Being a nerd rather than an athlete or "fitness person" did not dissuade Chris from undertaking the Herculean task of adding lean weight to his tall gangly frame. He used to literally get beaten up in high school after he moved to "the suburbs" from New York City. His first motivation for getting in shape was to "just look normal", but his Type A personality, diligence and hard work caused him to discover the best way to exercise. Even competitive steroid bodybuilders later admitted that they had never seen anyone with such poor leverages for strength training gain that much muscle. And without drugs! Or even supplements. The fact that Chris never trained more than two hours per week only made it harder to imagine. And he was no genetic marvel. Far from it.
In 1978 Chris Califano coached his first lifestyle make-over students with personal training and real food nutrition. A few years later he founded The Best Weigh in a 600 square-foot facility in Locust Valley, NY and soon expanded to a two-floor wellness seminar and fitness training facility in Westbury which included a second location for larger lectures and equipment that totaled 3,900 square feet.
When T. Colin Campbell was developing The China Project more than two decades ago, Chris was already busy facilitating a 100% plant-based diet, transforming the bodies and lives of his clients as part of his total life makeover program that included home gym installation, training, and personal vegan chef service.
Transforming his genetically deficient body and health to unrecognizable proportions is what attracted his clients and students. Many had witnessed him build up from 133 lb. to 205 without steroids; without relying on protein powders or vitamin pills or "sports drinks" and other gimmicks. Nothing but real food. He built vegan muscle size and up to 214 lb. while only going from a 32 to a 33 waist in the process, starting at a gangly height of six feet tall at 133. He maintained a bodyweight of about 195-205 for twenty years as a 100% vegan without any pills, powders or supplements.
The name "The Best Weigh" was chosen to denote that the best weight a person can be is based on quality not quantity"specifically lean tissue versus adipose weight.
Eating a 100% plant-based diet will build your body healthier than an animal-based one. Chris discovered early on that there was a difference between "muscle size" and pure muscle fiber size, which when increased, is much more dense than muscle that has been force-fed. While animal foods, especially cow's milk will in fact make a person "grow" faster, their health and performance suffers significantly. The extra "size" that he body may exhibit is not real muscle at all but simply cells bloated with excess waste that it cannot eliminate faster than the person is consuming it.
The quality of muscle cells, and every other cell in your body is fully dependent on the food you eat. Once animal foods are eliminated then the cells become more dense as they get rid of toxic build-up. The result is a leaner, but far healthier body. Pound for pound the body is stronger in all aspects of strength, cardiovascular and flexibility.
This was a hard pill for Chris to swallow since he was so underweight to begin with. Switching to a vegan diet was hard enough. Now he had to go raw in 1999! How else would a person who is genuinely concerned with health and wellness eat? For anyone studying and PRACTICING nutrition and REAL FITNESS, raw vegan is a destination that cannot be avoided. If it IS missed then the person was not being true to their original mission of wellness and real physical fitness. They certainly would not be their best weight, from the cells up.
This is how Chris's mind works. Why would anyone work out if they did not perform the most important constituent of fitness: strength? Then put secondary emphasis on cardiovascular endurance, and then flexibility. That is how the American College of Sports Medicine defines fitness: Strength, Cardiovascular, Flexibility and Body Composition, in that order of importance.
Chris wondered why some people would run, but never weight train. Or they would spend hours a day lifting weights, but never stretch or do any form of dedicated card.
Not only that but Chris found out that running for 95% of people is far from an efficient cardio exercise. And that stretching was being performed wrongly by the majority who did int either on their own or in most yoga classes. He also discovered that going raw would increase anyone's endurance ten times more (no exaggeration) than even the best Target Heart Rate training done three times per week.
Why were TV ads still brainwashing people with "Seven Minute Abs" when Chris and all his clients were getting better results while worrying their abdominals less than two minutes per week? Why were most people confused about nutrition? Why did most people think that "natural doctors" and nutritionists held the key to wellness? Almost 50 years of vitamins, powders and gimmicks and people were actually dying at a faster rate than before the so-called "wellness and fitness" consciousness that had spread across the civilized world.
His clients may come to him with one thing in mind, but they soon discover that fitness, nutrition and wellness are mostly hype and marketing. Luckily for the few, real wellness is "just business as usual" albeit totally non-popular. This is what Chris has focused on for the past three and a half decades, and why he embraced raw right from the start.
Born in Manhattan, he acquired a college-level reading comprehension skill in the fourth grade SRA reading tests. Why is this pertinent? Simple. Chris emphasizes that there are very few "educated" vegans, raw vegans, or even meat eaters out there. He points out that unfortunately, most people defend or debate what they are taught without ever actually learning and applying the fundamentals of nutrition. If they did, and they wanted to end cold and flu symptoms forever (a vastly stronger immune system is just one of the benefits of adopting a proper diet), as well as increase their endurance, strength, and performance, then they would eventually adopt a plant-based diet. There is no way that an amimal-based or processed diet can prevent suffering, both in the human body, locally, or globally to the extent that a proper, fundamentally sound plant-based, mostly raw or preferably 100% diet can. This has been his experience. Don't knock it til you have ACTUALLY TRIED IT. For a long time. The right way. In other words, it all starts with reading comprehension. And more importantly, application of same. In fact, Chris will tell you that it is better to read and apply the "wrong" information if you actually do it and experience it with total personal scientific awareness. Then you can make modifications until you eventually get it right. That means no more suffering. Period. On sore throat, or congested night's sleep, or need to "take something" and you are not healthy; you are only talking yourself into health. People call that "health conscious". What Chris is interested in solely is HEALTH PRACTICING.
It was business as usual for him to soak up information but his favorite line is "Most people eat soup with a fork" , referring to the focus on the extraneous and the performance of same. Chris's knowledge base is built not only on over three decades of research, but on actual facilitation of experience. No matter how attached he ever became to any particulate modality, he always let go his ego to explore the best way, and never taught a program unless he had many many years of trial and error udder his belt first. He has interviewed dozens of trainers, for example who had a certification or two, but who could not perform the basic core exercises correctly or safely or even know that they were core exercises. In fact, many of them actually thought hat the deep or even parallel knee-bend was bad for you knees or back! Not only has this been disproven in physiologic circles for as long as exercise exists, but the squat has been the number one most important exercise known to mankind.
When The China Study started to become recognized, Chris had already gone to the next level of 100% raw plant-based, and after several years of helping others obtain the same results of incredible health and fitness, he is now answering demand by bringing his BEST WEIGH TOTAL LIFE MAKE-OVER program to the masses. He will continue to coach and teach those who are local how to experience genuine health as part of the program, and also continue coaching those who can not attend classes at The Best Weigh in Glen Cove, along with the help of his raw team. Please note that every member of the raw team has been 100% or at least 95% raw vegan for at least six years. most much more. They have also been certified by Chris after completing the six-month Best Weigh Total Life Makeover program and by acquiring a minimum of 100 hours apprenticeship in the Best Weigh Raw Kitchen.
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