Tag Archives: Health

Body Power 2018 – 10th Anniversary Vegas Style

I have been to 8 of the 9 Body Powers, and I’ve seen it grow and become all encompassing and now in its 10th year, they are going with a huge event complete with a Las Vegas theme, starting Friday 11th May 2018 running until Sunday 13th May 2018, it should be huge. 

Body Power Aerial Shot

Body Power Aerial Shot

The very first Body Power Event if I remember was only 1 hall, and mostly protein / supplement companies and body builder types with just the odd smattering of other companies like equipment and clothes. I wish I had taken some aerial photos but as mere customer it wasn’t possible sadly. Fast-forward 10 years, yes a whole DECADE!! and now its impressive filling a huge 4 halls, and last year broke over 100,000 visitors over the 3 days of the expo. This year there is a Body Power Trade Expo, The Vegas Party, and what looks like a blast the launch of the Muscle and Fitness HERS Magazine party party complete with Pink Carpet Event. Anyone who knows Nick Orton the organiser will likely rib him a little about the cost of the pink carpet 😉 

The Main Event

Eddie Hall at Body Power 2015

Eddie Hall at Body Power 2015

The main event is looking like it will be huge, with big names in the boys corner like Flex Lewis, Kai Greene, Christian Guzman, Ryan Terry, Martyn Ford, William Bonac, Aaron Lambo, Dorian Yates, Kris Gethin, and over in the ladies corner will be Paige Hathaway, Louise Rogers, The West Twins, Gal Yates, Courtney Black, Carly Thornton, Char Borley and I hope to see the lovely Kate Errington sporting her pro card too. 

Over in the “Something Else” corner we have the amazing Bionic Body, a double amputee who proves you can success if you want it badly enough, and along with Terry Hollands, and Bill Kazmeier we have The mo’fo’in MOUNTAIN! Yes Hapthor Julius Bjornsson, Game of Thrones The Mountain will be in the house, along with Zydrunas Savisckas. All we are missing is Eddie Hall (who is in York on the Friday doing his Tour) but could make an appearance Saturday or Sunday, and Brian Shaw who was sorely missed last year. 

Sadly this will be the first year, the late Rich Piana won’t be around but the 5% Percent stand should still be there to offer drive and advice to the 5%ers, and worth a visit if only to see the monster that is Martyn Ford. 

Body Power Trade Expo

Mountain of NOCCO

This year it also has a large Trade Village with B2B Sections (Business to Business) located in Hall 6 to stock up for your business needs, which is free to register and attend (doesn’t include the main show). If your a website owner, affiliate marketer, or in anyway selling products via a Gym, Shop or Concession, or even if you want to get into the sector, you really should make your way down there.

You can get samples of the products so you can provide some SOLID reviews, I never review or endorse any product I haven’t personally tried, and events like this provide the opportunity to try out and discover new products. You may also be able to source boxes of samples to send out to customers as well.

A few years ago, The Curse gave me a box of 250 samples, which I sent out 200 customers (I gave 50 out in my gym) and out of those 200 customers, I gained almost 35% orders for that product. I targeted customers who IMO bought a weaker pre-workout and would really notice The Curse kick. I was able to do this as I had sampled many pre-workouts at shows like this. 

Muscle and Fitness Hers Launch

The M&F HERS Launch Party looks like it will be a killer event, hosted by Paige Hathaway who is absolutely lovely, and takes time with her fans, along with the Late Rich Piana, Michelle Lewin, Steve Cook and Kai Greene I’ve not seen many people take so much time with their fans but Paige took time answering questions, offering advice and encouragement to so many. 

Muscle and Fitness HERS Launch Party

Muscle and Fitness HERS Launch Party

Muscle and Fitness Magazine is launching a womens only version of the magazine, which is probably long overdue, male based magazines just don’t cut it. Men want big arms, big chests and muscular legs but women a toned waist, a perky bum and firm thighs so the more magazines aimed at women the better. 

Personally I’d like to see a magazine aimed a more Average Joe, or newbies-intermediate to the gym, which really digs down to the basics, maybe I should pitch the idea at the Pink Party 🙂

Body Power Vegas Party

The Body Power Vegas Party looks like it will be a stonker too, to celebrate the 10th Anniversary, BP are going big, indoor fun fair, an interactive pool, casino games and more. I’m not quite sure what to expect but it sure as hell looks fun and I’ll be there. 

Body Power Las Vegas Party

Body Power Las Vegas Party

Flash Back

I figured I’d post a little flashback set of images from the previous few Body Powers where I have been taking photos. I really need to dig up 2012 and 2013 images. When I come across them I’ll post them as a flashback. 

As you can see its going to be a hell of an event, you can find more information out on the Body Power Website

Rich Piana In Chemically Induced Coma

Body Builder and 5% Nutrition founder Rich Piana has been placed into a chemically induced coma following a medical emergency. The 46 year old star were found unresponsive by medical staff after being called out to a potential overdose at his Florida home on Monday afternoon. 

Rich Piana at Body Power 2017

Rich Piana at Body Power 2017

Its not clear what the current situation is, or how Rich is but I do sincerely hope he makes a full recovery. While I’m not a huge fan of Rich Piana’s whole synthol and whatever-the-hell he injects or his persona but the man is a sound guy.

You can’t put a guy down who values his fans so much. I have seen the guy at multiple different shows, and he  always takes his time with each and every fan, talks to them, advises them, guides them and inspires them to be more. I have never seen him rush a fan, cut one off and lose his patience. Well apart from the slapbox incident, which was massively overplayed imo. 

What I have observed is many other stars give fans 30 seconds before rushing them off, many spend a few hours with the fans then they go hide in the green room. Anyone not in the queue at the time time just misses out. With Rich Piana, I have consistently seen him take 5-10 minutes with just 1 fan laughing and joking, taking his time. Rich has spent 10 hour days for 2-3 days in a row on his stand with a never ending queue of fans, only popping off his stand for short periods. 

When I took the above picture, Rich actually asked the next fan in the queue if he minded waiting for a few minutes while he did a quick press picture, then apologised to fan, then apologised to me for the wait. You can’t fault the guy, so hopefully he’ll recover and it will turn out to be a mistake or accident. 

Body Power 2017 – In Review

Body Power Aerial Shot

Body Power Aerial Shot

This was my 5th Body Power Expo, it were considerably busier on the Friday and Saturday compared to previous years, Sunday was about average. The official visitor total shows just shy of 96,000 visitors. So very close to the magic 100,000 visitors. I would guess if you counted the athletes, media, press, staff and security, it would easily hit the golden 100k visitors. Next year is the 10th Anniversary so maybe 10 is the new 100k, and Nick Orton the organiser say it will have a Vegas Style strip straight down the middle with all the arenas and such in the middle. Sounds like an awesome plan.

The main highlight for me were the Strongman Arena by Strongman Revolution which were right up my alley, and I spent as much time as I could watching the events. What I saw were a bloody good show, I only wish I had more time to watch but I was constantly on the go. Sadly I didn’t get that many photo’s because the arena were surrounded and packed the whole time. I would have ended up blocking some ones view or getting a Vauxhall Corsa dropped on me, so I spent more time watching the event than taking photo’s of the events.

Full Gallery of Images

There are around 500 images over the weekend posted on my facebook page:

Body Power 2017 – Friday (142).
Body Power 2017 – Saturday (122).
Body Power 2017 – Sunday (200).

Feel free to tag and share any images I haven’t already tagged. 

Panoramic View

Each year I have taken a panoramic view of Body Power. This year is no different, last year was the queue for Paige Hathaway, this year its the PHD Kitchen stand from the top floor of their stand.

 

This was taken on the Friday (I think), you can see how crazy busy it were, and Saturday was massively more busy.

 

Stand Out Products

The stand out products for me were things which made my diet and lifestyle better, so I’m putting them in Alphabetical order as I really couldn’t choose which one is best. 

Barebells Protein Pudding

Barebells Protein Pudding

Barebells – This is a company owned by Nocco (NO Carb COmpany), a Swedish company which has been my stand out company in previous years for having one of the best marketing and tasting products in its class. This time around they came with Barebells Pudding and Barebells Protein Bars, both of which considering their macronutrient content tasted amazing. I normally forcibly eat MyProtein Puddings or I pick up MHP PowerPak Pudding when I can find it.

I nearly turned down the samples, until I spoke to the people on the stand and they explained the connection to NOCCO, so I tried it and were blown away. You would barely be able to tell they are not normal products. I wanted to try the Hazelnut Spread by Barebells but they didn’t have it to hand, but more on that later. 

Jazz Apples – This company is emptying my wallet as a new addition to my fruit bowl. They are so delicious, they have a pear type firm consistency but a sweet and juicy taste. Its like biting into a fruit based Magnum Ice Cream, such an awesome crunch and explosion of sweet juice.  

The team on the stand explained they were a combination of Gala Apples and Braeburn which ironically was the 2 types of Apple I had back in the hotel room, I’d say that’s a fair analysis. I’ve since purchased them twice, a pack of 4 large ones from Waitrose and a bag of 6 normal ones. Certainly won a spot in my fruit bowl. 

Farmers Walk Treadmill Machine

Farmers Walk Treadmill Machine

Jim Jams Spreads – I had seen these in Tesco (I think) but I were sceptical of the low sugar content being replaced with sweetener and having an after taste or not being nice. The stand owner near enough guaranteed I would like them if I liked Nutella, only it wouldn’t contribute diabetes or sugar crashes.

Macro for Macro they are fairly evening matched, the difference is Nutella has 57.6g Carbs or which 56.8g are Sugars, where as Jim Jams has 49.4g Carbs but only 8.7g are Sugars, thats a beastly chunk of sugar you’re not eating by swapping over. Shame both of them are quite low on the protein compared to 

Farmers Walk Treadmill were one of my favourite bits of equipment and easily stood out. Its fixed at 11 degree incline so as to be able to generate momentum, with various resistance settings along the ability to load around 160kg of weight plates and walk. I didn’t get to use it very much, least nearly as much as I wanted to play on it. I’m not sure I could justify the costs, but so very cool.  

Challenges

Thors Hammer at Primitive Apparel

Thors Hammer at Primitive Apparel

The Thors Hammer challenge on Primitive Apparel‘s stand were good fun, the poor lad who were first up and scored over two and half minutes holding a 10kg Hammer looked destroyed when someone topped 6 minutes and more so when a girl was within 30 seconds of his time. It was certainly a fun challenge, beats the usual protein bags /  buckets and lateral holds and the likes. 

The Mammoth stand had an interesting challenge and Bryan made it look far easier than it were. It were good fun to watch. You had to have an empty 5kg Protein tub balanced on your back while you did a press up, then raised your hand and opposite foot, then repeat the other side with a 5 second pause.

Bryan did it dozens of times and made it look easy as pie, but very very few people actually executed the move without the bucket falling off. I love the Mammoth Carrier Bags, they are basically sealable 

Mars Protein Peg Challenge

Mars Protein Peg Challenge

The Mars Protein stand had a fun challenge, this stand were the biggest disappointment, as the biggest company there (Mars turned over £25,000,000,000 (BILLIONS) in 2016), the fact they ran out of samples within the first 2 hours but still had plenty to sell potentially highlights now they made 25 billion, I won’t even go near the fact they were selling at full retail not a show price.

The stand had a peg board climbing frame challenge (see pic) which destroyed so many people, apart from some old man who pretty much ran up it matrix style. It certainly favoured the free runners, parkour and cross fit types but still fun to watch the techniques and 

There were one more challenge which stuck in my memory, a girl called Joanna managed to hold a lateral hold for over six in and a half minutes on another stand with two 2.25kg tubs of protein. Another challenge was for hang time, the longest time hanging on rock climbing handles, which is brutal on the fingers.

Some other challenges were equally fun to watch. 

Big Names

There was a little controversy over a certain big name who decided to get pissed out of their tree and didn’t bother turning up on their last day. Other big names included William Bonac, Kate Errington, Robert Oberst, Imogen Parfitt, Terry Hollands, Lee Constantinou, Zydrunas Savickas, Christie Bailey, Kris Gethin, Bill Kazmeier, Emma Hyndman, Zac Aynsley, Rich Piana, Flex Lewis, Cedric McMillan, Laci Kay Somers, Steve Cook, Dana Linn Bailey and Jay Cutler. There were loads more which I have forgotten, but will be in the images. 

Oh there were a dude called Callum Best sneaking around too

Steak vs Lentils for Protein

Summer lunch with spring vegetables, cherry tomato & steak, macro closeup

Steak *drools*

I’ve been reading Muscle and Fitness Magazine and it had a page about Top 10 Protein Facts. What caught my eye were Fact No. 10, which suggested swapping 170g of Steak for 200g of Lentils.

First up they claimed that 170g of steak contained 48g protein, 18g fat (7g sat fat). I’m not sure what sort of beef steak they are eating but 170g steak usually contains nothing like that unless its 13% fat beef burger meat.

Looking at WeightLossResources, it reports the following for 170g of various cuts of Beefs…

Rump Steak – 213 kCal, 37.4g Protein, 0g Carbs, 7g Fat.
Sirloin Steak – 230 kCal, 40g Protein, 0g Carbs, 7.7g Fat.
Stewing Steak – 207 kCal, 38.4g Protein, 0g Carbs, 6g Fat.
Fillet Steak – 255 kCal, 36g Protein, 0g Carbs, 12.5g Fat.

I’m not quite sure where Muscle and Fitness got its stats. They suggest replacing the 170g burger, I mean steak with 200g Lentils, so lets look at 200g Lentils nutritional data.

Lentils (boiled) – 230 kCal, 18g Protein, 40g Carbs (8g Fibre), 1g Fat.

Calories are equal, but half the protein and a boatload of carbohydrates. I noticed they didn’t mention the carb content in the tip either. I’m not adverse to Lentils but I do watch my carb intake, at least try to and even the 8g of fibre can’t justify this one for me.  I’ll stick to a green beans or fine beans

Green/Fine Beans (steamed) – 61 kCal, 3.5g Protein, 14g Carbs (7g Fibre), 0g Fat.

Covers my fibre hit, fits well with my steak and tasty to boot.

Image by Robert Owen-Wahl

Moderate Alcohol Isn’t Good For You

Cold Beer by Eyup SalmanThere have long been studies which demonstrate moderate alcohol consumption is good for you, but no longer. The “journal of alcohol and drug studies” performed a systematic meta review, which shows this isn’t the case at all.

A Systematic study is a study of many other peoples studies to correlate the results to get a fuller picture, and a Meta study is where the data from others studies are re-analysed or bias are removed. This means instead of having data on 100 people in one study, they can have results from 100 studies with 100 people each giving them thousands of peoples data across many years.

In this case the review were of 87 studies, covering 3,998,626 people and included 367,103 deaths were recorded over many years.

The Shocker

Previous studies show reduced risk for low volume regular drinkers (1-2 drinks per day), but the study showed many of the abstainers were already of ill health or abstaining due to ill health at the time of the study. This made the regular drinkers appear to have an advantage over the non-drinkers, due to fatalities.

The bias of ill-health were removed from the 4 million subjects and re-analysed, this time is showed that occasional drinkers (1-2 drinks per week) gained an advantage and increased longevity over both non-drinkers, regular drinkers and heavy drinkers.

Its a little shocking that “occasional drinkers” were shown to healthier than non-drinkers and the moderate drinkers we all thought were the better choices.

I would have liked to see if the type of alcohol mattered, since its shown red wine and certain other drinks have some advantages in other studies (at the moment anyway) so does a weekly red wine do more or less than a weekly beer. Saying that, I would want that data analyzed even more to see if wealth were a factor. If the red wine drinkers were healthier, were they generally more affluent.

Image Courtesy of Eyup Salman.

MyFitnessPal Maybe Listens

A while ago I posted a few shortfalls of myfitnesspal, and I also wrote to MyFitnessPal with the issues. The main issues were, the way it tracked water. Where you had to physically go to the drop down menu every day and choose “add water” then scroll down to actually add water.

MyFitnessPal Water

MyFitnessPal Water

To make the water show you had to bring up the menu to the right with “Add Water”, “Add Note” etc, which would make the water counter and the “+ Add Water” appear.

The other issue I pointed out were the tracking of Sodium and Salt. The app fails to differentiate between Sodium and Salt. It may also be that the people entering the data didn’t calculate the difference. This means a packet of Biltong which has 2g of Salt is assumed to be 2,000mg of Sodium, where it is actually 800mg Sodium. This means you are always going over your suggested Sodium limit, when in reality you simply aren’t.

You can mitigate this by altering your goal to a maximum 5,500mg, on assumption its ALL salt, which is about 2,300mg sodium. I have set mine to 4,000mg which allows most of the sodium to be incorrectly assumed as salt and some to the correctly identified as sodium. If you are aiming for low sodium, I would probably leave it at the default 2,300mg and accept it as being sodium.

I however noticed about a week to 10 days ago, the “+ Add Water” and Tracker has been permanently enabled making it easier to add and track water… sadly the salt/sodium issue still exists.

There is however some hope, and I’ll message them again in a month or so.

As a side note, if you want to convert Salt -> Sodium or Sodium -> Salt, an easy method is Sodium -> Salt just Divide by 2.5 or Salt -> Sodium multiply by 2.5.

Here is a quick chart with some useful conversions and information on it.

Salt Sodium Equivelent Advice
1g 400mg A pinch of salt.
1.25g 500mg Quarter of a Teaspoon. Heart, Lung & Blood Ass. Min. Amount.
1.5g 600mg A big pinch of salt.
2g 800mg Low Sodium Diet Suggestion.
3g 1,200mg Half Teaspoon.. Diabetic Max. Suggestion.
4.25g 1,800mg 1/4 Tablespoon.
5g 2,000mg Recommended Target Zone.
6g 2,400mg 1 Teaspoon. Max Recommended Amount.
8.5g 3,600mg 1/2 Tablespoon. UK Average Comsumption.
9g 3,800mg US Average Comsumption
12g 4,800mg 2 Teaspoons.
17g 6,800mg 1 Tablespoon.

Its common sense but still worth mentioning, when a recipe calls for a “Teaspoon” of salt, if it makes 6 portions, you need to think each one will contain only 1g salt / 400mg sodium not 6g.

Its also worth mentioning when you have sweated a lot, like after a good hours work out, you may need a little sodium on those days, but you should research the appropriate amounts yourself.

I’m going to message MFP again and push the Sodium issue. I suspect its going to be a huge task, since their whole database will need differentiating. I have been there before, the longer you leave it, the bigger and the harder the task becomes.

** 3,200 kcal is an increase for heavy training days not my general count.