David @ DHPT

It seems like every week there's a new study showing a quick and easy way to lose weight, gain muscle, or some combination of the two.  Often, each new article can also contradict a previous one which makes life confusing for people trying to keep fit and healthy.  While researchers are doing their best to help the general public, how these studies get communicated doesn't always make this easy. Sometimes, well a lot of the time actually, we need to look more closely at the details of these studies and think more critically about them to determine whether the things we are reading live up to the hype surrounding them.  Basically, we need to ask the following question: "Are the results of the study saying what I think they are?" Here are some important points to consider. Sample size and study length - how big was the study and for how long was the research conducted?  If it was a case study of one person and it was a weight loss trial run over 10 days, then i

I recently read something that drastically shifted my thoughts about goalsetting and I thought that I'd write a quick blog post about it, as I feel that it's something that a lot of goalsetting posts/books/articles leave out. The traditional practice of setting goals is to make them SMART: -Specific -Measurable -Actionable -Realistic -Time-framed The categories may differ slightly depending on what article you read or who's theory you are working from but the general practice of goalsetting doesn't differ too wildly. You take a pen and some paper and work through the process above for each goal, working out exactly when and what you want to achieve. Makes sense right? It nails down everything to a very specific achievable goal and a timeline as to when you want to achieve said goal.   But it leaves out one very important piece of the puzzle.  Have you guessed what it is? Well I'll tell you. It doesn't ask you why you want to achieve your go