Suck It Up

Marion Nestle talks about how Big Soda is under attack from communities and people who are tired of obesity, diabetes and bad science.

The ingredients in soda are simple: carbonated water, high-fructose corn syrup and sucrose, caramel color, phosphoric and citric acids, caffeine, and natural flavors. The ingredients may be simple, but their impact is profound.

Selling this flavored sugar water has turned The Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. into multi-billion-dollar companies. As Marion Nestle points out in her exhaustively researched 500-page book “Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning),” the reach of these companies is global. They spend millions to influence health science, drive public policy and affect legislation.

For decades, most of Big Soda’s dealings were unseen by the public. Then in August 2015, The New York Times revealed that Coca-Cola funded the Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the idea that the obesity epidemic can be pinned on a lack of exercise, not poor nutrition. The reaction to these revelations, especially from those involved in public health, was swift and negative.

The GEBN incident was perhaps the most prominent example of Big Soda’s influence on health science, but it’s far from the only one. “Soda Politics” shows how beverage companies work to influence governments, science and people, and in this interview Nestle details what she uncovered in the three years she spent writing the book.

15 Articles That Topped the List in 2015

Here is our most engaging, most viewed, and most admired content from the year.

According to you, the readership of Breaking Muscle, the theme of 2015 was Get Better.

You spent the year learning to mobilize your hips, heal your low back, come back from a pregnancy, or teach your body to move correctly under its own power.

In over a thousand articles published throughout the year, we brought you expert advice, analysis, and commentary on all of the above and more, from the leading minds in fitness.

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Strength Training for Yogis: Handstands for Strength and Balance

Being upside down calms the nervous system, stimulates circulation throughout our body, and makes us head-to-toe stronger. It's worth it.

Learning to stand on your hands takes dedication, courage, and strength. There’s no way around it. But that’s a good thing.

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GORUCK Tough

GORUCK Tough is a physically grueling team event that lasts anywhere from 10 to 12 hours and covers 15 to 20 miles. Participants must carry weighted backpacks—aka rucksacks—loaded with 20 or 30 lb., depending on the weight of the participant. The challenge leaders emphasize team focus throughout the challenge, and the event should never be mistaken for a simple race.

When Owen Valuch of CrossFit Sav-Up was trying to convince longtime friend Matt Transue of CrossFit Sonoma County to participate in a GORUCK Tough challenge, Transue was hesitant.

“For me, (Valuch) has always been the guy that says, ‘Hey, this is something that you need, and I don’t want you to question it,’” Transue explains. “And of course I always question shit that he says because it’s always crazy.”

Transue, a high-school teacher and CrossFit trainer, has experienced ups and downs in his fitness and was unsure he could complete the challenge successfully. After high-school football ended, Transue says he lost touch with the fit guy he once was.

“I couldn’t compete,” he says. “There wasn’t a cause anymore. There wasn’t something to get ready for.”

Noticing his friend’s predicament, Valuch, a fire-service instructor and CrossFit trainer, encouraged Transue to take charge of his health and introduced him to CrossFit.

“Fitness—you can’t fuck around with it,” Valuch says. “You have to be physically fit in life to function.”

Watch as the two join their team and take on what is arguably their greatest challenge yet.

“When we start tonight, we don’t know what any event is going to be,” Valuch says. “We don’t know what’s going to be out there. We don’t know how long the event is going to last. You’ve gotta count each rep like a zero.”

Video by Gary Roberts.

51min 39sec

Additional reading: “3-2-1 … Snow!” by Hilary Achauer, published Feb. 12, 2015.

Devil in the Diet

Fat has been demonized for over a century—with disastrous consequences.

In the 1800s, Sylvester Graham scornfully wrote of fatty meats’ driving sexual desire. His cure: whole wheat.

Later in the century, John Harvey Kellogg, a Graham follower, espoused the same wisdom, adding that too much lard would cause bowel backup. His solution: vegetarianism.

This way of eating, both men argued, was also a way to avoid disease and prolong life.

But our disdain for dietary fat started much earlier than the 19th century—years before either man created his intentionally bland recipe for Graham crackers or Kellogg’s cornflakes.

From the Archives: Training with a Hangover

Happy New Year! For those of you who celebrated a bit aggressively last night, we’d like to bring your attention to this 2012 article from Bill Starr. “I made it a point to push them to personal records on several of the exercises in the program for that day. I wanted to show them that they did have control over their bodies, even when they wanted to throw up or just go lie down on the sit-up boards” Read More var addthis_config = {"data_track_addressbar":true};

Set Goals and Go: How to Become Unstoppable

You already have everything you need to reach your destination. The goal is yours.

This is one of my favorite times of the year, and it has nothing to do with the holidays. If you are anything like me, this time of year is heavy in planning for the beginning of the year to come. It’s a time of reflection on this past year, and I always feel a sense of opportunity – like I have the entire world by the balls and no matter what I want to do, personally, professionally and spiritually, I’m unstoppable. I know I’m not alone.

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