So we’ve all heard about the potential problem too much sugar can cause, and even too much carbohydrates in general regardless of it’s in the form of pure sugar.

The Hunt is on for Evil Foods

And of course saturated and trans fats are also bad.

It’s true that too much carbohydrate and sugar can cause measurable problems like advanced glycation end products (an issue with too much blood glucose) as well as affecting triglyceride levels (one of the circulating forms of fat).

It’s also true that excess dietary fat can cause cardivascular disease issues.

This information is likely nothing new to you as you and I are constantly bombarded with waves of media about the evils of sugar and fat.

But what is never talked about is the amount of each that might/could cause these issues? And even further the issue of total calories is never brought up.

It seems that the negative issues both sugar/carbs and fat can cause are also related to the total amount of calories you’re eating.

In other words, if you’re not eating too much overall, it seems unlikely that the mix or type of fat and carbs you eat will really have much of an impact on any of the health issues we’ve mentioned above.

A bigger issue that isn’t brought up is the stress that excessive calories puts on the body as a whole. There is a systemic inflammatory response that chronic overeating causes, and this response contributes to all of the lifestyle disorders that we associated with a ‘poor diet’.

The problem is that the focus gets shifted towards finding a food to demonize instead of the real culprit: too much food.

This proverbial food ‘witch hunt’ has been going on for longer than you or I have been alive and we just happen to be living in the most obsessive and information accessible time so it just seems even worse.

If you research the modern history of the physical culture and diet movement you’ll find that as early as the late 1800′s there were books and diets demonizing carbs, or fat, or protein (yes even protein has taken a turn as the evil food we should never eat)

It seems as though nothing has changed in the past 100 years. We’re still looking for the evil foods to blame for the problems that overeating causes.

I guess as long as this sort of misunderstanding is going on there will always be a need for someone like me to constantly repeat this simple message of ‘less total food’.

John

Forget the "Rules" You've heard, make up your own.

The diet and fitness industry is hardly at a loss for words. Browsing the interwebs (or is it the world wide net…) will bring up thousands of pages of information, tips, and endless ‘must do’ and ‘never do’ lists.

Within 5 minutes of searching you could easily come up with dozens of ‘rules‘ of fitness and ways to live a ‘healthy’ lifestyle.

Almost all of them revolve around some sort of dietary intervention like changing the timing of a meal, or the composition of that meal.

After that you’ll get extensive lists of good and bad foods, supplements you should be taking, specific ways to workout, and specific times of day to workout etc…

At no point is the practicality of these recommendations considered, the story you hear is preached like a gospel and you may start feeling lousy about yourself if you can’t follow every recommendation you’ve heard.

The stress and guilt you might start feeling for not following these ‘rules’ could easily erase any health benefits you’re getting from doing what you can.

This is hardly a way to approach health and fitness.

Every little bit counts, and whatever you can do and whatever fits with your current lifestyle is just fine.

If you’ve heard that ‘cardio’ in the morning is best, but you can only do it in the evening, that’s just fine. Don’t let some magazine or website steal the positive emotional boost you get from exercising by telling you that you’re doing it at the wrong time of day.

If you lift weights but you don’t have the money or time for a post workout protein shake then don’t worry about it, you’re still going to build muscle and strength no matter what the web-o-sphere of self proclaimed experts say.

Protect what gets into your brain, because it's going to be hard to get it out.

The moral of today’s post is to be careful what you read and what you let get into your brain.

If you’re reading this blog you probably already do lots of healthy and positive things for your body on a daily basis, but if you read too much ‘info’ out there you might just end up forgetting what you’ve done that was good and stress about all the ‘rules’ of fitness you’re still not following.

Instead of following everyone else’s rules try making up a few things for yourself.

Try  to do one exercise ‘thing’ per day for your fitness, and one ‘nutrition/food’ thing per day.

Make it up just for you and it’s gotta fit your life.

I’d like to hear what you’re planning on doing if you don’t mind putting it in the comments section.

John

For the most part Carl is right. You’re going to die (but likely not from a knife attack). But the health and fitness industry seems to scare people into buying products and idea’s that essentially are promising a way to cheat death.

The concept of being ‘fit’ hasn’t really translated into people living much longer. In fact the only lifestyle intervention that has ever been proven to help extend life is simply caloric restriction.

In other words, eat less food.

That’s it.

Eating less food is the only thing you can do that has any scientific suggestion that it can help extend life, or at least help you avoid a premature death.

I’m not suggesting that exercising is a waste of time, but rather to realize what it can and can’t do.

Exercising can make you stronger, or better at a specific movement pattern or event (like running, or lifting or some sort of sport). It’ can also help with bone density, flexibility, stress relief and a host of other positive systemic benefits…BUT we have no proof or indication that it has any effect on longevity (independent of caloric restriction)

In other words, exercise and ‘fitness’ itself isn’t enough to affect your long term health if you don’t also combine it with some degree of calorie restriction or control.

John

When It Comes To Weight Loss You Don't Want to be an Outlier

I get a lot of questions about weight loss. Most of the questions don’t make much sense because the people who are asking are making a fundamental error in their thinking and that is:

They all think they’re different from everyone else.

They think weight loss in their specific case is much harder and that they are somehow an outlier thinking they are the one person who can’t lose weight with the traditional means of a caloric deficit.

9 times of out ten (and probably even more than that) these people are simply eating too much to lose weight.

By definition you would have to lose some amount of fat and weight if you were eating in a caloric deficit for more than a day or two. If you’re putting less matter in than is going out how could you possibly be at the same weight all the time?

Dieting for weight loss isn’t easy, and many people aren’t ready to take the necessary steps to make it happen. So instead of facing the fact that they’ve got more work to do they romanticize about being the one and only person who can’t lose weight because of some 1 in a million genetic anomaly that they’ve cooked up in their minds about themselves. This is both arrogant and disrespectful to those unfortunate people who DO have a legitimate genetic problem (as rare as it may be).

I’m sure there are the few unfortunate people who really do have some sort of genetic abnormality that makes them prone to weight gain, but for the vast majority of us it’s not a genetic issue. And if you did have such a problem you likely would already be diagnosed and be under medical supervision or on some sort of pharmaceutical therapy.

In other words, if you’re reading this you’re likely similar to everyone else and you just need to eat less. And that’s a good thing, it means the path to weight loss is simple, predictable and 100% achievable.

John

If you can't measure it, probably not worth mentioning it.

The health/fitness/weight loss/healthy lifestyle/wellness blah blah whatever you want to call it industry sells the concept of ‘healthy’ or a better life, or some kind of undefinable state of being as the prize and the goal. Words like vitality, energy, vigor, wellness and the like are used…what a load of BS…look at those words, they’re utterly meaningless.

When it comes to marketing ‘health’ there are some things that can be measured and some that can’t. The medical profession and most scientists stick with what is measurable including:

Blood Lipids and Cholestserol (this includes total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, Triglycerides etc)

Blood Glucose

Insulin

Heart Rate

Blood Pressure

Body Weight

% Body Fat

From there you can do more complex tests for other parameters but these are the major ones. If these values are in good standing then you’re about as healthy as any physician or scientist can measure.

However debates over what is ‘healthy’ typically don’t end with these types of measurements being presented, instead marketers, bloggers and readers will argue over the merits of a supplement or food or nutrient or diet style without:

A) Trying said supplement or food or diet on themselves

and most importantly:

B) Testing the results of using said supplement or food or diet

Sure some people will say “I used it and I felt great and had lots of energy” <– this is entirely unscientific and meaningless. After all I can ‘feel’ great after 6 beers, or really ‘energized’ after a cup of coffee, doesn’t mean either has anything to do with my overall health.

Describing results based on the way we ‘feel’ and how much ‘energy’ we have is not a useful or measurable end point, in fact it’s not even worth commenting on. If it were, then I would have to assume that these people have felt like crap for their entire life leading up to their adoption of this new supplement/diet/nutrition program that they are reporting these results on….not likely.

Measurable parameters are what matter. The rest is subjective opinions that can never been proven debated or disproven so they’re not really worth mentioning.

If someone is marketing you a supplement or health product or program based on how it makes you ‘feel’ you might want to think twice about it. If they can’t give a more detailed explanation of what you can expect then you shouldn’t expect anything at all.

John