10 Questions With Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple

Mark’s Daily Apple is one of my favorite health and fitness blogs, besides 60 in 3 of course So I was really happy when Mark Sisson, the blog’s owner, agreed to let me interview him. Below are the questions and answers, plus a little bit of commentary from me. Without further ado, here’s the interview.

• Question - What are the most common mistakes you see people do when they first try to get healthy and fit?
• Mark’s Answer - They focus too much on the goal. A goal is important, but the process - the journey - should be the main focus. Every workout, every healthy meal should be seen as an important contribution to the goal.

• Question - What are the most effective things someone can do when they start working on their fitness?
• Mark’s Answer - Learn as much as you can about how the body was designed to work. Understanding how and why exercise works makes the workouts more effective. Understanding how your body reacts to sugar makes it easier to choose better foods.

• Question - What are your thoughts on BMI? Is it accurate? Do you use it?
• Mark’s Answer - I don’t like BMI. I am accused by my wife of being too skinny sometimes at 5′10″ and 165, yet if I gained 10 lbs, I would be classified as an overweight BMI. Body fat is a better measure…but how you feel is the best measure.

• Question - In your personal life, what are the health and fitness related mistakes you’ve made?
• Mark’s Answer - I overtrained for 20 years. Too much aerobic activity. I also ate way too many carbs in order to fuel my endurance training…which set me up for inflammatory conditions that I still have to deal with today.

• Question - In the same vein, what are some of the most fun and effective things you’ve done when it comes to health and fitness?
• Mark’s Answer - The most fun fitness activities I have ever done have been playing soccer or ultimate frisbee with my kids. I play hard, but we laugh a lot. It also has given them a sense of growth (as they get better and I get older :-). It’s some of the best quality time a parent can have with kids.

• Question - Do you focus more on diet or on exercise? Or are both equally important to you?
• Mark’s Answer - While I focus on both, I know that 80% of my results come from how I eat.

• Question - What’s your favorite healthy snack?
• Mark’s Answer - Big bowl of blueberries.

• Question - What’s your secret unhealthy craving and how do you deal with it?
• Mark’s Answer - I guess my most unhealthy craving is Cherry Garcia doused in Creme de Cassis. I deal with it by having it once a month.

• Question - What’s your favorite method of exercise and why? On the site you say snowboarding, but you live in SoCal I believe. So what do you do on those 364 days of the year when the sun is shining and you’re not snowboarding?
• Mark’s Answer - Favorite non-soccer, non-frisbee exercise is power hiking up really steep slopes in Aspen. I lift 4 days a week for 45 minutes and try to work some “crossfit” type moves in there. I am also a pretty fast in-line skater and use that to work the legs once in a while.

• Question - Do you exercise alone or with someone?
• Mark’s Answer - I usually do my gym workouts alone (but in a gym where I know everyone and chat between sets). I have always been very comfortable working out alone and needing no “pushing” to get me to do my best.

• Question - Bonus question, what are your fitness and health goals? What are you working towards?
• Mark’s Answer - Last year I set a goal to bench press 275 and I did that - a lifetime PR at age 53. But the training for it screwed up my golf game! So now I just want to stay fit and healthy enough to 1) look fit, 2) kick some 25-year-old’s butt at something on any given day, 3) still enjoy the process…which takes us back to your first question!

You can read more about Mark at Mark’s Daily Apple. We’ll be discussing some of the issues in these answers over the next week, here at 60 in 3.

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