A guide to avoiding common myths that you often hear in the gym. This conclusion presents several nutrition-related myths.See part I
Lower your carbohydrates to burn fat
Lowering your carbohydrates may help you burn fat … because you are lowering your calories! Carbohydrate is not the enemy. If you think carbohydrate is the enemy, consider a typical day’s menu for some of nutritionist Keith Klein’s clients:
6oz meat, 1 cup oatmeal
6oz meat, 1 cup brown rice, 1 cup veggies
10 egg whites, 8oz sweet potato, and 1 cup veggies
6oz meat, 1 cup oatmeal
6oz meat, 1 cup black beans, 1 cup veggies
6oz meat, 1 cup kidney beans
You get the point. There are plenty of carbohydrates in these menus – and what happens? Every person I know who hired Keith has lost buckets of fat and gained considerable muscle (Keith Klein was Lee Labrada’s nutritionist). The morale? In the context of donuts and pastries and processed breads, carbohydrate can be your number one enemy, but in the context of a healthy nutrition plan, they are your friends.
You Must Avoid Fat As Much As Possible
Sure, if you want to get sick, crave chocolate, and lose muscle. The past few decades have been characterized by an all-out war on fat that is extremely unwarranted. It’s not fat that is bad, it’s the quality of fat. The big white streak of gristle that divides your steak in half isn’t the best food for your body, but unsaturated fats like olive oil and flaxseed oil can improve your health. Recent studies show anti-carcinogenic effects, fat-burning effects, and muscle building effects of healthy fats. Men need fat to produce testosterone – when the fat content of their diet drops significantly below 20%, their testosterone levels drop as well.
Women also use fats for hormone production – when many of my female clients supplement with healthy fats, they report a reduction of PMS symptoms, a more regular cycle, softer skin, and the fact that their cravings go away. I don’t purport to be a miracle healer, but I do suggest you try incorporating healthy fats into your diet to understand the benefits for yourself. In the context of the average American diet, fat is a killer – but in the context of a health, natural diet, unsaturated fats are your friends!
Low-carbohydrate diets are unhealthy
On the flipside, many people try to claim that low-carbohydrate diets are unhealthy. I disagree completely. A low-carbohydrate diet that involves unhealthy foods – i.e. all the lard-cheese-restaurant burgers you can eat, well, who knows? I don’t deal with that kind of nonsense. A reasonable low carbohydrate diet with quality proteins, healthy fats, and tons of low calorie vegetables to provide ample vitamins and minerals … there is nothing in literature or experience to indicate that this is unhealthy at all. Many top class bodybuilders consume low carbohydrate diets, and certain medical conditions are cured using low carbohydrate diets. Again, it is an example of the extreme – taking it out of context. If you can tolerate carbohydrates, why not have them? In the context of a generic, eat-all-the-lard-you-want no-carbohydrate diet, this type of nutrition can be unhealthy, but in the context of a healthy, balanced low-carbohydrate nutrition program, if you are sensitive to carbohydrates, have a medical condition that requires their elimination, or feel healthier on a low-carbohydrate diet, go for it!
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High protein diets are unhealthy
If this were true, all bodybuilders and power-lifters, most of Canada’s hockey teams (who have been influenced by strength coach Charles Poliquin, a huge advocate of high protein nutrition), and many fitness enthusiasts would all be keeling over. The fact is that the USRDA for protein must have been based on a 40-pound child who sleeps all day. Protein is fuel, and protein is muscle. Protein is good! In the context of a person with kidney problems, high protein can be dangerous, but in the context of a healthy adult male, protein is fine.
Excessive protein places a strain on your kidneys
Did I mention context? If someone has an existing kidney problem, excessive protein can aggravate the problem. The reason is that the kidney filters toxins from the body. When protein is consumed, some of the protein is used for energy. Stripping a nitrogen atom from the protein molecule and then converting the remaining skeleton to glucose achieves this. The nitrogen atom forms a compound similar to ammonia that is filtered by the kidney. If the filter on your vacuum cleaner is broken, you’ll kick up dust – does that mean everyone shouldn’t vacuum? There is no study that has demonstrated that a high protein diet has any adverse effects on an adult with normal, healthy kidney function.
Sugar is bad (avoid fruit!)
This myth will be explored more in the next section. Sugar itself is not bad; it is excessive sugar and the wrong kind of sugar. All carbohydrate turns to sugar in your body, so it is the rate at which it converts to sugar and the effect it has on insulin that is critical to whether or not it may cause problems. Many people sacrifice fruit due to a fear of the sugar content, when in fact fruit contains thousands of healthy, natural chemicals that have been shown to reduce the risk of illness, disease, cancer, heart attack, and stroke! In the context of highly refined table sugar, sugar is bad! In the context of healthy, natural sugars, a little fruit and honey is perfectly fine!
Eat complex carbohydrates instead of simple carbohydrates
Furthering the “sugar is bad” myth, decades ago we were taught that complex carbohydrates are good and simple carbohydrates are bad. This myth is simply not true, yet even registered dieticians still preach this to this day. The theory is that complex carbohydrates are “broken down more slowly” so they provide more steady fuel over time, while simple sugars are “absorbed quickly”. In reality, it is not as simple as this (pardon the pun). For example, fruit contains a simple sugar, fructose, yet fructose is very slowly absorbed and has a minimal impact on insulin. A baked potato, on the other hand, is a complex carbohydrate that is converted to glucose (a sugar that the body uses) faster than table sugar! Even complex grains become as rapidly ingested as sugars when they are highly refined and processed into foods such as bagels and muffins. The key, then, is not to worry so much about complex versus simple carbohydrates, but to focus instead on natural, unprocessed carbohydrate over refined, processed carbohydrate. In the context of the 70’s, we only understood carbohydrates to be “simple” and “complex”, but today we know otherwise.
The glycemic index indicates how food affects insulin
The glycemic index is based on measurements taken after a subject consumes a certain amount of carbohydrate. Blood sugar is measured at various intervals. Either sugar or white bread is considered a “baseline” and then points are scored based on the relative rate of elevation. For example, most fruit has a glycemic index below 50, meaning that blood sugar rises only half as much (i.e. more slowly) than bread (or sugar, depending on the index used). On the other hand, the “complex carbohydrate” added to most meal replacement shakes – maltodextrin – scores higher than table sugar – it causes blood sugar to rise rapidly, implying an even faster “crash” that would result in loss of energy. This index does not measure insulin. It was originally thought the rise in blood sugar could be a good predictor of the effects on insulin, but a more recent study that examined insulin directly shows otherwise. While many foods are similar on the glycemic and insulin indexes, some foods couldn’t be farther apart. Proteins, for example, have a negligible score on the glycemic index but can cause a significant increase in insulin. Again, the index is a tool that might help understand food choices, but getting back to the basics and simply selecting what nature provides is the best way to choose overall.
Cut carbohydrate at night to lose more fat
When you cut carbohydrate, you cut calories. Sure, you might lose more fat … but who’s to say if you cut protein instead of fat, you wouldn’t get the same result? Cutting carbohydrate at night isn’t necessarily the key – it depends on your training and other factors. You can eat carbohydrate right up until sleep, in fact, some people sleep better when they have a carbohydrate before bed because it stimulates serotonin production that is connected to deep sleep. The fact is, if your portions are too big; make small changes throughout the day instead of one drastic change before bed. If you train at night, carbohydrate may be even more important to fuel the activity and replenish glycogen stores subsequent to lifting.
Don’t eat right before bed because you don’t burn energy at night
Continuing the last myth, you do burn energy at night. This is still around, and people still preach this. “Hey, I cut out my heavy meals at night, because that’s what was keeping me overweight.” It’s the extra calories, not the fact that they were eaten at night! You burn more calories during 8 hours of sleep than in 3 hours of sitting at your desk, so why do you eat carbohydrate during the day (when you’re sitting at your desk) but not at night (when your body is struggling to recover, to rebuild muscle tissue, and burn fat?). Carbohydrate before bed can help build muscle mass and burn fat, despite the popular myth to the contrary. Just keep in mind that these should be whole, natural, unprocessed carbohydrate that will provide steady fuel throughout the night, rather than a “spike” of blood sugar all at once.
Conclusion
As you can see, context is important because when we take things out of context, we lose the original meaning. The health and fitness industry has its own share of myths propagated from these “out of context” translations. Sometimes it is a simple mistake, and other times it is a purposeful distortion of the truth perpetrated in order to sell a product or server. The next time you hear someone shout from the tower of Babel, tell him or her to come down to your level and explain what he or she is talking about. Knowing the original message will help you build your peak physique by avoiding the dead-ends and pitfalls others might throw your way.
