Browse the evidence

Randomizing exercise selection and repetition ranges session-by-session in resistance-trained men significantly increases intrinsic motivation compared to fixed exercise protocols, while producing equivalent gains in muscle thickness and maximal strength.

If you are a trained lifter struggling with motivation or adherence, try randomizing your exercise selection and rep ranges using an app or randomizer, keeping volume and intensity (failure) constant. This will likely boost your enjoyment and consistency without costing you any strength or muscle gains compared to sticking to a fixed routine. If your goal is purely maximal strength or hypertrophy and you enjoy your routine, you do not need to vary exercises to see results.

Interrupting prolonged sitting with frequent, low-volume activity breaks (3 minutes of low-to-moderate activity every 30 minutes) significantly lowers fasting glucose and daily glycemic variability in adults with obesity, but does not improve overall glucose tolerance.

If you have obesity and sit for long periods, try breaking your sitting every 30 minutes with just 3 minutes of light activity (like walking or squats). This simple habit can lower your fasting blood sugar and reduce glucose spikes throughout the day. However, do not expect this alone to fix your overall glucose tolerance; you likely need more volume or intensity of activity for broader metabolic improvements.

Increasing the weekly frequency of plyometric jump training sessions leads to larger hypertrophic gains, whereas total training duration, session duration, and total number of jumps per week do not significantly moderate hypertrophy.

To maximize muscle growth from jumping exercises, focus on how often you train rather than how long or how many jumps you do in one session. Aim for more frequent sessions per week (e.g., 3-4 times) rather than fewer, longer sessions. The total number of jumps or the length of the workout does not appear to significantly change muscle growth outcomes.

Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) correlates with blood lactate levels in high repetition resistance training protocols, suggesting RPE can be used as a non-invasive proxy for metabolic stress.

You can use how hard a set feels (RPE) to estimate your metabolic stress. In high-rep sets, if it feels very hard (high RPE), your lactate levels are likely elevated, indicating significant metabolic stress.

Contrave (naltrexone/bupropion) promotes weight loss (~6% TBWL) and may improve fertility by mitigating PCOS and endometriosis effects, though it is less effective than GLP-1 RAs.

Contrave is an oral option for weight loss that targets food cravings and reward pathways. It typically results in about 6% weight loss. It is less potent than GLP-1 injections but may help with emotional eating. You must stop taking it before trying to conceive.

Common genetic variants explain only a small fraction (12-24%) of the variation in fish and EPA+DHA consumption, with non-genetic personal and environmental factors being the principal determinants of intake levels.

Do not rely on genetics to predict or change your fish intake. The study shows that where you live, your culture, and your habits matter far more than your DNA. Focus on modifying your environment (e.g., access, availability) rather than looking for a genetic reason why you can't or won't eat fish.

Verbal instructions directing attention to the triceps (internal focus) significantly increase triceps brachii activation during the bench press, whereas instructions targeting the pectorals do not significantly increase pectoralis major activation.

When performing the bench press, if your goal is to emphasize your triceps, explicitly tell yourself to 'push with your triceps' or 'push your elbows away from each other.' This will increase triceps activation. However, do not expect this instruction to significantly increase chest activation; the chest will work regardless of the instruction. You cannot 'turn off' the chest by focusing on the triceps, nor 'turn on' the chest by focusing on it.

Quitting smoking after a new diagnosis of type 2 diabetes reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality, although the risk remains higher than in those who never smoked.

If you smoke, quit. Even after a diabetes diagnosis, stopping smoking lowers your risk of heart attack and death compared to continuing. While your risk might not drop to the level of someone who never smoked, it is much better than staying a smoker. Combine this with exercise for the best results.

Higher pre-diagnosis physical activity is associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality in postmenopausal women with early-stage breast cancer, but this benefit does not differ based on the number of cardiometabolic risk factors.

If you have had early-stage breast cancer, staying physically active before and after diagnosis is linked to a lower risk of dying from any cause. This benefit appears to apply whether you have metabolic risk factors (like high blood pressure or diabetes) or not. Aim for regular moderate-to-vigorous activity, such as brisk walking or recreational exercise, as measured in MET-hours per week.

Combining direct patient mailings with in-clinic provider referrals significantly enhances the reach and representativeness of primary care behavioral weight loss interventions compared to passive or low-engagement strategies.

To successfully recruit patients into weight loss programs, primary care clinics should use a dual approach: send targeted mailings to eligible patients and actively encourage providers to make direct referrals during visits. This combination is more effective than either method alone, especially for reaching diverse populations. Providers should be supported with easy-to-use referral tools to minimize the time burden and ensure consistent outreach.

Individuals with unhealthy pre-pandemic lifestyle patterns (low diet quality, low physical activity) are more likely to improve their diet quality and lose weight during periods of high lifestyle disruption compared to those with healthy pre-pandemic patterns.

If you currently have unhealthy habits, a major life disruption (like a pandemic or job loss) might actually be the catalyst you need to improve your diet and lose weight, simply because you have more room to improve than someone who was already healthy. Focus on small, sustainable changes to diet quality and physical activity, as these are the key drivers of weight change during disruption.

Programmatic facilitators for SERD adherence include group counseling, emotionally supportive clinical staff, and social network support, while barriers include product unpalatability, unrealistic expectations, and externalized stigma.

To maximize adherence to a SERD, patients should seek programs that offer group counseling, emotionally supportive staff, and a non-judgmental physical environment. Addressing product unpalatability and setting realistic weight loss expectations are key to overcoming common barriers.

Progressive overload in cardiac rehabilitation is achieved primarily through increasing exercise duration rather than intensity, resulting in suboptimal cardiorespiratory fitness improvements.

For cardiac rehab, simply doing more minutes of exercise isn't enough if the intensity stays the same. To improve fitness, you must increase the effort (heart rate/resistance) as you get fitter, not just the time spent. Relying solely on duration leads to minimal fitness gains.

Home-based training (HBT) is an effective alternative to supervised exercise training when SET is not feasible, provided it is monitored.

If you can't go to a supervised clinic, do home-based walking exercises. Start with 20 minutes and build up to 60 minutes, 3 times a week. Use a pedometer, smartwatch, or logbook to track your activity. This is a valid alternative to supervised training.

Higher cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is independently associated with more favorable left ventricular contractility (lower Ecc), independent of visceral fat levels and other risk factors.

Prioritize improving your cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2max) through structured aerobic exercise, not just general daily movement. Higher fitness protects heart muscle function independently of how much belly fat you have.

Prolonged sitting is an independent risk factor for Type 2 Diabetes, cardiovascular mortality, and all-cause mortality.

Break up long periods of sitting by standing or moving for a few minutes every 90 minutes to reduce your risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Lower intertemporal discount rates (higher patience) are associated with the selection of foods with higher nutritional quality, independent of active health consideration.

People who are naturally more patient (low discounters) tend to choose healthier foods. This trait is stable but can be influenced by interventions like episodic future thinking, which asks individuals to imagine detailed future experiences, thereby reducing impulsive choices and promoting healthier diets.

Actively considering health outcomes during food choice leads to longer decision times, increased use of nutrition information, and consideration of healthier product sets, distinguishing it from habitual decision-making.

Healthy choices often require more time and effort than habitual ones. If you find yourself spending more time looking at labels and considering health impacts, this is a sign of active, model-based decision-making that leads to better outcomes. You can facilitate this by using simple visual cues that make health information easy to process, reducing the cognitive load.

Counselor efficiency in providing personalized feedback for technology-based behavioral weight loss interventions increases significantly over the first 9 months, reducing the time required per feedback message from a mean of 53 minutes to 26 minutes, though the absolute time cost (25-30 minutes) remains high.

If you are designing a weight loss program with human coaching, expect the time required to review and respond to participant data to drop significantly after the first 3-6 months as counselors become proficient. However, even with this efficiency gain, the time cost per interaction remains substantial (approx. 25-30 minutes), suggesting that for large-scale programs, hybrid models using automated feedback or peer support may be necessary to maintain cost-effectiveness.

Intermittent diet breaks may reduce psychological disinhibition (loss of control over eating) compared to continuous energy restriction, although this comes at the cost of a longer total intervention duration.

If you struggle with losing control over your eating (disinhibition) while dieting, scheduled diet breaks might help you stay more in control psychologically than continuous dieting. However, this strategy requires 8 weeks to achieve what continuous dieting does in 6 weeks, so you must be willing to extend your total dieting time.

The Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS) provides a more comprehensive clinical management framework than BMI alone by categorizing obesity based on health complications.

Ask your doctor to use the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS) to evaluate your health. This focuses on your specific complications rather than just your weight.

Time-restricted feeding (TRF) and alternative-day fasting (ADF) reduce body weight and improve lipid profiles in NAFLD patients, but TRF offers no additional benefit over daily caloric restriction regarding intrahepatic triglyceride reduction when caloric deficit is matched.

If you have fatty liver, losing weight is the most effective treatment. Time-restricted feeding (eating only between 8am and 4pm) can help you lose weight, but it does not reduce liver fat more than simply counting calories and eating less throughout the day. Choose the method that you can sustain long-term.

Higher baseline physical activity engagement during early pregnancy predicts continued moderate physical activity in the third trimester, regardless of BMI or military status.

If you are pregnant and want to stay active, getting started with moderate physical activity early in pregnancy (before 12 weeks) is the best way to ensure you keep doing it later in pregnancy. Your early habits strongly predict your later habits, more so than your weight or job status.

Athletes who purchase nutritional supplements outside of their athletic department's provided inventory are at significantly higher risk of using non-third-party tested (TPT) supplements compared to those who rely on department-provided products.

If you buy supplements from your school's athletic department, you are statistically much safer regarding contamination risks than if you buy them yourself at a store or online. If you must buy your own, you are at higher risk of using untested products; prioritize finding and ordering from verified third-party tested sources.