Nutrition Rules – Follow At Your Own Risk
I was standing in line at the grocery store the other day scanning the magazines at the check out counter and I kept seeing headlines with the words ‘nutrition rules’ or ‘rules of nutrition’.
Follow the Rules or Else!
This is disturbing because people tend to believe things that are written in magazines (I have no idea why)…and when something is presented as a ‘rule’ some people will blindly believe it. I guess some people think that if it’s printed it must be true!?
Fitness and lifestyle magazines use the word ‘rule’ in headlines because it’s powerful and people are always curious to see if they know about the rules or if they can follow them. It just goes to show you how well trained we all are at following instructions and not thinking for ourselves.
It seems that most people however will not investigate the validity of the claimed rule and whether or not it’s worth following at all.
If you go to your local newsstand you can find hundreds of ‘rules’ of nutrition. But are any of them valid or worth following?
Here are a few questions you should ask yourself the next time you see a list of nutrition rules:
1. Who is telling you about these rules and are they a credible source?
2. Are the rules backed by science?
3. What is the consequence if you don’t follow the rule?
4. What is the supposed benefit if you do follow the rule?
5. What is the proof that following the rule will actually produce a benefit?
6. Is it possible to get the benefit without following the rule?
Unless you have a graduate degree in nutrition you will not be capable of answering question #2 but the rest of them are pretty easy to follow up on.
A good example would be any, and I mean ANY weight loss ‘rule’ of nutrition that is any more complicated than calories in vs calories out.
The simplest way to test this rule would be the answer to questions #6 from above.
For example: Can you lose weight without following any of these weight loss nutrition rules:
low carb
low fat
glycemic index control
meal timing
nutrient ratio mixing
raw foods
carb cycling
calorie cycling
blood type dieting
…and on and on…(I think you get the picture)
If you can get the desired result ie: weight loss, without following the rules ie: any of the garbage rules I just wrote above…then you know the rule is bogus.
Apply these simple questions to any ‘rule of nutrition’ and you’ll quickly find out if it’s bogus or worth a second look.
John
12 Responses to “Nutrition Rules – Follow At Your Own Risk”
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January 28th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
John,
Just something i saw on tv today that is a true testament to all the things you guys talk about here and at adonis effect. I was waching the daytime tv show Dr. Oz, lord knows why lol, and his episode was all about aging and how you can prevent it. He starting talking about how if people would eat less food then they would probably live longer and look better too, awesome right? he even showed pics of these two monkeys that were used in a 20 year study on caloric intake, the monkey on the left which had a restricted diet look awesome and totally healthy while the other monkey looked like it had been on heroin it’s enitre life. So im like dude this is awesome someone is finally making sense, ON TV no less! and then he says it……..well everyone, what if you could have all the benefits of eating 300 less calories a day without having to do it? here we go…… and before you know it he’s talking about this amazing compound they just dicovered in red wine that will supposedly stop you from aging too fast and soon they’re goin g to start offering it in pill form………………..yippiiiiieeee. Just thought you would find this intresting!
Andrew
January 28th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
AAAAAH!!!
Andrew: your story makes me want to cry … mostly cuz you got my hopes up too, then snatched them away…. everyone is selling the next great gimmick that “WORKS WITHOUT ANY EFFORT AT ALL”. …. DAMN, do I hate stuff like that.
Great, informative post as always John. Love reading your stuff.
J
January 28th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
I know you covered this before but similar to this topic you guys have talked about how calories burned via excersices on machines was improperly labled.
So my question is is there an accurate way to mesure calories burned through exersies. Also is exerscise even any effective way to lose weight?
January 28th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
DDD,
It’s difficult to measure how many calories you’re burning specifically with exercise. I would just look at it form a relative standpoint instead. In other words, forget measurement calories and just consider how much more work you’re doing.
If you did 4 workouts last week for 1 hour each, then you’ve done 4 hours of work. If you add a 5th workout next week then you’ve just increased the total amount of work and thus calories you’ve burned.
JB
January 28th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I think they use the word “rule” because it’s a trigger word for authority and sometimes (sadly) people feel the need to be instructed without question. Someone like myself who tends to question authority will benefit from your list of inquisitions when faced with nutritional dictatorship.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Just to back up what John wrote, even counting calories burned with a heart rate monitor, which has to be about the closest to accurate regular people can get, is problematic. For example, last night I did one of the whole body circuits from the Burn program wearing my HR monitor and it told me I burned 1,397 calories in a little over an hour. I was working hard, but just can’t imagine that I really burned all those calories. The problem is if I were to base my weight loss calculations on that then it would be easy for me to justify eating a lot more than I do because I am apparently burning so many more calories through my exercise. BUT if I had taken those estimates as gospel truth I absolutely would not have shed the pounds I have up to now. That is why my strategy is to overestimate the calories I consume and underestimate the calories I burn – I track my food consumption and exercise on fitday.com, and there I estimate each workout as burning around 200 calories a shot. Doing this and Eat Stop Eat (which I am phasing into just eating less calories each day) and now the AI workouts, I have trimmed off around 25 lbs. of fat since October – and I just noticed that I lost 10 lbs. in January alone – for an AI of 1.47 and 15-20 lbs. to go to get to 180-185 and AI of 1.618 (I hope).
Also, re: your question about whether exercise is even an effective way to lose weight, there is a common mantra from John and Brad Pilon that it is simply exercise to build muscle, caloric deficit to lose weight. Just as we can’t eat our way to bigger/better muscles, we can’t just exercise our way to skinny. There are some short videos somewhere with John and Brad and Craig Ballantyne where they show how easy it is to out-eat even rigorous exercise. I can’t remember where they are, but maybe someone else can post the link.
Hope my viewpoint helps…
Shea
January 28th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
The appeal in rule following is that it absolves us of actually understanding why the rule may be effective. In short, it appeals to laziness. For instance you can say “don’t steal”. The person that “follows this rule” does not need to understand the negative social or personal consequences of stealing – that is to say they don’t need to understand why stealing is wrong to follow the rule “do not steal”.
Anyone that understands weight loss or nutrition is no longer “following rules”, but rather just “acting reasonably”. Most people won’t even go through the questions that John listed above to verify a rule, let alone try to understand the subject material enough to negate the need for rules.
Rule following is an easy way out of making the effort to understand a concept. Even worse, you’re just hoping that the person writing the rule has this understanding. Let’s face it, when it comes to the “health and fitness” industry, that’s just crazy-talk.
The second major problem with rules is that people are still perfectly capable of making decisions against their better judgment. The reason why many people gain weight is that despite knowledge of a better option (for instance eating one burger is a better option than eating four burgers), people allow their reason to follow their appetite, rather than having their appetite follow their reason. They would say “I am hungry enough for four burgers” rather than “One burger would satisfy my hunger”.
Even if the “rule” is factually correct (and most are not), the only people who are capable of following them (those who are strong-willed) are ironically the least likely to need them.
In short (although this comment wasn’t), rules don’t work.
January 29th, 2010 at 5:28 am
The nex thing they will tell you to drink this-and-that amount of red wine per day, as natural recourse of the above mentioned substance, and how goooood that will do to everyone!! Probably that is why heavy drinkers never get old.
January 29th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Well said, Ali.
January 29th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Hey Shea… how tall are you?
January 30th, 2010 at 2:56 am
I am 5’11″…(my shoulders are at 52″ – which is actually down a bunch since my first few weeks of creatine pump – with a 35.5″ waist). Why? Are you plugging me in to your new formula?
January 30th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
I understand the need to have a negative calorie balance to lose weight, but is there a way to eat to feel physically good (vibrant, healthy, lots of energy), cos I wouldn’t mind that…