I'd like to thank The New York Times for contributing to the malaise and hopelessness currently coupled with obesity.

Why?  Because last Monday the Times published After The Biggest Loser, Their Bodies Fought to Regain the Weight.  A depressing account of what happens to contestants after they leave the show, it is. But good journalism? It is not.

Sadly, this newest article adds to the disagreeable and outdated health advice from the Times, or those found in an Op-Ed.  And full disclosure, I'm far from impartial as The Biggest Loser is among my most hated shows on television. Yet I'm also a religious watcher of The Bachelor, so hey, nobody's perfect.

I don't believe the Times had malicious intent, nor were they purposely trying to paint sustained weight loss as some Sisyphean task.  Instead, my main gripe was that they didn't add anything to the conversation and they failed to propose any solutions.  We've known from study after study that losing weight is the "easy" part, maintaining is the hardest.  And the only answers they did provide were bariatric surgery or accepting hunger as the new normal.

The logic and skepticism of our inner scientist should be wary of accepting the conclusions of a small, self-selected study, but it's hard to overlook such a compelling story.  So in an effort to steer the interwebz back to reality, below are 5 ways in which the article failed to cover the entire story:

Rather than a strength or physical preparation coach, I've recently taken to calling myself a "systems analyst."  I didn't come up with the term - it's borrowed from Dr. Stuart McGill - and I don't have the huevos to say it at a social gathering.  But it's always fun to pretend in the land of the internet.

Analyzing systems captures how I approach movement, conditioning, strength, and goals. Breaking down large topics to biomechanics, biology, and how it's all one big system, is usually met with positive feedback (even if it comes with a few "Office Space" jokes). But what's the one topic that tends to meet the most resistance?  How to increase one's running ability, because it's counter to what most people think.  

I'm not shy about admitting my mistakes.  It's how you learn and grow.  I think it's also important to show that you're always trying to get better.

Most of my mistakes have been with my own training, using myself as a guinea pig. But some mistakes have also been with clients.  This week, I'm fessing up to the latter.

When I was a newly minted personal trainer, high intensity, short duration work was the flavor of the year.  Nothing captured this trend better than the popular Tabata protocol - hard 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, continuously for four minutes.  "Research" had shown it would elicit the same adaptions as a long steady state session.  Even better?  High intensity work like that is gold for fat loss, even if it makes you hate life.

On a personal note, I was also chasing dem gainz.

I get it.  It's January.  If your last few weeks of December were anything like mine - filled with food and drink and very little exercise - you want to hit the gym hard. After all, there's no time like the present to #getyourchanningback.

But how hard we should push ourselves in the gym?  Is it possible to do too much? Should we hit a new personal record each visit? What's a realistic expectation to avoid burning out before February?

It's complicated.  But first, an anecdote. 

The past month has been incredible. From winning the Tactical Strength Challenge (yes, you read that correctly), to the birth of our son, Ethan (again, you read that correctly!), to a few other items I can’t mention yet, it’s been a month I’ll never forget.

To make it even sweeter, I’m happy to share that StrongFirst just published an article of mine about pull-ups. Specifically, it shares my journey and the program I used to transform a weak point to something I now look forward to.