The Fitness Adviser

A long time ago, there ruled a very powerful king named Charlie. Now, King Charlie had everything that anyone in his time could ever dream of, for he ruled over the richest and most powerful kingdom in the world, and it was good to be the king. But there was one thing King Charlie did not have, and could not seem to acquire despite his best efforts. Six pack abs.

[This is a "King Penguin", not to be confused with a real king.]

So one day, King Charlie called in three of his best advisers to give him tips on how to get ripped abs. The first adviser was Arnold, a famous bodybuilder whose ability to build muscle was known throughout the land. The second adviser was Jack, who preferred a less massive but more toned look than Arnold and was extremely popular with the non-bodybuilders.

My name may be Rafi, but I’m going to be “frank” with you, and tell you that this complete and total obsession among people with their body fat percentage has to stop. It was sort of amusing when it started, but now it has crossed the line. Like Jean-Luc Picard once said, “The line must be drawn here! This far and no further!”

[If I get over 100 comments on this post, I will reenact this scene and post it for the entire internet to see. Seriously.]

First, let me just state the facts. In general, women in their 20’s should have between 21%-32% body fat and men in their 20’s should have between 8%-19% body fat according to this. It goes up a few percentage points as you get older. That means that if you have 15% body fat and you’re active as a man or you have 26% and you’re active as a woman, that you’re doing great. In fact, you probably look pretty good too.

Who doesn’t know of Mr. T and his catchphrase, “I pity the fool”? Well today, I’m going to rant about the people I pity. Here it goes:

[This is Rocky III, where Mr. T first rendered his famous line, "I pity the fool".  My favorite part of the line is at the end where he says "Prediction? Paaiiiin." No matter how many times I've heard it, it makes me laugh every single time.]

I pity the fool who believes the “mainstream nutritionists” who claim that the best diet is low fat and high carb.

I pity the fool who thinks the best way to get into shape is doing long, boring cardio and not short burst interval training.

I pity the fool who doesn’t think walking is good for them.

I pity the fool who trains only for vanity, not realizing there’s more to life and more to being in shape than just looking good.

We’ve been covering a lot of ground when it comes to solid fitness advice the last couple of weeks. Of course, this is pretty awesome and I’ve gotten some really great comments and emails from you, but the sheer amount of information can definitely get a bit overloading at times for both you and me. So to help lighten up the mood a bit, here’s a really funny fitness related video with world class sprinter Ato Boldon.

If you guys really like it, I’ll post a humorous fitness related video or article more often in between the other more informational posts. If you have something funny in particular that’s related to fitness and you’d like me to post it, feel free to email it to me at rafi(at)thefitnessadviser(dot)com. Anyway, here’s the video and we’ll be returning to our regular broadcasting schedule right after this post (I’ve always wanted to say that).