Beer N Biceps Podcast

England has recently made it the law that any restaurant or pub chain that employs over 250 people must place calories on menus. This has been welcomed by some and derided by others. After reading several articles online I thought that it would be a good idea to take a look at what the science says, and give my own opinion.

This podcast was incredibly tough to plan, as people justifiably have strong periods for and against calories on menus. When making any decision that can benefit one group of people and negatively affect another, you are going to inevitably piss people off. And I didn’t want to do that for the sake of a podcast.

I’m linking to the three studies that I mentioned here in case you want to read more on the subject. Perhaps you think that I came to the wrong conclusions?

This is the first podcast where I didn’t drink a beer during recording. One of the things that I’ve found is that drinking alcohol during a podcast can make me more reckless with how I communicate. This is not a discussion that would benefit from alcohol in my opinion, so I avoided it.

To be honest, it was a lot easier to do the podcast this way! But perhaps the chaos of beer-influenced talk is what people listen out for? Who knows.

As I said, I have tried to make this podcast as respectful as possible. I am no expert on eating disorders, but I am responding to the criticism of other non-experts, and I have been as objective as possible. My initial reaction to the news was much less nuanced than what you will hear on the podcast, which I hope goes to show that bias hasn’t affected my opinion.

But if I have got something catastrophically wrong, I’m sorry.

P.S. If you liked this type of podcast, then why not check out some of my articles? I try to throw science at commonly held nutritional beliefs, to varying degrees of success.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5378635/

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23760909/

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22918176/

In today’s podcast, I talk about five fitness influencers to follow, the importance of forming simple habits when embarking on a new diet or workout regime, and I drink Tangle Foot beer by Badger brewery in Dorset.

This podcast’s original point was to talk exclusively about five fitness influencers to follow, and nothing else. But while planning it out I realised that this topic would only last five minutes. In fact it lasts 10 minutes! But still, I decided to add in another topic (Habits) to help flesh out the podcast.

The five fitness influencers I have picked represent the scientific side of fitness and nutrition (Brad Schoenfeld) and the more social media savvy influencer side (James Smith and Lucy Mountain). Layne Norton and Sohee Lee represent the middle ground.

All five fitness influencers are unique in what they offer.

I won’t go into this much here because you can just listen to the podcast. My coaching style has changed a lot since becoming certified with Precision Nutrition. I now fully subscribe to the idea that you should make small changes gradually rather than turning your life upside down all at once. This has made a huge difference to my clients, and I really love how effective it is.

The beer I am drinking in this podcast is Tangle Foot golden ale from Hall & Woodhouse (who run Badger brewery). I’ve had Badger beer before on this podcast, and I absolutely love it.

In this week’s podcast episode, I attempt to answer the question “are abs made in the kitchen?”. After last week’s heavily researched podcast episode, I decided to have a more laid back approach to this one.

The podcast is more of a collection of thoughts and anecdotes I’ve had around weight loss and body image in the fitness world, particularly for men. Not that women don’t have that same issue, but 1) I am not as qualified to talk about it, and 2) I feel that this topic is pretty well covered by women.

It’s an annoyingly smug statement, but it’s also incorrect. Well, actually it’s difficult to answer properly. Your abs are muscles, and muscles are built in the gym. However, you need to eat to build your muscles, so technically all muscles are made in the kitchen.

This isn’t what the statement is supposed to mean though. What they are saying is that you need to create a calorie deficit through diet to burn the fat necessary to see your abs. But obviously, that’s a mouthful.

It’s pretty harmless as statements go, but I always dislike it when complex and much-debated topics are boiled down into handy catchphrases. Having a six-pack is all about diet and exercise, it’s not really an either/or situation.

Brewed by the Hop Nation Brewing Company in Melbourne, Australia. The Heart is a really well brewed pale ale, similar to a golden ale in taste and appearance. This is a subtly flavoured pale ale, and the description on Beer52s website says that it has a floral taste. Which I absolutely agree with. Though as I point out in the podcast, tell me that something tastes floral and I will then find it to be true.

I was very tempted to drink a pint of Shelby IPA by Thornbridge brewery. I have it set up with my PerfectDraft at the moment, and it is wonderful. However, I already did a podcast episode while drinking the bottled version, and I don’t want to repeat myself.

We’ve all heard of dieting documentaries such as “What the Health” and “Supersize me”, but I’m going to ask you to do something for me. Stop watching dieting documentaries! They are absolutely terrible, completely unscientific, and a plague upon mankind. As you can imagine, this podcast is going to involve a high degree of ranting.

I actually did quite a bit of research for this podcast. During the podcast, I talk about the importance of citing sources and discussing where you are getting your information from. So here are several websites and one YouTube video that I used.

For those of you who don’t want to read, there’s a really good YouTube summary by Dr Zubin Damania

You might also want to check out my podcast on vegan dieting, where I talk about some drawbacks, and why a plant-based diet is different (and potentially better) to a vegan diet.

This beer was described as a Pine-Lime ice cream IPA, which is rather terrifying. Apparently, pine-lime means pineapple and lime, and ice cream just means vanilla flavouring. During the podcast, I said that I couldn’t really taste the pineapple or lime, or vanilla for that matter.

But afterwards, me and the Mrs continued to taste it, and I feel that I could taste the pineapple, and perhaps the lime. The vanilla taste completely escaped me though. My Mrs said she tasted mango, but I’m not 100% sure I’ve ever seen her eat a mango or a pineapple, so I have taken her input with a pinch of salt.

Moon Dog Brewery is an Australian brewery based in Melbourne. I couldn’t find too much information about them, their website doesn’t seem to have an about section. So I can’t say when they started or what their plans are for the future. They definitely seem to have a quirky sense of humour though, and they brew the best pine-lime ice cream IPA I’ve ever had.

Finally, I think I should offer an explanation as to why I finished this week’s podcast on such an abrupt note. My dog Bailey was beginning to whine, and in my experience that gives me a 20-second window to open the door before he progresses to full-on barking. There is nothing worse on earth than random barking in a podcast, and I don’t know how to edit, so I decided a tactical retreat was the best option.

After the podcast I gave him the requisite 30 strokes and 10 “good boys” and he decided that barking was unnecessary. To be honest, I’m surprised he didn’t interrupt me earlier, and am massively thankful! Have a great week guys.

This is Bailey in a rare moment between barks

In today’s episode, I tackle six ridiculous fitness myths that have somehow entered the public subconscious. I chose this title a while back because I thought it would be an easy podcast to research. How incredibly wrong I was! Finding fitness myths that hadn’t been disproven 500 times already was really difficult.

I won’t name all six ridiculous fitness myths here, as they are all in the podcast. But I have to say, I’m starting to believe that the tide is turning against a lot of these myths. Google has got its act together and is ensuring that only good knowledge is shared (for the most part).

Also, there are so many good fitness influencers out there, who have worked hard to combat these myths. People who are interested in fitness and nutrition now have hundreds of excellent role models to learn from. On the other hand, there are more and more charlatans out there, particularly on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The biggest issue is, and always will be, the fact that so little is known about fitness and nutrition in the scientific community. There are lots of theories and some damn good guesses. But I feel like every article I research has at least 2 different arguments and a whole heap of unproven theories. It’s an absolute maze!

It’s about time that I showcased a beer from my new home (Nottingham). Castle Rock brewery is the big brewery in the City, and has some superb beers. Their Harvest Pale is one of the best beers in Britain.

Elsie Mo is a golden ale with a troubled past. For years it was adorned with a huge-titted cartoon woman. In 2007 the breasts were enlarged further before common sense decided that a beer label with a cartoon woman sticking her chest out was probably not going to stay under the radar of Twitter for too long, and they sensibly changed it.

Check out this article to learn more (and to see the original artwork).

All of that distracted from the fact that the beer is excellent. Really enjoyable. Could it make my top 10 beers for series 3? We’ll have to find out. Here’s my top 10 beers of season 2 if you need to refresh your memory.

In this podcast, I teach you how to fix your bench press. This will involve leaving your ego at the door. Lowering the weight, working on your grip, learning how to set up properly. It will also involve a few training tips that can make huge differences over time.

Considering that the bench press is probably the most important and iconic gym exercise for men (and increasingly for women). It surprises me just how many people perform it terribly. Even men who warm up with weights that I couldn’t even lift still make crucial rookie mistakes that have an easy fix.

Problem is, those men will NEVER LISTEN. So I have two options.

I went with option #2.

What is so infuriating is that the common mistakes people make could be fixed in just 20 seconds. Either by lowering the weights and being disciplined or by learning a couple of tricks that take seconds to learn. Pulling your shoulder blades together helps push your chest out, reducing the ROM and allowing you to utilise your chest more. A win/win situation. Keeping your feet on the ground rather than lifting them in the air takes no effort at all, and will allow you much more power during a heavy lift.

Anyway, listen to the podcast if you want to learn how to fix your bench press!

I’ve written about this beer before, check out the article here if you want to learn the strength, calories, and beers that are similar. I absolutely love this beer, a great choice in the pub, and a lovely choice for a bottle of beer to drink at home. A perfect example of an English ale. Bombardier used to be brewed by Charles Wells, but is now brewed by Wychwood who are owned by Marstons. What an incredibly confusing situation that English beer has found itself in.

I’m a fence-sitter, I like to think that most people in the fitness industry should be. Fence sitting should be your default move in an industry as young as this. This is why I tend to be sceptical (cynical?) about any part of the fitness industry that reduces the world into black and white. Does the anti diet movement do this? That’s what this podcast looks to uncover.

Another name for the anti diet movement would be the body acceptance movement. If you listen to the podcast you will find that there is a LOT that I agree with/like about this movement. But there is also a lot that I struggle with, or flat out disagree with.

The idea that calorie counting is inherently wrong, or that you can’t talk about weight loss. My main issue is the lack of scientific support for some of the beliefs espoused by anti diet movement adherents.

The idea that you can be obese yet still fit and healthy is an idea that I can’t say I agree with (as much as I’d like to). 60% of women and 67% of men in the UK are overweight or obese. We are the fattest nation in Europe. We also had/have the highest excess mortality rates in Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic. Could this be a coincidence? Possibly, but experts appear to think otherwise.

I don’t like being the bad guy, I would never want to make an overweight or obese person feel bad about themselves, nor do most people in the fitness industry. Self-esteem and self-worth are crucial, and I will always try and focus on building that up (provided it is within my scope of practice to do so). But I will not lie to my clients if they ask me for my opinion/recommendation.

Anyway, listen to the podcast to discover the many positives that the anti diet movement offers and some other negatives. Ultimately, I believe that the anti diet movement is a force for good, and the people within this group are kind and doing their best to help. But I’m still going to call them out on their issues.

Wanderlust is defined as “a strong desire to travel”, which after basically 5 months of sitting in my house I can certainly sympathise with! It’s from Allendale brewery based in Hexham. The beer is a west coast style IPA, which explains the high alcohol (6.5% abv) and the extreme bitterness of the beer. I am not usually a fan of this beer style, but one of two things has clearly happened:

I suspect that it is a combination of the two. If you’re interested in the different IPA styles, check out my article on XPAs. A form of IPA that is growing in popularity.

In the final episode of the series, I will take a look at the best beers of season two. Naming my personal top ten out of the twenty beers I’ve tried. I also look back on the season and talk about how much it differs from season one and my initial plans for it.

I’m not going to mention all ten beers here, got to keep something for the podcast! But picking my ten favourite beers was quite fun. I’ve tried to have a varied selection of beers and I think I managed that. With stouts, craft lagers, a Berliner Weisse, IPAs, English IPAs, Trappist ales, and porters featuring in the twenty episodes.

One of the surprisingly annoying things I’ve found about doing podcasts without Todd (other than the crushing loneliness) is that I find it hard to actually drink the beer while recording. The problem being that while I drink there is just silence. Or the unhelpful squeak of my chair.

Whereas older podcasts involved me finishing my beer halfway through and grabbing a second, my current podcasts involve me only having a sip or two, then drinking the rest afterwards. Something that kind of affects the spirit of the podcast. But it can’t be helped, and nobody is going to listen to a podcast that is filled with long pauses while the podcaster gets progressively trashed! So I have had to adapt.

Season three should be a lot of fun, I’ve got a good mix of subjects. Some episodes will centre around specific exercise or nutritional advice (how to improve your bench press), while others will be focused on broader topics. Next week’s episode is all about anti-diet culture and whether it is a good thing or not.

I’m also hoping to get Todd back for a couple of episodes. Either I’ll try to persuade him to come up to visit me in Nottingham, or I may even attempt to reach deepest, darkest Watford and see him. Or we’ll do it over the phone again.

While performing this week’s podcast, I was drinking Marston’s Pedigree, an excellent amber ale from the Marston’s brewery. I enjoyed it a lot, though it is fairly boring compared to some of the beers from Season 2. That being said, I really enjoy boring beers and am happy to continue drinking them indefinitely.

In today’s podcast, I talk about the worst exercises to perform in the gym. It’s more a look at exercises or workouts that you shouldn’t perform in a busy gym. Either because the exercises themselves are bad, or because doing so can be disruptive to your fellow members.

The worst exercises to perform in the gym in my opinion are:

The beer I drank during the podcast is called Midnight Maverick by Siren brewery, and it was a nitro oatmeal stout. Now, I do love a good stout and have had several really good ones over the years. But this was just a little too sweet for me. I loved the texture, incredibly smooth thanks to the nitro. But not my cup of tea. If you like sweet stouts then you will really enjoy this one though.

I may not be ranking this in my top ten beers of season 2, but I know enough about beer to say that it is still really good. Definitely worth trying so that you can make your own mind up about it.