Diets have been around far longer than you can imagine. It’s safe to say that people from a long time ago were also pretty concerned about their weight, fitness, figure and health – concerned enough to try out different techniques on how to effectively carry out an diet. Eventually, these diets developed, became popular, and were named. Some of them are rational, some of them are just downright weird.
Aside from your mental state, which is entirely within your capacity to control, there are two other items that you can fully regulate most of the time as well: your diet and the amount of rest you obtain. Both are as essential in building strength and size as is exercise.
Strength is built on solid foods. Meat, fish, poultry and eggs. Milk and cheese. Thick hearty soups. Whole grain bread. Fruits and vegetables. All sorts of nuts, beans, peas. That’s good eating. That’swhat you need to build strong, solid, healthy muscles! Two nice-sized meals a day are usually enough for most mature people who train. Many people can easily do with three big meals a day, plus one or two healthy snacks if they train hard and try to couple it with a full-time job and family responsibilities.
Before beginning, I have to thank a series of individuals for their help in devising this article. The good folks at DavidGentle.com and Ironhistory.com helped point me in the right direction for the earlier history of the shaker. Likewise Ron Campbell’s Bodybuilding Books and Magazines group on Facebook which provided several leads which helped sharpen out the later history of today’s post. Finally Dr. Ben Pollack and Paul Becker from the Rheo H. Blair website were incredibly giving in their time and knowledge.
With that in mind, I’m now going to undoubtedly bastardise and misinterpret all the information garnered from the above individuals but hey, such is life! Today’s post is possibly the most innocuous but to my mind fascinating one yet. It is the history of the protein shaker, that plastic bottle currently fermenting your last whey protein shake in the bottom of your gym bag. Now the reasons for this are simple. Protein shakers have become increasingly popular over the last decade in particular. When I began working out drinking from a protein shaker was a universal announcement that you were a dumb meathead. Nowadays on my morning commute I see office workers, mothers, children and everyone else in between sipping water and a cacophony of drinks from their shakers. So shakers have become cool, and as is our nature on the site, we want to know more about the pre-history.
So with that in mind we’re going to trace the history of the protein shaker, from the early iterations to the modern day bottle. In doing so, it’ll become clear that the shaker is a fascinating symbol of the fitness industry’s acceptance within mainstream culture over the past several decades. It is the Trojan Horse for meatheads seeking acceptability.
If there is one thing that we could speculate as being highly probable concerning the life style of primitive man, it is that he obtained his food primarily from animal sources and ate it raw. Historically, it appears that complexi- ties in food preparation and processing have come with the more complex and technical societies. Corresponding the rise in production and consumption of refined and processed food has been the rise in physical deterioration, and the birth of heretofore unknown degenerative diseases.
Weightlifting supplements, despite their ubiquity nowadays, are a relatively new addition to the realm of weightlifting. While the practice of eating mystical substances in the hope of improved athletic performance dates to Greco-Roman times, the marketing of explicit ‘body building’ supplements is a far more recent phenomenon.
Dating really to the emergence of physical culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, these supplements represented the first rudimentary efforts to market foods explicitly for those interested in picking heavy things up and putting them back down again. As expected, these supplements centred on muscle building, celebrity endorsements and benefits extending far beyond strength.
If you thought bodybuilding and serious involvement in sport is mere exercising and pushing your body to its limits, think again. Of course, building up your muscle mass is crucial. However, you won’t get far with just that alone.
In the era of food full of additives, one might frown upon the mere mention of supplements. However, these – especially protein shakes – have had great impact on sports and bodybuilding development.
Official data shows that an average grown-up should consume approximately 50 grams of protein per day. However, additional proteins are taken by people who aim at building their body and muscle mass, thus making protein shakes one of the most important supplement products since the 1950s.
So, how did this all come to be?
The history of dieting is quite convoluted and challenging for a lot of people. But it does go to show that people have started to try and stay in shape for quite some time. And there’s a reason for that. The reality is that working out is only one thing that people from the old ages did. They also tried to adapt their diet in a meaningful way. And that’s what brought a lot of great new things to the table. Dieting in particular was quite the issue for a lot of time. It came with a multitude of challenges and it was definitely one of the more challenging things to endure.
What are the first thoughts that run through your head when you hear the word “diet”? The cravings, the hunger, the New Year’s resolution, maybe? Mainly, people tend to think about their efforts to shed some weight and the struggle that accompanies such endeavors.
However, on second thought, you may realize that the word “diet” has many more meanings and associations that go beyond the trying to lose weight. Simply put, diet is the way you eat. This can be influenced by your preferences, but can also be influenced by your health, religion, or even your ethics.
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Constant purification is essential if you aim to maintain an overall state of well-being through your entire body. If you’re interested in the healthy and sustainable lifestyle, then you know how important flushing toxins out on the regular is. But did you know that detox has a longstanding legacy spanning over thousands of years?
Almost everyone at one time or another has taken dietary supplements. Some people take them to obtain food nutrients lacking in their diet, others take them to compliment or derive more benefits from their food intake, and many people take them because their doctor recommends it.
What then are dietary supplements? Are they safe and do they really work as advertised? Are there any government regulations over what constitutes dietary supplements?
