Be Aware of Scientific Studies: A Grain of Salt #1

Hello again, and welcome back to Chicago Fitness Training; I hope your practice is going well! I am often asked what my opinion is by a number of personal training clients about a variety of topics. Some of them do not even have anything to do with fitness or nutrition. Typically, they had seen a brief news clip or read an article about the results of a study and were trying to understand how it impacted them. Most recently a client told me of a study that showed that wine has been found to burn fat.

And so today we begin a new series, A Grain of Salt. If you are not familiar, the saying "take it with a grain of salt" has come to be a warning that something should not be taken completely at face value, or as entirely truthful. For example, take a political campaign promise with a grain of salt. This saying unfortunately has to be applied to scientific studies as well.

Science is one of the greatest innovations in the history of civilization. It has lead us to countless discoveries and helped to make the world a better place. The hallmarks of the scientific method are "systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses" (Oxford English Dictionary). The problem with scientific studies lie not with the science itself, but with subjective motivations of those that fund, conduct, and report on them.

Studies are often funded by a group that hopes to profit from the results of the study. Scientists themselves have the same motivations as you or I when it comes to achieving success and renown in their field. Journalists and news companies seek to increase their viewership with sensational headlines that play on the emotions and desires of their target demographics.

That is the grain of salt you must take when you read or hear about a scientific study that espouses the benefits of this food or denounces that activity as bad for you. Whenever I see the words "research shows" or "studies show", a number of questions come to mind: What are the specifics? Who funded the study? How long was the study conducted for? How many participants did the study have? Has a different team verified the results independently? How many studies agree? Are there studies that disagree, and how many do so?

One study does not make something a fact. The more studies that independently agree, the more sure you can be of the truth. So take a grain of salt when you hear or read about something close to heart that has been part of a scientific study. Keep a healthy amount of skepticism and do not let sensational news derail the progress that you have made.

Key to Paradise

Today, Chicago Fitness Training will let you in on a dirty little secret of the fitness and personal beauty industry. It is the key to achieving every goal you have regarding your physical and mental abilities (and it works for everything else, too). YOU HAVE TO BE CONSISTENT TO GET THE LASTING RESULTS THAT YOU WANT!

I say that it is the dirty secret of the fitness industry because it flies in the face of the sales pitch that is used to get you to buy another of the multitude of products and supplements that perpetually hit the market. So while you watch commercials and read articles about this product or that program that claim to give you amazing results with little to no effort, remember that anything that is not sustainable will be a temporary fix at best. And these temporary fixes will become harder and harder to have success with, because the underlying problem continues to grow.

While improvements and deeper understanding in science, medicine, and technology will yield innovations that let you train more efficiently and effectively; take care to stay active and continue to work on the things that you want to change and improve. Do not wait for the product that makes what you want easy, because it probably does not exist. Becoming "the best you" is a process that will not happen overnight. There may be a morning that you wake up and realize that you have come a long way toward achieving your goals, but that momentary realization is just a point from which you are able to compare the past and the present.

Keeping a regular practice of the things that you want to stay good at is vital. A thirty-day diet that you could not imagine following for the rest of your life is not the answer. If a few flights of stairs take your breath away now, eventually they will not be manageable at all..
unless you practice that movement.

You have to unlock your potential to become the best that you can be. And every lock has a key. The key to achieving an inner paradise, where things are as effortless as can be, is consistency. Not every workout has to kill you. Not every exercise has to be done with the heaviest weight you can hold. You can improve your posture while you are reading this. You can improve upon your willpower by making one healthful eating decision later today. But make sure that it is not just today. Make sure that you work on it a little bit tomorrow. And as it gets easier, add a little something else into it, and practice it a little bit more.