NORMAN! Part 2
So in NORMAN! Part 1 I wrote up an introduction that you can probably guess the punchline to but I’m still walking you through this the long way. In short, by sheer accident I had been in the clinic when we got a new puppy named NORMAN! with a messed up back leg. We all sort of fell in love with him and I was the first to walk him. I had been considering getting ALFIE! a playmate as it was and NORMAN! seemed like a good choice.
NORMAN! Part 1
So I’ve been sort of sitting on something for about the, oh, last 10 weeks or so. Something that I had sort of wanted to write about but got distracted by the absurdity that was Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting and then I needed a break to just run short, non-serial types of articles. But since we’re entering the holidays and nobody cares about diet or training advice anyhow (anybody but me notice that the Halloween candy was out 6 weeks ago and Christmas stuff is already out?) it’s time to run this. Yes, you can probably guess what this is about by the title and topic but, well…I’ll just get to it.
Ammonia Smell During Exercise on Ketogenic Diet – Q&A
This is a fairly common report on very low-carbohydrate/ketogenic diet (defined, once again, as any diet containing less than 100 grams of carbohydrate per day), a report of a fairly strong ammonia smell in the sweat during exercise. As I discuss in detail in my first book The Ketogenic Diet this ammonia is produced due to the ultimate breakdown of ATP to ADP to AMP and ammonia.
Rapid Fat Loss Without Weight Training – Q&A
An additional factor, also discussed in the book is that there is often an increase in lean body mass (and this represents both muscle mass and connective tissue) when people gain body fat. From the standpoint of obtaining a ‘normal’ body weight (whatever ‘normal’ means here) losing that ‘extra’ LBM is thought to be beneficial or necessary by some obesity experts.
Strength and Neuromuscular Adaptation Following One, Four and Eight Sets
There has been a literally decades old argument going on regarding the optimal volume of strength training (and here I’m primarily focusing on the argument about doing a single set vs. multiple sets) for various goals including strength, hypertrophy and the training of athletes. Claims that “One set is just as good as three” or what have you are often made based on a variety of arguments. Most of those I’m not going to address here since I want to focus primarily on the research into the topic. I’m also going to be focusing only on the issue of strength since muscular size gains are sort of a different issue.
Mixed Brain Fuel – Q&A
Ketones are produced primarily in the liver (from the breakdown of fatty acids) and exist predominantly as an alternative fuel source for the brain (they can also be used by skeletal muscle) during periods of low-carbohydrate availability. This probably was originally important for periods of starvation that occurred throughout our ancient history, now very low-carbohydrate diets (defined here as any diet containing less than 100 grams per day of carbohydrates) effectively ‘exploit’ this mechanism.
