whole grain breads on to an undeserved pedestal (whole grain bread is good but not amazing). They insult bread itself, which is the staff of life. They encourage excessive “high intensity” exercise, which can cause burnout. They discourage the consumption of ordinary basic food stuffs like beef rump steak and whole eggs. And they are kind of the pioneers and godfathers of American fitness and diet culture.
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This is my point of view, and these are just opinions:
Vegetables:
It’s okay to cook 80-90% of your vegetables, according to taste. Raw vegetables are fine in moderation, but highly overrated. The consumption of too much raw vegetation can be bad for the digestion (even though it can be used as a weight loss life hack - not recommended).
Greens:
Sautéed spinach is a better way to get greens into your diet than giant green salads full of raw vegetables and all of those uncooked “dark green leafy vegetables” that we’re allegedly supposed to be eating. Other sauteed greens are great too, such as bok choy. Stir-fries and soups are good as well. Salads are best enjoyed in moderation. Fresh sautéed baby spinach is underrated when compared with fully mature spinach. Appropriately cooked green vegetables such as green beans, courgettes, brussels sprouts and asparagus are also very good (Brussels sprouts are unjustly maligned, and can be quite nice if you buy them fresh, chop them in half and then roast or fry them, perhaps with bacon. Green beans should be cooked until tender, not excessively soft. They go well with salt, pepper and a little butter, and are best served piping hot. Green beans, asparagus, courgettes are excellent roasted. Perhaps alongside other vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower in a medley.)
I repeat, skip the weird giant “white girl salad bowls” full of too much raw vegetables and excessive leafy green matter and have ordinary cooked vegetables and cooked greens instead.
Here as example “recipe” for sauteed spinach, not that I think it really counts as a recipe!
https://www.loveandlemons.com/sauteed-spinach/
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Juicing and smoothies:
They (men like Bragg and LaLanne) advocate for putting weird things in to juices and smoothies but I advocate for normal things. Here are 5 recipe ideas for juice:
Plain orange juice (tangelos are even better if you can find them) just add a bit of water to water it down.
Plain carrot juice
Plain carrot and apple juice
Carrot and apple juice base (85-90%) with just a little bit of any ONE of the following added: _capsicum_, peach, plum, pear, mandarin, strawberries, grapes. Note: capsicum is a great juicing ingredient. Information courtesy of my mother, formerly of crop and food research in Hawkes Bay, a private research institution. It has a good crisp taste, and capsicum has very very high vitamin C content by weight.
Smoothie recipe: banana, blueberries, yoghurt, milk, 1/2 teaspoon of honey. Raspberries and/or strawberries are also acceptable.
In my opinion, the best one on the list, is apple and carrot juice with capsicum. It is sweet, earthy, crisp and has high levels of both vitamin A (beta carotene) and vitamin C. My mother used to make it. I would give a close second place to orange juice (or tangelo juice). It’s sweet, delicious and packed full of vitamin C. And it’s just plain more efficient to get your vitamin C from fresh fruit juice than from eating whole fruit. The conventional wisdom is that you’re better off eating the “whole” fruit. But I would prefer to have the juice more often than not.
(warning: you can over consume carrot juice, and turn slightly orange. Don’t do this. You can actually “overdose” on carrot juice if you have lots of it every day. This is due to excessive build up of beta carotene. It used to happen to hippies back in the day. The underlying product of carrot juice is still very good).
[Edit: Tomato, carrot and celery juice can be nice too. Just add some salt if you want. And water it down. Never ever add lemon juice. And keep it super simple. Don't have it every day though. Have apple, carrot and capsicum sometimes, and plain orange juice sometimes, and sometimes just eat fruit instead of juice. Use the centrifugal juicer.]
The centrifugal juicer is a good piece of equipment. And centrifugal juicing equipment is a genuine and fantastic technological innovation. Perhaps let’s rescue it from the nutrition whack jobs and charlatans.
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Looney tunes additions to juice and smoothies:
Avoid adding things like kale, spinach, spirulina, wheatgrass, beetroot or anything weird to your juice.
These ruin perfectly good juice or smoothies.
People like Bragg, Lalanne and their ilk, as well as their ideological descendants advocate for adding stupid stuff to juices.
LaLanne used to add things like kale, spinach, spirulina, wheat germ, brewer's yeast, bone meal, and handfuls of vitamins and minerals consisting of “100 liver-yeast tablets, 15,000 milligrams of vitamin C, 2000 units of B, some boron and some zinc, also 75 alfalfa and kelp tablets” to his juices and smoothies. And just don’t think that’s normal. Some of those ingredients aren’t evil. But the whole custom of blending weird stuff into smoothies and mixing up strange juices is I think somewhat misguided. Brewers yeast is a good food ingredient though, but I would far rather consume it in the form of marmite on toast, or flaked brewers yeast on toast, rather than put it into juice or a smoothie.
Skip chia seeds, cocoa nibs, and other weird things like goji berries. Don’t juice broccoli, don’t juice dandelion greens.
Just have normal stuff. You can skip this advice if your sport of choice is bodybuilding though, and add anything you want. Serious body builders have their own ways of doing things. I'd just stick to normal stuff though.
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Don’t demonise white bread. It’s not evil.
Don’t demonise bread in general, it’s the staff of life.
Don’t over emphasise whole grain bread. It’s fine, but it’s not the holy grail.
Note: the industrialised “fast bake” methods involved in making many types of white bread ruin the texture. But the underlying product is still safe and decent.
Basic foodstuffs like potato, rice and pasta are not the devil. And don’t call them carbs, just call them “basic foodstuffs”. They’re just food. Staple foods. There is this thing called the Chorleywood Bread process, and it is a mixed bag. It allows the manufacturing of large quantities of safe, affordable, palatable and shelf stable bread. But at the same time, the texture is wrong; it doesn’t have enough “bite” or “heft” to it. And the “crumb size” is no good. Technically, it is a safe and perfectly suitable staple food. But on an emotional level, it doesn’t feel like real bread. And it is too easy to over eat, because it isn’t very satisfying. That truly is just opinion. But there it is. I preferred the home made bread that my mother produced, often with the help of the bread maker (prepare the dough in the bread maker, and then form it into buns or loaves, and bake the buns in the oven) . The texture is better. It has more “bite” and “heft” (she did dough in the bread maker, then often made buns, or whatever. Or maybe she made the loaf itself in the bread maker. She called supermarket bread “polystyrene bread”). See also William Banting and Atkin below, if you want to know more about the demonisation of basic staple foods.
My mother’s preferred bread recipe included something like a little bit of brown flour, and maybe a tiny bit of bran. But it was mostly white bread. It definitely improves taste and texture to add a bit of wholegrains and other filler like bran, but a little goes a long way. I’m not a baker.
[edit, in hindsight I talked too much about the Chorleywood process, and it was a mistake. But I’ll leave it in here].
Moderation in exercise is better than exercising to failure on every exercise, every day, as advocated by Jack LaLanne. Too much of the wrong kind of intensity is bad. There is a nuanced conversation to be had about moderation, versus high intensity. And I’m not having it here.
My advice: Keep on eating ordinary basic food stuffs like beef rump steak and whole eggs. And chicken, fish, rice and potatoes. And vegetables and fruit. And normal milk. And fresh juice made from fresh ingredients. Just normal, actual foods are fine. Meat, fish, poultry, eggs, offal, grains, potatoes, lentils, beans, cheese, yoghurt. Any ordinary decent food. I used to like books such as “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan, and I still like the attitude embodied in that work, even if I think it might be a little confusing and impractical for some people.
Over consumption of sweets is dangerous (haha!), as is basic gluttony. But on the other hand excessive vanity is bad for you too. Gluttony used to be one of the Catholic’s seven deadly sins after all (fortunately for me, hypocrisy isn't)
But don’t over demonise the refinement or processing of food. For example, white rice is refined, but it is safe and good to eat. It satisfies hunger, and sustains the body. Or juicing fruit is healthy, because you can eat it more easily and get the nutrition without having to chew through and digest large quantities of fibrous fruit. Both white rice and fresh fruit juice is technically “processed”, but they are both very good types of food. They’re great.
At the same time weird packet made Frankenstein foods can be an issue, but even then sometimes it is just about knowledge. Not all packet foods are bad for you. America and China are a slightly different case, so YMMV.
Also, sugar can be bad for you. But a little now and then. Like half a teaspoon in your tea or coffee is fine. I break this rule often, lately. But normally I wouldn’t. Sugar is addictive though. Genuinely addictive.
These are all just opinions. Seriously. Just opinions.
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Two more opinions:
In nature, in our evolutionary past, as creatures who evolved from purgatorius and tailhardina (or parallel evolutionary paths), we used to nibble on a lot of tender leafy greens, leaf tips and leaf buds while up in the trees. Wild animals seek out the sweetest and most tender baby greens. We also used to try to get extremely fresh sweet fruit as much as possible. Umm. It is harder in the industrial food system to remember to get these food stuffs. But not that hard. Maybe we still need leafy greens and fresh fruit. For things like beta carotene and vitamin C, and this other thing called “leafy green vegetable factor”. But once you get the food home from the supermarket and it has been in the fridge for 2 days, it’s a little bit sad. So to make up for the limitations of our industrial food supply we need to did work arounds. And maybe the best ways to do this are:
one: make fruit and vegetable juice such as orange juice, or use a centrifugal juicer to make things like carrot, apple and capsicum juice. And have juice almost every day. But you won't always have to have juice, for example if you have a plum tree or peach tree laden with fruit, you just eat that. Or a garden at home full of produce, you just do whatever works.
Two: grow your own baby spinach (or eat it as mature spinach), and other tender greens at home, and cook them in oil or fat. The texture and taste is so much better than store bought. This is more a behavioural thing though. And all about quality control and tenderness. Fresh sauteed greens purchased from the store is actually okayish, it just goes sad a bit too quickly. This is not anything ground breaking!
Tender baby greens are tastier and have a much nicer texture, but I don’t think it matters that much. I think that micro greens are a little overrated, but might be okay. I like fresh green herbs such as parsley, coriander and basil. And I think that they are good and nutritious.
A controversial point is that massive and excessive overconsumption of highly fibrous leafy green matter, even if cooked, might be bad for your digestion. And that moderation in the consumption of cooked greenery is wise, if you tend towards over-consumption.
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A segment from the LaLanne Wikipedia page:
By the way, the most important thing is to read the history of these guys! It is a history lesson.
Diet
One of LaLanne's sayings was "If man made it, don't eat it.”
Another saying was, “if it tastes good, spit it out”.
Both of these mottos suck! It’s stupid advice!!
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Begin quote block:
LaLanne blamed ultra-processed foods for many health problems. For most of his life, he eschewed sugar and white flour while eating many fruits and vegetables, and he ate a mostly dairy-free and meatless diet that included lots of egg whites and fish. He also took vitamin supplements and protein supplements.
The NY Times reported in his obituary that he avoided snacks and ate two meals a day, although he once said that he ate three meals a day. His breakfast, after working out for two hours, consisted of hard-boiled egg whites, a cup of broth, oatmeal with soy milk, and seasonal fruit. Other sources say that breakfasts were homemade protein shakes: one was protein powder shake with wheat germ, brewer's yeast, bone meal, juice, and handfuls of vitamins and minerals consisting of “100 liver-yeast tablets, 15,000 milligrams of vitamin C, 2000 units of B, some boron and some zinc, also 75 alfalfa and kelp tablets”.
Another shake LaLanne consumed consisted of egg whites and soybean with carrot juice, celery juice, and some fruit.[43] One source reported that his lunch was four boiled egg whites, five servings of fresh fruit, plus five raw vegetables.[44] For dinner, he and his wife typically ate a high-protein salad with egg whites along with fish (often salmon) and some wine. He did not drink coffee.
He once described his diet by saying, “At least eight to 10 raw vegetables and three to four pieces of fresh [raw] fruit a day. I have natural grains, beans, brown rice, lentils, wheat. And I get most of my protein from fish and egg whites. I eat no meat of any kind. I drink my breakfast. Half carrot juice, half celery juice and then I put an apple and a banana in it and 50 grams of protein made out of egg whites and soybean. For lunch I’ll have three pieces of fresh fruit, three to six egg whites and whole wheat toast. And Elaine makes soup for me with vegetables but no cream or butter. Elaine and I eat out practically every night, but we have the restaurants trained. We call them that we’re coming in, and they’ll have a raw vegetable salad and I’ll have oil dressing loaded up with chopped [raw] garlic. I take my own pita bread made out of whole wheat with no salt or oils. And I’ll have a baked potato and fish.”
Exercise
When exercising, LaLanne worked out repetitively with weights until he experienced "muscle fatigue" in whatever muscle groups he was exercising, or when it became impossible for him to go on with a particular routine; this is most often referred to as "training to failure". LaLanne moved from exercise to exercise without stopping. To contradict critics who thought this would leave him tightly musclebound and uncoordinated, LaLanne liked to demonstrate one-handed balancing. His home contained two gyms and a pool that he used daily.
End quote block.
Jack LaLanne was the “godfather of the American fitness industry” and very influential. He also had a day time television show that was extremely popular with women.
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==> noted undertaker and low carbohydrate advocate
He is another high intensity advocate, but also a legitimate inventor. 50% bad, 50% ambiguous. Maybe good, sometimes.
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Someone who doesn’t suck (I think):
Gene Tunney
A clever and smart guy, who knew a lot about boxing. I can’t vouch for his written stuff though. I am planning to read his book/s someday.
And maybe a Quick Look at the “great gama”. He was pretty epic. See Wikipedia.
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Physical Culture in general
Look at German physical culture, out of liberal German culture. Some of it made it to Australia. Like physie (google it).
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Iran Strength and Wrestling:
Anything to do with strength or wrestling coming out of Iran. Just look at it for historical purposes. They’re traditionally pretty smart.
Just read the Wikipedia pages for the history lesson.
That's the important thing.
LaLanne, Bragg and Banting are the most important.
But for the real history geeks, maybe check out George Hackenschmidt and his history. And his bibliography.
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One quote from Hackenschmidt’s Wikipedia page:
“Throughout his life, Hackenschmidt paid strict attention to his diet. He abstained from alcohol, coffee and tobacco and advised moderation in sexual intercourse.
In 1904, Hackenschmidt described rump steak as his favourite dish.”
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Perhaps the development of strength, or coordination, or good posture, could be seen as a long term project? But that’s just one point of view.
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I am a big fan of moderation.
For one person, moderation means that they go to the gym and they exercise in moderation, just for health. And then they swim 2-3 times weekly. For another, it is that they play casual sports, in moderation. But also they do a lot of walking, often just for relaxation. And maybe just enough resistance training just to stay healthy for their lifestyle that includes moderate, casual sports.
Ps: I got really sick not long after I just started to get into gym fitness by the way. I was just really starting to enjoy weight lifting, but I got sick at the age of 18. But such is life.
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Mostly, in the above page I wanted to expose the lies of people like Bragg and LaLanne. Banting and Atkins. I’m not trying to teach optimal health. I just want to help people to avoid some pitfalls.
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Update:
Jack LaLanne was a charlatan, a mountebank and a huckster. He's no good. And his teacher, Paul Bragg, was a quack.
If you learn everything you can about these two guys, it will change and update your perspective on the American fitness industry. It’s about education.
Arthur Jones is a complex character. His equipment and designs can be very useful, but his business dealings were somewhat shady. And much of his advice was deliberately bad, such as his emphasis on exclusively “high intensity” fitness. Too much “high intensity” training will make you unwell. You’ll end up burnt out, and/or injured.
Here is a quote ripped from Wikipedia, “Jones's ideas tried to move the public's notion of bodybuilding and strength-training exercise away from the Arnold Schwarzenegger school of training, which involved hours in the gym using free weights, to high intensity training. This involves short, single sets, with each set taken to the point of complete muscular failure with a full body workout frequency of three times a week with the intention to maximize muscular hypertrophy and strength increases. (Later in his life, he recommended doing it once or twice a week.) Jones said: “The secret, if there is one, is high intensity. And when you actually train with high-intensity, you don’t need a lot of volume.”
David Solt’s comment: he was advising people to work until failure, on every set, for the whole body. That is just plain bad advice.
These guys are dishonest. If you can, try to educate yourself. But at the same time, when it comes to healthy living, physical fitness, and physical exercise, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. There is a lot of good out there, and there are many paths you can go down. For most people, I think that the best path is the path of moderation.
Appendix A:
Jack LaLanne
Jack LaLanne was a fitness pioneer who opened the nation's first health club in Oakland, California, in 1936.
He is considered the "Godfather of Fitness" for popularizing exercise and nutrition, inventing fitness equipment like the leg extension machine, and hosting the long-running "The Jack LaLanne Show" on television. His business expanded into a national chain [with over 200 branches], which he later sold to Bally Total Fitness, and his influence continues to shape modern health clubs and fitness routines.
First health club: LaLanne opened the USA’s first modern health club in Oakland, California, in 1936. It included a gym, juice bar, and health food store.
Fitness equipment innovator: He invented several pieces of equipment, including the leg extension machine, cable pulleys, and the weight selector machine.
Television host: He hosted "The Jack LaLanne Show" from 1951 to 1985, making him a household name and introducing workout routines to millions of Americans through their televisions [especially housewives].
Business expansion: His health clubs expanded nationally, and he sold the chain to Bally Total Fitness. He also marketed various products, including vitamins and juicers.
Motivational figure: Known for his incredible feats of strength, LaLanne used them to inspire people to get in shape and improve their health.
^ that segment was ripped from google search.
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Here is a link to the Wikipedia page about Bally Total Fitness.
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“This is you in your forties”
Umm.
If you exercise according to the advice of some of these charlatans, then this is you in your 40s:
Even the mainstream stuff can be daft and hurt you.
But uhh. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water? Resistance training (aka strength training, weightlifting, barbell training, body weight training, machine training [such as nautilus] still have value). It helps to know a little bit of the history though.
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But what if the real issue is (I don’t have a good word for it): “total nervous system burn out” resulting in exhaustion, constant fatigue, caffeine dependence and the use of downers at night to sleep, and something I call “total metabolic derangement” that makes it hard to manage your weight? And injuries are just the tip of the iceberg. I dunno. It’s just a thought. CrossFit might be a good example of this (see Greg Glassman and “Fran”; or perhaps Pavel Tsatsouline and strong first, aka kettlebell mania). Note: the camaraderie and group atmosphere of these things can sometimes make up for imperfect training methods though.
I dunno. Maybe too much high intensity training fries your system.
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Legs: sturdy, strong and robust
Low effort comment: the system encourages women to have weak legs, and especially small quads. They don’t eat enough, they diet too much, and don’t engage in enough physical activity of an appropriate kind, and then in their forties they have tiny stick thin legs. And it’s really sad and unhealthy. Don’t worry about aesthetics, but having weak legs and scary small quads is a health issue. And it’s kind of an epidemic, just like obesity, but in the other direction. It really is a public health issue. Weak legs and small quads can affect absolutely every aspect of your life, they make you less energetic and alive. More prone to injury, make convalescence take longer, make you less resilient. But all you need to do is decide to have strong legs. It’s even more important than being heart healthy. Because honestly all you need to do is plenty of ordinary walking (most of it sedate, easy walking). And a bit of cycling (blend between tough and easy). And eat enough normal food (like meat, potatoes, rice and vegetables). And start when you’re young. And it’s not just the “maximum” numbers on your barbell, it’s about actual muscle growth and the obvious “robustness” of the legs themselves.
I don’t know much about women’s fitness, but weak legs are a liability, and strong legs are an asset. And it’s a public health issue. The rest of the body might not be as big of an issue, but legs matter. Especially the quadriceps. It might just be one of the most important muscles of the body.
End result: maybe the reader just doesn’t fall for the trap of having weak legs and excessively small quadriceps. And they do it their way.
Counter point: the Han broke their women’s feet for a thousand years to make sure that their women grew up to be weak and frail. And they did this for a thousand years. Because the Han wanted their women to be weak. And it was just the Han: not the Uighur, Tibetans, Manchu (Jurchen) or Mongols (the other four races of the Middle Kingdom). Nor was it the Hakka (a linguistic and cultural subgroup of the Han, and the racial group from which most good Han Chinese came, including Deng Xiaoping and many Taiwanese and Singaporean leaders).
Click through this link to see a few examples of foot binding, and never forget that you’re someone else’s engineering project.
FYI, the leaders of China in the Qing dynasty were a blend of Han, Mongols and Manchu (Jurchen). That era ended in with the 1911 revolution and the beginning of the Chinese republic. The Manchu (Jurchen) were nomadic steppe warrior horse lords like the mongols. With a strong connection to their homeland in Manchuria, which they often travelled to so that they might maintain their warrior and horse lord ways (sort of). And yes, I know that horse lord sounds silly, but sometimes being a bit twee is helpful. They were like the mongols! They were barbarians (yi). And I call them horse lords, because they were lords over the Han, who were mostly a subject people from 1644 - 1912.
The Hakka:
Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore was Chinese and a Hakka. He was a very respected, successful and effective leader for Singapore.
And in Taiwan, President Lee Teng-hui, the first popularly elected president.
Also, Taiwan's first female: Tsai Ing-wen, president
And Lai Ching-te, the current President.
Hakka didn’t practise foot binding.
The Han were breaking (binding) their women’s feet to make them feeble for over a millennium. And they’re still encouraging women to be feeble. But now they’re doing it by means of cultural conditioning. It’s sad.
I just don’t want women to be encouraged to be weak and frail if that’s not what they want. I want them to avoid the trap of being encouraged to have weak legs and undersized quadriceps muscles. I would rather they were healthy and happy.
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By the way, "they" had the black plague spread in Manchuria in 1911, probably intentionally spread by Cambridge educated public health officials, who also implemented lockdowns. This destabilised the Manchu people (aka Jurchen warrior nomad horsemen/horse lords) who relied on their homeland a lot to keep healthy and maintain solidarity.
They had regular visits to Manchuria to ride horses, keep their health, maintain their culture and stay strong, while avoiding becoming sedentary and too "Chinese". They were barbarians at heart, after all.
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Furthermore, the Spanish flu was probably spread intentionally by international health officials and public health wonks. And then these people encouraged young people to check themselves into hospitals, where they received secondary infections, and inappropriate care, and then died in large numbers. Don't forget that the Spanish flu killed more young people than old! It was a set up!
Anyway, pick your battles, and don't focus too much on what bad people do.
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In many cases these people are little more than white aging boomer swingers, frumpy middle aged busybodies who ought to find a new hobby, over proud and under competent academics who think they know everything, mediocre politicians in politically screwed up (borderline third world) countries like the USSR or PRC. Don't give them too much credit. And sex pests and creeps who don't like being the subject of judgement (ie, don't judge me emotionally). Or just dodgy scumbags who want an excuse to hurt people (the Lenin boys), or greedy jerks who become fitness/health mountebanks such as LaLanne, Bragg and Aitkens.
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Action point: just learn about the lives of men like LaLanne, Bragg, Banting, Aitkens, Jones. Especially Jack LaLanne. He is the best one to learn about. It’s worth it. Also, learn about the life of Joseph Pilates. And try to avoid the worst mistakes and excesses of the fitness, first and “health” industry. Be practical, use common sense, and seek advice early and often. Ask your friends, and make observations as to what you think works long term (perhaps by looking at what people are still doing and enjoying at the age of 60). I’m afraid that you’ll have to use your own judgement!
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Joseph Pilates was really smart. I don’t think he was a charlatan. It might be worth reading up on the history of his life story.
Unrelated:
I think that “reformer Pilates”, invented by Mr Joseph Pilates, is pretty good. It used to be called "contrology" and it was Mr Pilates "system of universal gymnastics" as it said on his sign outside his studio. It's not a "total system of physical culture", but it is very good for a lot of people. It predates yoga, and is far superior.
He was a boxer, circus performer and living statue. And seemed to know his stuff.
He quite clearly was doing plenty of other stuff other than using the reformer and other equipment. For example, he probably performed plenty of body weight squats, or other movements for his legs, and probably enjoyed jumping rope and hitting the punching bag, amongst other things. But the methods seem sound, and have stood the test of time. YMMV, and the quality of teaching varies.
He was very German though. And lived quite a bohemian lifestyle. He tried to get his methods recognised more widely by the medical establishment and failed. He faced push back, and eventually someone burned his fitness studio in New York down. He died one year after the fire in his studio, possibly in relation to his injuries sustained in the fire (he fell through the floor and suffered lung damage form smoke inhalation).
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Other points
Next point, strength building using conventional equipment at "normal gyms" is beneficial also, in moderation. And it works. But not every trend that can be found in the modern fitness industry is necessarily good for you. It depends on means and ends. I base my point of view on the study of history.
Pilates isn’t like perfect or anything. But it genuinely looks to be fairly good, and I don’t think he (Joseph) was just another charlatan. Modern classes are sometimes imperfect, but that is to be expected from any method. But probably many of them are very good, especially if you get a good instructor.
In particular it seems to be fairly good for taking people who are a bit out of shape, and helping them to get into shape. He did call his main device the “universal reformer” after all. It reforms people who need it. And it teaches you how to develop the control of the mind over the body, and improves the connection of the brain and the muscles. After you’ve benefited from that sort of thing, then you don’t get bogged down in it forever. There are plenty of other things in the world (for example, body weight exercises like lunges and squats, jump rope, cycling and tennis). People who already have good body control and excellent form and decent whole body strength and coordination might not need it so much. But there it is.
[There are plenty of intelligent ways to build strength and gain muscle including using weights, gym machines, various pieces of equipment, barbells and dumbbells, body weight exercises, and ordinary sports, as well as outdoor pursuits, as well as resistance/elastic bands, Swiss balls, swimming, and anything under the sun. Even cycling and jogging. But maybe you have to be sensible? Use common sense! And I think that strength matters, and muscle growth matters. And that moderation in both areas is a good idea. And taking a slow and steady approach to both muscle growth and strength building is great. Especially if you’re a normal person. Being weak sucks! It’s no fun. And having bigger muscles (in moderation) is just more efficient than having small muscles.]
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By the way, _excessive_ high fibre is a fad and a scam. Sort of.
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This sort of salad is the type of garden salad I like, and a normal serving size. My aunty made it from vegetables picked from her own garden and shared the photograph on Facebook. And it doesn’t have a gross vinaigrette dressing either. Or tons of mayonnaise or whatever. I could quite happily eat a salad like that a couple times a week (even though I think salad is a little overrated, “over prescribed”, and pushed a little too hard by the media and the health food culture of our society). I could quite happily enjoy a salad like that few times a week.
(I might drop the raw spring onions from it though, because I hate raw onions. But I love a good home grown lettuce. I like cucumber, fresh sugar snap peas and home grown cherry tomatoes. Radish is delicious and has great texture, and plenty of bite and crunch. Home grown tomatoes are amazing, and nothing like store bought tomatoes. And the serving size is perfect, as far as I am concerned.)
I also like warm kūmara and pumpkin salad with chickpeas (kūmara is a type of sweet potato). Classic potato salad is also nice. I don’t like Greek salad. Caesar salad is fairly tasty, but I wouldn’t want to have it too often.
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Just compare it with the examples set for diet by Jack LaLanne in the comments above (things like ten raw vegetables every day, and three types of raw fresh fruit, and a glass of raw carrot and celery juice - it is just too much!). And the suggestions and advice he gave are crazy, looking back on them! Jack LaLanne is considered to be the godfather of the American fitness industry, and waa a major proponent of what became modern exercise and diet culture. He had a major syndicated day time fitness TV show (“The Jack LaLanne Show”) aimed at housewives. It ran from 1951 to 1985. It became the longest running televised exercise program. He founded the gym chain that later became Bally Total Fitness. He invented the smith machine, along with several other important pieces of exercise equipment. (Fitness is still good though, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water!).
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For me personally, I would be perfectly happy to eat salad like that 3-4 nights a week (especially if someone else made it, and it came fresh from someone’s home garden), as a side dish along a decent meal of cooked meat with potatoes or something. But the other nights of the week I would prefer to have cooked vegetables, like oven roasted vegetables, stir fried vegetables, or just ordinary steamed/boiled vegetables with a little bit of fat (butter or olive oil) and seasoning/flavouring (salt, pepper, herbs, lemon, or spices) stirred through. I just prefer cooked vegetables. And I think that well put together salads are nice enough in moderation, but “over prescribed”. It’s just one example.
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And now for a total change of topic…
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As for me...
I like normal food
I like normal food such as roast chicken and scalloped potatoes, served with salad. I like schnitzel and mashed potatoes, with salad. I love schnitzel. I like roast vegetables, mashed potatoes, steak and sautéed mushrooms. I also like beef stir fries (including vegetables) on rice, and things like green Thai chicken curry with plenty of fresh vegetables, served with rice; topped with chopped coriander and other herbs. I also like a good cubed roast kūmara and beetroot salad, topped with crumbled feta, served beside cranberry chicken wrapped in bacon. And maybe a salad. It's all fine. I like plain old roast chicken with crispy roast potatoes and some boiled vegetables on the side (I used to use ghee for the potatoes, they were good, and fairly popular). Or tacos made with lettuce, grated carrot, chopped tomatoes, avocado, I would put sauteed onions and garlic in with the mince, as well as a bit of tomato paste. I like homemade sushi. Or maybe a half way decent cottage pie, with extra vegetables to pad it out. I like a good lasagne with a bit of salad on the side (probably a bit rich and unhealthy) and I like my home made lentil curries. And I like an ordinary spaghetti bolagnase, of course. Chicken stir fry is good too, as is chicken curry from a packet made with chopped vegetables served with rice (Taste of India, Tikka Masala is a solid brand and flavour in New Zealand); frozen vegetables are tolerable in a pinch. Please serve with freshly chopped coriander and a bit of natural unsweetened yoghurt (or better yet, homemade raita).
For lunch, I like things like sandwiches and toast. For breakfast, I just plain don't like breakfast. But cereal is okay, or avocado on toast if I had my way. Or fresh bread with butter, salami, cheese, orange juice and tea/coffee. I also like American style breakfast food, like waffles with cream and jam and American pancakes with butter and maple syrup. But it's best not to eat that way. That’s just for a treat. My preference is for plain buttered toast for breakfast, or plain porridge (with a pinch of salt), or something like marmite on toast (marmite is a salty spread made from leftovers brewers yeast, fortified with vitamins. It’s Australian). On occasion, I like a proper cooked breakfast with bacon and eggs, and maybe stuff like cherry tomatoes. But I couldn’t be bothered doing that every day.
Most of the stuff above is what I or my mother used to cook (note: the scalloped potatoes were her specialty, courtesy of the Alison Holst potato cookbook haha, I could make them but didn’t have the knack. I could do a decent potato bake, but never had the knack of the scalloped potatoes. Too finicky. And schnitzel was normal for us growing up, and I made and ate plenty of it. Mum made it from scratch, and served it with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Dad just bought it pre crumbed and cooked it in the kitchen, often for a household of six, alongside fresh white rice from the rice cooked and microwaved vegetables, from frozen).
Ps: if I wanted to be fancy, I could cook a good scotch fillet, medium rare, along side roast vegetables, and crispy roast potatoes. I could serve it with either sautéed mushrooms, or mushroom sauce. If I wanted to be frugal, I was the type to pad out mince dishes with extra vegetables, beans or lentils. I also cooked a solid red split lentil curry. The staple when I was flatting was chilli con carne or nachos. By the way, I can’t cook properly at the moment because my body and eyes are screwed up.
Edit: to avoid confusion, I could cook mum’s scalloped potatoes just fine, and they were delicious. However, they were too much of a hassle to do often. And they just weren’t the same as Mum’s!! I also cooked a fairly decent pumpkin soup, which froze well.
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Here are a few ideas and examples for nice normal things to eat for lunch. Sometimes it is just about getting back to something normal and decent, rather than trying to aim for some sort of perfection in the area of “health foods” or gourmet eating, or optimising for “fitness” and performance, or aiming for perfection in ecological, environmental or ethical standards. I’m in favour of setting normal foods, but aiming for the “healthy” version of normal. But without going to extremes or being weird about it.
Those, maybe with a banana or something. Or add in a piece of cold chicken if you need the extra calories/protein.
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Next (setting aside lunch), things like a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, or something like a glass of apple and carrot juice made in a centrifugal juicer before dinner. That is what would be normal for me? If I had the capacity to make my own meals properly. And see above for good ideas of what I like for dinner (personally). But the thing to remember is that everyone has their own preferences for “ordinary” food, based on upbringing. People like Jack LaLanne, Paul Bragg, William Banting and Robert Atkins lie to you and mislead you. As do many of the fitness gurus (they push “high intensity” fitness at almost any cost, which can burn you out and result in negative outcomes). The weasel word, the key phrase is “high intensity”, the buzz word are “high intensity” and “lifting heavy”. There a nuanced conversation to be had there, but not right at the moment.
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Take anything you hear about healthy eating with a grain of salt...
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Usain Bolt famously consumed roughly 1,000 McDonald's Chicken McNuggets over 10 days (about 100 daily) because he distrusted the local food. This unusual diet of ~5,000 daily calories powered him to three gold medals and world records in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relay.
Key Details of Bolt's 2008 Olympic Diet:
Context: Upon arrival, Bolt found the Chinese cuisine did not agree with him, leading him to rely solely on the familiar, safe option of McDonald's.
Daily Intake: He started with boxes of 20, but soon increased to roughly 100 nuggets per day, along with fries and apple pies.
Total Calories: This diet provided an estimated 4,700 to 5,000 calories per day, which he burned off through training and competition.
Outcome: Despite this, he set world records in the 100m, 200m, and times 4x100m relay.
Aftermath: Bolt noted in his autobiography, Faster than Lightning, that this was a one-time occurrence for the 2008 Games due to the circumstances.
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Additional note added by David Solt: of course, if someone were to do this all of the time, they would get sick and fat. But it illustrates an important point. Which is that not everything you hear about "healthy" eating is true. Particularly when it comes to concepts of eating "clean", like avoiding processed foods. Again, it was a one off.
Most people should just eat normal food, and maybe try to eat the “healthy version of normal”, but nevertheless normal. But the occasional bit of fast food is actually okay, as is the use of processed foods (if you’re smart about it).
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On a personal note, here is a quick re-post about the sort of food I used to cook back in the old days (before I started getting too sick to do anything nice in the kitchen). It’s a little slap dash, but it’ll do.
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B-side comment
Cooking
I post this merely for the sake of information (because people keep asking me if I can cook, or to prepare a meal or something!), not as a means of bragging or making myself seem special or important. It’s just food, and ordinary home cooking. It’s delicious, and nutritious, and it’s just ordinary food. It’s not bragging, it’s just part of my life history. And it’s not competitive, or based on status. Cooking is just something nice you can do for other people. It goes back to about the years of 2009-2012, and the ages of 20-23. After that I didn’t cook so much. I was unwell.
I used to cook food like this for dinners, back when Amanda and I were living at 5 Weka Road, Raumati Beach, and still had flatmates.
We would have roast chicken pieces, roast vegetables, roast mushrooms, fresh fluffy white rice and a little bit of roast onion. The chicken might be free range, if we felt we could spend the money on it. I preferred thighs, and we would flavour them with salt, pepper, ordinary dried mixed herbs, and olive oil. I would baste the chicken half way through. The onion was simply halved and cooked in the juices from the chicken pieces. Amanda refused to eat chicken from the bone (a bit fussy and silly about food, she used to have a vegetarian and/or eating disorder thing going on), so I would remove some chicken from the bone for her. The roast vegetables were stuff like carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, courgettes or sometimes asparagus. However, with asparagus I’d be more likely to cook that just by itself, because it’s kind of special and nice as a vegetable all on its own. The mushrooms might be ordinary brown mushrooms (the small ones) roasted in a Pyrex dish. And that would be a fairly ordinary dinner for us. It’s not fussy, it’s not too fancy, it’s healthy without being too healthy. It’s normal food, and it was fairly tasty.
It’s a tasty, nutritious and normal sort of meal, and it isn’t difficult.
Other things we had were tacos, home made burgers, a conventional Sunday roast with (very popular) crispy roast potatoes, leftover chicken was common, as were “potato cakes” made from leftover roasted or mashed potatoes (you mix leftover potatoes with egg and finely chopped onions, and fry them in a frying pan as though they are corn fritters or the size of pikelets). I often served those to Amanda with a “sauce” made from chickpeas, crushed tomatoes, and canned pasta sauce. And topped with lots of chopped parsley. Another use for leftover chicken was pilaf. I made nice pilaf, albeit a slightly bastardised version. I could cook a risotto from scratch, but I doubt I could do it now. I don’t even like risotto? It’s too fancy for me. My risotto was nice. I made lentil curry often, but only for the two of us. With raita. Another common meal was to chop up one red kūmara, one golden kumara, one orange kumara, one beetroot, and then mix them in a bowl with herbs, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Then bake it in the oven at I think it was 160/170 Celsius for about 45-55 minutes, turning once (I honestly forget). After which we served it with crumbled feta on top. If I felt like being nice, I would make a garden salad of greens, cucumber and cherry tomatoes and perhaps we have some chicken with it too. I cooked green Thai chicken curry as well, often with extra herbs or “homemade” curry paste from the market. I could cook a Pad Thai that passed muster with Amanda, even though I don’t like Pad Thai. If was having a fancy day, I could do tasty pan fried salmon (it was genuinely very nice) with mashed potato and roasted vegetables (such as asparagus). I could also do a decent beef scotch fillet, medium rare. But overall, I think my most popular food was my roast potatoes. I think that my tacos weren’t half bad either, and I loved my roast kumara medley with feta. Oh, and I could make nice enchiladas. They’re a real crowd pleaser. Just like tacos.
It was just home cooking, you know? It’s something you have to do if you want nice food to eat that is affordable, tasty and nutritious. And it is something nice you do for others! It’s an act of service.
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I also used to make a tolerable apple turnover, but I have lost the recipe (It was actually really nice!). My apple and rhubarb crumble was nice. My self saucing chocolate pudding was nice, but nothing special or better than anything anyone else made. It was just out of the Edmonds cookbook (the same cookbook everyone else used). I could also cook muffins, but I have completely forgotten how.
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Edit, a few more things
I could also cook beef stir-fry, Indian curries (both from jars and some from scratch), potato salad (I hate potato salad, but other people like it). I used to make fairly nice pumpkin soup. And I could make a good slow roasted roast pork shoulder. And a decent lamb roast too, although my roast chicken and roast lamb were better.
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It’s just normal cooking. Nothing special.
I really enjoyed it though. It’s nice being able to do nice things for other people. And the process of cooking itself is a calming, satisfying, relaxing process.
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