#this plus the pod on monday has me going crazy

[shaynetopps]

decided to watch just the intro and shayne’s in it too! bestill my shrevor heart…

[fleetwoodmoth]

Crypt pt. 2

More since this is all I think about anymore

Part 1

Valentine belongs to @silver-handed

Control

River recognized the young detective, Taylor Prince, who exited the hospital room, she had been vying for a detective position before he had left the force and it seemed that she had finally made it. He stood from where he had been sitting beside Valentine, motioning to get her attention. 

“Detective Ward, or rather… Private Investigator Ward,” she said, her voice flat. 

“Detective Prince, congratulations on your promotion,” he said, trying to keep his voice pleasant. 

“Feels more like I’m a glorified errand runner. What do you want?” 

No small talk I see. 

“Has she said anything?” He asked. 

“No, other than asking what her name is. She’s got no memory of anything really, it’d be better to rely on the girl’s testimony,” she said with a sigh. 

River nodded, glancing past her at the room. 

“You can go in,” she said before turning to leave, clearly ready to be done with the conversation. 

River watched as she entered the elevator, he wondered if this nameless woman would even impact Prince. He turned to Valentine, who looked up from where he had rested his head back against the wall. 

“Go home Val, get some rest, I’m going to check in on her, don’t want her being alone in here,” he said. 

The three girls they had found had been reunited with their parents hours before, and NCPD had taken over processing the evidence found where they had been kept. He would need to work on his witness reports anyways, he didn’t want to keep Valentine just to watch him write the same thing over four times. 

“Nah, I’d rather stay here, I told you I’d help you finish the case, and until everything is figured out well,” he shrugged as he stood, pulling on the lapels of River’s jacket, before leaning against him, looking up at the tired PI “I’m all yours.” 

“Thank you,” he said quietly, he didn’t want to admit it but having someone with him was comforting, since he left the force he had to adapt to only having a handful of people backing him up, and Valentine hadn’t disappointed in keeping him company through it all. 

“Don’t have to thank me for something like that,” Valentine said, giving a tug on River’s jacket who leaned down to kiss him. 

“I’m going to check on her,” River continued after they separated, and Valentine could see the tension had been released from his shoulders, ever so slightly. 

“Okay, I’ll be here,” Valentine said. 

River paused before turning, “actually, could you do me a favor?” 

“Sure, what is it?” 

“Can you go get a burger for her? The synth food they serve here is basically scop,” he said. 

“I can do that, I’ll be right back.”

River smiled, giving him a nod before turning to the frosted glass of the hospital room. The lights were off, only the glow of the city could be seen from the hallway. He slid the door open as quietly as he could, knowing that she would probably be up, but he still didn’t want to startle her. The monitors gave off a dull blue light that gave half the room a ghostly atmosphere. She was sitting up in the hospital bed, dressed in grey standard sweatpants and a tank top, she didn’t turn to look at him when he stepped inside. 

“Hello,” he called, pausing for a moment to be sure that she knew he was there before he pulled one of the chairs to the end of the bed, he figured it would be better to give her distance. 

“I bet you’re pretty hungry right now, huh?” He asked after a minute had passed. 

She finally turned to him, fixing him with a stare, large brown eyes unreadable, but at least he got her attention. 

“You like burgers? My uh--” he paused “partner is gonna go get you something,” he finished. 

She didn’t reply, only seemed to observe him, taking in his outfit, he could follow her stare, it went to each place everyone else did. First the eye, then the hand, then the jacket. He was used to it. 

“Can I call you by something?” 

She returned her gaze to his. 

“I know Prince said you asked about it, but I’m afraid none of us have your information.” 

She remained silent. River shifted forward, resting his elbows on his knees, trying to be a less imposing figure. 

“My name is River, if that helps,” he said. 

He expected her to stay silent, maybe ask the same question she had with Prince. 

“I don’t know my name,” she replied. 

River perked up at her voice, it was his first time hearing it after all. 

“Well, what about a nickname then? Until we figure it out.” 

Again there was a pause. 

“I wouldn’t know what to pick.” 

Her voice was flat, but rough, he wondered how long she had been in that coffin. 

“Well,” he thought back to when he found her. 

“Petra means stone? Maybe something like that?” 

She thought about it for a minute before shaking her head. 

“Well, maybe something that starts with a V? That was on your…” He paused, if she didn’t remember her name, then she probably didn’t remember the pod itself. 

“V?” She replied, pulling him from his thoughts. 

“Yeah, ‘Subject V’.”

She seemed to mull it over, and he noticed how she would wrap the edge of the blanket around her fingers as she thought. 

“V then,” she said with a nod. 

River smiled, “nice to meet you, V, that’s gonna get confusing when my partner gets back,” he said half to himself. 

They sat in silence again, but it was at least slightly more comfortable than before. 

“Will you have anywhere to go, y’know, when all of this is over?” He said, gesturing around the room. 

She shook her head, returning her attention back to the edge of her blanket. River didn’t want to overwhelm her, but he figured he needed to get the standard questions out of the way. 

“Is it okay if I ask you some things? I know you’ve probably heard them a few times by now, but I need to make sure, I don’t work with the cops anymore so I need to get my own answers. That make sense?” He asked. 

She nodded. 

“Alright, do you know about the others who were found with you?” 

“You mean the girls?” 

“Yes.”

She shook her head. 

“Okay, what about the lab you were in?”

“Lab?” The question seemed to pique her interest, dragging her away from her fixation for a moment.

“I found you in a lab, underground. NCPD they, well, I didn’t think to mention it to them.”

Really he didn’t want Arasaka to know that he had been poking his nose in a possible abandoned lab and with the way half of the squad was in Arasaka’s pocket, he didn’t feel like it was smart to risk it. She stared at him, but it was like she was seeing something else, something he couldn’t. 

“I-- I can’t,” she whispered, eyebrows pulling together as she tried. 

“Don’t worry about it, really, if you don’t know you don’t know,” he said putting a hand up. 

“How about instead of me asking you questions, why don’t you ask me some, I’m sure you have to be a little lost, maybe I can help,” he said, deciding to put their energy in a different direction. 

She nodded, leaning forward more, the light of the outside world catching on her face, casting a gentle orange glow against her skin. He had a feeling no one had actually asked her something like that so far. 

“What day is it?” She asked. 

“Monday, February 22nd, 2077.” 

She nodded, chewing at her lip as she processed the information. 

“Where are we?” 

“Night City, Free State of Northern California.”

“Why were those girls in there with me?” 

“I can’t answer that, it’s an open case.”

“You said you would answer my questions.”

“Ones that I can, unfortunately if you aren’t involved then I can’t tell you, it could jeopardize the case.”

“I thought you said you weren’t a cop anymore.”

The tone made him smile, it wasn’t intentional, but he liked how she spoke, like she had a vendetta, which meant she had an opinion. 

“I’m not,” he replied. 

She sat back in the bed, looking him up and down again, that same flat tone returning. 

“Do you think I’m crazy?” 

The question caught him off guard. 

“No, why?”

She shrugged “heard one of those…” she twisted the blanket tight around her knuckles “NCPD people, they said I was crazy, making it harder to close the case.”

River frowned, dropping his gaze to the floor, that was like them. 

“Well they were wrong, you’re worth looking after, and figuring out where you came from. I’m sure someone is looking for you,” he said. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” she turned, watching out the window for a minute “I don’t think I’m from this time,” she said softly. 

“What makes you say that?” 

“I can’t… remember.”

He nodded, sure this was more frustrating for her than it was for him. 

“Well, we’ll figure it out.”

She turned back to him and for a moment they just sat together, quiet, she hadn’t been told that before clearly. A knock at the door drew River from his seat, giving her an apologetic smile before going to answer it, on the other side Valentine held up several fast food bags. River put his hand up to stop him before turning back to V. 

“Is it okay if Valentine comes in with some food?” 

After a moment of consideration she nodded.

“C’mon,” River said, turning back to Valentine who followed him in. 

“This is V,” River said gesturing to her “and this is Valentine, who I also call V,” he said with half a chuckle.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Valentine said.

V nodded in response, doing the same to Valentine that she had done to River, taking him in from head to toe, but she stopped when she saw the bags of food. Valentine stepped forward, holding out one of the bags before taking the drink that he had balanced between his arm and his stomach and handing it to her. She took no time in opening the bag and fishing out the burger. 

“I didn’t know if you had any allergies or dietary restrictions or… anything so I got you just something simple,” Valentine said, stepping back and holding out a bag to River. 

“Oh, you didn’t have to get me something,” River said, despite his stomach growling at the smell. 

“What and make her eat alone? Plus you haven’t eaten since before the stake out last night,” Valentine shoved the bag firmly into River’s hands before opening his own, dragging a chair beside him.

“If you don’t mind of course,” he said, turning to V. 

She had already torn open the wrapper and was digging in, her mouth full of food she shook her head before returning to it, absorbed in her meal. Valentine sat down, the three of them silent as they ate, and V wasn’t the only one who was near ravenous, River hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he had the burger in his hands. 

“Do you have someone we can call for you?” Valentine asked after he had finished his meal, collecting the wrappers in his bag as he spoke. 

V who had nearly licked her wrappers clean shook her head “even if I did, I wouldn’t know how to reach them.”

River liked how relaxed she had become from the start of their conversation, whether it was the food or just her taking a liking to them he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t about to question it either. 

“Well there’s gotta be someone who knows who you are.”

“Oh, maybe Arasaka,” River said, remembering the logo that had glowed ominously from the cracked console screens of the lab. 

“What did you say?” 

The energy shifted, all the air felt like it had been sucked from the room at the mere mention of the mega-corp. Valentine had stopped his cleaning, turning to look at River, waiting for his answer. 

“What did you say?” V asked again, but this time her voice was hoarse. 

“Arasaka?” He repeated. 

River’s attention was drawn to the heart monitor as it began to beep quicker, the name had an affect on her clearly. 

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” she said abruptly and River felt his stomach twist, unsure if he had fucked it all up. 

“Okay, we’ll go, thank you for talking to us,” he said, standing slowly, trying not to spook her more than she already was. 

She didn’t say anything to them as they made their way out, didn’t make eye contact either, instead she was back to staring at her hands knotted in the blanket. As the door slid closed behind them Valentine shoved the bags of trash into the can before turning to corner River near where they had been sitting beforehand. 

“Why didn’t you tell me she’s connected to Arasaka earlier?” He asked, although his tone was not accusatory it was clear he was concerned. 

“I didn’t think to, I was going to, I swear it just-- I got so caught up in helping I forgot,” he said sheepishly. 

Valentine nodded with a sigh “well what is this about Arasaka? Talk to me.” 

“I found her in some kind of lab, the other side of that opening was a bunch of panels and servers, I turned on the screen and it had the Arasaka logo on it.” 

Valentine chewed at his lip for a moment, “what kind of tech was down there?”

“Old tech, the oldest had to be from the 20s, maybe 30s, the newer stuff was from the 50s at least. She was in some kind of cryo chamber, like a pod meant to preserve her.”

Valentine’s eyebrows knit together for a moment, clearly this wasn’t normal Arasaka bullshit, especially if it took him by surprise, he had nearly reached the top before he was ‘fired’. 

“I need to see it, can you take me there?” 

“I can tomorrow, NCPD will be all over that place for a while.” 

Valentine nodded “alright, tomorrow then.” 

[gra-sonas]

Michael Guerin's (Michael Vlamis) search for answers about his mother, Nora (Kayla Ewell), leads to quite a few answers in Monday's episode of Roswell, New Mexico.

Not only does he now know that his mother did want him — and wanted to leave with him — but he also knows the identity of the man who was hunting her who was formerly only known as Tripp (Jason Behr). It turns out that he was a Manes man, Alex's great-uncle to be specific. And Alex (Tyler Blackburn) also hands over the piece of the console he had.

Plus, "What if God Was One of Us?" ends with potentially good news regarding Max (Nathan Dean Parsons): his eyes opened in the pod. But what does that mean? Vlamis chatted with TV Insider about all that and more.

Tripp is Alex's great uncle. Alex seems to be the one who struggles with that the most, with Michael saying it wasn't him. Does that still affect their relationship — platonic or romantic — going forward?

Michael Vlamis: Something like that, big news, will always affect the relationship, but at the same time, Alex is a good person, and Michael Guerin believes that and knows that. He thinks he's not like his dad [or] his other family members, and he's really trying to help, and he does have that love for Guerin that Guerin hasn't experienced from many people. No matter how mad you want to be at someone for what their family did, it wasn't him who did it.

Yes, it'll affect the relationship with the news that we know, but at the end of the day, I have belief in Alex as a human being, as a kind-hearted soul, as the guy who gave me his guitar because he saw that my hand was fixed. He's looking out for my best interests, so I just want to be there for him during this time because what I'm going through is similar to what he's going through with struggling with demons from his family members and where he comes from, and does he have this evil inside of him that it seems his other family members have?

I don't want people to think that of me with what my family's gone through and the lies that we've created, so there's a little bit of forgiveness in that. If you take a step back, you really look at people are who they are in the moment and what they're doing now, you can't criticize someone for what someone else did that they had no control over. The two understand that, no matter how difficult that is, and that will help the come together even more.

Alex also gives Michael the piece of the console and admits he was worried he'd leave.

Michael Vlamis: That pissed me off. He's hiding a piece that I've been actively looking for, but how can you blame that on him when — at first, I blame him. I don't like that. It really bothers me … and it surprises me, but after a little self-reflection, after that moment, I know that he loves me, whether it's as a friend now or lover before. It's hard to not be selfish in these situations, and Michael Guerin is an evolved enough person to realize that. Whether he punches people first and asks questions later, eventually he always comes around, because he has a good heart.

Michael finds out his mom was working on a plan to leave with him. How important is that for him considering his past and how does it change who he is going forward?

Michael Vlamis: That's everything because it shows that he was wanted and it gives him a little bit more belief in himself that he wasn't just this runt of the litter that got cast aside. This season's interesting because it's Guerin who doesn't believe in hope, but he continually is given hope and then it's ripped away from him, so that's one of those moments where he's surprised and he feels loved for the first time in a while.

It gives him a chance to think that maybe he does belong, maybe there were people that wanted him out there and that might change his perspective on the world to show him that, that the people in town and Isobel and Max, even though he's gone, those people really did have love for him, and sometimes it's hard for him to accept that love. But he's coming around to it.

At the end of the episode, Max's eyes open, but the logline for the next episode teases, "the discovery of some complications with Max's pod forces Liz, Michael, and Isobel to confront the possibility that they may not be able to save him."

Michael Vlamis: It's a roller coaster ride. Like anything in life, when someone's going through a traumatic event, there's ups and downs, and we are given some hope in the next episode, but it's immediately stripped from us, and the characters almost feel like they need to go back to the drawing board.

Because Max is really gone. I think a lot of people thought that because he's a central character, and it's a big show, that he would come back sooner than he has. But the way that we're operating with the show is he's not coming back, so we get a little bit of hope next episode, but you realize the complications of what we're doing. The truth really sets in, after the next episode, which leads into a really crazy episode for Michael Guerin in Episode 5.

That is Michael Guerin's episode and we get some cool flashbacks of seeing Michael and Max and Isobel's relationship after they lied and the whole town got shook up with supposedly Rosa killing those girls in a drunk-driving accident. It's really cool to see how they went from buddies in high school, when Guerin's going off to college, and then when Guerin doesn't go off to college, how does he treat Max and kind of blames Max for his current situation. We see a lot of that unfold in Episode 5, and I'm really proud of that episode.

Isobel's been having a tough time lately, and we've mostly seen her with Liz. Are we going to see Michael and Isobel touching base?

Michael Vlamis: Oh yeah. Those two characters are kind of the rock for one another. It was always any time Max was pissing Michael off, he would go to Isobel, or Isobel would go to Michael. Isobel's always been the middle person, and right now, Michael is just feeling very secluded. It's easy for Michael to slip into playing the victim card, just because so many things haven't worked out for him, but at the end of the day, Isobel is his best friend. That's one of the few people — aside from Alex and maybe Maria now — that he actually feels he can confide in, so we have some really good moments. We spend a lot of time together as the season progresses.

~ TV Insider

[johnboothus]

VinePair Podcast: The Magic of the Industry Bar

This week on the “VinePair Podcast,” hosts Adam Teeter, Joanna Sciarrino, and Zach Geballe discuss the allure behind industry bars or restaurants. After listing what they have been drinking recently — including birth year wines and top- notch Manhattans — our hosts dive into a discussion on both the positive and intimidating factors of industry bars in light of Teeter’s recent experience at Runner Up, an industry hang in NYC.

Geballe, citing his industry expertise, points to these hangouts as places where industry people gather on Sunday and Monday nights, when bars and restaurants are not typically busy with regular consumers. Our hosts then ponder what a non-industry member’s role is in these often intimidating gatherings and discuss how these establishments can bridge the gap between trade members and consumers.

If you have any thoughts or want to share your favorite industry hangouts, please send them to podcast@vinepair.com.

Listen Online

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Or Check out the Conversation Here

Adam Teeter: From VinePair’s New York City headquarters, I’m Adam Teeter.

Joanna Sciarrino: I’m Joanna Sciarrino

Zach Geballe: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: This is the “VinePair Podcast.” Guys, before we get today’s show going, I think a lot of people who are listeners of the podcast know that we have an amazing trade-focused newsletter called VP Pro. One of the incentives for telling all of your friends about VP Pro is that if you tell enough people about VP Pro, you get to have your own personal shoutout on the pod. One specific person who has done just that is Rob Day, who is the senior director of marketing for Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers in Springdale. He’s told everybody about the newsletter, which is awesome, and gotten a ton of amazing people to sign up. He recorded us a shout-out, and he gets to shout out whatever he wants, so we’re just going to play it. Rob, take it away.

Rob Day: My name’s Rob Day from Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers. From me and everybody at the brewery, we want to shout out VinePair Pro. That’s right, the podcast you’re listening to right now. They do fantastic work and we’re all big fans here at the brewery. Prost!

A: That was awesome.

Z: That is very kind of you.

A: I did not think he would advertise our own podcast, which is pretty sweet. Again, if you also would like to give a shout-out on the podcast, all you gotta do is sign up for VP Pro and forward it to a ton of people, get them to sign up, and maybe you can be doing what Rob just did.

Z: You can shout out someone else if you want.

A: Anyways, Joanna and Zach, it’s been a pretty crazy week. We’re in the thick of August, but what have you both been up to? What have you been getting yourselves into? And Zach, this week we are going to start with you.

Z: Sure. Well, I have been hunkering down, preparing for kid No. 2 showing up. It’s feeling a little more real. We’re getting less than two months until the due date and a month and a half and it’s an interesting thing. The thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot, actually, in wake of this is actually my older child, my son. We’ve talked, my wife and I, since before he was born about getting him a case of wine for his birth year. Now we’re actually at the point wherein 2018, which was his birth year, those wines are readily available on the market. Almost anything we’d want to buy. Honestly, I’m paralyzed. I can’t pick the wines because initially, the thought was, “Oh, we’ll get a case of one wine, and then we can open it over time.” We can open the first one before he’s 21, frankly, maybe when he’s 18, and then open them together as a family over the years. Yet, there’s a part of me that’s thought, “What if we pick something and it’s not great?” Because we’re asking a wine to go a minimum of 18, 20 years. It’s got to go awfully longer, which means a lot of wines aren’t necessarily ones that I would buy and they’ll be expensive. I just don’t want to fuck it up. Then I thought, “OK, maybe we’ll get 12 different wines.” Yet, you open it once and it’s gone and even then you’re still looking way down the road. I think what we’re going to do is get three bottles each of four wines, and that gives us a little more opportunity to get it right. It’s been gnawing at me because I can’t really put it off. I gotta start thinking about baby No. 2 soon enough, so I need to get on this. As of right now, I haven’t done anything. If you guys have any thoughts, listeners as well, email podcast@vinepair.com to tell me what wines I should be buying for my son.

J: That is such a lovely idea.

A: It’s a great one.

J: I wish my parents did that.

A: I find that a lot of wine professionals do it, which is cool. My thought would go for some of the regions that have always been classics. Even when he’s 21, there is a pretty high likelihood that they will still be classics. Then, you maybe throw in a few curveballs that you’re not sure about but things that you’re passionate about like a Xinomavro.

Z: Yeah.

A: Of course, go get some Napa, get some Bordeaux, get some Burgundy, maybe go for the Northern Rhône instead of Southern Rhone. Those will be cool to have and those have always been classic regions. Then, I would just get producers you were excited about now because you’ll get to share them with him and tell those stories. You can share a wine that you were super excited about at this time, so that’s what I would do.

Z: Yeah, I think that’s the tentative plan. As I said, I’ve been holding off because the 2018s that I’d want to keep for 20-plus years aren’t really out yet but now they are. I have to do something!

A: I think it’s a cool idea that I think would be fun. The plan is to give it to him on his 21st birthday?

Z: I don’t know, he’ll probably know it exists, but obviously he won’t get it whenever he wants until he’s old enough. I don’t want to be this person too much but maybe until he’s old enough to appreciate it, so when he moves out or is out of college if he goes to college. Then, he can maybe have control of it.

A: So you’re saying at 35 or something.

Z: Yeah, maybe. I also have a question for both of you. On this topic, I’ve also been thinking about this thing in wine and it’s not just for wine professionals, but for people in general. There’s a certain cachet to birth your wine. Adam, I know you and I share a birth year. So have you had much ’83?

A: First of all, you did not have to shout out that year. You could have said, “Adam, have you had much ’92?

Z: Come on, you don’t want to be that young but I am pretty sure you still want to be in your 20s.

A: I do not want to be in my 20s, no. Those were some fun years, but no. To answer your question, no I haven’t actually. It’s always fun to have but I’m not as excited about it. It’s cool when it happens but I really have no other response.

Z: What about you, Joanna? Whatever your birth year is, you don’t have to reveal. Has that been something you’ve tried, or is there any appeal in that for you?

J: It’s 1988, first of all. Second of all, I don’t think I’ve ever had any wine from 1988, but it does appeal to me.

Z: Gotcha.

J: I like this idea.

A: It’s cool but no one usually shares their ’83s with me. Again, if you’re listening to the podcast and you want to send a 1983 to the VinePair headquarters, I am more than down to accept the delivery.

Z: With an open bottle, just knock on the door.

A: Yeah exactly. I think that’s more of the issue is I have never really come across a lot of it and I’ve never really seen a lot of it. Gosh, Zach, I’m blanking. What is the really cool wine restaurant in Verona?

Z: Oh my God. All our listeners, all the people who would be shouting us out are disappointed.

A: They would say, yeah, he’s an idiot.

Z: I went, I just can’t remember what it was called.

A: Anyways, they have an Armagnac and I’ve had that for my birth year, so that was cool. Again, that’s a very different experience for sure. Usually, when you see an ’83 birth year on the list, it’s hella expensive. I think I only had two wines in my entire life that were my birth year. One was a Rioja that was corked.

J: Oh no.

Z: It’s actually relatively easy to find vintage-year port from a lot of years because not every beer is a vintage year but many of them in the ’80s were. It was for both me and my wife who is not the same birth year as me, although relatively close, we’ve been able to do that, which is cool. Joanna, what have you been drinking? I feel like I hijacked the conversation.

J: No, it’s fine. It’s been a pretty uneventful week for me in terms of drinking but we did visit our friends who are staying out in the Hamptons right now. They just had a baby, and they had the requisite Wölffer Estate Rosé and some Montauk Brewing Company beer, but also their hard seltzer lemonade, which is a new thing. Adam, you mentioned this earlier today in a meeting, but it does seem that even a small brand now has some sort of seltzer lemonade.

A: Totally.

J: It was fine.

A: It’s really interesting. Now, what I find interesting is that it’s a flavor profile people like, but it’s been really hard for a lot of people to get it right. I think that it needs to taste more like a really refreshing lemonade and less like a cloying lemon flavor and or not taste like Pellegrino with a squeeze of lemon, which I think a lot of it also tastes like.

J: Yeah, pretty watery.

A: No one wants watery lemon.

J: Yeah.

A: It’s a hard flavor, but it is clearly something that consumers like. Lemonade has always been popular.

Z: Yeah, listen to our episode about lemonade being super trendy. We recorded that probably like the beginning of the year, I don’t even remember.

A: Trends, we predict them at VinePair.

Z: No, we’re on them. What about you, Adam? What have you been drinking?

A: I did a few cool things over the weekend. I went to this new restaurant in Park Slope called Runner Up, which is the new co-restaurant to this restaurant called Winner that a lot of people wrote about during the pandemic.

Z: Makes sense.

A: Basically, the whole thing is roast chicken, but it has a ridiculous wine list. Actually, it is one of the inspirations for our topic today, so we’ll come back to that. Then, the other thing I did, and it’s been a while since I’ve been here but a friend had their birthday on Sunday, and so he asked Naomi and I if we’d come and get a drink with him on Sunday evening. We went to Clover Club.

Z: Oh.

A: I hadn��t had their Manhattan in a really long time, and it was actually weird. It was really rainy and cold out, which is odd since we’re about to have a heat wave. Yet, all three of us ordered their Manhattan and they do this amazing service with it where it comes with a sidecar and then also a little snack tray of aged Gouda per person because they like the pairing of the Manhattan with the Gouda. It was just so cool and I forgot how they do that. It was fun to have a little nibble of Gouda and then take a sip of your cocktail. It was a fun pairing that I never really thought of before. Again, it was so cool that they were being creative. This is why a bar like this is so great and why everyone’s written about them for so long. They do all of the simple things so well, and they just make great cocktails. They weren’t trying to be super showy. Also, the drinks are very fairly priced for the quality of liquid they put in them. Again, it was just awesome to go back to one of these bars that started, especially in New York, the cocktail movement. And damn, they still got it.

J: I don’t think I’ve ever been served a drink with a specific snack without ordering it.

A: I thought it was super cool. They don’t do it for every drink, obviously, but this one was really cool. Of course, Naomi said, “Oh my gosh, we need to have a dinner party and have the first course of Manhattans and aged Gouda.”

Z: Yeah, no one will ever know where the idea came from unless they listen to this podcast or have been to Clover Club.

A: I don’t know if any of my friends listen to the podcast.

Z: Fair enough. I don’t look disappointed when people I know in the industry who know me well say, “Oh, that podcast, are you still doing that?” Uh, yes. You should be listening.

A: I mean, you guys know that Naomi doesn’t listen to the podcast.

Z: Oh, yeah. Neither does Caitlyn.

A: She says, “Your voice stresses me out.”

Z: Joanna, does Evan listen to the podcast?

J: No, I don’t think he does. Every once in a while, I think he does, and it surprises me.

A: Meanwhile, you guys know my super fans who let me know when you’re talking shit.

Z: Yes, that’s true.

A: What’s up, Keith? Anyway, today’s topic is something I’m pretty interested in which came to me through, as I said, Runner Up. One of the things about Runner Up is that they price their wines extremely affordably. They have these great bottles on the list that they’re barely marking up.

Z: Interesting.

A: When I was asking them why, it sounded like they wanted to appeal to a lot of members of the industry. I thought it’d be a fun conversation to talk about what defines an industry bar or restaurant. What makes a bar or restaurant an industry bar or restaurant, and why would one want to open an industry bar or restaurant? There are obviously lots of reasons, but we’ll kick around what we think those reasons are. As the token member of the industry, Zach, I thought we’d kick it off with you first. What do you think defines an industry bar or restaurant? Why do people want to open them, and what’s their appeal in the first place?

Z: Well, that’s a good question. I think that a precise definition is always going to be a little difficult but to me, in my career, the bars that have tended to be industry hangs have a couple of things in common. One of them is that they are not generally the busiest places. They are busy with industry crowds, but they’re not necessarily going to draw a ton of other diners or drinkers. I found that some of those places tend to be a little bit tucked away, and they’re harder to find. They’re on a weird side street in a downtown area, or they’re just not obvious. That’s part of it but I think what’s also important is frankly, you mentioned this at the beginning, it’s pricing. With industry people, it’s complicated. Certainly, I’ve had plenty of times in my career especially when I was younger, would I have a night where I spent almost everything I made after drinking and eating? Probably. I am not always the greatest for long-term financial outlook, but that’s part of it. You want to feel like you’re getting bang for your buck. Of course, the other big thing is you have to be open late, and you have to be open on nights when people who are in the industry might not be working, so Sunday and Monday nights. That’s when I think you see a lot of industry specials and it can be everything from cheaper drinks, cheaper food. It can be just recognition. I think for so much of it for so many people in the industry, there is a shared sense of an esprit de corps. This idea of whether you’re a bartender at the trendy cocktail bar in the city or you’re a bartender at a hotel bar or you’re a bartender at a dive bar, there are fundamental elements to that job that unites most everyone who does it. You want to hang out with those people who will understand what the job is like and why it’s fun to get together on your days off or after your shift. Mostly, to just bitch about the people you work with and the people you serve, because in my experience, that is most of what happened.

A: Hmm, interesting.

Z: I think what is interesting and I want you guys to start, then I want to come back to this question you posed which is more interesting to me: What is it in for the restaurant or bar?

A: That is what I’m curious about, mostly.

Z: I don’t want to dominate the conversation too much. Do you guys see these things and have you ever tried to go to an industry bar or restaurant on an industry night? Obviously, they don’t check IDs at the door, but it’s a weird night of the week usually.

A: Joanna, what do you think?

J: Yeah, I don’t know. I was thinking about this as well. Adam, you mentioned Runner Up opening with the intent of being an industry spot and Winner, the other restaurant, is very, very popular and is very well regarded in the city. People know about it and it’s always very crowded so I think that if you can afford to open up a second spot where it is just industry, that makes sense to me. Otherwise, I just think of other spots or restaurants in New York City that have become industry hangouts or have been known to be industry hangouts and I think they’re just very successful, popular restaurants and the ones that are hardest to get into.

A: I think it’s an interesting strategy. To be clear, with Runner Up I believe it is part of their strategy. They wanted to be a great neighborhood restaurant, too, it seems. I think when you position yourself as a place that is accessible and encourages industry to hang out, you also position your business in a really interesting way. The main example I can think of is Blue Ribbon, where it became known really early on when they opened as being open late. They were the place that people in New York City went to late at night to still have a good meal when they got off work and still have good wine. I’m not going to say it’s the only thing that’s responsible for their massive success, but I do think when you get industry people to your restaurant, you do open up a lot of connections that can be beneficial for your next restaurant. I think that the entire world is based on networking. I think what we missed during Covid was the ability to network. I think we forgot how powerful face-to-face interaction is. If you and I have had a drink together, I’m much more likely to make an introduction for you or on your behalf than if we just Zoom once in a while, right? That’s just general sales, entrepreneurship, etc. The same is true for restaurants. If the right people start coming into your restaurant who know other people, then potentially when you lose a chef, it’s a lot easier to find another chef because you have industry people coming in. I’m saying this on the part of Blue Ribbon because I think both the owners were not actually chefs, right? They were restaurateurs. I think that there is something there, and I can see it from that business angle. Otherwise, it is interesting because if you’re also an industry place, usually you’re someplace that’s affordable to people who work in the industry because we all know that people who work in the industry, sadly, don’t get paid what they’re worth. They should but a lot of times they don’t. We need to fix that, obviously, post-Covid. Therefore, you also have to be pricing things at a level where you’re able to make money, but you’re also taking care of people in the industry. Now I wonder, financially, is that as easy to do? Then, I hear from some of my friends who work in the industry that they make more money than ever on regular consumer nights. It’s a lot more money and they don’t really discount that much. They have people that come in and want to spend on really nice wine and want to order all the different dishes because they also want to take care of the staff that’s working on that industry night. I’m curious about that, Zach. When I used to go out, was that the case? Were you guys balling out?

Z: Oh, yes.

A: Zach, you have told me stories that you used to go buy multiple bottles of Champagne. I don’t do that ever, so I’m like, whoa.

J: Yeah, I think this is actually a really good point. You talked about it, Adam, as being a thing that you do for connections. It’s probably an ancillary benefit to operators to have that but I think there are other things. If you’re going to be open on Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday night, those are generally pretty slow nights almost everywhere. Unless you’re really, really hot, you’re going to have a slower night. Inverting that and drawing in that industry crowd, especially on those nights and making those really appealing nights for your staff to work because they know that not only is there going to be a lot of business, but people who work in the restaurant industry are going to tip somewhere between very well and comically well. When I would work at places that had those things, those shifts were often the most in demand. People wanted to work Sunday and Monday night because that’s when they would make the most money. The same is maybe true for the restaurant, but even if they’re making equivalent to what they’re making on a Saturday night, obviously that’s a big win if you could do that on a Monday or Tuesday, but also you can just keep your staff happier with that. I also think that part of it is that I often felt that even in places where there wasn’t necessarily a big money night, and even having that crowd in your restaurant — industry people have their issues for sure, but generally speaking, it’s not bad for the restaurant for guests who may be normal diners or drinkers to see those people ordering the third bottle of wine and having a very good time. It creates an environment. We always used to talk in restaurants where you get that first bottle of wine on the table somewhere and everyone else sees it and they go, “Oh, we should have a bottle of wine.” Again, it sets a tone and vibe. Oh, Antica Bottega is the restaurant in Verona that you were talking about way, way before.

A: Yeah, yeah.

Z: That’s essentially an industry hang that most people travel across the ocean to get to, but you go in there and there are bottles everywhere and you would never think of walking in there thinking just to have some water tonight. You wouldn’t go there for that and obviously, that’s an extreme example. That environment and atmosphere helps set the tone for anyone who might just happen to be in Verona and wander in there, they’re going to get very quickly what it’s about. Being an industry hang has that same vibe, frankly, and can help set the tone for a restaurant or a bar either every day or the minimum on those nights that they’re really trying to bring that crowd in. I want to ask Joanna a question and you too, Adam, because I got to this before, but is the term industry hang intimidating or exciting?

J: I think for people outside of the industry, it sounds intimidating and exclusive, but I think in the industry, people probably don’t think anything of it.

Z: But for you, personally, if I were to say, “Hey, I’m in New York visiting, let’s go to this place, I hear it’s a great industry hangout.” Would you say, “I don’t want to go there, am I intruding?”

J: I’d be curious to go there now where I am professionally to see if there are people to have access to or could see what it’s like. But otherwise, it would feel intimidating to me.

A: It’s really interesting that Joanna brings this up, because I 100 percent agree with her. I think as we talk about this now a little bit earlier, too, but I’m curious if Joanna feels the same way I do about this. I’m going to get on the therapy couch for a second.

Z: OK, let’s do it.

A: As journalists, we always feel like we’re posing because we cover the industry and we know it really well, but we know the part of the industry we cover. For example, on Saturday night, I was hanging out with some people in the industry who I know because I had written about them and now one of them has become a friend of mine. They’re talking about wines that they all know because they see these wines via the books that come through and that they taste. I never heard of any of them. They are talking about these wines like they are ubiquitous wines in the New York scene. I think they are but for a certain kind of restaurant that gets to see a certain book and probably even shares wine reps because certain wine reps call on a certain kind of restaurant. I felt like a poser, and that’s where the restaurant industry or shop or whatever can be intimidating. I don’t know, I get that there are certain things or industry “handshakes.” One of the things we wrote about two weeks ago is how the Snaquiri has become an industry handshake where if you’re a bartender and you order a Snaquiri is basically Daiquiri shots that people will order for each other at the bar. It’s a handshake to show you’re a member of the industry. Would I ever order that? No fucking way. I’ve never been behind the stick in my life. I think it’s cool and I’m glad to know about it. If I saw someone else do it, cool. They probably both actually work behind the bar. Now if I did, I’m posing here. Then, I’d have to get this whole conversation about, “Oh, well, I work at VinePair.” We’d talk about VinePair, and I’m sure that they would be super nice to me, but if they ever asked me if I’d ever bartended before, I say no. I think that that’s something that is interesting about that it should be a thing for the industry. Therefore, I don’t think it is so appealing to consumers because of those things, or maybe Joanna and I just feel very similar.

J: Yeah, I’ve seen enough journalists try to sidle up to chefs or bartenders, and it just seems so awkward.

A: Yeah.

J: You just don’t want to be that person.

A: Right, I don’t want to pretend that I do your career. I don’t do your career. I’m a writer and you make amazing drinks or make amazing wine. We both do different things where we circle each other, right? We’re in the same orbit, but I don’t want to ever be thought of as someone that can make a great drink. I would much rather you make me the drink. When I went to Runner Up, they’d ask me what I wanted to drink. I said, “Whatever you guys want to drink, I don’t want to order anything off this fucking list. I don’t want to choose the wine. You are the experts, and I write about it. I love writing about it, but I am not an expert. Please, dear God, for my anxiety, choose the wine.”

Z: I’ve gone to bars, too, that were hangouts for other industries and not the restaurant industry. There was a bar I used to go to a lot that definitely had a restaurant industry hang vibe to it, but it was actually very close to several of the big theaters in Seattle and a ton of theater people came in on their shifts. I loved that, and I’ve always enjoyed the theater. It was cool because you could overhear things and eventually become a regular. Then, you get to know other regulars and talk to them about what their life is like and performing and all that. It was super cool. However, it was also true that I wasn’t going to pretend that because I was in some high school plays, that I know shit about theater. That’s just not me, so I think that there’s a way in which these spaces can be both exclusive, as you mentioned, or at least intimidating. Once I had a kid, my late-night hangs diminished in frequency and intensity quite a bit. I think that inevitably you would, you go somewhere and there would be people there who weren’t in the restaurant industry, who had ended up there for whatever set reasons, including sometimes that they heard it was an industry hang and they liked the vibe or they enjoyed the thought of drinking somewhere on a Monday night that wasn’t empty. The cool thing is we take along whoever happens to be there with us. If you end up in a bar or restaurant on one of those nights, you’re going to be part of the fun, whether you intend to be or not.

A: Yeah, that’s true. Look, when I’ve been invited, it’s always fun to be part of the fun.

Z: You may be doing shots at 1:00 a.m. on a Monday night and depending on your Tuesday plans, that might be a problem, but it’s fun at the moment.

A: I always get to discover cocktails, wines, and beers I’ve never had before, which is really cool.

Z: If you’re hung over in the edit meeting the next day, at least you can say you were doing research.

J: Yeah.

Z: Not that it has happened, I’m sure.

A: Never. At least, not to Joanna or I. Maybe other people.

Z: You don’t have to name names.

A: No, we’re not going to. Anyways, I think that the idea of the industry bar or the industry hang is super cool and I’m hoping that it sticks around even post-Covid, but it seems like it is. It’s such a great example of a robust industry when there are places and people get to go out and they’re excited. I think it’s such a cool thing that really is so unique to the bar and restaurant industry that hopefully it sticks around. If you do find yourself at one, just try to blend in and let them take the lead.

Z: I want to hear from our listeners who have their favorite industry hangs of what they are.

A: Me too.

Z: Email us at podcast@vinepair.com. I think one thing maybe we can do at some point highlight some of these, because it’s such a cool thing to see the breadth and diversity of what becomes industry hangs in different places, whether it’s in New York City, Chicago, Seattle, L.A., or smaller communities. It’s so interesting to see, because sometimes it’s not places you would think. I mean sometimes it’s an intentional thing that’s cultivated by the restaurant or bar, and sometimes it just happens organically, and that’s super cool.

A: I agree. Let us know, it’ll be so awesome to hear.

Z: Yeah.

A: Cool, guys. This has been a great conversation, yet again. Joanna and Zach, we’ll talk next week.

A: Yes, talk to you then.

Z: Sounds great.

Thanks so much for listening to the “VinePair Podcast.” If you love this show as much as we love making it, then please give us a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show.

Now for the credits. VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City and in Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe. He does all the editing and loves to get the credit. Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who is instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: The Magic of the Industry Bar appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/podcast-industry-bar/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/vinepair-podcast-the-magic-of-the-industry-bar

[austinpanda]

Bangor Bound Ch. 9

Monday, Sept. 16 - Tuesday, Sept. 17

So of course I got sick and threw up as soon as I was awake at 6:30 this morning. I believe I’m the next evolutionary step; I don’t have to be awake to be acutely aware that the walls of the garbage masher just started getting closer together. At 6:30 I woke up, and all at once thought, “It’s Monday again, I’m leaving for Bangor in 11 days, I don’t have a place to stay after the first day’s drive, I don’t have a place to stay after the second day’s drive, and I don’t have a place to land in Bangor. And I don’t have half of our money yet, and I have a guy trying to get me to move into his apartment that’s making me VERY nervous. 

Let us start with the guy, because he was most of yesterday, which was Sunday. He’s got a big house with an apartment in it. It has three bedrooms. It’s been professionally cleaned. It has all-new, stainless steel appliances. It’s on a river. It’s beautiful. It’s affordable. It’s almost too good to be true! There are, however, a few red flags. The guy doesn’t do leases. You’re just there month to month, as long as it works out. When I asked him why, he said it was for his protection, in case things didn’t work out. 

More red flags: He doesn’t want any of my information. He never asks for my name, or social security number, or phone number, or work history, or rent references, or anything. He just wants first and last month’s rent. He says a couple of quiet guys with an indoor cat is best for him, because he’s fussy about who he rents to, and doesn’t like children running up and down the stairs, etc. 

More red flags: It’s important that we do the deal quickly, because he has others who are looking at the place. No problems renting it, but it’s losing money as long as he doesn’t rent it. So it’s important that I pay him now. I offer to give him a couple of hundred to hold the place, and he comes back with, “So what do you think? Want to send money ASAP please? Losing money here?”

I think I may be passing up an actual opportunity for something awesome here, but I also think I’m passing up an opportunity for a scary guy to not communicate with me very well, possibly leading to a horrible landlord/tenant situation. And I guaranteed that the situation would have another uncomfortable chapter because I emailed him and said, “Okay, how should I send you the couple hundred?” And then I emailed and said, “nm I’m just going to look for something else, sorry for my confusion, sorry, thank you, bai” And then I got Zach to show me how to block this guy, so I don’t get any other emails from him.

Today, a few things huge things happened in quick succession. 

Zach started a shower. I started house hunting. I thought, “I’ll check Fidelity Net Benefits and see if I can request money from my retirement and roll the rest over today.” Turns out I CAN!!! I’m getting about a quarter of my retirement savings turned into cash, for my move to Bangor, minus a bunch for withholding. The website made it take about five minutes. It’ll be direct deposited. I’m rich, biyatch!! Sort of, kind of, etc.

My next step, and this was both large and heroic on my part, was that I got us a place to land in Bangor. I spent two hours making three hotel reservations. The first is in Nashville, the second in Buffalo, and finally a week at the Ramada in Bangor while we house hunt. This means pretty much all dates have been decided. Here they are:

Wednesday, September 25 - two U-Box pods and some movers arrive at 2:00. They deliver the pods, then fill them with all our stuff. By this time we need to be completely packed. Everything that goes in the pods needs to be ready to move. By the end of this day, we’ll have two full and locked pods in the parking lot, and the only stuff left in the apartment will be that which gets to Bangor in my car. 

Thursday, September 26 - We clean our empty-ass apartment and do whatever final, last-day shit we have to do. Not sure what we’re going to sleep on. The cleaning won’t take long, because...you know...the place is already clean NOW, dammit. :)

Friday, September 27 - We wake up and begin the 13-hour trip to Nashville in my car, Beige Lightning, with my cat, Samuel L. Jackson in the backseat kitty condo I’ve built for his lazy ass. We drive through A large swath of Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee. This is, I predict, the period of greatest police peril. Two gays and an African American cat who’s probably a pot-head, trying to escape The South. Hopefully we arrive in Nashville and acquire our hotel room at the Super 8 by Wyndham Nashville West without incident. This will be the longest leg of the trip. The other two legs will be about 10 hours each.

Saturday, September 28 - We wake up, toss the kitty in the car and begin the second leg of our journey, the one from Nashville, Tennessee to Buffalo, New York. I know a guy in Buffalo who’s gay and would take off all his clothes and rub his bits on me if I asked him nicely! I shan’t, because, you know, that ain’t how my marriage works right at this moment, but it’s still a great feeling, the virtual bit-rubbing (the newest crypto-currency!). We spend the night at the Red Roof Inn Plus+ University at Buffalo-Amherst. And by the way, if they say Plus and use the plus sign, does that make it a minus?

Sunday, September 29 - We wake up, load Beige Lightning, and begin the final leg of our trip, from Buffalo to Bangor. This final leg of the journey will take about ten hours, and the first half will be driving from the far left side of New York state to the far right side. We exit the east side of New York, and enter the west side of Massachusetts. We drive from left to right across Massachusetts, arcing northward, until we hit New Hampshire. We’re in New Hampshire for about 30 seconds--we drive through but a tiny portion of the state--and then we’re in Maine.

By this point in our journey, the fall colors will have arrived in the state of Maine. (I’m paying extra to be certain of this.) So the trees will all be a beautiful multicolored stained glass collage of gold, orange, and red. Everything will look like a postcard. When we drive by a house on the side of the highway, it will be quaint, and rustic, and have pumpkins out front, along with that corn where the kernels are all different colors. And little gourd things. Many of the towns we drive through will be in the middle of their annual harvest festival and parade. For a brief period, my car will become part of the parade, and when the people see from my license plates that I’ve just come from Texas, they’ll throw mardi gras beads, and candy, and poutine into my car, as a way of saying, “Welcome!” 

We arrive in Bangor. Time stops for a few seconds when we drive over the line, while all the time lines readjust, and the city expands to accommodate two chunky white guys and their cat, and this is when the first snowfall begins. We’re not going to be driving a moving truck, and Beige Lightning is sporting brand new tires, so a little snow won’t imperil us. We check in at our hotel, Ramada by Wyndham Bangor, the hotel with the shortest damn name in the whole world, only four words. I’ve pre-paid for 8 days at this place. And we’ll unload the car in a gentle snowfall, while the cat’s eyes become enormous with awe. 

I sincerely wish we could have a home already there to move into, but the way in which we’re doing it has a couple of advantages. I won’t be at the mercy of crazy no-lease guy. I’ll be able to house hunt while actually there in Bangor, so we can visit places, and speak to people directly. I predict house hunting will require more effort, but produce better results this way.

Me:  Give me an apartment!

Then: But you aren’t employed!

Me: I know. (whipping out bundles of cash) Will MONEY help fix that?  Mwahahahaha!

And finally, one reason why I don’t mind spending three days driving to a state I’ve never visited before, with no home to move into once I’m there, is because...part of what makes this a legitimate adventure is the fact that its conclusion contains some degree of uncertainty. Yes, it’d be nice to drive there with all our plans set and all our questions answered, but that’s inconsistent with reality, and robs you of the growth you experience through facing your fear and surviving the adversity. It’s not that it has to be scary or it doesn’t count. It’s that, if you had to do it while scared, at least it’s a greater accomplishment. And that, I hope, will feel good forever.

[theonyxpath]

Autarkis Grudge from Prince’s Gambit by Michael Gaydos

  Yes, we’re getting all crazy here at the end (or at least the end on Thursday) of the Prince’s Gambit casual card game Kickstarter, and we’re thrilled with how well it has gone so far! As I mentioned at the start, this is a very different kind of KS if only because it is a card game, and we’ve never done one of them on KS before!

So seeing how this KS compares and contrasts to our Deluxe KSs has been fascinating and we haven’t yet seen the end. The price point being so much lower ($19 plus shipping for the deck), shipping being estimated until we add it after the KS in BackerKit, it not being like VtES or other familiar cards games from the original WW days; all of these and more have provided interesting responses and data that we know we’ll be able to use in the future.

The Kickstarter is over on Thursday- so pop in if you can – it’s a really fun game and you can even watch Eddy and Justin and friends play through it at this link: https://youtu.be/4eZT40BlavE

    Beckett’s Jyhad Diary illustration by Sam Araya

    We’ve been asked about this, so I was thinking it would be helpful to let you folks in on how Onyx Path has evolved these past five years, and particularly in terms of how we’ve improved our internal processes. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but maybe not with quite this emphasis on what happens behind the scenes.

For example, before our Office Manager, LisaT, was hired, I was the person getting in the freelance creator pay sheets as submitted by the art director and all our developers. Then it would take me a solid day to go through the sheets, find errors or other questions that needed answering, and get replies and write out all the checks. As you might imagine, trying to keep those two dozen+ payments straight and accurate every couple of weeks took up a lot of my bandwidth, but I stayed on top of it as best I could and made sure that even if I rolled late I always got the checks out.

Now, we have LisaT, who was hired specifically to make sure we didn’t let any freelancer linger unpaid as we grew and had more and more creators contracted, and the payments are happening much more smoothly even as their number every couple of weeks has greatly grown.

Similarly, Rollickin’ Rose Bailey was brought on to help our developers manage and complete their projects as we revitalized the Chronicles of Darkness lines with 2nd Editions and reactivated the WoD lines with the 20th Anniversary Editions. That’s a lot of lines just there, nevermind Exalted, Scion, Scarred Lands, Trinity Continuum, and Pugmire and Cavaliers of Mars.

We could only grow as we needed to because Rose stepped up, and even with her there helping on the development, writing, and editing side, I realized we needed another Onyx Path staff member in there connecting that work with finished books and projects getting into the right sales venues, and we were lucky to get Mighty Matt McElroy to come onboard late last year.

    V20 Dark Ages Companion art by Felipe Gaona

    One of the very first things we three did together was to reconfigure our freelance writer pay rates by removing the 5 cents a word pay rate cap that had been in place for over a decade as a legacy of the original WW days. We could do that because we had grown as we needed to during the first five years, even if it was a clunky and inelegant growth process.

For developers, we scrapped the old model, also a holdover from old WW, of paying by the word, and instituted a single amount by project. Bonus amounts are now added for such things as if it’s a core book or we know we’ll need the developers to contribute to the Kickstarter.

For any of our freelancers, we also have created several different payment options, in terms of method of pay and the timing of when folks are paid.

We could make these changes, now that we can afford them, because of the oversight LisaT, Rollickin’ Rose and Mighty Matt can give to making sure these process changes actually work as intended. Which is, primarily, as an increase in the financial reward in working on these amazing projects.

Make no mistake, I’m not saying these changes will let our freelancers quit their day jobs, as we are still trying to make things work in the tabletop RPG biz mostly. But we have slowly built up the business so we’re at the point that we can replace legacy processes that I brought into Onyx Path from old WW (because I knew how all the pieces worked, and could be managed by a one or two man company).

BUT: even with all the above in place, if you have been unpaid for work you have completed for us under contract, I absolutely want you to know you can contact me directly at richt@theonyxpath.com. We have a great team, but mistakes happen, so I’m here to help.

    M20 Book of Secrets art by Ken Meyer, Jr.

    Another thing our great team here was able to do is to put together a plan to get more Exalted 3rd material flowing again!

We’ve got the first batches of releases to be released as monthly mini-releases in progress, as noted in the Project Progress list below, and a couple of tasty excerpts from upcoming books.

This week, our EX3 devs, Robert Vance and Eric Minton, have provided an excerpt from Arms of the Chosen. I give you: Gnomon, the Starmetal Wrackstaff Artifact: http://ift.tt/2nXg2Qa

Enjoy!

      BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER!

The Prince’s Gambit casual vampire card game Kickstarter is entering it’s final nights! We’re almost at the Stretch Goal for adding new art and then come the Assamites, and we’re hoping the 48 hour push gets us even to more cool rewards! So please check it out: http://ift.tt/2nj37GG .

Designed by long-time Vampire: the Masquerade tabletop RPG developer Justin Achilli, Prince’s Gambit is a fast-paced social deduction game set within the world of Vampire, but which requires no special knowledge to play. Players must cooperate to gain the favor of the Prince while deducing who among them are secretly the traitorous Sabbat infiltrators.

Next, the Monarchies of Mau KS is scheduled to come after Gambit.

  ON SALE!

    Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://ift.tt/1ZlTT6z

You can now order wave 2 of our Deluxe and Prestige print overrun books, including Deluxe Mage 20th Anniversary, and Deluxe V20 Dark Ages!

      Night Horrors: Conquering Heroes for Beast: the Primordial, PoD and PDF versions going on sale Wednesday!

This book includes: 

An in-depth look at how Heroes hunt and what makes a Hero, with eleven new Heroes to drop into any chronicle.

A brief look at why Beasts may antagonize one another, with seven new Beasts to drop into any chronicle.

Rules for Insatiables, ancient creatures born of the Primordial Dream intent on hunting down Beasts to fill a hunger without end, featuring six examples ready to use in any chronicle.

    From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: Beneath the Skin (Demon and Skinchangers 1486-1502 Aztec Empire). Ahuitzotl sits on the throne at the height of the Aztec Empire, overseeing his sorcerer-priests’ sacrifices and the endless flower wars his jaguar and eagle warriors carry out in his name to keep the altars well-supplied with victims. The gears of the Aztec Empire turn smoothly and inexorably, but not everything is what it pretends to be. Skinchangers take the shapes of animals to run the wilds or bring down human prey, the Unchained cobble together identities from stolen lives, and stranger things still lurk in the deserts and jungles beyond the walls of Tenochtitlan.

On sale in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2p79i1O

  From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: Into the Cold (Demon: the Descent 1961 Berlin). East Germany erects a wall against its Western counterpart, turning West Berlin into an island within its own country. As the Cold War heats up, demons find themselves the targets of increasing human scrutiny, and begin to realize that the God-Machine’s plans didn’t end with the War.

On sale now in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2p70sBl

      The splendor and horror of Rio is unwrapped! Cursed Necropolis: Rio for Mummy: the Curse is on sale in PDF and PoD versions: http://ift.tt/2oJqhnU

Beneath the splendor of Rio de Janeiro seethes a hotbed of occult activity. Over a score of mummies keep their tombs in Rio, their presence seeping into the soil and stones and souls of the city. Over all this reigns the infamous Teshra-Gemet, the pretender Pharaoh.

The city of Rio births marvels both bright and dark… and you never know which kind you have until it’s too late.

Cursed Necropolis: Rio contains:

The secrets and schemes of Rio’s Arisen.

New Utterances, from the perception usurping Horse and Rider to the cleansing fire of Baal’s Due.

“The Serpent’s Tooth,” an all-new adventure to introduce players to the conflicts and power plays of Rio de Janeiro.

      Beasts are added to Hunter: the Vigil with Hunter: Tooth and Nail, coming atcha in PDF and physical book Pod versions on DriveThruRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2nwetoP

Tooth and Nail is a bonus chapter/companion book to the previous released Hunter: Mortal Remains that explores antagonists inspired by the Beast: the Primordial RPG.

Hunter: Tooth and Nail includes:

Fiction and story hooks to bring these beasts of legend to your Hunter: The Vigil chronicle.

New bestial Dread Powers.

New Compacts and Conspiracies which hunt the monsters, but also sometimes hunt the zealous heroes that hunt as well.

      The Secrets of the Covenants for Vampire: the Requiem 2nd REVEALED this Wednesday on DTRPG! Physical copy PoD version coming to DTRPG: http://ift.tt/2gbQjus

Vampires gather under many banners. But five have endured the tumult of Western history better than any other. The Carthian Movement. The Circle of the Crone. The Invictus. The Lancea et Sanctum. The Ordo Dracul. Each has its fierce devotees, its jealous rivals, and its relentless enemies. Now,for the first time, the covenants speak for themselves.

This book includes:

A variety of stories from each of the covenants, all told in their own words.

Never-before revealed secrets, like the fate of the Prince of New Orleans.

New blood sorcery, oaths, and other hidden powers of the covenants.

    From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: Fallen Blossoms (Hunter 1640-1660 Japan). Japan is moving into the Edo Period. New laws and new ways of thinking wash over the land, and with a new order come new threats to humanity. Take a look at the Vigil in a time where samurai transition from warlords to bureaucrats, Japan massively and lethally rejects outside influence, and when Edo rapidly grows into a world power.

Continuing our individual Dark Eras chapters, we offer you Dark Eras: Fallen Blossoms on in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2mfc1F1

    From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: Doubting Souls (Hunter 1690-1695 Salem). Immigrants and tribes struggled to co-exist on the Eastern Seaboard in the ever-expanding Colonies. Violent clashes, supernatural beliefs, and demonic influences spelled disaster for Salem Village and its surrounding towns, while others fought werewolves and vampires on the frontier. With so much at risk, only god-fearing men and women were deemed innocent — and those were few indeed.

Available in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG: http://ift.tt/2kKOrfm

    From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: The Bowery Dogs (Werewolf 1969-1979 NYC). New York City in the 1970s. Crime. Drugs. Gang violence. Vast economic disparity. And werewolves. It’s a lean, ugly time to be alive, and the lone wolf doesn’t stand a chance out there. In the end, all you really have is family.

Available in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG: http://ift.tt/2lM0Tzv

    The Locker is open; the Chronicles of Darkness: Hurt Locker, that is! PDF and physical copy PoDs are now available on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2gbM9me

Hurt Locker features:

Treatment of violence in the Chronicles of Darkness. Lasting trauma, scene framing, and other tools for making your stories hurt.

Many new player options, including Merits, supernatural knacks, and even new character types like psychic vampires and sleeper cell soldiers.

Expanded equipment and equipment rules.

Hurt Locker requires the Chronicles of Darkness Rulebook or any other standalone Chronicles of Darkness rulebook such as Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken, or Beast: The Primordial to use.

    From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: Ruins of Empire (Mummy 1893-1924). Perhaps the quintessential era of the mummy in the minds of Westerners, this period saw the decline of the two greatest empires of the age: British and Ottoman. Walk with the Arisen as they bear witness to the death of the Victorian age, to pivotal mortal discoveries in Egypt, and to the horrors of the Great War.

Available in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG. http://ift.tt/2k0XDhX

    From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: The Sundered World (Werewolf and Mage 5500-5000 BCE). At the birth of civilization, in the shadow of the Fall, the Awakened stand as champions and protectors of the agricultural villages spread across the Balkans. In a world without a Gauntlet, where Shadow and flesh mingle, the steady taming of the world by humanity conflicts with the half-spirit children of Father Wolf.

Available in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG. http://ift.tt/2k16mRj

      CONVENTIONS!

Discussing GenCon plans. August 17th – 20th, Indianapolis. Every chance the booth will actually be 20? x 30? this year that we’ll be sharing with friends. We’re looking at new displays this year, like a back drop and magazine racks for the brochure(s).

In November, we’ll be at Game Hole Con in Madison, WI. More news as we have it, and here’s their website: http://ift.tt/RIm6qP

        And now, the new project status updates!

    DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Monarchies of Mau Early Access (Pugmire)

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

DtD Night Horrors: Enemy Action (Demon: the Descent)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Arms of the Chosen (Exalted 3rd Edition)

We were going to list Adversaries of the Righteous (EX3 Antagonists) and Hundred Devils Night Parade (EX3 Bestiary) here but since we’re doing monthly small releases with them, we figured that would just get annoying and confusing. So this week, they go here, but after that they just exist.

  Redlines

Kithbook Boggans (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

  Second Draft

V20 Dark Ages Jumpstart (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

Pugmire Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers (Pugmire)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Scion: Origins (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

  Development

W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

SL Ring of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Ring of Spiragos (5e – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

SL Dagger of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Dagger of Spiragos (5e– Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

Book of Freeholds (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

BtP Beast Player’s Guide (Beast: the Primordial)

M20 Cookbook (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

CtD C20 Jumpstart (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

VtR Half-Damned (Vampire: the Requiem 2nd Edition)

  Editing:

Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition

BtP Building a Legend (Beast: the Primordial)

  Post-Editing Development:

  Indexing:

      ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Beckett’s Jyhad Diary – Waiting on the remainder of the art.

W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook – AD’d

Dagger of Spiragos  

VTR: Thousand Years of Night – Contracted

Cavaliers of Mars – AD’d(ish)

Monarchies of Mau Early Access – Sketches incoming. Got McEvoy’s finished piece in.

BtP Building a Legend – AD’d

Wraith 20 – AD’d

W20 Changing Ways

Ex3 Monthly Stuff – AD’d

  Marketing Stuff

  In Layout

Prince’s Gambit 

M20 Book of Secrets – Layout in progress.

Pugmire Screen – Doing up the front.

Pugmire Cards – Done, waiting for format from printer.

Pugmire – Prepping files for press.

M20 Art Book – Still in the queue…

  Proofing

C20 – 2nd proof.

V20 Dark Ages Companion – Sending to WW for approval.

CtL Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology – At WW for approval.

M20 Book of Secrets

  At Press

Ex 3 Screen – Shipping almost completed.

Ex 3 core book – Shipping almost completed along with map and bookmarks.

W20 Shattered Dreams – Shipping almost completed.

Shattered Dreams Screen – Shipping almost completed.

Beckett Screen – Shipped to shipper.

Beast Conquering Heroes – PDF and PoD going on sale this week on DTRPG.

Dark Eras: To the Strongest – PoD proof on the way.

Dark Eras: Beneath the Skin – PDF and physical book PoD on sale!

Dark Eras: Into the Cold – PDF and physical book PoD on sale!

V20 Lore of the Bloodlines – PoD proof ordered.

Dark Eras Companion – Files uploaded and processing.

W20 Song of Unmaking – Inputting errata.

EX3 Tomb of Dreams Jumpstart – PDF out to backers.

C20 Anthology – Out to backers, gathering errata.

      TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: US Tax day! Celebrate through your tears if you are from the US! Celebrate not paying our taxes if you are not!

[almajonesnjna]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[joshuabradleyn]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[neilmillerne]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[johnclapperne]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[albertcaldwellne]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[ruthellisneda]

Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage

What the #$%@ is body fat percentage?

What’s a good amount of body fat to aim for?

How the heck do I figure it out how much I have?

Body fat is an incredibly tricky subject – it’s tough to calculate, tough to track, and most people are way off in their estimates of what they think their body fat percentage is.

As Kanye West once famously declared, “that right there could drive a sane man berserk.”

Luckily, you’re reading Nerd Fitness, which means you’re smart, funny, good looking AND modest.

You also understand that this is one of those things that you should probably know something about.

And since we’re talking about a dry, relatively scientific subject here, you’ll be rewarded with cute animal videos at the end of each section so you don’t fall asleep or get bored. Because I’m nice like that 🙂  

A quick note: I bet you’re reading this because you’re interested in LOSING body fat – crazy guess, I know!

If you have been struggling with your weight (and having too high of a body fat percentage) for a while, I know how frustrated that can be. There’s so much trial-and-error that goes into losing weight, and it’s tough to know if you’re doing the right thing!

We’ve been helping busy people like you get in shape through our popular 1-on-1 Online Coaching program, and it might be something for you to consider if you’re looking for expert guidance, instruction, and accountability (and no judgment)!

If you’re interested, you can schedule a free consultation with Team Nerd Fitness to see if coaching is a good fit for you by clicking on the image below:

Fair warning: lots of half-naked people of all different levels of body fat in this article!

What is body fat percentage?

In its simplest form: body fat is the amount of fat in your body, compared to everything else.

Everything else includes your organs, muscles, bones, tendons, water, and so on.

Both men and women carry different amounts of body fat percentage due to…you know…being different.

A super ripped male body builder who is minimizing body fat percentage could have a percentage down as low as 3-4%, while a super ripped female bodybuilder who is minimizing body fat percentage would only get as low as 8-9%.

A male athlete could be in fantastic shape and have 10% body fat, while a women at comparable  level of athleticism and appearance might be at 18-20% body fat.

To take the comparison to the other end of the spectrum, an overweight male at 30% will look vastly different than an overweight woman at 30%.

Feel free to take a break with this video of a lion cub hanging out with a puppy and a rabbit.

What do these amounts look like?

Below, you’ll see images of what people look like with different amounts of body fat.

Men:

Women:

A quick note: your body fat percentage is just the amount of body fat  you have; it has nothing to do with the amount of muscle mass you have, which means you can have two people with the same amount of body fat percentage that look WAY different from each other.

Are you surprised about what you thought and what the actual percentages look like?

If so, don’t worry about it – most people have no idea what their body fat percentage is, and will often over or underestimate it pretty dramatically.

We’ll get into what’s a good number to AIM for, and how to measure it next.

After you watch this video of a baby sea otter trying to sleep on mom:

What’s a good amount of body fat to have?

Here is the “generally accepted” chart for women and men when it comes to body fat percentage:

Women

Men

Essential fat

10-12%

2-4%

Athletes

14-20%

6-13%

Fitness

21-24%

14-17%

Acceptable

25-31%

18-25%

Obese

32% plus

26% plus

In what I’m sure is news to nobody, body fat is essential to survival – fat protects your internal organs, provides you with necessary energy stores in times of peril, and more.

“Essential fat” means the minimal amount of fat required for survival – Anything less than this amount would mostly likely result in organ failure, but even approaching this amount of body fat is dangerous.

It’s for this reason that bodybuilders, who can minimize their body fat to the “essential fat” level only do so when prepping for a show – during the rest of the year they maintain a higher body fat percentage so that they can stay healthy and function properly.

If you are looking to have that “ripped” look (dudes) and “toned” look, you’ll want your body fat percentage to hover in the “athletes” section.

If you’re just looking to get healthy and look in the mirror with pride, you can aim for the fitness range.  Once you get into the upper ends of “acceptable” and “obese,” a decrease in body fat percentage would benefit your health.

Now, I’m going to GUESS you’re reading this article because you’re interested in reducing your body fat percentage.

If that sounds like you, and you want to skip the confusion, remove the guesswork, and just be told exactly what to eat and how to train your goals, check out The Nerd Fitness Academy, which has helped 35,000+ students reduce their body fat percentage, get strong, healthy, and happy.

Let’s get back to goal setting. For starters, you need to determine what’s an optimal goal for you:

If you are trying to look like Ryan Reynolds or Jessica Beil in Blade III, good luck! You’ll need to aim for a body fat percentage of 6-8% (men) or 13-15% (women). Note: your athletic/strength gaining performance will most likely suffer at this percentage, and can be really really challenging to maintain. Your call.

If you are interested in getting that coveted six pack, drop your body fat down to the 8-11% range for dudes and 15-17% range for women.

If you are an athlete and interested in optimal athletic performance, aim for a body fat percentage around 15% (men) or 20% (women). NF team member Staci trains much better at 20% body fat than at 15% body fat.

If you are just interested in looking pretty good and feeling pretty good, anything less than 18% for men and anywhere in the 20-23% range for women should get you the “hey, lookin pretty good!” response from your friends.

Ladies: if you are concerned about menstruation or fertility, it has been said not to drop below 15% body fat.  Although I can’t find any studies that definitively refutes or proves this, it’s just something I wanted to point out so you can be aware. Your results may vary!

Hey, you’re still awake!

You’ve unlocked the “cute baby pigmy goat jumping around” video:

How do you calculate or Measure your body fat percentage?

This question I get asked above ALLLLLL others.  

There are seven main methods that you can use, each with varying levels of accuracy and cost: 

1) Take a Look – This might be my favorite method, although it requires a trained eye and isn’t exact. By having an accurate progression of pictures from week to week and comparing a picture of yourself, you can determine somewhat closely what your body fat percentage is.

Make sure to note the difference in the two men, both at 10% body fat further down the page.

2) Body Fat Calipers – Pick up a set of calipers for $5. Pull the fat away from your muscles, pinch them with the caliper, take the measurements, and look at a chart to figure out your body fat percentage. Some recommend using one test site, some multiple.

In my experience, I have found that these calipers tend to slightly underestimate body fat percentage (mine tell me that i’m 9 or 10% when I’m really 12%, and Staci’s say she’s 17% when she’s more like 20%), but are surprisingly accurate considering how cheap they are.

However, the accuracy isn’t as important as the fact that you pinch and measure the same area, under the same conditions, from week to week. By doing so, you can track overall trends in how the measurement changes to make sure you’re on the right path.

3) The measurement method – By taking measurements (like the US Navy measurement or the YMCA measurement), you can calculate your body fat percentage. I have found, as have others, that this method isn’t incredibly accurate as it can very easily overestimate your body fat.

Considering it only takes a few points of data, this is not surprising.

4) Body fat scales and monitors  – An electrical current is sent through your body and uses “biometrical impedance analysis.”  I don’t really like this method, as I find the number that it spits out can be horribly inaccurate.

Because they send an electrical current through your body, the amount of water you are carrying can drastically adjust this number too.

5) The Bod Pod – The method calculates your body fat percentage by using air displacement to measure your body mass, volume, and density.  This is also pretty darn accurate, but also pretty darn expensive at usually around $75 per session. Find a bod pod location by putting in your location in the right hand column.

6) Water displacement – Although very accurate (within 1-3% percent), it’s expensive, tedious, and a huge pain in the butt.  If anybody has any experience with a water displacement test, please share your story in the comments.

7) DEXA Scanning– This is considered the most accurate method, as it actually takes a full dual X-ray of your body composition and gives you numbers. You can get this done at a health facility, and involves you lying on an X-Ray table for about 10 minutes. It’s typically expensive, anywhere from $50-150 per session depending on where you are located.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are going to start testing your body fat percentage, do whatever you can to test yourself under the same conditions each and every time.

For example: every Monday morning, on an empty stomach, while drinking a single glass of water. This way, even if you’re not getting the correct body fat percentage (due to user error), you’ll at least get a consistent incorrect body fat percentage and can calculate how much you lost or if you are progressing in the right way.

“Steve, just tell me the best method!”

If you have the money, and you have a Bod Pod center close to you, then I’d say this would be the best combination of practicality and accuracy.

If you don’t have the money, then I would go with a simple body fat caliper, along with the “take a look” method of taking weekly photos. Take a photo of yourself each week and compare the photos week to week to see if you can notice more definition in your muscles (which happens when you start to reduce your body fat percentage!).

Here’s the thing with body fat percentage: although it’s fun to know and fun to see it getting lower as you get leaner, methods to track it can often be inaccurate. Take multiple tests with your preferred methods and understand that even then it might be off by 1-3% in either direction. So, track overall TRENDS and go off how you look, and that will get you 95% of the way there.

It comes down to this: Look in the mirror: do you like how you look? Awesome. DON’T like what you see?

Follow the advice in the next section.

Another section, another reward.  You’ve unlocked the “baby otter attacks a stuffed animal walrus” video:

What’s the best way to lower body fat percentage?

Alrighty! Let’s say you’re interested in dropping your body fat percentage, like my childhood friend Saint above.

Staci here also followed the principles of Nerd Fitness to get her results and significantly reduce her body fat percentage:

I’m sliiiiiightly biased, but both Saint and Staci, along with 35,000+ other students, reduced their bodyfat percentage by following the methods in the Nerd Fitness Academy.

As you’ll read below, the biggest piece of the puzzle to getting to a low body fat percentage is having the right nutritional strategy of consistent caloric restriction, the right mental attitude, a supportive network of people to help you, and a plan to follow.

We know how tough it can be to change your diet. If you’re not sure what to eat, or you’re sick of trying a diet only to give up a few weeks later, I got you covered.

It’s something I’m really proud of, and I know it’s helped a lot of people: our 10-level Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet. Pick the level you’re comfortable with, stick with it for at least 2 weeks, and then level up when ready and follow the next level! Simple.

Grab your cheat sheet free, along with 4 other free guides, when you sign up in the box below – I’m confident it can help you reduce your body fat percentage permanently.

I can’t teach you everything in a quick article, though I can absolutely give you some overall tips and tricks below to get you started.

Here are the Nerd Fitness methods we recommend to get down to a lower body fat percentage.  

Note: these are JUST suggestions, your results may vary!  

If you only want to drop a few percentage points (to a healthier weight), you can start with the advice at the top, and work your way down towards the bottom as you get lower and lower – the closer you get to single digits (dudes) or low double digits (ladies), the more strict you need to be with your diet and training.

1. Eat a caloric deficit – Although I believe there is more to it than just this, in order to lose weight, you need to be eating a caloric deficit – burning more calories than you consume consistently. If you are not strength training while eating a caloric deficit, you will most likely be losing muscle along with fat, which is not optimal but will help you lose body fat.

2. Lift heavy things – When you strength train with heavy objects (or with intense body weight training), you get stronger and keep the muscle mass that you already have.  On top of that, you also push your metabolism into an “afterburner” effect which burns extra calories even after you are done working out.

3. Incorporate Sprints into your off days – When you run sprints, you create a similar afterburner effect with strength training, meaning extra calories burned after the completion of your workout.

4. Consume enough protein, try your body on low carb or low fat – Set your caloric intake to be low enough that your body must pull from fat stores to fuel itself, resulting in fat loss. I’d recommend consuming enough protein to keep your muscles growing and rebuilding, while determining what’s best for your body to make up the rest of your calories each day: many people work better on a low carb diet. Others (like myself) can lose weight faster on a low fat diet. Your results may vary.

5. For many people, this would mean a diet that resembles the Paleo Diet – I am biased here, but this is the diet that I follow whenever I need to drop weight. It’s also the top level in the NF Academy with regards to effectiveness, but also difficulty to maintain.  I recently dropped from 13-14% down to 10-11% for a vacation. I had only followed this plan for three weeks (heavy strength training, Paleo Diet, and working out in a fasted state). As you start to decrease your bodyfat percentage, you need to be more and more diligent and disciplined. By the time you are aiming for ‘shredded’ look, you’re going to be eating almost exclusively protein and vegetables. If you aren’t losing weight, then you are overeating (see point #7).

Many have found tremendous success with the Keto Diet too, a diet that requires extensive tracking and discipline.

6. Work out in a fasted state, consider intermittent fasting – Although..

http://bit.ly/2oLRPYL

[becauseiamnotanelephant]

They said I was crazy. Definitely possible.

I got up at 5 today. That’s the earliest I have been up for this whole trip and the only day I got to chose the time to get out of bed. It’s going to be an Aviva sort of day.

All packed up, I checked my luggage at the front desk of the hotel, booked a cab for later tonight, made a stop at the ATM, and then walked to the metro station, about 20 minutes away. It’s definitely Monday; I was walking against the commuter crowds getting off the train. The metro here is great, easy to use, cheap, clean, and you get great views along the way, but the way in which people use it is a little wacky. At every station I have been at, no matter the time of day, there are tremendous queues of people waiting to buy a ticket. You have to imagine most people using the metro are locals who could buy weekly or monthly tickets, so this baffles me.

I waited in the queue with everyone else and then made my way to the Caribe station, where I transferred to the bus station. Similar in many ways to the Port Authority except I have no idea what anyone is saying. Luckily I had done some research beforehand so I knew which ticket window to use, and bought a ticket to Guatape. I am attempting this trip on my own, which costs about a fifth of the price of a guided tour but will be more than five times the adventure. 

I get on the bus at the noted location, and see two French guys on the bus, too, which is a good sign that I am in the right spot. Mind you, this is not NJ transit, this is a 20-person bus that locals take as a cheap way to get around the countryside and between towns up in the hills and the city. Chinatown bus-esque, but very different. A man brought 50 eggs on the bus with him to bring home, and three other guys got on with machetes. I asked the guy next to me if this bus was going to Guatape. No, he said, its the bus next to this one. This was strange, since the bus was in the slot I was directed to, but I was somewhat relieved to get off the bus with fellow passengers carrying machetes. 

I got off the bus and onto the other, asked if this was the bus to Guatape. No, they said, it’s the one I was just on.

And so it begins.

I get off the second bus and go back to the first bus and the driver says something I can’t pretend to understand, and then gets in the bus and backs out of the spot to leave. And then pulls into the spot adjacent to it. Fucker parked in the wrong spot. Of course I will get on the wrong bus. 

French boys have gotten off the bus at this point, and there is a third gringo watching and figuring things out, as well. Finally the correct bus pulls into the correct spot, we all get on, and are on our way. Just like most places, salsa and bachata music play the whole time. Like two hours, whole time.

I end up sitting next to the third gringo guy and after chatting a bit, he joins me for the climb up the 675 steps at the giant rock at El Penol, the walk to Guatape, and for lunch in the town before I head back to Medellin. I’d really rather spend the day on my own, but despite being Ukranian and living in Amsterdam, his Spanish is much better than mine and I don’t mind the navigational assistance. 

The rock we climbed towers over the surrounding landscape, and it’s amazing how they built the zig zag steps up to the top. And the views from the top of the man made lake, and therefore man made islands, are really incredible. Not much to do after taking in the view and grabbing a few shots, so then we made our way down. Getting from the rock to the adjacent small town was about a 40 min walk, and was worth it compared to the 10 min tuk tuk ride because there were some small little hiking sections with some more great views, plus a rickety suspension bridge I got to walk over across the highway.

The town of Guatape was very cute with lots of colorful little houses, each with its own plaques along its frontage, generally representing the industry or profession of those who live there. We walked around a bit, grabbed some food, and then he met up with some other friends and I got the bus back to Medellin. The sign at the entry of the town was my favorite; it listed facts about the town- elevation, population, and temperature. 22 degrees celcius, in print. It is that temperature so frequently that they added it as a fact about the place.

The bus ride back was less eventful than the one in the morning and I successfully made it back to the metro in less than two hours. From there, I transferred to a different tram line, to go explore Comuna 13, historically one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Medellin. It has transformed since then, but is still quite dangerous and tourists are not advised to travel alone. This, says the tourist traveling alone.

But first, I was distracted by the funicular, which is part of the metro system. It doesn’t really go to anywhere safe, but I felt it would be fine to take it to the end of the line and then turn around and come back, which was more than fine - it was the best part of the whole day. The funicular must have hundreds of little pods, each carrying 8 people. The system never stops - it just slows down at the stations for people to get on and off. The ride in each car is smooth and peaceful as you hover over some of the poorest communities, full of cobbled together houses made with cinder blocks and covered with corrugated metal roofs. The most amazing part of the system, however, to me at least, is that the funicular actually has multiple stops along the way - it’s not just taking you from point A to B, but has stations along the way. And it goes so far up into the hills, that it actually goes up and down over the ridges of the hills. It was so much fun that I went all the way to the end, went back to the beginning, and then did the ride all over again. On the way back to the starting point, one of the pods behind us got stuck leaving one of the stations. I was with seven other people, all of them speaking Spanish, and when the whole system stopped working, they started talking to each other and I didn’t have a clue what was really going on except that I did understand the word “pendulum”. Apparently when the pod spacing is off, it throws the whole system off, and everyone has to wait for things to get rebalanced at the next station. In the meantime, hanging in the sky by a cable and stopping abruptly results in all the pods swaying like a pendulum. So I did know what they were talking about. I also picked up a few words here in there about how they even think some of the neighborhoods up in the hills are dangerous. I definitely understood when they said something was dangerous, and when they started talking about cartels. It was kind of amazing that in such a dangerous place that you could get stuck in the air with seven other people but feel totally safe. 

I finally stopped riding the funicular and went via taxi to see the Comuna 13 area. If I wasn’t alone I’d feel safer overall, but the neighborhood between the station and the escalators to the heart of the Comuna 13 didn’t really appeal to me. A taxi was a good idea. I went up the escalators, saw many tourists up there, but still didn’t feel comfortable wandering around much, so made my way back down and got another taxi back to the station. I feel like I wimped out a little, but I feel like I am smart enough to know when I don’t feel safe. 

Back at the main station, I got a train back to the main metro route to go back to the area I was staying. On the train were about six really tall (over 6′) Australian guys that I had seen up by the escalators. They were probably 20 years old, if that, and just hanging out and goofing around on the train. The best part of them being there was that no one in Colombia is 6′ tall and the women sitting next to me were incredulous. I know how to say “grande” and pretended to have some small talk with these women, but after about two words I had to give up and tell them I didn’t speak Spanish. I was then adding to the excitement. One of the women was a girl about 17 years old and she was freaking out. She said “my name is Isabella” to me and I told her my name - the chance to speak English with someone seemed like it was the highlight of the year for her, and I told her the guys were Australian. She nearly fainted. This was way too much excitement for her. Six tremendously tall guys with blond hair and blue eyes  - she looked like she was in heaven. It was hilarious (and also interesting that her and the other women also noticed directly the color of everyone’s eyes - I don’t really think about seeing blue or green eyes as drastically different than brown - different yes, but not unusual). 

I transferred to the other train line and it was so packed and hot in the car that one woman fainted on the train just as I was getting on. It was incredible to watch how people dealt with the situation. Several other passengers picked her up and got her off the train within seconds, another passenger hit the emergency button on the train to alert the police, who came immediately, undid the emergency call, and went to tend to the woman, as the train doors closed and we left the station. No delay to the subway operations. It was amazing! I imagine in NY it would be a 30 minute delay, at a minimum. 

I walked back to the El Poblado neighborhood, bought some souvenirs, had dinner, went back to the hotel, and got my cab to the airport. We drove up the same road I biked on two days ago; I can’t even believe I biked up that hill. But the views were clear so I asked the driver to stop so I could see the views of the city all lit up at night, which he did, before continuing to the airport. 

It’s the beginning of the end. A red-eye flight home with a 9 AM meeting. Not much chance for adjusting to reality...

[theconservativebrief]

Just when you thought it was safe to relax, for no further new TV shows were coming to humbly request your eyeballs, The CW decided to start premiering most of its shows this week.

The tiny network — home to some of TV’s best shows, like Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend — traditionally waits for October to debut its series, where they can premiere slightly outside of the biggest crush of fall TV season. But with the network expanding to Sunday nights for the first time this fall, it’s got more new series to flaunt than usual, to say nothing of all of its returning shows.

Thus, this week, we offer thoughts on The CW’s new high school drama All American, as well as its reboot of the venerable witch show Charmed. Finally, we have thoughts on HBO’s new series from Girls producers Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, Camping, which also marks Jennifer Garner’s return to TV.

Few of these shows are great, and as critics, we often have limited information on whether they’ll get better. (It’s rare to impossible for broadcast networks, especially, to send out many episodes for review beyond the first couple.) But there’s something in all of these shows worth checking out, especially if you’re a particular fan of their genres.

(A note: We’ve only given ratings to shows where we feel we’ve seen enough episodes to judge how successful they will be long-term.)

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Who doesn’t like a teen drama about a boy from an underprivileged background getting a hand up into the world of the rich and comfortable? It’s been the story of many, many teen soaps over the years, but perhaps most famously on The O.C., where Chino-born Ryan Atwood found himself suddenly living among the spoiled and pampered denizens of Orange County.

The CW’s new series All American takes that format and mixes it with Friday Night Lights for one of the strongest new dramas of the fall. It has its rough edges, but there’s something hard to beat about a good-hearted kid discovering the excesses of money and power, while those who have the money and power discover just how much they have in common with the new kid.

At the center of All American is Spencer (winning British newcomer Daniel Ezra), a football star at South LA’s public Crenshaw High. Spencer is black, and he comes from a majority-black neighborhood. (He’s also based on the real NFL player Spencer Paysinger.) When a coach for a Beverly Hills high school — played by Taye Diggs, who I never thought would make a great Coach Taylor but makes a great Coach Taylor — turns up to offer Spencer a chance at a role on a higher-profile team, Spencer worries about betraying his community before eventually realizing going to Beverly Hills could cement his future.

You can sort of see where this is going from there, but creator April Blair shows a refreshing willingness to keep the story moving throughout the first three episodes, unveiling a healthy dollop of plot twists and soapiness, while also giving her characters a whole lot of heart. Indeed, the twist at the end of the pilot takes the show from “pretty good” to “something I’ll give at least a season to figure itself out.”

There are issues here and there (the ensemble is perhaps a little too large for a show this young, and there’s way too much music to drive every emotional point home), but All American is an intriguing stew of teen soap tastes that taste great together. —Todd VanDerWerff

All American debuted Wednesday, October 10, on The CW and is available on the network’s website. Future episodes air Wednesdays at 9 pm on The CW.

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For whatever reason, The CW’s new spin on Charmed has been embroiled in controversy over its status as a reboot starring brand new actors, rather than a revival starring the show’s original cast. And, sure, the original series has die-hard fans, and in a climate where seemingly every other popular show from the ’90s is being revived just as it was back then, it’s not hard to imagine a world where that happened with Charmed, too.

But if those disgruntled Charmed fans tune in to the new version, they’re likely to find a show that, despite a pilot that’s a bit of a mess, has the right elements in place to become just as fun as that earlier series (if not more fun — that original show could be a bit of a mess itself). Most importantly, Jessica O’Toole, Amy Rardin, and Jennie Snyder Urman (of Jane the Virgin fame), who developed this new Charmed, have nailed the single most important element of the show: the casting.

To make a show about three sisters who are witches — and so much more powerful when together than when apart — you really need three actors who simultaneously exude raw supernatural power and a sisterhood that feels real, not assembled right before shooting the pilot. (Even if you know that’s what happened.) And Madeleine Mantock, Melonie Diaz, and Sarah Jeffery absolutely seem like sisters, with all the attendant benefits and baggage that relationship carries.

Plus, revamping this show to be about a Latina family offers a subtly powerful twist on the idea of those without traditional political power having untapped reserves of raw power. The pilot could do more with this idea (and the series hopefully will), but at least the sisters never feel like they’ve been made Latina to score empty diversity points.

The pilot gets stuck trying to do too much, establishing the sisters’ powers and setting up a longer mystery about an unsolved murder and offering up a #MeToo metaphor as its monster of the week. But with this cast (including a very game Rupert Friend as guardian angel Harry) and smart writers behind the scenes, Charmed will hopefully find itself very quickly. —TV

Charmed debuts Sunday, October 14, at 9 pm Eastern on The CW.

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Watching the four episodes of Camping that were sent out for review, I couldn’t help but think of another recent HBO series: Vice Principals. The shape of that series wasn’t immediately apparent in the first couple of episodes, and what it ended up being was vastly different from (and better than) what its beginning suggested. It rewarded the viewer for watching through to the end.

It seems as though Camping might fit a similar bill, though I would hesitate to presume that it’ll pull off the same gambit. Created by Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, and adapted from the British series of the same name, Camping doesn’t really make any progress in the first half of its season.

The reasons to watch are apparent from the start: The cast is absolutely stacked, with Jennifer Garner simultaneously playing to type and against type as Kathryn, who works day in and day out to make her life as flawless and meticulously ordered as her Instagram account. David Tennant is perfectly cast as her husband, Walt; he’s as easygoing as Kathryn is wound-up, as embodied by his lankiness and penchant for bucket hats.

Filling out the rest of the group of friends (just imagine quotation marks around the word) out camping in celebration of Walt’s 45th birthday, there’s Ione Skye, Chris Sullivan, Janicza Bravo, Brett Gelman, Arturo Del Puerto, Juliette Lewis — there’s not a weak performance in the bunch.

Unfortunately, that’s not quite enough. By the season’s halfway point, Camping seems to be fixated on showcasing people behaving badly — whether on their own or due to outside influence — without necessarily having a larger point to make. It’s thin ice for any series to skate on, but even more so when a series asks its audience to invest in characters written to be annoying or self-involved. These people are poison to each other — why keep watching them?

A few moments shine — again, the cast is terrific, and manages to find bits of truthfulness in the way these characters tear at each other — but without a firm sense of plot or structure to keep it all together, the show falters. —Karen Han

Camping debuts Sunday, October 14, at 10 pm Eastern on HBO.

As mentioned, basically everything on The CW is back this week. (Some shows — notably Jane the Virgin — are being held for midseason, of course.) That includes the final season of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Friday at 8 pm), which kicks off with a bang, as Rebecca Bunch finds herself in prison. A happy ending to this saga might seem a stretch at this point, but we’d settle for a “mostly okay” ending, honestly.

If you love streaming shows, this is a hectic week, too. Netflix brings the terrific new cooking docu-series Salt Fat Acid Heat (Thursday), based on the book of the same name, and the superbly spooky Haunting of Hill House (Friday). Amazon, meanwhile, launches the first season of Mad Men creator Matt Weiner’s The Romanoffs (also Friday), while the new streaming service DC Universe unveils the gritty Teen Titans reboot Titans (whaddaya know, it’s debuting on Friday). We’ll have full reviews of some of these in the days to come.

If you’re a fan of podcast hosts, HBO launches its TV version of Pod Save America (Friday at 11 pm) and ABC launches The Alec Baldwin Show (Sunday at 10 pm), should you require a TV version of something originally designed to appeal to your earballs.

Finally, if you’re me (Todd), then the only thing you care about is adult swim’s Harvey Birdman: Attorney General (Monday at midnight), a brand new special reuniting the voice cast of the original Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, one of the great, silly spoofs of the 2000s. Sing it with me now! Whooooooo is the man in the suit? Whooooooo is the cat with the be-eak!

Original Source -> This week in TV: a teen drama to check out, a new spin on Charmed, and Jennifer Garner

via The Conservative Brief

[seahawkerspodcast]

3 IN, 3 OUT – Body Blow – Seahawks vs. Cardinals

by fellow 12 Clinton Bonner

OK Flock… this one might be on me. At about the 19min mark of last week's special video edition of #3i3o I implored our beloved ‘Hawks to get out of the desert with a W any way we possibly could. I failed to request to the Hawkra gods that we leave the greater Phoenix area intact… So, I'm administering a self-enforced #DoBetter and asking for a cleansing of our collective Hawkra. I needed to get that off my chest Flockers!!!

With that, this game certainly had it's INs and OUTs… and hey, we got the W, and hey… we are 6 – 3… and hey, we still have one Russell Carrington Wilson! So, all is not lost Flock, let's demand some bacon as we make lemonade outta some of these lemon, shall we?

Deion says, “If you ball, you get the call.” … I think he stole that from us TBH. Because, when we WIN we start with an IN, so let's have it!

IN – Legion of Whom?

First, let's thank Richard Sherman for all he has given to our franchise over the last 7 years. We may even take Big Perm, Big Sherm for granted as crazy as that sounds. He, along with Earl Thomas (yeah #29!!!), are 1st ballot HoF-ers. Big Sherm, you know the Flock loves you… Heal as quickly as you can and we'll see you back on the field in 2018. From every single #12, thank you #25 !!! Hey Seahawks, why don't we dedicate the rest of this year to Sherman… what do we say???

Here's the bottom line. You don't replace Richard Sherman, you learn to play your best football without him. In a Thursday Night tilt that didn't have a lot to offer in terms of enjoyment (we'll get into that in a bit), and with no Earl Thomas on the field for the 2nd straight week, others needed to step up.

This IN is a comic book meal-deal where the IN love gets spread around to a few unlikely heroes.

We all know the X-Men… but remember those a'ight off-shoots like X-Factor, X-Force, and the New Mutants? The Legion of Whom?… is bringing us some new heroes we need to recognize are ready for the primetime love.

1st, McDougald played a very, very solid game. This ‘sneaky good' signing in the offseason was one the boys from the pod talked about in the dog days of August. IMO, McDougald starts at Safety on 2/3rds of other NFL rosters. With Earl literally learning how to walk again in the off-season, McDougald has been a great signing, contributing on ST and playing solid Seahawks football as part of a banged-up LOB. Hat tip to you Bradley… Dilly, Dilly !!!

2nd – Shaq continues his ascent to stardom. If Sherman has to go all Professor X for a few months, then it's time for #26 to step into the Action Green limelight and emerge as our next LOB super hero.

3rd – Kam… OK, he's not new, but he deserves the love here because in a game where Earl was on the sidelines, Kam stood out and had his most impactful game of the year. No Cardinals reception went without a punishing hit from Kam and his presence as a 4th LB during run downs was seen over and over and over again, including his safety-inducing tackle to put our ‘Hawks up 9 – 7 in quarter 2! In a match where the LOB was more than just dinged… the Dark Knight stepped up and made sure we got out of that building with the W.

While we all can surely name multiple members of the X-Men, let's not forget that off-shoots like the New Mutants brought us brand new heroes …

… Right now some of these members might be known as the Legion of Whom? But history tells us, they are ready to step up and step into the natural evolution of the one, the only… Legion of Boom!!! Shaq, your time to shine kid!

OUT – Terrible REFerences

Sorry Flockers… I know nobody wants to read about some poor old sot bi$%h*%^ about the refs, but this goes deeper than our ‘Hawks losing a game… obviously we won.

The point here is that this game should NEVER have been close. Of course some of that is on our offense that can't run block at all, but the ONLY way the Cardinals were allowed to stay in this game was via terrible, terrible defensive penalties called against our ‘Hawks in the first half.

PIs, Hands to the Face, and other calls that simply were complete and utter #FakeNews ‘sustained' 2 Cardinals drives, kept our defense on the field for approximately 10 extra minutes in the 1st half, and ultimately lead to this game being close deep into the 3rd quarter.

Calls like this are an abomination to the sport …

Here's the pass interference penalty that extended ARI's drive on 3rd down and led to only ARI points. If this is pass interference, how are players supposed to play defense? http://pic.twitter.com/Dxmj2hNz7i

— Ben Baldwin (@guga31bb) November 10, 2017

Now you might be saying Flock… so what? We still won… Yes, we won in spite of a disgusting display by the NFL, but my anger flows downstream a bit more than just the game.

This was the type of game that should have been an absolute blowout by the mid-3rd quarter where the Cardinals, maybe, would have scratched together 3 points at that time.

The refs (combined with some offensive ineptitude) kept the Cardinals in this game. This kept our defense on the field deep, deep into the match and IMO directly lead to the batch of injuries we witnessed our defense suffer.

The mob has turned on TNF in general… I don't love these color-enhanced games by any means, but to me, it's a much greater/deeper problem for the NFL that due to terrible officiating, many games, including this one, are simply a bad product, and very, very difficult to stomach. NFL … #DoBetter !!!

OK, swing to the positive… we need it!

  IN – K to the J

If we are the X-Men, then KJ Wright is Iceman … and no, not Val Kilmer's “You can be my wingman” Iceman… let's keep our pop-culture references tight Flock!!! Mind you this is no knock to KJ, but on a team with Wagz, Kam, Bennett, Avril, Sherm, Earl and others… hey, we all can't be Wolverine.

KJ Wright was a monster on this day. I didn't embed this tweet above to celebrate Kam's 2-point tackle because I wanted to save it for K to the J!!! KJ blew up this play, clearing a huge lane for Bam Bam Kam to fill… and then watch KJ stick with the play until we were all assured that AP was going nowhere but backwards on this futile attempt to escape his own End Zone.

#Seahawks defense = brick wall

That's a SAFETY, and the second in two weeks for the @Seahawks!#TNF #SEAvsAZ http://pic.twitter.com/2j2l7dGpsn

— NFL (@NFL) November 10, 2017

This wasn't KJ'S only highlight by a long stretch.

AP averaged 1.4 yards per carry… 1.4 !!!

KJ ended up with 9 tackles on the day, with big tackles for a loss or right at the line on repeat! He may be our Iceman of the group, but dang KJ is a huge part of why we win… The IN to you KJ !!!

  OUT – Downright Offensive

This OUT will be short and sour. Germain Ifedi isn't cutting it. About a quarter of the way through the season our pass-blocking was starting to gel. Joeckel got dinged, we moved some pieces around and it's been a mixed-bag since. It's almost as if when Duane Brown took Ifedi's #76, he took Ifedi's abilities with him. Call it a reverse Spinal Tap if you will as 76 – 65 = 11… only this time, ‘going to 11' has resulted in Ifedi forgetting how to play football.

At one point both Ifedi and Rawls combined for 1/2 a terrible chip block, resulting in another Red Birds sack of RCW.

  Ifedi + Rawls = half a chip block???

— Clinton Bonner (@clintonbon) November 10, 2017

And let's not discuss our run blocking … because it just doesn't exist. Like I said: short and sour.

IN – The RedZone Barron

Jimmy.

Somewhat despised, certainly kicked around by many a 12… not me.

Look now… Jimmy is tied for TDs by TEs in 2017. He's ahead of Gronk, he's ahead of Kelce.

In our last 5 rumbles Jimmy has:

24 receptions

6 TDs

And perhaps most importantly … Russell Carrington Wilson is learning to hit Jimmy from within 10 yards and routes that aren't low-probability fade routes!!!

  No tenía oportunidad de parar a Jimmy Graham (Lleva 5 TD's en sus últimos 5 juegos)http://pic.twitter.com/qud2GurWt0

— Cobertura NFL (@CoberturaNFL) November 10, 2017

  As our schedule turns up down the stretch, we'll need Jimmy to be this big if we're going to turn out!

We hear you Jimmy!!!

  OUT – Just Beat It

Ooooof toofie Flock … 2 separate members of our O-Line ending up on the wrong side of the ledger in the same week against a bad football team… Que lastima!

But, the truth shall set us free… right?

Pocic has gotten a bit of a pass this season and I think it's been fair. He's a rookie who has been asked to play and practice at every position on the O-Line and when he's been plugged in, he's done OK enough to not be signaled out.

Well… Thursday night wasn't a good showing for the young Padawan. When Brown went down, I expected Tobin to get pushed around (boy did he)… but I didn't expect Pocic to be routinely beat on running downs… yet here we are.

Pocic is in year 1 and has been asked to do a ton… we recognize that. But Thursday he was mostly bad… let's clean that up and get prepped to take on the Dirty Birds at the CLink next Monday night !!!

  From the Flock!

Our fave section because it's all about the Little Flockers getting their opinions heard, word! Let's see what members of the Flock waxed poetic this Thursday night!

Ross Bell brought the VERY late night, UK snark to us all on TNF – a-thank-you Ross!

  The one plus to #skycam is watching AP repeatedly running in to his own blockers and/or Bobby Wagner #3I3O #in (I think)

— Ross Bell (@RossBell1984) November 10, 2017

  Well done Young Choi…

  DCH = Always Wise !!!

  The Pod and Ash combined to remind us all that apparently a catch, 3 steps and a fumble… is… an incomplete pass??? Once again NFL #DoBetter !!!

#3i3o. Apparently 3 steps after catching the ball is out.

— Ash (@ashthecuz) November 10, 2017

  1,2,3… What's Next!???

Dirty, dirty birds come to our house on Monday night!

Mamma Cleo likes our chances.

Mamma Cleo likes Dwight Freeney to get to Matty Ice and surpass his sack total all of last year with ‘dem dirty birds.

Mamma Cleo likes a more aggressive LB core to cause more pressure with Big Perm, Big Sherm sidelined.

Mamma Cleo likes Russ to carry the night in primetime.

Get the W and stay healthy boys… Go ‘Hawks!!!

  All Seahawks fans if you are not listening to and subscribing to THE best Seahawks podcast out there, you need to #DoBetter – Enjoy the Sea Hawkers Podcast today!!! 

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