GARY LOCKWOOD DOESN’T believe in motivation. He didn’t get the body he has today (lean, gristly, a bit scary) simply by being motivated. He didn’t become the CEO of 24/7 Fitness because he wanted it enough. And he says as much to his clients. ‘It doesn’t matter how much motivation you have,’ he declares, pronouncing the word as if it were a nasty kind of intestinal worm. ‘There is no substitute for just fucking doing it.’

As for willpower – usually defined as the ability to resist short-term rewards in pursuit of longer-term goals – Lockwood is similarly dismissive. ‘You will not get what you want in fitness or life relying on willpower.’ Willpower is fragile. You might win the battle with your will one day, then lose it the next. The key to ‘just fucking doing it’ is what he terms discipline. ‘Discipline kicks your butt out of bed on cold winter mornings and drags you to the gym for an hour of mind-numbing cardio.’

Some people think there’s some magic pill they can take, he says, or some mystical hack to do with carbs. ‘The truth is, you have to be disciplined. The harder it is, the more discipline you need. How much you want it? It’s irrelevant.’

The dopamine trap

In the past 10 or 12 years – the Instagrammian Epoch, if you will – we’ve happily embraced the idea that the people who are rich, thin, toned, successful and happy must have incredible amounts of motivation. They have the power to resist Krispy Kremes, Instagram Reels, Five Guys fries, the Devil himself. By implication, those of us whose lives are a little flabbier, carbier, sloppier, sinnier, must be lacking in these virtues.

But whether or not you buy into Lockwood’s approach – inspired by the neo-Stoic philosopher Joe Rogan, incidentally – it’s hard to disagree with his central thesis: that mere desire to change is in itself insufficient for change. Moreover, he’s far from the only person who has come to view the word ‘willpower’ with suspicion. (Whether ‘discipline’ is really so different is another matter.)

‘Those of us who don’t overeat aren’t white-knuckling it. Our urges simply aren’t that strong’

‘I’m not sure willpower is the best name any more,’ says Pete Williams, a scientist at the Institute for Functional Medicine, who takes a gentler approach with his clients. The main problem for him is that willpower comes with a lot of baggage. It implies a moral failing that only increases the stress and shame associated with being overweight. Which helps no one to actually lose weight.

‘A lot of patients have a very negative relationship with themselves because they believe they don’t have willpower,’ he says. ‘Most patients who come to us generally understand what they need to do to get better.’ The problem is that much of our unhealthier behaviours are driven by the unconscious. ‘They don’t know why they do it. They just can’t help going to the fridge.’

Williams has devoted much of his professional life to understanding why this should be. Some people are irresistibly drawn to high-calorie foods; others can happily sit next to a plate of biscuits and not take a bite. Some skip cheerfully to the gym in the mornings; others find it difficult just to drag themselves out of bed. ‘The question we’ve asked is: is there any genetic basis to that variation?’ says Williams. ‘And the answer to that is yes.’

Williams’ research focuses specifically on dopamine, which plays the central role in our brain’s reward centres. Dopamine acts as both a hormone (it’s a close relative of adrenaline) and a neurotransmitter, which means it sends messages down pathways in our brain that govern different behaviours. One of those pathways, the mesolimbic pathway, has strong associations with reward and anticipation, and thus habit formation, motivation and addiction.

‘What the literature shows us is that if we have a patient that has gene variations around dopamine, they are more likely to show adverse behaviours,’ says Williams. ‘The patients with lower dopamine are always looking for how they can fill that gap, often through harmful behaviours: sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, binge-eating, shopping, gambling. They’re always seeking the daily reward because they never quite get enough dopamine.’ He’s found that this is a common trait in business executives who never feel satisfied with their achievements, no matter what they do. ‘It’s not that they haven’t got any willpower.’

Another key insight is that the higher your levels of stress, the lower the availability of dopamine and the higher the likelihood that an individual will fall back on compulsive activity: doomscrolling, shopping, vaping, drinking, binge-eating. ‘Everything falls apart when you have an individual who is under a higher-than-normal stress load for longer than expected, and without the resources to be able to deal with it.’

That’s rather a bleak message, I say. We’re prisoners of our genes and our circumstances? But Williams insists that the opposite is true. ‘We’ve had plenty of clinically obese patients who have very negative self-esteem not only about the way they look, but around the fact that they don’t have any willpower. And it’s been completely enlightening for them when we say, “Look, this is a part of you that is unconsciously controlled.” They learn that there are forces that are genetically led that are driving [them] to make those decisions. We get positive outcomes very quickly by changing the narrative for that patient.’

Stop signals

Given our society’s conflicting notions of want and reward – the Christian importance of resisting temptation overlaid the capitalist importance of advertising – it’s not entirely surprising that we’ve made such a false god of willpower. In his 2012 book on the subject, American social psychologist Roy Baumeister termed it as ‘the greatest human strength’, defining willpower as ‘the energy that people use for self-control and making decisions’.

The most famous test of willpower – perhaps the most famous psychological experiment of all time – is ‘the marshmallow test’, devised by Walter Mischel at Stanford University to measure the self-control of five-year-olds. It’s fun to try it on any small children in your own life. Place a pile of marshmallows in front of them and tell them that they’re allowed to eat one marshmallow now – but if they wait 15 minutes, they’re allowed two. In the decades following the study, Mischel discovered that the children who held out for double marshmallows were more academically successful, richer and less likely to take drugs or commit crimes. The experiment reinforced the idea that success depends on mastering self-control. Baumeister positioned willpower as a ‘superpower’ that withers and weakens when you fail to use it, like a muscle, and depletes when you’re tired or hungry or stressed.

Recently, however, this thesis has taken a bit of a kicking. ‘Willpower is overrated’ was the conclusion of a 2021 study, which found that willpower is not only ‘fragile and not to be relied on’, but also that the most successful people rely less on their willpower than others.

Moreover, the marshmallow test has proved stubbornly hard to replicate in subsequent experiments. Self-control is dependent on a whole range of deep factors (social status, upbringing, income, etc) as well as more acute pressures of stress, exhaustion and hunger – to say nothing of genetic variations. Children from rich families are better marshmallow-resisters than kids from poorer families. But that’s not a lack of self-control. It makes sense to eat now if you don’t know where your next meal is coming from. It’s also sensible to be suspicious of men in lab coats promising marshmallows.

‘Some people do find it more difficult to say no to food. But you don’t find it more difficult because of some internal moral failing or lack of will’

Then there’s the view that we’re less in control of our own destinies than most of us imagine. ‘We tend to place far too much emphasis on our own executive capacity to direct our own actions,’ says Giles Yeo, professor of genetics at Cambridge University. In reality, we’re all largely at the mercy of our genes and environment. ‘Some people do find it more difficult to say no to food. But you don’t find it more difficult because of some internal moral failing or lack of will. You find it difficult because of underlying causes in the biological system.’

When it comes to overeating, it helps to understand how appetite works. Dr Yeo conceptualises appetite as a triangle. There are three sides to it: hunger, fullness and reward, all governed by different parts of the brain. If you’re full, you cease to be hungry – at least until someone offers you an extremely rewarding item of food, such as chocolate or cheese. If you’re extremely hungry, the most basic item of food will taste delicious to you. If you pull on one corner, you change the overall shape of the triangle.

Dr Yeo stresses that this happens in the brain, not the belly. ‘All of the 1,000-plus genes that we have identified that influence your body weight act within the brain, and all of them act on the appetite triangle,’ he says. ‘Some of the genes make you feel hungrier. Other genes make you feel less full for the same amount of food. Other genes tackle the reward element, which means you either need more or less food or different types of food to give you that same rewarding feeling.’ Each of us will experience hunger and fullness differently.

This is where Ozempic, Wegovy and the new class of obesity drugs known as semaglutides come in. ‘They’re not really weight-loss drugs at all,’ wrote Albert Fox Cain in an article for Business Insider. ‘They’re something far more powerful and surreal: injectable willpower.’ What semaglutides actually do, explains Dr Yeo, is ‘smack the fullness side of the appetite triangle really hard’. Generally, those of us who don’t habitually overeat aren’t spending our lives white-knuckling it – our urges simply aren’t that strong.

Still, semaglutides remain rather blunt instruments – and their effects on our reward pathways are still not fully understood. Moreover, our genes are only part of the story. Humans have always had this spectrum of genetic dispositions… but we haven’t always been obese. ‘What has changed is the environment,’ says Dr Yeo. ‘I’m a geneticist, but I end up talking about the environment all the time because your genes interact with the environment. The environment has revealed our genetic susceptibility to obesity.’

Matter over mind

In his recent bestseller, Ultra-Processed People, the doctor, author and presenter Chris van Tulleken argues forcefully it’s a change in the food environment – namely the invention and mass-marketing of cheap, addictive, ultra-processed foods – that’s really what’s behind the rise of obesity over the past 50 years, not some mass societal collapse of self-control.

‘Whenever anyone tries to study “willpower” it turns out to be very hard to nail down,’ Dr van Tulleken explains. ‘I would define it as a collision between motivation and opportunity, in other words nearly purely about your environment and nothing to do with your character.’

For most people, the availability of foods that support healthy weight loss is low. ‘They can’t afford it and it’s not marketed to them,’ he says. ‘So even when motivation is extremely high, weight loss is nearly impossible for the most affected people. “Low willpower” turns out to be a proxy for “poverty”.’ Fast food outlets and billboard ads tend to proliferate in poorer areas. Some poor people will have the genetic advantages to survive this. Many will not.

Of course, it’s not just food companies that are jangling our reward centres at every available opportunity. I first started hearing the term ‘dopamine’ in the tech world circa 2015. In her recent book, Dopamine Nation, Anna Lembke, a leading addiction expert based at Stanford University compared the smartphone to a ‘hypodermic needle’ and argued internet pornography, gambling sites, TikTok, clickbait, the lot of it, is all engineered to create habits and addictions. The critic Ted Gioia recently coined the term ‘dopamine culture’ to decry a wider turn away from enlightenment and entertainment to addiction. Think of the way Netflix is constantly feeding you more shows or Instagram pumps out more Reels. It’s where the money is.

Williams studies dopamine for a living and he’s in no doubt that a great deal of companies are doing this quite deliberately. ‘With most of these problems – gambling, compulsive shopping, drug addiction – the underlying mechanisms and pathways that drive them are very similar, if not the same. I would be very surprised if these companies don’t have good scientists who understand catecholamine pathways, the neurobiology of addiction, and so on.’

‘The more decisions you have to make – the more you rely on your willpower – the more that you’re setting yourself up to fail’

Dr Yeo stresses that the surest way to change behaviour is to change your environment. A large part of that is political: both Dr Yeo and Dr van Tulleken are in favour of much tighter regulations on food companies. However, as Dr Yeo says, ‘The environment you can control tends to be your household.’ If you buy a packet of Cadbury’s Chocolate Fingers you have to make 22 decisions not to eat each one. If you don’t purchase the packet in the first place, that’s one decision. The more decisions you have to make – the more you rely on your so-called willpower – the more that you’re setting yourself up to fail.

This may still leave you with the feeling that change is essentially impossible. Ben Bidwell, a human potential coach with the app Arvra, believes we can change – just as long as you don’t rely on willpower alone. He subscribes to the idea of willpower as a muscle: ‘It gets tired.’

What you can do, however, is to tell a better story about yourself, a more honest story, one that takes account of the person you are but also the person you might become. ‘Look at the kind of person you want to be,’ he says. ‘What kind of behaviours does a healthy man possess? Does he drink alcohol three times a week? Does he walk up the stairs or use the lift? Does he have a cupboard full of sweets? Does he buy fresh natural foods?’

He then attempts to lock-in that fresh identity by means of ‘easy wins’. His advice is to start small. ‘Let’s say your intention is to read 20 pages a day and you’re not doing it. Just set the intention to read one page a day. You will definitely do that. And once you’ve done one, it doesn’t seem so hard reading a bit more. It’s the same with the gym. Tell yourself you’re going to do some squats and anything else is a bonus. That’s not so hard. And once you do the squats you’re in a different mindset and the other stuff is way easier.’

He also advises controlling your environment to take account of your weak-willed future self. ‘Leave your gym clothes out when you go to sleep so they’re really easy for you to put on when you wake up. Have your protein shake in the fridge ready-made. Remove as many of the obstacles to getting to the gym as you can. Otherwise, you’re just relying on willpower and it’s going to run out.’

Bidwell’s gently-gently approach – influenced by the doctrine of James Clear, author of the bestseller Atomic Habits – at first seems opposed to the Just Fucking Do It attitude expounded by Gary Lockwood. But he feels that the two approaches are more interlinked than they first appear.

‘We have this old phrase, mind over matter. And for me, it’s really, matter over mind. We’re fighting this battle with our minds. Our minds are constantly saying, “No! No gym!” But place your body in the gym and the mind softens. We do the matter, then the mind is like, “Oh, okay, I did do that. And it was okay.” Eventually, the mind is like, “I can’t tell you not to do this because every time it was okay! Let’s just go do it.”’

If what it takes for one person to lose weight is military discipline and for another it’s gentle hacks, doesn’t that just reflect the spectrum of human variability? That’s certainly Dr Yeo’s conclusion. ‘I think where we’ve broadly gone wrong is to think that there is a one-size-fits-all approach to weight. We need to embrace the point that actually there are going to be some people who respond very well to something like Weight Watchers, there are going to be some people who respond to keto – or whatever. Not everyone will.’ There will be something out there that works for you, he says. ‘And that’s what we need to embrace.’

This article originally appeared on Men’s Health UK.

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The post What if we’re thinking about willpower all wrong? appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

“I haven’t been to the gym in 13 years,” he tells us.

Until recently, Fevola hasn’t exactly felt his best physically, and he makes no attempt to obscure that fact. “After I retired, I just didn’t see the point because I had no reason to keep fit,” he says. “Eating as much as I used to was fine when I was playing footy, because I burnt a lot of it off with exercise. But after I started not exercising as much, it all stacked up.”

Fevola, before his weight loss transformation

Earlier this year, Fevola decided it was time to make a change. “I’m getting old now at 43, but I want to be able to keep up with my kids, and when you’re carrying a bit of extra weight that’s harder to do,” he says.

He was cautious of hitching his wagon to any plan of action that claimed to be a silver bullet, however. “I’ve tried to lose weight a few times before and have done a few challenges, but I haven’t really stuck with any of them and have just ended up putting the weight back on.”

Today, Fevola is a changed man. He’s lost 30kg on the year and shed 16kg in just the last month by overhauling his diet with a 30-day challenge with keto.com.au.

While he hadn’t had much success in getting fit in the past, Fevola did recognise that fixing his diet was crucial. If he could do that, everything else would fall into place, he says. “My main problem was my diet. I used to eat pasta, pizza and chips every day. I reckon I had hot chips with gravy for lunch every day for like two years.”

Based on his previous experiences with diet plans, Fevola found that, to get results, he needed to limit his carbohydrate intake but maintain his ingestion of fats. This made a ketogenic diet – which is a low-carb, high-fat eating plan designed to get the body into a state of ketosis, where it burns fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates – the logical choice.

Fevola’s role in breakfast radio on Fox FM also presented a challenge, with the footballer being forced to structure his eating habits around atypical hours while also battling tiredness throughout the day. “My lifestyle can just flatten me sometimes,” he says. “The breakfast hours I work mean I’m tired at the wrong times, and before I was just eating constant carbs and not getting the good stuff to keep me awake. I don’t want to put all the blame on breakfast hours though, because you can still eat well at those times, but it’s all about the decisions you make.”

Fevola signed up for a 30-day challenge where he would only eat keto.com.au meals for a full month, with the aim of changing his diet cold turkey and reaping the rewards. He had a variety of ketogenic meals and snacks delivered to his door, which made up most of his caloric intake every day – completing the total overhaul of his diet.

Given his previous experiences with dieting, it’s easy to understand why Fevola was pragmatic about the potential outcomes of his challenge. “Really, I just wanted to try this out and see if it worked,” he says. It did.

When he speaks to Men’s Health, Fevola has one day left of his 30-day challenge, but he’s already seeing results across the board after losing of 16kg. Although, he insists weight loss wasn’t his primary goal. “I didn’t really do it for weight loss. It was more about feeling better and changing my habits.”

After completing his keto.com.au challenge, Fevola’s habits have been well and truly changed. “Before, my meals were always something full of carbs, now I look for something else to eat. Today I had cottage cheese, avocado and tomato in a bowl for lunch. I would never have that before, but it’s clean and it makes me feel good,” he says.

“I’ve been having keto bars for the last month if I get hungry, and they fill you up. Then I’ll have one of [keto.com.au’s] healthy ready-made meals for lunch and dinner and that’ll be it,” Fevola continues. “I was eating like 5 or 6 meals a day before, now I’m down to just three.”

But it isn’t just the quantity of Fevola’s meals that has improved for the better, it’s also the quality, thanks to the healthier alternatives provided by keto.com.au meals. “Instead of having fried rice or chips, I’m having cauliflower rice and cauliflower mash. There’s a mac and cheese, which you’d think isn’t good for you, but you swap out some of the ingredients for cauliflower and it is. Then there’s a zucchini pasta, and I love pasta coming from an Italian background, but I never would’ve eaten zucchini before.”

Fevola’s new outlook isn’t limited to weight loss either. He’s also been taking keto.com.au Sleep+ gummies to improve his sleep. “I’ve never been a great sleeper,” he says. “But now I sleep through the whole night right up to my alarm.” keto.com.au offers a wide range of gummies, some of which can help you sleep better, while others can help control insulin spikes or quickly convert fat into energy and switch your body into a ketosis state.

All in all, Fevola has lost around 30kg in the last 12 months – 16 of which were shed in August with his keto diet – and has reduced his previous total bodyweight of around 130kg by more than 25%. So, will he stick with it? To that question, Fevola provides a characteristically unconventional answer. “I’m not going to make any promises that will get printed, but I hope so,” he says before signing off.

If you’re keen on trying out the keto diet for yourself, you can sign up for keto.com.au’s meal delivery service, or shop a range of keto gummies and bars, here.

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The post Brendan Fevola reveals the diet that helped him lose 16kg in 1 month appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

The record previously stood at 8,940, held by Kenta Adachi of Japan. Before this, Australian-born Jaxon Italiano had performed 8,008 pull-ups in 24 hours, which included breaking the 12-hour record with 5,900 reps in that timeframe. Italiano had been assisting Martin with his training in the run-up to the record-breaking attempt.

Martin attempted his first pull-up challenge back in July 2023, live streaming his efforts. Posting to X, he told his followers that despite approaching the attempt ‘without any fear’, he began to have doubts around the three-hour mark. ‘I started to develop a level of physical, mental, and emotional pain that never did I ever imagine feeling. My hands were bleeding from everywhere, my legs were sore from simply jumping slightly, and my right shoulder was tearing every minute I jumped to do a pull-up.’

From this point onward, Martin documented his training process, sharing the highs and lows, as well as the physical transformation of his body as he racked up tens of thousands of pull-ups in the process.

 

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A post shared by Doug Censor Martin (@censor)

The official world record attempt, which took place on September 7th, was monitored by invigilators from Guinness to ensure that each rep met the mandated standards – beginning from a dead hang position with arms at full stretch and ending once Martin’s chin had passed above the bar.

Raising thousands of dollars for Project Purple, a charity dedicated to pancreatic cancer, Martin successfully beat the previous record around the 19-hour mark, with five hours still remaining on the clock. He went on to perform hundreds of additional reps in the following hours but ultimately stopped with almost three hours left to spare, citing injury fears. In a post to X shortly after the feat, Martin shared images of his heavily calloused hands.

Instagram I @censor

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The post A gamer has shattered the pull-up world record by performing 9250 reps in 24 hours appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

While we spend an awful lot on taking care of our appearance on the outside – layering on lotions and potions and undergoing treatments that target the superficial layers of the skin – how many of us understand the relationship to what we put into our bodies and our appearance? Yes, we’ve long since grasped the importance of good nutrition with regards to health and building muscle mass, but what about the impact it has on how we look?

From quality protein powders that help with anti-ageing and amazing collagen supplements that beef up natural collagen production, to IV drips that can enhance skin tone, read on for ways that you too can bolster your grooming regime from the inside out.

GET AN INTERNAL ASSESSMENT

The skin is your body’s largest organ, so understanding how it works is the first step in knowing how to give it the nourishment it needs.

Glowing skin is about more than good genes – It’s a reflection of your overall health, so to ascertain where you’re at you need to get a solid reading of your body. Enter Compound.

A brand new high-end health service and app from Australian tele-health provider, Eucalyptus (the parent company of lauded Aussie skincare brand, Software) Compound is a medical concierge that offers comprehensive diagnostics and a structured program to improve every aspect of your health.

“Compound’s comprehensive diagnostic screen, gives us a complete view of a member’s health,” says Compound’s clinical director and specialist GP, Dr Matt Vickers. “Importantly it then provides the platform to have a discussion about what each metric means and as importantly how we leverage elements of the program to optimise their health, inside and out.”

This holistic approach also involves extensive blood testing, which will help to reveal some of the most common culprits sabotaging your skincare goals. For example, tests can identify things such as low-grade inflammation, which damages collagen and fuels problems like acne, rosacea, psoriasis, and faster ageing. Also, vitamin and mineral deficiencies – certain vitamins (like A, C, E) and minerals (zinc, selenium) are skin superstars, so low levels mean issues such as dry, flaky skin, slow healing, and hair loss. Vitamin D is crucial for skin cell turnover, wound healing, and immune regulation within the skin and acne issues may mean your D needs a boost. Blood sugar levels are also ascertained, which can have a bearing on both collagen damage via glucose spikes and acne (studies show those with acne often have underlying blood sugar imbalances).

In addition to a full suite of scans and tests and unlimited access to a doctor and health coaching team the Compound service includes prescriptions to any medication and supplements that may be needed to remedy any issues, skincare and beyond.

PICK YOUR PROTEIN

No longer consumed exclusively by bodybuilders, elite athletes, and gym junkies, protein powders play an essential role in many of the body’s physiological processes, from helping to build muscle mass and bones, to increasing energy and repairing skin tissue.

Protein supplies the body with the essential amino acids required to make keratin – one of the building blocks of the human body and the form of protein that makes up our skin, hair and nails. In fact, if you’re struggling with dry skin or hair loss it might be due to a lack of protein in your diet.

A high-quality supplement, pea protein is both hypo-allergenic and high-fibre and contains all the essential skin-loving amino acids. Arbonne’s Feel Fit Pea Protein Shake is a great option, especially given that it’s made with premium ingredients backed by clinical research.

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Another brilliant plant-based option, hemp protein is a superstar supplement that contains all nine essential amino acids – making it great for body repair and maintenance – and is rich in Vitamin E, which helps promote skin elasticity and reduce premature ageing.

Forest Super Foods produce full spectrum super foods with all active compounds and nutrients intact that are both certified organic and largely locally sourced within Australia. Their Australian Hemp Protein is the perfect product to promote all of the above benefits, as well as Omega 3 and 6, which are essential ingredients for plump, hydrated, glowing skin.

SUPPLEMENT WITH COLLAGEN

A key component in bones, muscles, and other body parts, collagen is vital for our survival. It’s also a key factor in how good we look. Increased evidence has shown that collagen supplements help to improve skin moisture, elasticity, and hydration, when orally administered. Additionally, collagen reduces the wrinkling and roughness of the skin and Happy Mammoth’s Prebiotic Collagen Protein is the perfect way to maintain skin health from the inside out. Formulated with high quantities of Bioactive Collagen Peptides per serve it promotes collagen formation at a cellular level in the skin.

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Another great collagen and peptide blend is Bush Tucker Blends Collagen Protein Peptides. Also incorporating protein into the mix, it not only builds muscle but helps hair growth, nail repair and promotes glowing skin.

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OPTY.NC Ultimate 3.0 Marine Powder is an all-in-one advanced elixir that combines 12 science-backed ingredients, including marine collagen peptides, and is tailored to specific concerns of 50-plus-year-olds. The unique formula plumps the skin via collagen and Hyaluronic Acid and protects against skin damaging free radicals.

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PERK UP YOUR SKIN FROM THE INSIDE

The use of IV drips outside of a trip to the emergency room has been with us for some time now. Boosting your immune system? Check. Fighting that Sunday morning hangover? Check. But how about IV vitamin therapy as a legitimate way to enhance skin tone?

Face of Man have been a staple in Sydney’s male grooming scene for more than 40 years and now, alongside their stable of more traditional treatments – facials, barber and massages included – they have added Glutathione IV Therapy to their offering.

A type of antioxidant that’s produced naturally in the body, glutathione works well against free radicals and other substances that damage the skin, regenerating Vitamin E and other organic pigments, and resulting in more healthy, youthful-looking skin. After multiple sessions users can even expect to see skin brightening, more even skin tone and reduced hyperpigmentation. Beyond skin benefits, glutathione infusions may also ease symptoms like low energy, chronic fatigue, dehydration and headaches.

SHORTCUT SKIN SUPERFOODS

An unhealthy diet can damage your metabolism, cause weight gain, and even damage organs, such as your heart and liver. But what you eat also affects another organ: your skin. And a shortcut to great skin is knowing what to eat.

The best way to truly get your skin to glow from the inside out is by ensuring that you’re eating a variety of superfoods and at the top of the list for great skin is Vitamin C. High levels of vitamin C in lemons work to neutralise free radicals and help the body in producing collagen for firmer-looking skin.

Forest Super Food’s Certified Organic Camu Camu Berry is made from Came Camu – one of the world’s highest food sources of Vitamin C. And the Forest Super Food’s packs a serious punch with 130 per cent of your recommended daily intake of Vitamin C in just one serve. Get ready for healthy, radiant skin!

Sip your way to healthier-looking skin with Arbonne’s acaí-flavoured, vegan SkinElixir Collagen Builder. The supplement pairs antioxidant Vitamin C with Hyaluronic Acid to help skin retain moisture and with support and maintain smooth looking skin and with Biotin to support and maintain healthy hair, skin and nails.

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Another winner from their range of products is BeWell Superfood Greens. Nutritionists often advocate eating a ‘rainbow’ of fruit and vegetables thanks to the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects that many of these colourful foods have. This superfood powder delivers a blend of 36 fruits and vegetables in each serving providing the full colour spectrum for better looking skin.

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Lastly, Bush Tucker’s True Blue Immunity contains Australian native whole food sources of Vitamin C, D3, zinc and other antioxidants, a potent combination that may help decrease inflammation, improve cell turnover and improve various skin conditions.

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The post How to eat your way to better-looking skin appeared first on Men's Health Magazine Australia.

Just five? Yes, it turns out a mere five seconds is enough to defuse an argument, according to a study by researchers at the University of St Andrews.

In the study, published their findings in the journal Communications Psychology, 81 couples were goaded into conflict by engaging in a competitive game where they could blast an unpleasant noise at their partner at a volume of their choosing – yes this was a fun study. The couples participated in 30 rounds of the game, with breaks enforced at different intervals. Advanced AI and machine learning were used to analyse the couples’ emotional responses, which were captured by a 360-degree camera with onboard audio.

Just five seconds was found to be equally effective as longer breaks in defusing conflict, says Annah McCurry, a PhD candidate at the university’s school of psychology and neuroscience.

“It sounds obvious, but this is the first time anyone has experimentally demonstrated a reduction in aggression following enforced breaks,” says McCurry. “Forcing couples to have a five-second break was just as effective as a 10- or 15-second break, which shows even the briefest of pauses can help defuse an argument. This is a simple, free and effective hack to reduce negative emotions during arguments. It’s cheaper than couples therapy and can be easily integrated into everyday interactions.”

The researchers found that during minor conflicts couples tended to match each other’s level of aggression. But enforcing short time-outs broke the tit-for-tat pattern, reducing overall aggression.

While the intervention has the potential to save couples a fortune in counselling, it is intended for managing lower-level conflicts, preventing their escalation into serious rows.

“This approach does not apply to domestic violence scenarios,” McCurry cautioned. “This is about managing the mundane, everyday arguments that couples have and that can escalate.” Five, four . . .

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ONE OF THE biggest – and most controversial – dividing lines between Gen-Z gym-goers and their millennial and Gen-X counterparts is the use of phones in the gym. A fierce debate is currently raging online between trainees who use social media to share every detail of their workouts and those who firmly believe that even glancing at your phone in the gym is akin to a workout war crime. Until now, this has largely been a cultural divide, mostly boiling down to personal preference. But now scientists have chimed in with new research, which shows that using your phone ahead of your workout quite literally makes you weaker and decreases your performance.

The study

Participants in the study were brought into the gym and asked to perform a workout to failure. Two groups were formed: a neutral control group, who watched a documentary for 30 minutes prior to the workout, and a second group who were tasked with simply browsing social media for 30 minutes before hitting the weights.

All participants were experienced in strength training and tasked with performing three sets of squats, each set to failure, using around 80% of their 15RM, with 3 minutes of rest between sets.

The results

Despite seemingly inconsequential differences – after all, both groups were simply looking at a screen and passively consuming information – the social media group performed significantly worse than the documentary group, completing on average 15% less work and reporting a higher perception of mental fatigue during the test. All subjects were monitored for motivation levels, intra-set mechanical variables, and blood lactate levels, with no significant differences recorded between the groups. This led the researchers to conclude that the differences in performance were solely psychological, possibly due to increased mental fatigue from social media use.

What does this mean for us?

This research highlights that even if you’re firmly in the “no phones in the gym” camp, you may still be suffering from the brain-draining effects of social media, simply by scrolling through Instagram in the hour leading up to your workout.

Unfortunately, this study did not explore different timelines for social media usage before workouts to determine the optimal time to stop scrolling. However, based on this research, it would be wise to log off at least 30 minutes before your first lift if optimal performance is your goal.

It can also be inferred from these findings that the mental fatigue caused by the bombardment of attention-grabbing stimuli we encounter every time we log onto social media could be affecting our performance, both physically and mentally, in other areas of our lives. Therefore, limiting screen time before engaging in activities that require our full attention and energy is probably a good idea.

Is there a hashtag for that?

This article originally appeared on Men’s Health UK.

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CARBS GET A bad rap. With the exclusion of them in the majority of the most popular diets, it’s not surprising that most of us are reluctant to enjoy them. However, as we know, the key is moderation. Plus, high carb foods could be your new training superpower.

According to a review published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, ‘one of the best ergogenic aids available for athletes and active individuals alike, is carbohydrate.’ Meaning, your pre-workout carbs could be the missing piece to the training results you’ve been longing for.

What are carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates are one of the three macronutrients in our diet and are an essential nutrient for our health and, of course, performance in the gym. The other macronutrients being protein and fat. High carb foods include pasta, oats, bread and various other starchy foods. As explained in an article published by Science Direct, after digestion and absorption, carbohydrate is metabolised to provide energy (4 calories per gram) or is stored in muscle and liver as glycogen. Glucose is an essential fuel for the brain and for some other cells, notably red blood cells.

To get the most out of your training it’s important to be eating a diet rich in carbohydrates. End of.

What foods are high in carbs?

While we don’t have to completely eliminate less nutrient dense versions of food from our diet, it’s important to moderate them. Less nutritionally dense food is less likely to fill us up for very long due to their low fibre content. As a result, many of us consume a higher amount of calories throughout the day – such as crisps, biscuits and so on.

An increase in the fibre contained in nutritious foods could support your physique goals. In a 2020 review published by nutrients, participants eating more fibre cut down on how often they ate and how much, resulting in weight loss. The researchers also found a positive relationship between fibre intake and several long-term illnesses.

With this in mind, it is best to focus on a diet that consists of these nutrient dense high carb foods when shopping in supermarkets:

• Whole grain carbohydrates like brown bread, pasta, rice and oats.
• Starchy vegetables and fruits like potatoes, bananas, parsnips and carrots.
• Legumes like beans, chickpeas and lentils.

Alongside the rest of your varied and balanced diet.

What are good high carb foods for pre-workout?

For our pre-workout snack or meal, the inclusion of high carb foods could benefit performance. A review published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition mentions that studies have routinely shown the ability of carbohydrate ingestion to maximise glycogen utilisation and promote carbohydrate oxidation. In other words, your high carb food choice pre-workout could help you push yourself more in your training session.

When choosing high carb foods for your pre-workout hit, it may be beneficial to focus on foods that are easier to digest. This might mean choosing foods that are lower in fibre for the purpose of improved performance without gastrointestinal disturbances (problems with digestion).

Some good choices of high carb foods for energy before training could be:

• Crackers or rice cakes
• Bananas
• Popcorn
• Cereal bars or cereal

Your own individual needs, exercise choice and length will ultimately determine the choice of food. But, for the majority, a light pre-workout snack of easy to digest carbs should be sufficient whilst managing overall sugar intake.

How many grams of carbohydrates should I eat a day?

According to the review published by the ISSN, the requirements for carbohydrates are as follows:

• General fitness: Individuals engaged in a general fitness program can typically meet macronutrient needs by consuming a normal diet including 45-55% carbohydrates (3-5 grams per kg of bodyweight a day)
• Moderate to intense training: Athletes involved in moderate and high volume training need greater amounts of carbohydrate in their diet. Athletes involved in moderate amounts of intense training (e.g. 2-3 hours per day of intense exercise performed 5-6 times per week) typically need to consume a diet consisting of 55-65% carbohydrate (5-8 grams per kg of bodyweight a day or 250 – 1,200 grams/day for 50 – 150 kg athlete) in order to maintain liver and muscle glycogen stores.
• Endurance training: Research has also shown that athletes involved in high volume intense training (e.g. 3-6 hours per day of intense training in 1-2 workouts for 5-6 days per week) may need to consume 8-10 grams/day of carbohydrate (400 – 1,500 grams a day for 50 – 150 kg athletes) in order to maintain muscle glycogen levels. This would be equivalent to consuming 0.5 – 2.0 kg of spaghetti.

18 best high carb foods

High carbohydrate foods are essential for your gym gains, here are the ones which will supercharge your sessions:

1. Rice

Rice takes the number one spot in the best high carb foods due to its 76.2 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams uncooked. It’s the preference of bodybuilders and a staple of many meal preppers. Depending on the variety of rice you include in your diet, you will also reap the benefits of fibre and several micronutrients. For example, brown rice is high in fibre and contains folate, riboflavin (B2), potassium, calcium and manganese. Fantastic for muscle gain goals, white rice can be a brilliant addition to your muscle building meal plan with it also containing manganese, iron and B vitamins (thiamin, niacin and riboflavin).

2. Pasta

Regardless of your preference of spaghetti, fusilli or penne, pasta packs a punch at 65 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams uncooked. When choosing brown variations you are also benefitting from additional fibre to aid your health and digestion. Along with iron zinc, copper, vitamin B, folic acid (folate) and magnesium.

3. Oats

Starting your day with oats is a great way to kick start your mornings. Oats contain 67 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams. Overnight oats, porridge, muesli and even pancakes with blended oats are great options. They are rich in a variety of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, making them a fantastic easy option to add to your meal prep.

4. Bread

Convenient to pack your bag with for a sandwich on the go, bread is a staple in many of our diets. If muscle gain is your goal, bread is a great choice with 49 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams. Opting for brown and wholewheat variations will bolster your fibre intake to make you feel fuller for longer and benefit your health.

5. Potato

Potatoes are high in starch and very satiating when boiled. They contain 25 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams and are a great choice when enjoyed in moderation to achieve your weight loss goals due to how filling they are. Whether you include Maris pipers or sweet variations, both have great nutritional benefits. For example Maris piper potatoes are high in vitamin C and potassium, whereas sweet potatoes contain high amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C, and manganese.

6. Quinoa

Quinoa is an underrated choice of high carb foods with 64.2 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams. It is packed with magnesium, potassium, iron, folate and fibre. There is also an additional protein boost at 16.5 grams. You can add them in a salad for some variety in your lacklustre lunches.

7. Couscous

Couscous has a surprising amount of carbohydrates, with 72 grams per 100 grams making it a great post workout carb choice. With many recipes available to spice up your meal prep, it is a suitable addition to your lunch box as it can be enjoyed eaten hot or cold.

8. Buckwheat

Thrown into salads and eaten in soups, buckwheat is a satiating high carb food. It contains 33.5 grams per 100 grams uncooked making it a more moderate carb options. It is also high in fibre to keep you full and aid in digestion.

9. Bananas

Bananas are a firm favourite amongst gym goers and athletes alike, due to their fast releasing readily available energy at 23 grams per 100 grams. A study published in PLOS concluded that eating bananas before and during prolonged and intensive exercise are an effective strategy for supporting performance. Making them an even stronger contender amongst the top high carb foods to pack in your gym bag.

10. Dried fruit

Another great addition to your pre-workout snack routine. Dried fruit is a very high carb food source at 83 grams per 100 grams. Brilliant to power you through long hikes, runs and cycle rides, dried fruit enjoyed in moderation could supercharge your training goals. Keep an eye on the sugar content, whilst your weekend long runs will need it, desk jockey days may not.

11. Cereal

Breakfast cereals are often frowned upon due to their high sugar content, however when keeping an eye on the ingredients, they can be a useful addition to power up your performance. Corn flakes contain fast releasing carbs due to their low fibre content and contain a whopping 84 grams per 100 grams. For a higher fibre, slower releasing option, with additional health benefits, you could include bran flakes which include 67 grams per 100 grams.

12. Popcorn

This favourite snack to accompany your cinema trips contains 74 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams. Another fast releasing carbohydrate that is easily digested, making it a great pre workout snack without the high calorie content.

13. Beans

Whilst beans contain a large amount of fibre and some protein, they are great sources of starchy carbohydrates. Baked beans are a convenient and cost effective choice at 15.5 grams of carbs per 100 grams and 64 grams in the tin.

14. Parsnips

Parsnips contain 18 grams per 100 grams of carbohydrates and carry additional health benefits to accompany your Sunday roast. High in potassium, vitamin C and B6/Folate, parsnips are a nutritious high fibre, high carb food.

15. Carrots

Containing 10 grams of carbs per 100 grams, carrots are a brilliant choice of high carb foods. Carrots also have nutritional benefits by being a good source of potassium, biotin, and vitamins A, K1 and B6.

16. Pineapple

Pineapple is high in fructose and could be an ideal superfood to power up your endurance training. According to research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, it noted that pre exercise fructose can elevate liver glycogen and spare muscle glycogen, which can prolong exercise duration before fatiguing. There is also good evidence to indicate that the addition of fructose to the diet during ultra-endurance events can improve performance by 126%.

17. Chickpeas

Per 100 grams, chickpeas contain 13 grams of carbs along along with 7 grams of fibre. They’re also a helpful boost towards your protein goals with 7 grams per 100 grams. Great for topping salads, or add them to soups and stews for some more oomph in your pre-workout meals.

18. Crackers and rice cakes

In a pinch, crackers and rice cakes are great on the go before training or when you’re short on time and need to get out the door. Spread them with a protein source like low fat cheese for a decent pre-workout hit. At roughly 6 grams of carbohydrates per cracker, they’re a low fibre way of including carbs before your workout that are less likely to cause digestive issues.

This article originally appeared on Men’s Health UK.

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Researchers from Florida Atlantic University analysed how training close to failure or not impacts muscle growth and strength in the main muscles used in an exercise. The good news for those pursuing beach muscle is that muscle size – or hypertrophy – does seem to benefit from training closer to failure.

“If you’re aiming for muscle growth, training closer to failure might be more effective. In other words, it doesn’t matter if you adjust training volume by changing sets or reps; the relationship between how close you train to failure and muscle growth remains the same,” said Michael C. Zourdos, Ph.D., senior author and professor and chair of the Department of Exercise Science and Health Promotion .

In the study, researchers estimated the number of repetitions in reserve, which means how many more reps you could have done before reaching failure. They collected data from 55 various studies and ran detailed statistical analyses to see how different reps in reserve levels affected strength and muscle growth.

While aiming for failure builds muscle growth, results of the study, published in the journal Sports Medicine, found that how close you train to failure doesn’t have a clear impact on strength gains. Whether you stop far from failure or very close to it, your strength improvement appears to be similar.

The researchers suggest that individuals who aim to build muscle should work within a desired range of 0-5 reps short of failure for optimised muscle growth while minimising injury risk. For strength training, they advise you work toward heavier loads instead of pushing muscles to failure and stop about 3-5 reps short of failure.

“Training closer to failure enhances the accuracy of self-reported repetitions in reserve,” said Zac P. Robinson, Ph.D., first author and a Ph.D. graduate of FAU’s Department of Exercise Science and Health Promotion. “When people estimate how many reps they have left, this perception influences the weights they choose. If the estimation is off, they might use lighter weights than needed, which could limit strength gains. On the flip side, our meta-analysis shows that training closer to failure also leads to greater muscle growth. So, for the average individual, training close to failure may be the best option – as it seems to improve the accuracy of our perception of effort as well as gains in muscle size. Moreover, training near failure may also improve psychological factors like visualisation, which are important for achieving maximal strength.”

The bottom line: if your mission is adding size, failure is an option.

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