How do I become a fitness and nutrition "expert"?

June 28, 2010 8:51 PM

How do I become a fitness and nutrition "expert"?

Short of going to school for this, I want to deeply educate myself on fitness and nutrition. As a 46-year old male, I've recently had a lot of trouble dropping weight. While I'm now making progress, all the techniques/knowledge that worked in the past were mostly useless.

Bottom line: I've become intrigued by the intricacies and various ideas behind fitness, nutrition, and general health?

What books do you recommend for my education?

Thanks.

posted by gb77 to health & fitness (4 answers total)

This series really helped me. It's expensive, but you TTC often has sales and you can also find their courses on ebay and other places.

This book is fantastic.
posted by grumblebee at 9:21 PM on June 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

There was a question asked recently that was along the same lines.
I feel you could do fairly well without spending a lot on books, but I also find it easier to learn from a book in hand.
My overall advice would be to make sure your basis are covered. There isn't any one book, or author, that is going to cover the whole field in a particular category. I was an athlete and than went on to school to learn about fitness and nutrition and I could give you a whole gamut of books to read, but I'm sure you're going to get enough suggestions otherwise so I'm just going to give you my top two formal suggestions for anyone who is interested in strength and conditioning.
Science and Practice of Strength Training
Periodization: Theory and Methodology of Training
Zatsorsky and Bompa are pioneers in the strength and conditioning field and are probably cited (mutliple times) in any weightlifting book you do end up reading.
posted by P.o.B. at 10:53 PM on June 28, 2010

While not directly related to fitness and nutrition, a good footing in critical thinking and evaluation of claims would be a great idea. There's a bunch of unsubstantiated stuff out there related to fitness and nutrition: magnetic bracelets, miracle diets, etc, and having a "baloney detection kit" to determine what's scientifically reasonable and evidence-based would be helpful for you. http://www.quackwatch.org/ would be a great place to start, specifically for nutrition and general health. Good luck!
posted by tybstar at 12:24 PM on June 29, 2010

Thanks for the answers so far. All good ideas.

G
posted by gb77 at 6:24 AM on June 30, 2010