Jonny Bowden's Blog, page 5

How to Find The Love of Your Life

I met the romantic love of my life seven years ago—at age 63, by the way—and for the last seven years more than a few people have asked me for “the secret”. “How”, they’ll say, “do you find the true love of your life”?

Well, couple of things to say about that….

One, I haven’t got the faintest idea.

Two, are you really asking that question?

Look, if there were a secret to finding the love of your life, whoever had that secret would have sold it for billions of dollars and you’d already know it. There’s no secret to finding the love of your life any more than there’s a secret to losing weight, growing hair, or making money in the stock market.

Sometimes the “secret” is that you got lucky. You were in the proverbial right place at the right time.

If that were all there was to it, though, there’d be nothing more to write about. And that’s not the case at all. Let me explain with an example from the weight loss arena.

When people ask me specific questions about weight loss or diet, I usually try to move the discussion away from weight loss per se to what I call “foundational health”. That’s because I don’t think you can do very much about your weight till you handle the basics (like metabolism). And it’s kind of the same thing in relationships.

So here are a few basics worth cultivating in the relationship arena. None of them will guarantee that you’ll run into your soul mate the next time you’re squeezing avocados in Gelson’s. But I’ll pretty much guarantee that if you pay attention to these “foundational principles”, you’ll have a much better chance of things working out once you do meet someone.

 

Cultivate honesty—but don’t be stupid.

You always want to be fundamentally honest in a relationship, but that doesn’t mean you have to be stupid. Don’t reveal every one of your demons plus your entire dysfunctional family history the first time you meet for coffee at Starbucks. Be truthful– but appropriate. Some mystery is attractive, so reveal yourself in stages. It’ll be more organic that way anyway. Vulnerability and total emotional honesty have to be earned. If you both work towards that, it will be delicious to watch it slowly unfold.

 

2,  Keep your distance.

Michelle and I live in two separate homes about six minutes apart. We love it that way. But whether you live in the same house or not, find a way to cultivate the feeling that each of you has a separate space that belongs only to you, where you can retreat, be alone, and then come together out of choice.  For us, having separate spaces makes our time together richer and sexier. And we take our time together much less for granted.

 

Watch your criticism-to-complement ratio

When I’m advising people about diet, I often mention the importance of the

omega 6: omega 3 ratio, because it’s critical for human health. Well, the criticism-to-complement ratio is critical to relationship health. Rule of thumb is 1:5 in favor of positive statements— so any time you make a critical statement to your partner, make sure it’s balanced by five complements. Trust me on this one.

 

Sex and Money. Deal with it.

Sex and money are two of the biggest reasons people break up, and two of the biggest challenges in relationships. Expecting not to have issues around those subjects is like expecting to lose weight without plateauing—ain’t gonna happen. Remember, it’s never about the problem itself, it’s about how you deal with it.

It’s well-known that if you shut up and listen, people will think you’re the most sparkling conversationalist they’ve ever known. People—all people—really just want to be heard. It’s kind of a condition of being human. I’ve never met a single person who didn’t feel that way deep down, and that includes the person you’ve just met or the person you’ve been with seven years. So shut up and listen (especially guys, who seem to be genetically programmed to have a hard time doing this!). Don’t interrupt. Recreate their experience, don’t judge, and then help them recreate yours. Listening doesn’t mean shutting up till it’s your time to speak.

Look, I don’t have any secrets that can guarantee success in any area of life—relationships, tennis, writing, weight loss, none of them. I wish I did. People ask me how you become a writer all the time, and I say the same basic thing I’m saying now. There’s no blueprint, so just take care of the basics. One thing I’ve learned in my life is that when you take care of the basics you’re building an infrastructure—whether its physical health or emotional health or both.

And when you do that, you’re much more likely to make the most of the opportunities that may come your way.

Louis Pasteur famously said, “Fortune favors the prepared mind”.

I’d add to that: “Romance favors the prepared heart”.

 

A 12-Step Group for Barbie Addiction?

There’s an old story about a guy who keeps banging his head against a wall.

The guy goes to a psychiatrist.

“Why do you keep banging your head against the wall?” the psychiatrist asks.

“Because”, says the man, “it feels so good when I stop.”

I can relate. Maybe so can you. Metaphorically, we all bang our heads against walls. When we get addicted. When we pursue a toxic relationship. When we lock ourselves into a belief system that doesn’t serve us anymore but that we can’t let go of.

Having spent some time banging my own head against a few well-known brick walls—heroin, cocaine, cigarettes and alcohol among them—I think I know something about the feeling you get when you stop.

The best word I can think of that describes it is liberation.

If you’ve experienced it, you know what I mean.

And of all the things I’ve “liberated” myself from, none is bigger than Barbie Addiction.

Like many boomer boys I grew up with Playboy. I lived in the culture that produced it. And for years, like so many other men of that generation, I was addicted to Barbie.

Unlike my other addictions, I didn’t really make a conscious effort to “kick” the Barbie habit. It just happened. I started noticing that women over 40 had something that the most perfect little 5’2 blonde with the ass-you-can-bounce-a-quarter off couldn’t even dream about.

I call it WSF (the wise-and-sly factor).

I started noticing that the wise-and-sly factor of an older woman was way more erotic than the vacant stare of the Hollywood starlet (and I should know cause I live in Los Angeles where they breed starlets on special farms). The “perfect” air-brushed curves of girls in the magazines and on the streets of LA just were OK, don’t get me wrong, but they weren’t as interesting or enticing. I knew what went with the package, and the package didn’t turn me on any more.

I’ll tell you what did turn me on.

Women with a few years on them.

Women whose eyes say, “Hey I’ve walked around this neighborhood a coupla times, let me show you some cool spots”. Women whose bodies are… lived in.

When I was about 13, I saw a psychiatrist named Dr. Schappel. I remember clearly one thing he told me, though I can’t for the life of me remember why he told me, but he did, so let’s just go with it.

“Here’s the thing, Jonny”, he said. “When you’re a young boy, everything turns you on. If there’s a breeze, you get aroused. A little later, in late adolescence, it gets a little more specific. Now it’s a high school girl in a cheerleader uniform. Later it gets even more specific—a certain type of blonde— artsy, athletic, whatever.

“But then, Jonny,” he said, “the good stuff happens.

“Much later—when you get older and more mature– what turns you on changes. Now what does it for you is someone being turned on to you. And when that happens, it won’t matter so much what they look like.”

Another quote I often remember was one I heard from someone very different from old Dr. Schappel, but no less wise—Seka, the legendary porn star of the 1970’s.

Seka was asked to name the most erogenous part of the human body.

“That’s easy”, she said, without missing a beat. “It’s the space between the ears.”

Men are finally beginning to catch on.

A few years ago, two neuroscientists—Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam—wrote a book called A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What The Internet Tells Us About Sexual Relationships. They analyzed a year’s worth of search terms– about 400 million of them, actually, 55 million of which were sexual.

Among males, three of the most searched sexual terms on the internet were MILF, amateur and mature.

Those are the biggest “emerging markets” in porn.  Guys aren’t buying VIVID girls anymore. They want the XXX version of Real Housewives of Madison County.

Emphasis on real.

You know why? Because it’s so much sexier.

Real trumps everything. Real is hot.

I know not every man agrees. There are still plenty of them who reinforce and confirm all the shit women complain about when they talk about men. And there are also plenty of men who are addicted to cigarettes or alcohol.

But the fact is that there are plenty who aren’t.

Halle-fucking-lujah.

The Prime of Ms. Jane Brody

Not too long ago, I picked up the Tuesday New York Times and went immediately to an article in the Science section on heart health. Seeing that it was written by Jane Brody, I felt the all-too-familiar knot in my stomach whenever I see her by-line (for reasons which will become clear in a moment). I wondered how long it would take her to get to the same old claptrap about cholesterol causing heart disease and saturated fat being “artery-clogging” and how high-carb diets are wonderful.

As it turns out, not very long.

Jane Brody has been the nutrition reporter for the New York Times since the invention of dirt. One thing you can say about her is that she’s consistent. She’s consistently advocated for establishment positions, arguing, Bagdad Bob-like, for the value of high-carb diets long past the time when most nutritionists worth their salt were abandoning it in droves. She continues to believe that statin drugs are the best thing since sliced bread, that cholesterol causes heart disease, and that saturated fat clogs arteries.

She has great reason to keep believing that, since in all the years I’ve been reading her I’ve never seen her interview anyone who was not firmly in the medical and dietary establishments. In psychology, that’s called “confirmation bias”. Reading her work, you’d hardly know a vibrant integrative / functional medicine community—often playing the role of “opposition party”— even existed. She’s like a political reporter who only interviews Republicans. She is the one-woman equivalent of old white men deciding issues of women’s health.

And her New York Times colleague, Gina Kolatta, isn’t much better. Though more focused on exercise, Kolatta routinely writes about nutritional issues from the point of view of establishment doctors who’ve never taken a nutrition course in their lives. Her recent article on vitamin D put forth the eye-popping position that 20 or so ng/ml is a perfectly acceptable level of vitamin D in the blood, essentially saying that all these people getting vitamin D tests and popping vitamin D pills are delusional.

Wait—let me be fair and check that Kollata article on vitamin D once more. She did interview John Cannel, MD of the non-profit vitamin D council for that article, didn’t she? How about  Professor Michael Hollick, MD, PhD of Boston University Medical Center, arguably the most important vitamin D researcher of our time?

No? She didn’t?

Oh. Never mind.

Back to Brody. It’s worth noting that she has no degree in nutrition or medicine. She’s a journalist with a very definite point of view, one that’s reinforced by the people she interviews and left unchallenged by the people she doesn’t.

I’d wish that she’d retire, but she’d only be replaced by another just like her (Kolatta, maybe). I used to think that Jane Brody was the problem—even, in my more rambunctious and combative years, referring her to her once as the “antichrist” of nutrition. (OK, maybe that went too far.)

But I now realize that I’m not as angry at Brody as I am at the people who read (and believe) her. It’s certainly reasonable to expect that a paper that bills itself as “the paper of record” would be a reliable source of information, which it is, most of the time. Sadly, when it comes to nutrition, that’s not the case.

The Prime of Ms. Jane Brody has long passed. I’m sure she’s a very nice lady, and I wish her a long and healthy life. But I’d strongly advise taking everything she says with a healthy soupcon of sea salt.

Remember that reporting “the facts” and quoting “the experts” makes you look objective.

But the selection of which facts to report and which experts to interview

remains very much a subjective choice.

________________________________________________

 

Related:

Alternative Facts Aren’t Just for Politics

 

What Do Men REALLY Want?

The legendary radio personality Tom Leykis used to say that men were so simple you could sum them up in six words: “I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I’m horny”. Guys would listen to him, grin sheepishly and nod in agreement, because they recognized the essential truth. Many of the women who called into the show agreed with Leykis completely—particularly those frustrated by the inability of their male partners to talk about stuff like “feelings”.

But like most simple analyses, Leykis’ clever saying wasn’t 100% true. The real truth is a lot more complicated.

Let me explain.

When I was growing up, the general consensus was that women were the “weaker sex”. Men were supposed to be strong, rugged, brave and emotionless. Women took care of the kids, men took care of bringing in money. Real men didn’t talk about—let alone show—their feelings, because that was for “girls”. That’s what we were taught—explicitly or implicitly– by our parents, our culture, by the media.

Then again, we were also taught that low-fat diets would make you skinny.

God, were we dumb.

For most of my years in the helping professions I’ve been like the kid in The Emperor’s New Clothes, the one who points and says “Excuse me, folks, this is a naked dude!”.

I’m about to do it again, so listen up. Most of the “conventional wisdom” about men is bullshit.

It’s time for a course correction on some of the most out-of-date notions of what men really want (and what they don’t give a shit about). (Ladies, listen up. Men, prepare to be validated.)

To illustrate what I’m about to tell you, let’s start with an example of something easy and non-controversial: Cellulite.

Every women’s magazine I’ve ever read regularly does stories on cellulite—how terribly unattractive it is, how men hate it, and the latest trendy method to get rid of it. If you listened to Cosmo, you’d think having cellulite is the ultimate relationship killer.

Now, I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms, and I’ve heard a lot of stories. I’ve listened to hundreds of men—mostly sober sometimes drunk— talk, brag or complain about their wives, their girlfriends, the women they would like to date and the women they would never date.

And never—never—in my 70 years on earth and my 50 or so years as an adult male—have I heard a man complain about cellulite.

Never.

Surprise. We just really don’t give a shit about it.

I’ll tell you what we do give a shit about.

 

Admiration/ Appreciation/ Respect

There’s an old saying that if you’re a good listener, people will think you’re a brilliant conversationalist. (You don’t even have to speak.) That’s because everyone—and I mean everyone—has a deep, abiding need to be heard. To be understood. To be appreciated for who they are and what they do.

Men are complete suckers for a sympathetic ear and a caring heart. Demonstrate that you care about us, that you’re genuinely interested in us, make us aware of the things about us that you admire and respect, and we’ll pretty much be yours forever.

 

Sex

The “conventional wisdom” is that women need context for sex to be really hot while men just want to get off.

Don’t believe it.

Sex for men is far more complicated and nuanced than most of us let on. Erotic connection for men is a complex alchemy of emotions, rarely as one-dimensional as the women’s magazines suggest.  If sex for men was only about sensation, “obligation” sex would be just as fulfilling as the other kind, and it’s not.

We want to know that you want it. More importantly, that you want US.

 

Security and Adventure

We all want some level of certainty— the security of knowing that our partner is there for us no matter what.  Problem is, we also have an equally strong and basic need for novelty and adventure, which thrive in an atmosphere of uncertainty. And it’s really challenging to get those two needs met in the same relationship.

So many of us in long-term relationships sacrifice parts of ourselves for the sake of getting along. We make an accommodation between the part of us that wants to have hot sex with the sultry-eyed waitress, and the part of us that enjoys the comfort and security and friendship of our familiar partner. We inhibit (or suppress) the lusty, wandering-eye part of ourselves to our partner (and they do the same for us). Everybody gets along and the boat doesn’t get rocked.

Until you get divorced.

The two needs—security and novelty–  are hard to reconcile within the confines of the same relationship (see Madonna / Whore). But it’s doable. The solution  doesn’t have to mean running off with the waitress but it may mean a fresh evaluation of sexual boundaries.

Or not. There are all kinds of inventive ways to deal with the tension between those two basic human needs, a tension which is probably at the heart of every break-up in the world. However you decide to deal with it, though, the one thing you can’t do is pretend it’s not there.

So what’s the first step? Recognizing the essential legitimacy of both these needs—comfort, security and familiarity on the one hand, and crazy, heart-stopping adventure and novelty on the other— and negotiating a way to meet them both is the essential challenge of any long term relationship. It’s not easy, and to do it you’ll have to think outside the cultural box. But having managed to figure out how to do it in my own relationship, I know it’s possible.

And the results are worth the effort (and it will be an effort.) My own romantic relationship has been going on seven plus years and the passion I feel for my partner Michelle hasn’t diminished a nanogram. That’s something worth working for!

So there you have it. The three basic things all men want. It’s both elegantly simple—and maddeningly complex.

If you’re trying to have a long-term relationship, pay attention.

What Men REALLY Want?

The legendary radio personality Tom Leykis used to say that men were so simple

you could sum them up in six words: “I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I’m horny”. Guys

would listen to him, grin sheepishly and nod in agreement, because they

recognized the essential truth. Many of the women who called into the show

agreed with Leykis completely—particularly those frustrated by the inability of

their male partners to talk about stuff like “feelings”.

But like most simple analyses, Leykis’ clever saying wasn’t 100% true. The real

truth is a lot more complicated.

Let me explain.

When I was growing up, the general consensus was that women were the

“weaker sex”. Men were supposed to be strong, rugged, brave and emotionless.

Women took care of the kids, men took care of bringing in money. Real men

didn’t talk about—let alone show—their feelings, because that was for “girls”.

That’s what we were taught—explicitly or implicitly– by our parents, our culture,

by the media.

Then again, we were also taught that low-fat diets would make you skinny.

God, were we dumb.

For most of my years in the helping professions I’ve been like the kid in The

Emperor’s New Clothes, the one who points and says “Excuse me, folks, this is a

naked dude!”.

I’m about to do it again, so listen up. Most of the “conventional wisdom” about

men is bullshit.

It’s time for a course correction on some of the most out-of- date notions of what

men really want (and what they don’t give a shit about). (Ladies, listen up. Men,

prepare to be validated.)

To illustrate what I’m about to tell you, let’s start with an example of something

easy and non-controversial: Cellulite.

Every women’s magazine I’ve ever read regularly does stories on cellulite—how

terribly unattractive it is, how men hate it, and the latest trendy method to get rid

of it. If you listened to Cosmo, you’d think having cellulite is the ultimate

relationship killer.

Now, I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms, and I’ve heard a lot of stories. I’ve

listened to hundreds of men—mostly sober sometimes drunk– – talk, brag or

complain about their wives, their girlfriends, the women they would like to date

and the women they would never date.

And never—never—in my 70 years on earth and my 50 or so years as an adult

male—have I heard a man complain about cellulite.

Never.

Surprise. We just really don’t give a shit about it.

I’ll tell you what we do give a shit about.

1. Admiration/ Appreciation/ Respect

There’s an old saying that if you’re a good listener, people will think you’re a

brilliant conversationalist. (You don’t even have to speak.) That’s because

everyone—and I mean everyone—has a deep, abiding need to be heard. To be

understood. To be appreciated for who they are and what they do.

Men are complete suckers for a sympathetic ear and a caring heart. Demonstrate

that you care about us, that you’re genuinely interested in us, make us aware of

the things about us that you admire and respect, and we’ll pretty much be yours

forever.

2. Sex

The “conventional wisdom” is that women need context for sex to be really hot

while men just want to get off.

Don’t believe it.

Sex for men is far more complicated and nuanced than most of us let on. Erotic

connection for men is a complex alchemy of emotions, rarely as one-dimensional

as the women’s magazines suggest. If sex for men was only about sensation,

“obligation” sex would be just as fulfilling as the other kind, and it’s not.

We want to know that you want it. More importantly, that you want US.

3. Security and Adventure

We all want some level of certainty– – the security of knowing that our partner is

there for us no matter what. Problem is, we also have an equally strong and

basic need for novelty and adventure, which thrive in an atmosphere of

uncertainty. And it’s really challenging to get those two needs met in the same

relationship.

So many of us in long-term relationships sacrifice parts of ourselves for the sake

of getting along. We make an accommodation between the part of us that wants

to have hot sex with the sultry-eyed waitress, and the part of us that enjoys the

comfort and security and friendship of our familiar partner. We inhibit (or

suppress) the lusty, wandering-eye part of ourselves to our partner (and they do

the same for us). Everybody gets along and the boat doesn’t get rocked.

Until you get divorced.

The two needs—security and novelty– are hard to reconcile within the confines

of the same relationship (see Madonna / Whore). But it’s doable. The solution

doesn’t have to mean running off with the waitress but it may mean a fresh

evaluation of sexual boundaries.

Or not. There are all kinds of inventive ways to deal with the tension between

those two basic human needs, a tension which is probably at the heart of every

break-up in the world. However you decide to deal with it, though, the one thing

you can’t do is pretend it’s not there.

So what’s the first step? Recognizing the essential legitimacy of both these

needs—comfort, security and familiarity on the one hand, and crazy, heart-

stopping adventure and novelty on the other– – and negotiating a way to meet

them both is the essential challenge of any long term relationship. It’s not easy,

and to do it you’ll have to think outside the cultural box. But having managed to

figure out how to do it in my own relationship, I know it’s possible.

And the results are worth the effort (and it will be an effort.) My own romantic

relationship has been going on seven plus years and the passion I feel for my

partner Michelle hasn’t diminished a nanogram. That’s something worth working

for!

So there you have it. The three basic things all men want. It’s both elegantly

simple—and maddeningly complex.

If you’re trying to have a long-term relationship, pay attention.

For Men Only: How Do I Boost Testosterone?

For the entire 26 years I’ve been in the health and fitness field, I’ve maintained that in order to get useful information, you’ve got to ask the right questions. And there’s no better example of that than the question, How do I boost Testosterone?

When you decode that question—as I have, dozens of times—you almost always find that what the asker really wants to know is one of three things:

How do I improve my libido?
How do I increase my energy?
How do I get better erections?

After all, do you really care what your lab results show when they measure testosterone? Do you even know what those lab measurements mean? Most guys haven’t a clue. They just know that testosterone is related to performance, energy and erections, three things every man wants more of. So they figure it’s simple: If I could boost my testosterone, my life would improve.

Well, maybe.

First, the bad news. If you really want to boost your testosterone, there’s only one way to do it—get testosterone replacement therapy. That’s it. Stop wasting your money on that internet crap that promises to “boost T”. None of it works. None of it. It’s all bullshit. The only way to boost testosterone in a measurable way is to take it, by injection, gel or patch. Period. Everything else is marketing.

Here’s the good news: How do I boost testosterone? isn’t really what you’re interested in. The better question is how do I boost libido and energy?

Don’t get me wrong– I’m a huge fan of hormone replacement, and we’ll return to that in a minute. But don’t think for a minute that getting testosterone shots every week is going to solve all your problems. There’s a lot you can do, right now, without getting hormone replacement, that will make a noticeable, measurable, difference in the things you really care about, which, just to be clear, is energy, erections and performance.

What’s more, if you don’t do the things we’re going to talk about, testosterone replacement won’t matter nearly as much as you think it will.

Change your sleeping habits. If you heard hoof beats outside your window, your first thought wouldn’t be “Must be zebras”. No, you’d look for the most obvious cause, which would probably be horses. The most obvious cause for lack of energy is not lack of testosterone, it’s lack of sleep. Go to bed a half hour earlier. Turn off the TV. Keep the temperature in the bedroom at 68 degrees. And keep the room dark.
Take foundational nutrients. At the absolute least take a multivitamin, vitamin D, magnesium, fish oil and probiotics on a daily basis. (I’ll talk more about foundational health supplements in future articles.)
Train with weights. Testosterone doesn’t make muscles grow, workouts do. If you’re working out smart, you’re going to look better whether you’re on hormone replacement therapy or not.
Pay attention to the other ED. ED is the acronym for erectile dysfunction, but it’s also the acronym for endothelial dysfunction, which basically means that your blood vessels aren’t functioning all that well. Endothelial dysfunction is a serious problem and a major contributor to hypertension, atherosclerosis and diabetes. What’s the connection between the two kinds of ED? My friend, cardiologist Mark Houston, puts it best when he says “I’ve never seen a case of ED that isn’t also a case of ED”. Take home point: take care of your arteries. Eat an anti-inflammatory diet with lots of vegetables, fruits, nuts and beans, go easy on the sugar, lay off substances that may cause inflammation (gluten), get some fresh air and take walks as often as possible.
Love your erogenous zone. The most erotic part of your body is between the ears. Your imagination is limitless. Get in touch with it, embrace it and enjoy it. And when the time is right, share it. Remember, erections start in the brain, not the sex organs.

Testosterone replacement therapy can be awesome when prescribed and monitored by a knowledgeable physician. I’m all for it. Just don’t think it’s a magic bullet. But if you do decide to do it, just know that you’ll get way more out of it if you get the basics right first.

Alternative Facts Aren’t Limited to Politics

On Jan 12, 2017, on national television, political pollster and presidential counsel Kellyann Conway uttered a phrase which become an instant classic: alternative facts.

Though Ms. Conway probably now wishes she hadn’t chosen those exact words, the truth is that she did us a favor by calling attention to the fact that we do live and operate in a world of “alternative facts”, especially in the field of health and nutrition. And  there’s never been a better time to talk about it than right now.

Alternative facts are the real reason everyone is confused about what’s true and not true in nutrition.

I don’t want to waste time reviewing the many examples of this kind of confusion but here’s a short refresher. We disagree on fat, on calories, on diets, on vegetarianism, on butter, on coffee, on statin drugs, on cholesterol, on the best way to lose weight, on low-carb diets, on the dangers of meat– you name it and there’s a serious scientific dispute about it, and probably some really nasty feelings to boot. And an awful lot of frustrated consumers.

It’s about time that we all understood why,

The best way to illustrate what I’m about to say is with a completely non-partisan example of an industry that everyone who has ever traveled has feelings about—the airlines.

If you’re a traveler, it’s important to you to know the “facts” about the airlines you fly, right? How often are they late? How often do they crash? Do they lose your baggage? How’s their customer service? And which one has the best prices?

Well, it turns out there’s data on every single one of those metrics, just like there’s data on food, medicine, supplements, statin drugs, the Suzuki violin method, interval training, the national debt, and virtually anything else you can think of where things can be measured.  But which of these facts you choose to talk about depends completely on your agenda.

Back to the airlines.

If you’re Virgin Airlines, your marketing department is going to make hay out of the fact that Virgin is ranked the best in baggage handling, with the least amount of mishandled baggage. You’d also point out that the number of passengers on Virgin flights that are involuntarily bumped is among the lowest in the industry. (Both are facts.) You will probably not mention the fact that Virgin is ranked one of the worst airlines when it comes to “extreme delays”.

If you’re Delta, on the other hand, you will definitely mention that you have the least number of cancelled flights and the least amount of involuntary bumping.  You will leave out the fact that you’re one of the absolute worst for 2-hour tarmac delays. (You won’t say that’s not true—you just won’t mention it.)

If you’re selling alcohol, you’ll probably talk about how moderate drinking lowers the risk for heart disease, and leave out the fact that drinking alcohol increases the risk of breast cancer. If you manufacture statin drugs you’ll make a very big deal about how statin drug users have less heart attacks while burying the fact that they have more cancer and diabetes.

If you’re a real estate agent selling a house, you’re going to talk up the 3,000 square feet of space and the gorgeous new kitchen, while minimizing the fact that it’s in a high-crime area.

And if you’re the sugar industry, you’ll spend a lot of marketing dollars to call attention to how little Americans exercise, all to take focus away from the role of sugar in metabolic diseases.

There are plenty of facts to go around, just pick the ones you like that tell the story you want to tell.

The people who are selling you Delta Airlines, alcohol, sugar, tobacco, statin drugs or the beautiful house in the shitty neighborhood are not lying. They’re just using a tried-and-true marketing technique called cherry picking the evidence. Big Pharma has been doing it for….. well, that’s actually all they do.

Reality TV creators are masters of the technique. I play tennis regularly with two very successful producers of reality television, and they tell me that the secret to a good reality show is having a really good editor. The reality shows keep multiple cameras trained on a dozen or more people, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, resulting in literally thousands of hours of video “data”.  By carefully selecting what to put on the air and what to leave on the cutting room floor, good editors can literally craft whole characters and storylines as expertly as if they had been scripted by Aaron Sorkin. The producers don’t make anything up —everything the characters do and say is documented on tape—but by selective reporting they can completely control the narrative.

See, everyone likes to say “facts are facts” but the truth is that facts are neutral, impartial, bloodless numbers—and there are zillions of them. They don’t really acquire meaning until someone chooses the “important” ones, and then strings them together to craft an argument.

So the next time someone argues that vegetarians are healthier than meat eaters, or statin drugs save lives, or high-fat diets make you sick and obese, or that raw food is the healthiest way to eat, or that obesity is only about calories and exercise, don’t call them liars.

Instead, ask yourself what facts they’re leaving out.

Very often, the facts they don’t tell you are the most important ones of all.

The Myth of Lowering Cholesterol

As I’ve said many times, lowering cholesterol is easy.

Lowering the risk of heart disease, on the other hand, is quite a different matter.

Cholesterol just might be the most misunderstood molecule in the whole world. Dr. John Abramson, professor of medicine at Harvard University and the author of Overdosed America, says this: “It’s important to keep in mind that cholesterol is not a health risk in and of itself. In fact, cholesterol is vital to many of the body’s essential functions.”

Cholesterol is the parent molecule of some of the body’s most important compounds, including the sex hormones and vitamin D. It’s also an integral part of the cell membrane.

What a lot of people don’t realize is that the vast majority of cholesterol is made in your body by the liver. If you take in more from your diet, the liver will make less. If you take in less from your diet, the liver will make more.

The liver knows exactly what it’s doing. You need cholesterol. Without it, you’d die.

But lowering cholesterol is big business. The cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, while under patent protection, was the highest-selling drug of all time. Crestor– another cholesterol lowering medication in the same category as Lipitor—was, with 21.4 million scripts, the second most prescribed medicine in 2015.

It’s worth noting that many researchers believe that whatever good statin drugs may do has much less to do with their ability to lower cholesterol than their ability to lower inflammation, which is indeed a definite risk for heart disease (as well as a component of Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes and cancer).

But we can lower inflammation quite effectively with naturally anti-inflammatory foods (apples, onions, wild salmon) and supplements (fish oil, quercetin,

omega-7, curcumin), not one of which has the side effect profile of statin drugs.

In the famous Lyon Diet Heart Study, which I talk about at length in The Great Cholesterol Myth. 605 people who had previously had a heart attack were either counseled to eat a Mediterranean-type diet (fish, fruits, vegetables, olive oil, nuts) or given the routine post-heart attack bullshit advice (eat a ‘prudent’ diet, and stay away from saturated fat and cholesterol).

The people on the Mediterranean diet experienced 70% less heart disease than those getting the standard avdice”, about three times the reduction in the risk of further heart disease achieved with statin drugs! Their overall risk of death was 45% lower than that of the group getting the conventional advice.

So what do you think happened to the folks in the Mediterranean diet group?

My gosh, their cholesterol must’ve dropped like a rock, right?

Actually no, and that’s the greatest part of this study: Their cholesterol levels didn’t budge!

They just stopped dying.

Let’s repeat that because it’s worth repeating: Though these folks had significantly less heart disease, and significantly less risk of dying, their cholesterol levels didn’t change.

Sure, there’ve been some industry-funded studies showing a reduction in heart disease with cholesterol-lowering medications, but the amount of reduction pales when compared to what’s possible with lifestyle changes.

High-risk men in the WOSCOP study (a statin drug study) achieved about a 30% reduction in heart disease, but the women in the Nurses’ Health Study out of Harvard showed 31% reduction in heart disease just by eating fish once a week, for goodness sake!

As Dr. Abramson puts it, “Most of our health is determined by how we live our lives”.

That’s a powerful—and empowering—message, way more important than lowering cholesterol.

True or False? I can get all the vitamins I need from food

I regularly talk to people—friends, family, tennis buddies—who care about their health, and make a real effort to eat well and cultivate good lifestyle habits . But they haven’t quite bought into the whole supplement thing yet.

The most frequent statement I hear is “I feel if I’m eating a healthy diet, I should be able to get everything I need from food”.

So this article is for you guys.

The Best Workout in the World

I started my career in health as a trainer at Equinox Fitness Clubs, in New York City back in the 1990’s. It was a great time to be a personal trainer. Interest in fitness was exploding, there was tremendous competition among gyms, and everyone was looking for the best way to get fit.

We trainers would passionately debate the pros and cons of high reps, low reps, split routines, heavy weights, light weights, Nautilus, free weights, rock climbing, spinning, circuit training, step aerobics, kickboxing… you name it.

All in the name of finding the perfect workout.

One day, the fittest women any one of us had ever seen walked into Equinox.

All of us were just dying to know what the heck this woman did to get into such awesome shape. We wanted to steal her routine so we could use it with our own clients.

Finally, one of the trainers got the nerve to go up to her.

“Excuse me”, he said, “would you mind telling us…. How did you get in this kind of shape?”

The woman smiled graciously, and said, with a Texas twang….

“Ropin’ cattle”.

Which leads me to the punchline of this story: There is no perfect workout.

The perfect workout is the one you will actually do. The perfect gym is the one you will actually go to. The perfect diet is the one you can actually stick with.

And it’s different for everyone.

It’s even different at different times in your life.

Take me, for example. When I first got bitten with the fitness bug and started to change my life, I lifted the heaviest weights I could manage and followed the super-intense routines I read about in Muscle and Fitness and Flex magazines. I spent at least an hour in the gym five days a week, alternating between “leg day” and “upper body day”, and typically doing several exercises per body part.

And I jogged in Central Park (which, by the way, I hated).

Now, 32 years later, I don’t jog at all. I play tennis about 12 hours a week. I lift weights twice a week (a basic circuit of seven exercises, 2 sets each—total time per session about 20 minutes). And I take moderate paced walks in the hills around my home.

And here’s what I’ve learned.

We spend way too much time worrying about the “perfect” workout, just as we do worrying about the “perfect” diet. And with all the information out there, we often succumb to paralysis by analysis… should we do aerobics before weight training? Will weight training make me too muscular? Should I do high intensity bursts? What about this Crossfit stuff? Can I lose weight doing Pilates?

We basically make ourselves nuts with all this stuff.

So here are three suggestions. Number one: Stop thinking so much. Number two: Find something you can do regularly and then do it. Number three: Relax.

Remember, our goals change, our bodies change, our hormones change, and our needs change. What worked for you at 20 may not be so great for you at 40 (or eighty). Most of the 20 year old guys I used to train just wanted bigger pecs so they could look good at the beach. Most of the 70 year olds I used to train just wanted to be fit enough to play with their grandkids.

So here’s the bottom line. Accept that “the perfect workout”—much like “the perfect diet”— doesn’t exist.

The human body was meant to move. Whether you’re dancing like no one’s looking, gardening, climbing hills, tending sheep, roping cattle, square dancing, Crossfitting or doing the Macarena, find something you can stick with and then do it.

The best advice you can follow actually doesn’t come from trainers or nutritionists, it comes from Shakespeare: Know thyself.

You don’t need to find “perfect”.

You just need to find what works for you.