The Fitness Made Simple Farce
or, Fitness for Simpletons

I'm sure anyone who's turned on their tv in the last six months has seen the ads for Fitness Made Simple featuring a skinny little muscley guy named John Basedow. The commercials have now gone under the category of Where's-the-frigging-remote-because-if-I-have-to-listen-to-his-lies-anymore-I'll-explode, something like the Carrotop commercials and the ones for Round Table Pizza (though they are occasionally fresh and mildly humorous).

There are so many things that are wrong with John Basedow and his stupid tapes that I can only scratch the surface.
A few of the lower hanging fruit that'll be easy to discredit.

His claim that the exercises work two ways, by burning fat just by doing the exercise is both misleading and stupid. You're not burning fat when you exercise, you're burning available energy stores, when those stores are depleted THEN your body may turn to fat to burn for energy. Basically anytime you aren't eating and you're alive, you're using energy and thus can be burning fat for energy if you're other energy stores are already empty. The other way is by raising your metabolism and this is actually true.

His claim of being a fitness "celebrity" is utterly stupid, if he hadn't been put on tv in these ads then no one would know about him or give a damn. Can you claim celebrity status because you pay alot of money to be on tv enough to sink into the collective conscious? Nah, I don't think so.

His testimonials are stupid too with one guy saying he just "simply can't put a price on the results he's gotten". Um, hey shit for brains, how about $29.95, the price of the tapes? How's that for a price on the results?

John Basedow is almost certainly a very small guy in real life, I'd guess he's no more than 5'6" or 7". And, as anyone with any background in fitness knows, its far, far easier for a smaller body to get ripped. The shots of him from the side showing off his six pack are all meant to mislead viewers into thinking it'll be easy to achieve those results. Its not, its damned near impossible for many people to EVER get to the six pack stage because body types differ. Some people are barrel chested, some are lower body powerhouses, whatever. He's misleading and effectively cheating people out of their money.

And he's got a really lame haircut too.
Anyway, just a little rant for now. I'm still very steamed by the whole father raping his infant daughter story. I posted it over on Metafilter and its gotten a tremendous number of comments. Check it out here.

In Local Nudism News
Feel like baring it all in the company of redwoods and strangers? There's a full on nudist resort in the Santa Cruz mountains that'll cater to your desires. I came across them while searching for a decent dojo in town, I need to start training again as its been a very long time and I think the combination of martial art and exercise will do both my body and mind alot of good. And yes, I would welcome some input on styles, why one is better than the other and things like that.

If nudism is your thing then go on and click through to Lupin. It is, apparently a very cool place with a good clientele that respects each other.

And yeah, I've gotta say, the idea of going hiking in the redwoods buck naked really does sound like fun.