Fitness/Health/Nutrition Myths, Part Deux

Of the tips sent out so far, the fitness myth tip got the most positive response, so I've decided to do another one. Besides these are very easy to put together due to an enormous amount of misinformation out there in the areas of health and fitness.

Weight gain with age is inevitable

As we age, certain physiological changes do take place, but weight gain doesn't need to be one of them. Weight gain with age is common, but it's a result of a decrease in activity, not an increase in age. This decrease in activity leads to a decrease in muscle mass and a resulting decrease in metabolism. What can you do to avoid this? The best thing to do is to strength train. By doing resistance exercise, you can maintain or build muscle mass and keep your metabolism from slowly decreasing. If you do 30 minutes of cardio at least 4 days per week, you can offset the metabolic decrease by burning more "activity" calories. If exercise just isn't your bag, then to keep the scale from creeping upwards, you must eat less food. I hope you are beginning to see a pattern in each of these tips as far as what behaviors will aid you in maintaining your weight.

Eating at night will make you fat

Occasionally a "diet" will come out that touts some variation of meal timing as a main component. Not eating after some arbitrary time at night is a very popular anecdotal weight loss strategy. Pure bunk. If you consume more calories than you burn, you'll get fat...it doesn't matter when you consume those calories. I've said this a few times...but there is one exception that I haven't mentioned. Post-workout calories. Carbohydrates consumed within about 2-4 hours of performing moderate to intense repetitious exercise (i.e. cardio or very intense strength training) are more likely to be stored as glycogen in muscles and the liver, than as fat. If you are a competitive athlete at any level, you should use this "window of opportunity" to reload your glycogen stores so that you can be optimally recovered for your next workout. If you've got to be seen with the latest, greatest, coolest recovery drink, Endurox works great. If you value price over coolness, chocolate milk has been shown to have the right protein-to-carbohydrate ratio to be optimally effective and doesn't taste like crap.

No pain, no gain

Pain is never a good thing. This myth does acknowledge that improving is not easy, but pain is never a requirement of success. If you are just beginning an exercise program of any type, then discomfort is a part of the process. If you push your body a little bit beyond its current abilities, you will create small muscle tears that we perceive as soreness. The aching typically peaks 48 hours after the activity that caused the micro tears. After this time period your body begins the process of healing, but it doesn't heal back to its original state...it overcompensates by becoming stronger to better prepare in the event that you need to perform the task again. This "overcompensation" is the key to improvement. On the other hand, if you push yourself too hard you can become injured by causing acute and/or long-lasting injuries to muscles, tendons, or even bones. How do you know the difference? Most injuries cause sharp, acute pain. If the pain causes you to yelp, then you need to cut back or stop the activity until you can resume the activity with no pain, or if the injury is severe you may need to see your doctor. If you have a localized, dull, aching more than likely its delayed onset muscle soreness and a normal part of progressing.

Exercise burns lots of calories

Unfortunately, it doesn't. It is much easier to consume lots of calories than burn them. I always talk about calories this and that, but what exactly is a calorie. It is simply a unit of measurement of energy. Here are a few foods whose calorie content is restated in terms of the amount of exercise required to burn them off:

• Subway 6" Turkey Breast Sandwich (280) calories = 2.35 miles of running

• White Chocolate Frappuccino (610 calories) = 5.12 miles of running

• P.F. Changs Mongolian Beef (no rice) (1180 calories) = 9.92 miles of running

• McDonalds Big Mac Value Meal w/soft drink (1420 calories) = 11.93 miles of running

• P.F. Changs Great Wall of Chocolate (2240 calories OH ... MY ... GOD) = 18.82 miles of running

By the way, the above calculations assume a 150 pound person. Lighter people would require more running, heavier people would require less running, but only about +/- 10%.

Bonus Factoid

OK, just a little trivia for you. Assuming that we could consume gasoline for fuel, how many miles could a 150 pound person run on a gallon of gasoline? Well, a gallon of gasoline contains about 31,000 calories of energy, approximately the same as is contained in about 8.85 pounds of fat. Someone who weighs 150 pounds requires 119 calories per mile. A 150 pound person could run 260.5 miles on a gallon of gasoline. What does that prove? Well, gasoline is an extremely cheap source of energy even at $4.00/gallon. It also demonstrates that humans are VERY efficient at storing and utilizing energy. We are engineered to aggressively store energy to survive when food sources run low, but for better or worse, in our society, the lean times never come.

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Five not-so-painless changes

OK, so you got the touchy-feely list last week. Nothing harsh or extreme, precious little snowflakes, only jedi mind trick strategies to fool you into doing something healthy without noticing it. This week...it's time for a little tough love. These are the changes you really should be working toward and none of them are easy. They require commitment, planning, and, God forbid, maybe, some lifestyle changes. The good news is that these are some of the most effective weight management strategies available.

No liquid calories!

"Nooooooo! Scott, you'll have to pry my quadruple, mocha, chocolate, double shot vanilla, triple axel, extra hot, shaken, not stirred, extra caramel, whip, macchiato from my cold, dead hands." Easy there. Studies have shown that calories consumed in a liquid form do not cause us to offset those calories when later eating solid food. In other words, liquid calories don't do anything to satisfy hunger, but they still count from an energy balance standpoint.

Biggest Offenders:

• Soft drinks - Liquid candy. They contain tons of empty calories with no nutritional value. Are diet drinks OK? Depends on whom you're asking. From a calorie standpoint they are OK. There are some recent studies that suggest that diet drinks “trick” the brain into wanting sweeter foods so you end up consuming more sugar in other foods as a result of drinking diet soft drinks. You make the call. I do drink them occasionally…maybe once a week.

• Fancy, shmancy coffee drinks - nothing wrong with coffee, it's all the stuff you put in it.

• Venti Caramel Frappaccino - 560 calories

• McDonalds Big Mac - 540 calories

• Given the choice between the two, the Big Mac is the clear winner. It's not exactly healthy, but as least you'll satisfy hunger for a while and won't eat as much later.

• Fruit juice - Glorified sugar water. Even the no sugar added juices, ounce for ounce, contain the same calories as a soft drink and with only slightly more nutritional value. Eat a piece of fruit and drink a glass of water.

• Alcoholic drinks - Lots of calories, low nutritional value. Syrupy mixed drinks (i.e margaritas, daiquiris, etc.) are the most calorie dense, beer is the least, and wine is somewhere in the middle. But don't fool yourself into thinking Michelob Ultra is a health drink. Take alcoholic drinks for what they are...something to be consumed in moderation.

Good choices:

• Water - yes, plain water. It is what your body needs with nothing that it doesn't, unless you live downstream from Three Mile Island.

• No calorie drink flavors (i.e. Crystal light) - If plain water is just not your thing, crystal light is a good option. The caveat about diet drinks apply to these as well.

• Tea - Unsweetened tea is a good option. Green tea is even better...just make sure it's real, green tea. That Lipton stuff in a bottle is a soft drink folks, not brewed green tea.

Keep a nutrition log

I know you hate to even think of writing down what you eat. It's a huge pain...but it works. Anything less is just a guess at reducing calories. Keep a nutrition log, count your calories, and I guarantee that you will meet your weight loss goals. If you've "tried everything" but you're not logging your food, you haven't tried the one thing that works. You don't even need to be super accurate. Go to the bookstore, get a small, calorie counting book, write down what you eat as best you can, hit your calorie goal 6 out of 7 days per week (don't totally blow it on the 7th day) and watch the weight disappear. And don’t cheat yourself by not writing down those couple of candies that you took from the candy dish. In reality, we don't eat a huge variety of foods, so after about 3 weeks of looking up foods, you will hit a point where you only occasionally need to look up a new food and it becomes much easier to maintain the log.

Get rid of the junk food. Throw it out.

Can you eat junk food in moderation and still manage your weight? Yes, you can. Now, realistically, how many people have the willpower to eat it in moderation? Not many. So remove the temptation and get it out of the house. If you feel like you want dessert, then go out and get a single serving. Make it inconvenient. Don't buy it any more. That way you won't be "forced" to polish off the rest of that half gallon of ice cream so that it doesn't "go bad".

Cook your own meals

Time to get reacquainted with the kitchen, you know, that room in your house where the refrigerator, stove, and sink live. That's right you need to cook your own meals. Notice I didn't say heat up, or microwave your meals. The only way to know what you're eating is to prepare your own meals. Meals cooked at home, even calorie-laden ones, are much lower in fat, calories and sodium than comparable restaurant prepared meals.

Don't sweat the small stuff, sweat the big stuff

If you aren't exercising, watching your calorie intake, and strength training, then does it really matter what brand of whole wheat tortillas you buy? Endless debate about diet minutia might be fun and make us feel like we are working toward a goal, but in reality it's a form of procrastination. We procrastinate so that we don't have to make the hard choices, and do the difficult actions that will help us achieve our goals. It's certainly easier to pick the low hanging fruit, but you'll get a much better harvest by skinning up your knees and getting up in the tree to reach not-so-low hanging fruit, too.

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Five healthy, pain-free changes you need to make today!

So you're convinced you need to do something, but you're not ready to commit to any drastic changes. Here are a few things you can do to start moving in the right direction. Are you going to drop 20 pounds overnight? No, but I'd like you to consider these effective weight management strategies to help you start moving in a positive direction.

Switch to lowfat or fat-free dairy products

Slowly transition from full fat dairy products to lower fat versions. If you drink whole milk, try 2% until you become accustomed to it, then switch to 1%, etc. Switching directly to skim is not an easy transition so ease into it. By the way whole fat milk is 3.25% milkfat so even switching to 2% is a 40% decrease in fat. The reasoning behind the switch is two-fold. First, you'll cut a small, but significant source of calories that you won't miss. Second, and most importantly, whole dairy products contain loads of saturated fat. Reducing dietary saturated fat is a big step in reducing your LDL (bad) cholesterol level. It's even more effective than reducing your dietary cholesterol!

Drink more water

Besides being necessary for all bodily functions, water can reduce hunger cravings. By drinking lots of water, you can reduce hunger by keeping your stomach filled. Aim to drink a gallon of water a day. Is that a lot? Yes. Here's a water drinking tip: Get yourself a 16 oz. or larger cup. Fill it with water. Drink the water. When you need to go to the bathroom, refill the cup. Repeat throughout the day.

Eat more slowly

By eating slowly you give your brain time to process the fact that you have eaten food and are less likely to overeat.

Eat smaller, more frequent meals

OK, so you want to make a dietary change, but you are not quite ready to give up the Big Macs or enchiladas. Like I’ve said in the past ANY foods can be a part of a healthy diet, in moderation. A great strategy for eating in moderation is to eat smaller, more frequent meals…5-7 meals per day. By splitting up your normal meals into 2 meals, eating one at mealtime and one 2-3 hours later you will get more satiety for the calories consumed and are less likely to overeat later in the day or during the evening. If you take your lunch to work, simply package the meal into 2 smaller meals. If you go out for lunch, get a to go box and put half of the meal in the box BEFORE YOU START EATING. Then take the rest back to work and eat it as an afternoon snack. If you don’t make any of the other changes listed here, make this one. It works.

When snacking, don't multitask

Feel like you’ve just got to sit down and have a snack. Try not to plop down in front of the television to do it. If you want potato chips, you’re much more likely to over consume if you are concentrating on something else and not being mindful of what you are eating. Who hasn’t plopped down in front of the television with a bag of chips only to realize that the bag is now empty. What happened to the chips? You won’t have any doubts the next time you step on the scale. Eat the food you enjoy, but be mindful of how much.

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Strength Training: What you need to know.

Most people who want to be fitter or look better start by “going on a diet”. Some might even begin to do some cardio occasionally, but most people don’t strength train. As a result, many people don’t get the benefits that strength training provides.

Injury prevention

A balanced, strength training program can strengthen weak muscles and result in a stronger, more fit, physique. Notice I said a BALANCED program. That means strengthening all major muscle groups not just the "beach" muscles. A ripped six-pack with bulging biceps is nice, but not if you’re so weak that your 5 year old has to open the jar of peanut butter for you. Strength training is more than crunches, bench press, and bicep curls. Focus on strengthening weaker muscle groups to minimize injury potential.

Increase lean muscle mass = Increased metabolism = Decreased body fat

Every pound of muscle in your body burns approximately 30-50 calories per day. By adding more muscle, your resting metabolism will get higher allowing you to burn more body fat, even while at rest. Most people beginning a strength training program will gain weight…this is a good thing. The weight is mostly muscle which will increase your metabolism and begin to burn fat. Don't be discouraged by a 3 - 5 pound weight gain. Muscle takes up a lot less room than fat so even this small gain won't make you much bigger...and it's only temporary. Strength training is the number one thing that you can do to start making positive changes in your body composition. Everyone says they could stand to lose a few pounds, but make sure those pounds are fat, not metabolically active muscle. Hit those weights!

Increased bone density

Older adults and women of all ages are at a higher risk of osteoporosis. Any weight-bearing exercise decreases this risk and strength training is no exception. By stressing your bones, strength training reduces the risk of getting osteoporosis and lessens the impact if you already have it.

Increased strength

Stronger muscles allow you to go through your day with less fatigue and just plain makes daily activities seem easier.

Prevents muscle loss that leads to creeping weight gain

As we get older, it seems that is becomes more and more difficult to maintain a reasonable weight. Losing weight seems impossible. The reason is that as we age, we begin to lose muscle tissue due to inactivity, and this causes a slow, steady drop in metabolism. It doesn’t have to be this way, though. You don’t have to lift enormous weights to maintain muscle mass. Even a simple, easy to perform, strength program will do the trick.

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It is easier to find an excuse than to find a reason.

What are the two best times to start an exercise program? Six months ago and right now. If you've been at it for six months, congratulations, you should be seeing some benefits for all of your hard work. If you aren't seeing results, it is definitely time to re-evaluate what you are doing and figure out why you are not making progress. In the beginning of an exercise program, almost any consistent exercise will create results, but no matter how good of a program you do, no program works forever. As your body adapts to the workload, you need to change things up to continue making progress. Don't continue a program that isn't working...change it up. Talk to your friendly, neighborhood fitness coordinator for suggestions on what to change in order to continue your progress. If you haven't yet started a program, there is no better time than right now. You say you can't. Let me guess...

You don't have the time

Here's a little secret, life isn't going to stop and wait for you to start an exercise program. Work will continue, children will need to be taken to soccer practice, the weather will always be beyond your control, grocery shopping and housekeeping won't ever end. Yet even with everything going on, we somehow make time to do the things that we deem important. It's all about priorities. Take a shower. Check. Brush teeth. Check. Get the kids to school. Check. Your health should be that important. According to A.C. Nielsen, the average American watches television for 4 hours per day. Resolve to watch one less Seinfeld rerun and go out for a walk. No one else can do it for you. Stop making excuses, and really, deep down, you know they are just excuses. Make your health a priority...TODAY!

You don't have the energy

There is a common misconception that a little exercise is going to take what spare energy you have, burn it fruitlessly, leaving you a pale, lifeless, shell of your former self. Not quite. In fact, exercise gives you energy. By moving and getting your blood flowing, you metabolism increases and stays at a higher level for hours after you are finished, leaving you feeling refreshed, vital, primed to devour PSRs. It is the lack of exercise which causes lethargy and an overall feeling of listlessness. Stop the cycle and get moving.

You don't have the money to join a gym

Who says you need to be a member of a gym to go for a walk, take a hike, or ride a bike? Have kids? Take them to a playground and play with them. Be a kid again...run, jump, climb, crawl, hop.

You are just not an "exercise" person

Yeah, me either. I used to think I was too smart to exercise. I wasn't going to waste my time doing something that worthless. Not having been an "exercise person", I didn't see the benefit. (Warning! Graphic content!) This happened->. Not a pretty sight...and you know what, I was wrong. I was too set in my ways to consider that the choices I was making resulted in that photo. The flip side of that is by doing something different, I could get a different result. I consider my time spent exercising an investment in feeling good, lower overall stress levels, and looking good. And like any investment, you can't expect an immediate return. It takes at least 4 weeks of consistent exercise to start seeing and feeling the benefits, so give yourself some time.

Remember... "If you always do what you always done, you'll always get what you always got."

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Six Fitness, Health, and Nutrition Myths Exposed

OK, it's time to separate fitness fact from fiction. Here are 6 common health and fitness-related misconceptions and the reasons that they are wrong.

Spot reduction

Myth: 1000 crunches/sit-ups a day will result in a flat stomach.
Reality Check: If you do 1000 crunches a day you will have a ripped set of abs underneath the same layer of fat that you've always had. The only way to reduce fat is to create a calorie deficit (see Energy Balance post) and crunches/sit-ups are a very poor way to burn calories. Unfortunately, you can't choose which fat is going to be burned...your genetics control that. If you want that six pack, you need to strength train your abs, as well as all other muscles, do cardio to burn calories, and watch your caloric intake. To begin to see definition in your abs, men require a body fat level of 8-10%, women require a body fat level of 12-14%. Wondering about your body fat %? Your friendly, neighborhood fitness coordinator can figure it out for you.

Fattening foods

Myth: Some foods are particularly fattening and turn directly into fat when eaten, i.e. cheese, butter, carbs, etc.
Reality Check: Excess calories are fattening. Bodyfat is your body's way of storing excess energy that it can't use upon consumption. If you stop eating excess calories, you'll stop storing fat. Furthermore, if you use more calories than you consume and your body will use up existing fat stores. So why the myth? High fat foods get a bad rap because foods high in fat tend to be high in calories. It's the calories that make you fat, not the fat itself. Thanks to Dr. Atkins, carbs are the new evil macronutrient. They have gotten a bad rap because so many of the foods that we eat are filled with highly processed, low nutritional value carbs, mostly made with white flour and sugar. These simple carbohydrates contain no nutrients so they satisfy our hunger for only a short time before we are hungry again. There is nothing wrong with bread or pasta, but whole wheat bread and pasta are definitely better, more nutritious choices.

Fat free foods

Myth: Fat-free, or reduced-fat foods are always best.
Reality Check: Ah, yes, the Snackwell Syndrome.
If the cookies are fat-free, then I can inhale an entire box of them, guilt-free. Again, it's the calories, not the fat. One Snackwell Fat Free Devils Food Cookie has 49 calories compared to an Oreo cookie which has 53 calories. It's a very small difference between the two...which would you rather have, the Snackwell or the Oreo? Always compare the calories on the Nutrition Label. If the fat-free or reduced-fat product contains at least 10% fewer calories, I'll consider it. I'll also look at the ingredients and check if the fat was replaced by loads of things I can't pronounce. If it contains all sorts of things I can't pronounce, I'll go with the regular product. If the ingredient list doesn't baffle me, I'll get the low fat product. A good example is low fat or nonfat dairy products. They are almost always a better choice than regular dairy. Since the fat in dairy comes from the cream and it is easy separable, nothing else is typically added back in its place.

Toned muscles

Myth: You need to exercise a certain way to get "toned" muscles, i.e. light weights with a high number of repetitions.
Reality Check: Muscles can contract, expand, grow or shrink. That's it. You can't do anything to specifically "shape" or "tone" a particular muscle, only make it bigger. Whatever the shape of the muscle you were born with, you're stuck with it. What people consider "toned" is actually a combination of larger muscles which are more visible due to a lower body fat level. If you want to get "toned", train in a way that maximizes muscle growth and lower your body fat level by doing moderately intense cardio while watching caloric intake. That means strength training with a load that you can complete 8-12 repetitions of any particular exercise with good form, but no more. Perform 3-5 sets of the exercise and when you can do 3-5 sets of 12, increase the load. Repeat forever.

Women and strength training

Myth: Strength training will make women incredibly muscular.
Reality Check: Mention strength training and women immediately visualize pictures of enormous female bodybuilders. Women do not naturally have the hormones necessary to grow enormous muscles. Besides, saying that you don't want to strength train because you might get that big is like saying you don't want to run because you might qualify for the Olympics in the 100 meter dash...as if it were that easy to get those muscles. Strength training provides many benefits for women of all ages including increasing metabolism and increasing bone density, among other things. Try it...I think you'll like the results.

Fat burning zone

Myth: You will burn more fat if you do lower intensity exercise...in the "fat burning zone".
Reality Check: Your body has several "fuels" to choose from as you go about your daily activities. The two main fuels are glycogen, a stored form of carbohydrates and the other is fat. Depending on the intensity of the activity, your body utilizes a "mix" of both fat and glycogen. Lower intensity activities burn a higher percentage of fat, while higher intensity activities favor the use of glycogen as fuel, thus the low intensity "fat-burning zone". The problem is that low intensity activities burn a much lower number of total calories than high intensity activities. Let’s say you go for a 30 minute walk. You might burn 100 calories, 75% or which would be fat for a total "fat" calorie expenditure of 75. Now let’s say you went for a 30 minute run. You would burn about 300 calories, 50% of which would be fat for a total "fat" calorie expenditure of 150...twice as much. So, is low intensity exercise bad? Of course not, but by incorporating bouts of higher intensity, you can burn even more calories and increase your fitness at a higher rate. Besides, exercising in any "zone" is better than sitting in front of the TV while two-fisting Cheez-Its. I like to call that level of intensity the Big Butt Creation Zone.

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