Men's Fitness South Africa January - February 2025

STRENGTH TRAINING CJ Murphy, M.F.S. Owner, Total Performance Sports, Everett, MA Jim Smith, C.P.P.S. Owner, Diesel Strength & Conditioning Zach Even-Esh Owner, Underground Strength Gym, Edison, NJ WEIGHT LOSS Bob Harper Fitness expert; trainer, NBC’s The Biggest Loser Chris Powell, C.S.C.S. Trainer; author; transformation specialist, ABC’s Extreme Weight Loss Frank G. Bottone Jr., Ph.D., R.D. Author, The Diet Denominator: Fill Your Tank for Less FINANCE Roy Cohen Career counselor; author, The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide; careercoachny.com Chris Bart, Ph.D. Business consultant; author, A Tale of Two Employees DERMATOLOGY Tina West, M.D. Board-certified dermatologist; founder of the West Institute, westskinlaser.com Annet King, Director of global education, the International Dermal Institute and Dermalogica PHYSICAL THERAPY Jay Dicharry, M.P.T., C.S.C.S. Director of biomechanics, Rebound Physical Therapy FOOD Danny Boome Celebrity chef, currently…

■ Anxiety, hardened -arteries, cancer, early death — these are just a few of the evils that can result from sitting for hours on end — but not if you’re active for 60 to 70 minutes a day, according to a new report in the UK-based Lancet medical journal. The meta-analysis of 16 studies involving more than a million people found that for those who were active an hour or more daily, there was no correlation between how much they sat and how soon they died. On the other hand, researchers saw a clear and obvious curve tying people who sat longer and worked out less with a higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and cancer. The findings aren’t without controversy: Another recent study claims that exercise does absolutely…

■ Getting the recommended dose of fruits (two cups) and veggies (three cups) each day has definitely been shown to improve all sorts of heath markers, like blood pressure, cholesterol, and inflammation. Plus they reduce the risk of heart disease and obesity — all great reasons to pack your plate full of them. But a new study just published in the American Journal of Public Health has revealed that bumping that up to eight cups can provide the same boost in happiness as getting a new job after being unemployed. Researchers also found that increasing your intake by just one portion every day can make you incrementally happier. And noted that the overall benefits of upping your consumption of fruits and veggies are almost immediate compared with the long-term positive…

■ We’ve been told by the scientific medical establishment that, to keep our bodies as healthy and disease-free as possible, we should do about 1¼ hours of vigorous exercise (like running) or 2½ hours of moderate exercise (like brisk walking) every week. Sound about right? Not on your life — in fact, it’s just been revealed that those numbers may be mind-bogglingly off-base. According to a new analysis of 174 studies done between 1980 and 2016, you actually need to do six to eight hours of vigorous exercise a week to reduce your risk of diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, the British Medical Journal reports. And if you’re a moderate exerciser, you’ll need to level up to 15 to 20 hours a week — or, at a…

Good news, unrepentant slurpers: You don’t have to quit it all at once. No matter how many soft drinks you tend to swill, swapping just one of them daily for water can lower your calories enough (about 6%) to help you lose weight and improve your overall health, a new Virginia Tech study has found. Yeah, we get it: You can’t (or, be honest — just don’t want to) give up your addiction. You guzzle soda like it’s carbonated crack, even when faced with the constant barrage of research proving that the syrupy sweetened drinks can make you fat, give you diabetes, raise your risk for heart attacks, and cause a myriad of other really bad health problems. So, if you’re one of the junkies: Till the next scathing study…

■ The writing’s on the wall: Getting your nose out of gossipy websites, clicking off all the streaming screens, and picking up a book for just 30 minutes a day can help you live longer. Researchers for the University of Yale in the US surveyed general data (income, education, health) on 3 600 subjects, at ages 50 and over, who’d participated in a previous study. They then looked at how often the subjects read books, periodicals, or nothing at all. Over the course of the study, researchers found, people who read books more than 3½ hours a week had a 23% decrease in mortality compared with those who didn’t read at all. Those who averaged 3½ hours of book reading had a 17% lower risk. In all, book readers lived…