Alan Aragon Fitness Nutrition Interview by Leigh Peele

There are not many people who when they talk I feel what they say goes without question. When it comes to information and validity though it doesn't get much better than Alan Aragon. You can bet that when he speaks, it's truthful. Funny enough he of all people will tell you not to believe anything just because and to always ask why, what, who and how come.

Leigh Peele-Alright Alan, on the off chance someone reading doesn't know who you are, give us a brief rundown, a bio to Alan Aragon.

Alan Aragon-I'm a student of science as it relates to improving the body, both functionally and aesthetically. I'm a contributing editor to Men's Health, and I also do a monthly column in their mag called Ask The Weight Loss Coach. On a day-to-day basis, I'm a private practice nutritional counselor. When I'm not in the office counseling and writing, I'm giving continuing education lectures to registered dietitians, personal trainers, and strength/conditioning coaches. I also do ongoing corporate wellness presentations for Tesco. A recent gig I picked up was becoming the exclusive nutrition consultant of the Southern California Soccer Academy. Somewhere among all that, I find slivers of time to raise my 2 boys and harass my wife.

Leigh Peele-That is quite a bio and a modest one at that because I am aware of far more that you have done and achieved. Perhaps one of my favorite achievements of yours is the publication of your book Girth Control: The Science of Fat Loss & Muscle Gain. Can you give us a little run down on what this book is about and who it is for?

Alan Aragon-Girth Control... The name makes me chuckle because I've been repeatedly ribbed by friends who tell me it sounds like a manual for male sexual enhancement. Well, being not too far removed from that, the superficial goal for book is about learning how to achieve a better physique on a permanent basis. The deeper goal is to teach people the skill of taking the constantly evolving barrage of fitness information and either rejecting or applying it through the skill of scientifically critical thought. Put more simply, the book is just as much a guide on how to fish as it is a fish in and of itself. As far as intended audience goes, I've rarely heard complaints from the online fitness community that it's either too incomprehensible, or conversely, too simplistic. Fitness professionals, and research-hungry layfolk will enjoy the book. I actually didn't have a target audience in mind when I wrote the book, I just pretty much wrote about what I personally am interested in, which is nutrition, training, supplementation, and the science that pulls it all together.

Leigh Peele-I don't know Alan, depends on your point of view because I think reading Girth Control for most would help with male sexual enhancement or at very least their dating pool.

You mentioned what I feel is one of the most important aspects of fitness education or any education for that matter, the process of elimination and weeding out the good from the bad. What sets off your B.S meter?

Alan Aragon-Great physiques set of my BS meter! I make that generalization partially in jest, because of course there are exceptions. However, the overwhelming majority of folks with cover model physiques seem to give the absolute worst advice. For example, "This works for me, therefore, this is the best way, and you should do it too". Another one is the automatic recommendation to supplement the diet with stuff that's already abundant in the diet. A prime example of this is BCAA. Will it hurt? Of course not.

Will it work better than the BCAA within food? This hasn't been systematically measured, let alone proven. Are there examples of higher leucine content being less effective than lower leucine content in research? Yes. Will those supping BCAA experience benefits due to placebo? Definitely. Until research proves me wrong on this, it's saving my clients (and myself) some sushi money. Another thing that sets off my sensors is when someone classifies a food or food product as extremely bad for the body and to be avoided at all costs. The whole "clean eating" thing really bugs me. People almost make a religion out of avoiding long lists of foods, ultimately to their detriment, and that of those in their immediate surroundings. It's comical. Most people who are devoted to "clean" eating can't logically define what "clean" means within the context of fitness and/or health. Then you have the more-is-better camp who believes that if a little fish oil is good for you, enough to deep-fry a turkey is even better.

Another thing that really sets off the BS meter is the idea that you MUST take this exotic berry juice (insert whatever MLM product you want), and without it, your health and longevity will suffer. I realize that's not the explicit message given by the sales reps, but it's certainly implicit in their sales pitch. And that's bullshit.

Leigh Peele-This is why I like you Alan, you get right to it. Still there has to be a FEW secrets out there to gaining a successful body comp, even if that secret happens to be common sense. Care to give us 3 things that anyone training to improve their body composition should be doing, the absolute "Alan must haves" of any program.

Alan Aragon-

1) Keep your eyes on YOU. It's fine to get inspired by others' physiques, but you have to set your own personal standards. People tend to fixate on their weaknesses, while at the same time obsess over the strengths of others. That's a surefire way to stay eternally frustrated. It's a healthier approach to acknowledge your own strengths, and use them as benchmarks by which to bring up your weaknesses. Learn to give yourself a pat on the back for the improvements you make. Keep your eyes on YOU, don't let the achievements of others dictate your obsessions.

2) Question fitness advice given to you by others. "why" is one of the most powerful words you can put in your vocabulary. Investigating the reasoning behind the advice will often reveal that the answer is "just because", rendering the advice anywhere from helpful, to dangerous, to just a plain waste of time and resources. I encourage my clients, students, and colleagues to question everyone's advice, including mine. I firmly believe that the better you can sharpen your thinking, the better you can continue to sharpen your physique.

3) Minimize the number of variables you alter en route to the goal. This helps control the experiment, so to speak. For example, even though my focus is nutrition, I still encourage people to leave their diet alone if they're happy with it, and alter their exercise program first. Then they can see how far they can get on that change alone. For all they know, that one change could have been all that was necessary, and hallelujah, there was no need to screw with the diet. Once you reach a progress plateau, then you can re-examine your options. This example goes both ways. If someone loves their training program, keep it in place but alter the diet as minimally as possible for progress to occur. Of course, there are folks who have not a clue what they're doing (or they've been haphazard and inconsistent), and need to start from scratch by laying out a plan that covers everything. Even in that case, the idea is to minimize the number of program alterations, and keep things simple.

Alright guys I am going to let you in on something about Alan here, I got the low down on a new program Alan is releasing. I can't tell you what just yet. I can tell you...

-No one out there is offering this
-It could help improve your knowledge and performance like you wouldn't believe
-It's doesn't cost you tons of money
-You are going to find out in the 2nd part of this interview what it's all about.
In the meantime you can find out more about Alan here.



This article was written in full by Leigh Peele NASM-CPT. You can find out more about Leigh Peele and her articles, products and services at http://www.fatlosstroubleshoot.com and http://www.metabolismfix.com/.
Also check out her website http://www.avidityfitness.net.

*You can use this article in Full on your websites as long as you include the above information*

 

We last left off with some of the best information we have gotten of late on common sense and its approach to your fitness and nutrition program. Now I am going to let you in on that secret I was talking about.

Leigh Peele-Alan here is what I want to
elaborate on and it brings me to an even more important point of what you are releasing as an amazing helpful service for others.

I want to elaborate on the need to ask "Why?".

Recently in some discussions with Coach Hale we were discussing the importance of being a skeptic and how it is a good thing, a positive one, not a negative thing like it's claimed. Really all it entails is just asking why.

Now I am in on the secret that you are taking giving the information as to "why" on a whole new level with the creation of a new service you are offering of amazing and in depth information. Can you share with the readers what this service is and WHY it is important to utilize such a service especially right now?

Alan Aragon-Let me first tell the readers flat-out that I approached you to do this interview because I want to blatantly promote my new "baby" that's been in development for some time now. I got really creative with the title - Alan Aragon's Research Review. Bear with me on the background before I get into some of the details. This is by far my most ambitious project ever, and it will be exactly that for the rest of my career. What made me put this together? Dissatisfaction with the general state of ignorance, half-understanding, and perpetuation of misinformation in fitness circles. Are people dying off in droves because of this? No, but I see a tremendous amount of confusion resulting in a lot of wasted time, money, and potential. Seeing this on a daily basis is what drove me to create this review and make it available to the fitness pros as well as lay folks who take fitness and science very seriously.

In the beginning, everything the 'experts' hold to be true in our industry should be based on scientific research, rather than opinion and hearsay. While science is the best tool we have for figuring out the way nature works, the scientific research isn't perfect. Oftentimes it's riddled with shortfalls that render it either useless or tentative at best. So, rather than simply relay the research data, my goal is to take things a step further and dissect its strengths, weaknesses, and applicability in a subscription-based online journal. I'll look at the current, recent, and not-so-recent research on a number of different topics, as well as comment on fitness information in the popular media.

In addition to critically analyzing the literature, I'll periodically
inject my observations in private practice as a degree of cross-checking what's seen in the lab with what's seen in the field. I honestly can't verbalize how excited I am about this project. It gives me the opportunity to be an ongoing facilitator of the acquisition of knowledge -- real knowledge, not Bro-pinion. Those who would rather be spoon-fed simplistic, generalized sound-bites of info will probably hate it. People who see the value of understanding the facts (or lack of) behind the current recommendations and getting to the nitty-gritty of the so-called what we base our beliefs on will instantly love it. Keep in mind that although the sub-topics will evolve and grow as I get readers' feedback, each issue will open with a full-length, fully referenced article examining whatever topic grabs me and compels me to air out its details. Rather than hype it up any further (which is not a talent of mine), I'll provide a sample issue for folks to decide for themselves.

Leigh Peele-Alan, not that you haven't, but I really want to break this down for readers here what this really means. This isn't just some run of the meal monthly subscription program where you get an interview here and a half hearted "new" swiss ball movement. This is the actual science and study behind what we are all doing or should be doing, broken down into laymen detail (for those of you that don't know some of these studies can cost 20-40 bucks easy).

As far as topics are concerned what are we going to see a lot of being discussed, obviously nutrition, but any physiology thrown in there at all? In short, can you give us a little preview of what being a subscriber can bring us knowledge of?

Alan Aragon-Overall, the goal is to provide a unique science & practice-based, multi-topic, commercial-free, in-depth, ongoing resource of information. For now, the format of each issue will be as follows:

Editor's Cut - A comprehensive review article that will attempt to cover the range of relevant details of the given topic. It will be fully referenced, and will include a summary and application section.

Nutrition & Exercise Research - Just what the title denotes. Some
research looks at nutrition or exercise individually, and some of it is
combined. Study strengths, limitations, and applications of the research released in the current month will be examined.

Supplementation Research - Same format as above, but I'll look at all
the wonderful powders, pills, & potions on the market.

Less Recent Gems - Just because research is more than a month old doesn't make it less important. In fact, a big part of the research review is to re-capture and re-examine the tremendous body of work over the past few decades. It's this collective body of research that shapes our current practices, so this section of the review is just as important as the sections covering the late-breaking stuff.

In The Lay Press - I'll choose a layperson-directed online or print
article about some aspect of fitness that I find interesting or
provocative, and critically evaluate it.

Future sections will include letters to the editor, debates, invited
reviews, as well as other ideas that are bound to crop up.

Leigh Peele-*Disclosure* I want to just write for those reading that my enthusiasm is not marketing hype, I really am this excited about what Alan is doing and am signing on the moment it's available to the public. Yes, I am that much of a nerd and yeah you should be too. So with that being said...

Alan, this is really an incredible release you are going to be offering. Now I know for myself, even with my gleaming and light blinding brilliance...

*crickets chirping*...

that a study is no picnic in the park to read sometimes. How easy is this information going to be for the average joe to understand? Can anyone make use of these?

Alan Aragon-I appreciate your enthusiasm about the journal. Yes, studies can be complex and confusing for the uninitiated. Also, not everyone's learning style clicks with the format of scientific studies. This is especially the case with primary research, so my objective is to make the primary research digestible. Also, I believe that anything is learn able, it just requires having a genuine interest in the subject.

----------------------------

Now I have just received my issue of AARR and guess what you can get a free sample yourself but don't think I am giving you the link yet without my final words.

You will be able to see for yourself the quality of Alan's work here, which is without contest. He also put together something that is far beyond it's worth. I want to answer a question that didn't get asked myself.

Why does someone need this?

If you are a fitness professional you better not think twice. This is a way to get up to date and back catalog information on the actual science and fact of what your job is. If you are going to take networking and podcasting so seriously, you better start taking the science of what you do seriously as well.

If you are a fitness enthusiast, it's time to end hero worship. It's time to understand that it doesn't take a degree or a certification to have this knowledge. This may be a bit of a scary journey at first, this stuff isn't the new Harry Potter release, but reading this information wont just open your eyes to if you need a PWO shake or not. It will open your eyes to all the methods of research for our society. Don't be afraid to investigate what you are given.

Okay, now you can have the link. I better hear from Alan sales are through the roof. For what it is worth there is no affiliate for this, and I am just another customer, I just got a receipt for purchase to prove it.

http://alanaragon.com/researchreview



This article was written in full by Leigh Peele NASM-CPT. You can find out more about Leigh Peele and her articles, products and services at http://www.fatlosstroubleshoot.com and http://www.metabolismfix.com/.
Also check out her website http://www.avidityfitness.net.

*You can use this article in Full on your websites as long as you include the above information*