The Claim: Adding an extra pound of muscle to your body causes you to burn about 50 more calories per day

Answer: FACTOID

Muscle tissue only burns about 5 calories per day. This is a well established scientific fact that you can easily verify with a quick browse through the scientific literature. The most metabolically active tissues are your internal organs (heart, liver, kidneys, brain etc).

There is a persistent factoid that 1 pound of muscle burns all kinds of extra calories and a common number cited is around 50 calories per pound of muscle. I’m not sure where this number comes from because there isn’t any scientific evidence to back this up.

If weight loss is your goal then adding muscle isn’t going to help. You gotta eat less calories.

John

The Claim: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and kickstarts your metabolism. If you skip breakfast you’ll overeat at the end of the day and you won’t perform as well at work/school.

Answer: FACTOID

Eating breakfast has no special effect on your metabolism or metabolic rate as it were. If you like to eat breakfast then by all means go ahead, but don’t expect it to help with your ability to burn calories.

There is some persistent claim that breakfast can also help with cognitive function but this research was only shown to have an effect in children. It may very well be that growing children might do better in school if they get something to eat in the morning simply because it keeps them happy and more attentive in class. Whatever the case may be it is clear that there is no effect of breakfast on adults.

So, eat breakfast if you like, but be aware that it’s not going to have a special effect on your ability to burn fat or get work done.

John

Unless you have a degree in human biology…and in many cases even if you do…you do not understand what ‘metabolism’ means.

Eating Less Calories isn't Dangerous for your Metabolism

This word gets thrown around the fitness and diet media and is used to scare people into thinking there is a dangerous level of calories that will destroy their metabolism. This of course is a false premise considering your ‘metabolism’ isn’t a thing that can be destroyed or sped up or slowed down (not without drugs).

“metabolism’ is just the sum of the processes of your body on a cellular/systemic level…that’s it…that’s all it’s ever been…nothing more. So what…who cares. Why do fitness marketers keep talking about it?! I’ll never know.

And there is virtually nothing you can do to change this.

Eating at or below your actual BMR isn’t going to ‘damage’ your metabolism any more than eating above it. And speaking of which, why don’t marketers suggest that there could be ‘metabolic damage’ when people overeat!? …anyone…anyone? Right just what I thought, this lie doesn’t lead to lucrative weight loss products.

The following claims are false and are your best way to know that a person is clueless about biology and physiology and nutrition if they say:

Eating too few calories is going to ‘slow’ your metabolism (unless they’re referring to people who are starving to death…and are in fact about to die)

that there are foods that can ‘damage’ your metabolism

That you can speed up or slow down your metabolism (without drugs…and that this would be a good thing in either direction)

That a slow metabolism is responsible for weight gain

that a fast metabolism is responsible for weight loss

That you have any control whatsoever over your metabolic rate

That your meal timing or exercise timing can affect your metabolic rate

…and any other garbage claim you hear from any fitness marketer with the word “metabolism” in it…

If you see any of the above claims, you can be assured that the person who said them is sorely lacking in their understanding of how the body works.

If you want to lose weight…EAT LESS than you are currently eating. End of story.

John

You’re unique, just like a snowflake…you’re one of a kind…just like everybody else! So here is your special bear to make you feel good about being so special.

Just for you, cuz you're special!

Ok so now that we’ve all stroked our ego’s enough and reminded ourselves that we’re ‘special’ lets get down to the business of exercise and diet.

I hate to have to be the one to break this to you (actually no I don’t, I love bringing stuff like this up), but when it comes to diet and exercise, you’re not special…you’re not even unique…in fact you and me and everyone else is very easily measured and categorized into general and predictable groups.

Fitness/nutrition marketers will stroke your ego and tell you that not only are you special, but so is your metabolism and your body, and that you need a special diet and exercise program…they’ll go on to say that the only reason you’re not satisfied with your body (if you’re in fact not satisfied with it right now) is because nobody has come up with a diet or workout that addresses your specific unique needs.

I find it rather ironic that this marketing message of unique one-of-a-kindness is trumpeted to a mass audience…

This marketing strategy plays right into each of our personal stories that we tell ourselves on a daily basis. It allows us to validate all of our shortcomings and fears and it removes the responsibility from us for the way our bodies look…this sets the trap that leaves us highly vulnerable to fall for the next fitness/diet item that is designed ‘just for us’.

There are lots of things that make you truly one of a kind; where you grew up, how you were raised, things you like and don’t like, your specific personality traits and quirks, your finger prints, your voice, even your gait (how you walk).

So don’t worry, you really are unique (just like everybody else! ha…sorry I can’t help but add that part in because it’s just so ironic)

So this is where reality sets in and the uniqueness ends and the commonalities begin.

This is the list of just some of the things that you and everyone else have in common:

1. There is a finite and predictable amount of muscle you can build based on your height and somatotype (assuming you’re not using steroids)

2. Your metabolic rate is determined by your lean body mass and is pretty much fixed within a tight range (see point 1 for explanation)

3. The only way you can lose weight is eating less calories than you burn (for real, this actually applies to everyone)

4.  Your body digests and reacts to food just like everyone else’s (give or take a couple items you might be allergic to or a congenital bowel disease)

So in general, your body isn’t as unique as your personality is.

And that is a good thing. That means you don’t need to search high and low for exercise and diet advice that will work for you. In fact what worked for most other people will work just fine for you too.

So have fun during your special day today, but remember that we’re mostly the same when it comes to exercise and metabolism.

John

#10 – Obese people have slower basal metabolic rates than non-obese people

Answer: FALSE

This is a common fallacy to assume that obese or overweight people have a slower metabolic rate and that they are somehow just not burning enough calories. From here the thinking is they can lose weight by increasing their metabolism and in turn increase the amount of calories they are burning.

The reality is that overweight and obese people (when compared to height and age matched non overweight people) have a higher metabolism and would burn more calories on a daily basis.

A bigger body that has more mass and is processing more food is simply doing more work. Metabolism is just the description of all the metabolic processes going on in your body.

If you’re body is bigger than mine and you regularly eat more food than I do, then you’re body is busy processing that food and laying down more fat mass (which is more work). This actually translates to a higher metabolic rate or a greater degree of calories burned per day compared to someone who isn’t as big and not eating as much. None of this adds up to weight loss.

It just means that a bigger body has a bigger metabolism, and a smaller body has a smaller metabolism.

If you want to actually see some weight loss results/success I suggest you forget about the word metabolism. Strike it from your vocabulary and focus on eating less food.

Any weight loss product that is making a claim about changing or speeding up your metabolism is bogus and I wouldn’t waste even a second reading about it let alone a penny buying it.

John

#9 – Effective weight loss is a result of an increased metabolism

Answer: FALSE

This is probably the most consistent myth that simply will not go away. I think the problem comes from people not understand what the word ‘metabolism’ even means.

Metabolism is simply a word that describes the total processes of your body at a given point in time.

The processes of your body require a certain amount of energy to keep them going. When we eat just enough to keep everything humming along we will not gain or lose weight. When we eat more than our body need it will simply store the excess for a later date. When we eat less than it needs your body will use up some of the stored energy it has in fat cells.

Even very lean people have weeks and weeks of stored energy in their fat cells. Obese people have months and sometimes YEARS of stored energy.

In reality if you did a measurement of the metabolic rate of overweight or obese people and a group of lean people (at the same age and height) you would find that the overweight and obese people have a ‘higher’ metabolism and burn MORE calories per day. This is because they simply have more body mass to deal with and have more stuff going on.

The fallacy is thinking that there is a ‘speed’ that your metabolism can go and that you can somehow speed it up to burn more calories. This is not the case.

At one point in the mid 80′s up to the mid to late 90′s there was an underground drug that could do this exact thing. It was called DNP and bodybuilders took it to get shredded. The problem is it caused such a dramatic change that people would run a fatal fever and die. You could say that some of these guys actually cooked themselves from the inside out!

The point is this. Any drug or supplement or intervention that could actually melt fat off your body without eating less will also be so dangerous that it could easily kill you.

Anything intervention (drug, supplement, infection, disease) that actually changes your metabolism to any great degree is dangerous and usually requires medical attention.

Just think of how little wiggle room you have with a fever. Normal body temp (oral) is around 98.2 degree F. If you increase your ‘metabolism’ to a point where you are just a few degrees higher (around 102-3 degrees F) you’re in big trouble. So what makes anyone think increasing their metabolic rate is a good thing, or even possible?

Things like working out cause transient increases in energy expenditure which are not to be confused with ‘metabolic rate’.

There’s nothing you can really do to change the rate at which your metabolism functions, so the only two things you can do is exercise more to burn some more energy and eat a bit less to force your body to dip into fat stores to make up the difference.

John

#7 – Rapid weight loss from severe calorie restriction will ‘damage’ your metabolism and cause you to regain all the weight and possibly even more weight once you stop the diet and go back to eating for weight maintenance.

Answer: FALSE

First of all there is no such thing as ‘damaging’ your metabolism.

“Metabolism” simply refers to the sum of all processes going on in your body at a given time. So this can never be damaged. It’s just a description of process.

Even people in severely wasting disease states will be functioning normal after they recover.

Unless you have a diagnosed metabolic disorder that actually changes the normal way your body processes fuel (this is very rare, and you’d know it if this was the case) then you’re body is processing food/fuel just like everybody else.

Weight gain seems to happen over longer periods of time, but weight loss almost always happens quickly (10-16 weeks)

There is also good research indicating people who have lost significant weight are functioning perfectly normal all the way through and at the end of their weight loss.

John