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The Large Professor
Tearing Down the House

By John Berardi
First published at www.johnberardi.com, Nov 3 2003.

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I grew up in Pennsylvania, and while I mostly tell people I’m from “Philly,” I’m not really a city boy. In fact, I grew up in a sanitized, cozy little suburb of Philadelphia called Hatfield. Since no one’s heard of Hatfield, saying “Philly” just makes my life easier.

Actually, to say that that no one has heard of Hatfield isn’t entirely true. Many people have heard of Hatfield Quality Meats, an international pork product distributor. Well, the meat company is named after the town and - that’s right - I grew up in the hot dog, bacon, and scrapple capital of the Eastern Seaboard.

Since I began my grand educational odyssey in 1995, escaping the audible cries of various porcine organisms destined to be breakfast food for millions of obese North Americans, I’ve spent little time in Hatfield. But recently I returned there for a vacation (of course, I told everyone I was vacationing in Philly), excited to be back, excited to see my family, excited to see what’s changed, and excited to see what’s stayed the same.

While driving through the old neighborhood, I was startled to find a new house on the block. A new, custom home, gorgeously modern and reverently classic at the same time, it stood rebelliously and in stark contrast to the remainder of the homogenous prefab homes on the block.

Now, a new house is certainly nothing spectacular. New houses, even nice ones, crop up all the time. But this one, this one was something special. And what made it especially noteworthy was that it sat in the place of an older house that had occupied a special place in our neighborhood consciousness. The story bears repeating.

When I was in the 6th grade and we moved into this particular neighborhood, the house that formerly occupied the space I’m discussing looked a lot like the house we were moving into – a well-constructed prefab with 4 bedrooms, a 2 car garage, earth toned fiberglass siding, and a small but well-tended patch of yard out back. Your typical standard-issue suburban domicile. Of course, when we moved in, no one took notice of the house. Not yet anyway.

Shortly after we moved into our house, that house went up for sale. Since our neighborhood was quiet, close to a number of good schools, and despite the hog situation, a rather nice place to live, it sold in a matter of days. The buyers were a young husband and wife (along with their 2 daughters) and they fit right in, quickly adopting our neighborhood policy of waving to all passersby, whether of the pedestrian or automobile persuasion. I know, I know…it’s cheddar…but strangely comforting at the same time.

Soon after moving in, however, their residence began an impressive morph, a transformation that, at the time, was slow and barely perceptible. Looking back, it seems that each season brought a new alteration, most of which were improvements. With the changing of the leaves, a new ½ circle driveway was added to the typical, linear street-to-garage drive. After the snow, big bay windows were added to the living and family rooms. Just in time for the next snow, a nice rec room was added over the garage. And 2 years later, a sunroom was added to the rear of the house. All the while, the family would entertain the neighbors, barbecues in the summer, dinners in the winter. The house became a focal point. Neighborhood fathers liked the renovation projects, and mothers enjoyed all the interior design ideas. The kids loved the new videogame systems, and I myself admit a certain affinity for the two hot daughters. But that’s another story.

Shortly after the sunroom addition was built, I left for school and started a life away from the scent of freshly sliced scrapple, away from the house of my youth, away from the ever-growing house across the street.

Having spent so much time away from that street, upon my return, the new development was particularly striking. Intrigued by the architectural saga, and genuinely impressed, I stopped by to congratulate the family. We ended up chatting a little about the past, about the old house. They loved that house, they said. They sought over the years to make it better with whatever time and money they had. But ultimately, while nice, it wasn’t what they wanted. No matter how many additions they made, it wouldn’t be their dream house.

So one day, even after all the years of building up that much-loved house, they did the unthinkable and tore it down. In its place, they built their dream.

“Maybe it’s silly,” the mother said.

I certainly didn’t think so.

The story stuck with me, and for some time now it has been creeping into my mind at the most inopportune times. For quite a while I didn’t even realize why the story stayed with me, why it impacted me. But then one day, it hit me.

If I can even say this without sounding hopelessly naïve, I too have a dream.

Wait, no, too cheezy . . . goals. Let’s say, I have goals.

While I'm sure each of you can probably find a very personal lesson in the story, here's why I feel particularly connected to the principle. In July of 2000, I moved into a nice neighborhood. My realtor found me a nice place over at www.t-mag.com where my first published article appeared. At the time I was a masters student trying to keep on top of my student loans while still being able to eat at least 1g/lb of lean protein per day. I was just happy to get a paycheck doing what I loved to do: talk training, nutrition and supplementation. And I was sure to wave at all the neighbors.

Fast-forward to today, just over three years later, and my published article count has risen from 1 to 120. Along the way I’ve been able to provide entertainment and education for thousands of people in the neighborhood. Also, along the way, probably somewhere back at article #10, the purpose of my writing changed. Rather than writing for a paycheck, I began writing with a clear goal in mind. With my scientific knowledge as well as my in-the-gym experience, I realized that T-mag was giving me the opportunity to affect change - real, measurable change - in thousands, or more. Maybe a lot more.

With a newfound respect for the potential power I wielded, I decided that it was my responsibility to immerse myself in the training, nutrition, and supplementation literature and write definitive articles on as many topics as I could get my head around. I started writing theoretical articles, expository articles, informational articles, practical articles, and even motivational articles. My house kept growing with addition after addition. I figured the more information I put out, the better equipped people would be to deal with industry confusion and the more they would be able to help themselves and others.

But somewhere along the way the reality hit me - my plan wasn’t working. I began to become painfully aware that despite the rapidly growing body of exercise and nutrition literature, from articles to books to published research studies, people are more confused than ever. What sense does this make? How can more good information translate into fewer results? I wasn't getting any closer to my dream...er...my goal.

The fields of exercise science, and worse yet, pop nutrition, are highly competitive. As a result, there is what we call an “expert problem”. Not too few experts, but too many. While experts (myself included) are a dime a dozen, there are only a handful of essential principles that people need to know to achieve results.

With 50 experts to every 5 principles, it’s no wonder that the experts spend most of their time bickering about the minutiae while glossing over the fundamentals. As an expert, to get your message heard, you need to differentiate yourself from the others. No one wants to hear that they need to eat more fruits and vegetables. They already know this information and therefore because they know it and are still out of shape, they assume there must be something they don’t know. “Of course I’m not in shape…I don’t have the ‘Special Soup’!”

Furthermore, as an expert, you need to come up with a magical solution that allows people to offload the responsibility they should be taking for their own health and body composition onto you, the expert, or your method. If it doesn’t work, it’s, “Why can’t these experts get it together? Why can’t they figure it out?” rather than “Why can’t I get it together?”

In the end, the no-nonsense truth is that all successful programs -- from Atkins to The Zone, from the Ketogenic Diet to Massive Eating -- are built on a few very simple principles. The rest -- just details. The problem -- it’s been far too difficult to hear these simple principles amid the cacophony of expertise. So the essentials are lost while small “fine-tuning” details take the forefront. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with presenting the small details, as long as they don’t displace the essentials from the debate. But to a large extent, they have: while 1% of the population really needs to know these details, 99% of the population thinks they’re part of that 1%.

Now it’s time for me to take responsibility for my part in all this. The more articles I write without addressing this, the more I contribute to the problem. I often get questions concerning a single sentence (or a dependent clause from a sentence) buried deep within an article I wrote long ago. Sometimes I can’t even remember where it’s from (thank God for the jb.com search engine), but inevitably when I find it, I see that it’s been taken out of context and totally removed from my original intentions. So I try to solve that problem with another article, only for it to be misused and misinterpreted. I quickly realized that the solution would have to come in some other form, something that would allow me to do four things:

1. Cut through the confusion, which is the by-product of all this expertise,
2. Dispel the common nutrition myths, spread by the non-experts and fear-mongers,
3. Share the true fundamentals of all successful nutrition programs, whether we’re talking the Zone or Weight Watchers, and
4. Show people when fine-tuning is truly necessary, how to do it themselves, and when to seek help.

In essence, for the last 3 years, I’ve been patching up my house, painting over it with new articles, and boarding it up with Q&A’s. And it’s good; I’ve been helping people get the bodies they want for a long time now. But I can do better.

It’s high time I tear down the house and build it anew, this time focusing on the essentials before I discuss the details. It’s high time that someone in the industry dropped the nonsense and began to focus on the real essentials of nutrition. I no longer want to differentiate myself on the basis of “cutting-edge” or whatever the minutiae is called nowadays, but on the basis of relevant, honest, scientifically-backed information. I want to focus my efforts on reaching the 99%. But, of course, I’m not going to ignore the 1%. Much of this site is already devoted to them. Moreover, many of our clients fall into that category.

We've spent a lot of time thinking about these problems recently, locking ourselves away and formulating a plan. We’ve distilled the Science Link success system into a series of critical lessons, rules and algorithms. We've defined the essentials of our methodology, one that allows many of our clients to achieve results like 1% losses in body fat per week and 25 lb gains in lean mass per year with subsequent losses in body fat.

The by-product of this effort is the No Nonsense Nutrition DVD. It's an honest and deceptively simple approach to nutrition, providing all the information essential to getting the body and health you want, and purposely excluding all the stuff that gets in the way.

To be honest, much of the essentials can be found elsewhere, and often for free. Some people will be able to parse these essentials out for themselves, and that's great. But I know for a fact that most can't. Most just get bogged down in a sea of information. Overwhelmed, frustrated, or jaded, they return to their old habits -- habits that will never lead to the results they want.

And here's where I come in. Give me about three hours of your time (and admittedly a few bucks), and I'll share with you what has taken me the better part of my life to learn and perfect.

From the mass of info, I've distilled what works and what doesn't. I've tested theory after theory, in the lab with subjects and in the field of play with athletes. I've worked with clients from all over the world, from cardiovascular patients to professional models. In all cases, the essentials stay the same. In almost all cases, people have little idea what the essentials are.

Without understanding and mastering the essentials, all the information at johnberardi.com, t-mag.com and other excellent and information-packed websites will serve to only confuse, not enlighten. The No Nonsense Nutrition DVD is designed to help you master the essentials and put into context the details – end sales pitch here.

Up until now, the Science Link team has been building a pretty cool house. Now it’s time to build our dream. Come on over for dinner sometime.