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Fitness and diet myths that just won't go away
Replies
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Thanks for this thread. What an entertaining read!
Here's an exercise myth I hear a lot:
You can't get fit with yoga. (Alternative: yoga isn't "good" exercise.)
I think this goes with the idea that unless you are torturing yourself with exercise, it isn't enough. Personally, I love yoga because it ISN'T torture, which means I'll keep doing it! I love the mix of strength training and stretching. And as someone that is predisposed to bouts of anxiety, the meditative aspects help me emotionally also.5 -
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Question: several people stated "starvation mode" as a myth. What do you mean by this?
I ask because I'm trying to check my own faulty assumptions.
(Trying to undo decades of terrible food and exercise advice over here.) 1 -
dralicephd wrote: »Question: several people stated "starvation mode" as a myth. What do you mean by this?
I ask because I'm trying to check my own faulty assumptions. (Trying to undo decades of terrible food and exercise advice over here.)
The effects commonly associated with the term are myths.
You can't lose fat or weight.
You'll gain weight.
Happens if you skip a meal.
Sadly the term was thrown out with the myths.
Another term is now used in studies that means the same thing - metabolic adaptation.
If you eat too little (genetics matter, amount of extra fat matters, body stress) you can stress the body into adapting and burning less than it otherwise might have. Never enough to stop fat loss though if you keep eating less and less.
That fact coupled with a few other items can appear to lead to some of those same myths - increased cortisol with increased water weight could cause scale loss to stop, or increase.
Muscle loss caused by that much deficit and slower metabolism will be bad combo when attempting to eat at a supposed maintenance level if goal weight reached.4 -
"Steady state" is an exercise pace or duration.
Well, that's maybe more of a silly implicit assumption or misstatement than a myth . . . but it's common and persistent.
As in: "I do high intensity cardio because steady state is boring."
There is LISS, MISS, and maybe even HISS (which wouldn't last long, relatively speaking 😉😆).
"Steady state" is a constant pace, any constant pace: It's a pacing strategy, in contrast to intervals, for example (LIIT, MIIT, HIIT?).
If a specific pace, it may be SS with respect to some duration: My 5 minute SS pace can be fairly fast, but my 5 hour SS better be relatively slow, eh?
/pedantic
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OK, this an outdated myth, but I think maybe eye-opening for those who don't know about it, because it's a medical myth. Apologies that it takes a bit of background to explain.
I'm a breast cancer survivor. I had multiple lymph nodes removed from my left underarm, which is a common thing for diagnostic purposes - has been done for decades. I also had radiation therapy on that side, which creates scar tissue. Both of those things increase risk for chronic lymphedema, poor circulation of lymphatic fluid that can cause the arm to swell, harden if untreated, and other bad things. Treatment includes self-massage, routinely wearing compression sleeves/gloves during the day, wrapping at night, and more.
For many decades, women were told not to do any kind of upper body repetitive-motion exercise with the at-risk arm, among other precautions. The formal written medical guidance included that, plus said not to lift more than 10 pounds (or thereabouts) with that arm *ever again*. (That's just a bit heavier than a gallon of milk, as context.)
Guess what? 100% not true.
I was diagnosed at the cusp of the change. Eventually, couple of years later, I was even enrolled in a research study of rowers, as part of a breast cancer survivors team I joined in 2002. Other research was being done (retrospectives of occupations among survivors, for example, correlated with lymphedema incidence.) No sign that repetitive motion exercise or lifting weight causes lymphedema (as long as actual injury is avoided, because injury does seem to be a potential trigger).
In fact, if anything, it's now believed that repetitive motion exercise is a positive for avoiding lymphedema. Reasons are not clear, but one speculation is that the movement of muscles and tissues has a sort of pumping effect on the lymphatic fluid.
At diagnosis, I asked my surgeon about strength training prohibitions. He said "Lymphedema clinics write up those prohibition lists. They see people who got lymphedema, consider what they'd been doing, and form theories about causes. They don't see all the people who do the same thing, don't get lymphedema. I have many patients who lift weights, do fine. Just take it gradually, avoid injury. It should be fine."
I'm glad I missed out on the error of pervasive myth on this point. Even medical advice can be wrong, and that's not a big complaint from me: Until there's solid research-based evidence, they need to provide the best guidance they can. It's not always going to be right; and because they're humans, it will take some time for the evidence to become common advice.
(FWIW, besides injury, another potential increased risk may come from weight gain after treatment.)8 -
In fact, if anything, it's now believed that repetitive motion exercise is a positive for avoiding lymphedema. Reasons are not clear, but one speculation is that the movement of muscles and tissues has a sort of pumping effect on the lymphatic fluid.
I have lower limb lymphedema and this is correct.
Back when I was first diagnosed I still had access to academic journals and found that most of the research at that time was being conducted in Europe, particularly Germany. Muscles move lymphatic fluid.3 -
I heard the following this weekend from a family member: "Calories in, calories out" is a lie!!!!
Yes, nutrition is also important, but you can eat really well and still gain weight if you eat too many calories for the amount you expend. (I'm a living example of this and why I'm back on this site logging my food.)2 -
That if you are or have ever been fat it is because you lack willpower.
...applies to some people. Does not apply to everyone.
Stoppit6 -
wunderkindking wrote: »That if you are or have ever been fat it is because you lack willpower.
...applies to some people. Does not apply to everyone.
Stoppit
We can take this one even further... I have seen posted here and elsewhere that anybody who could put on 10 lbs in a year is a glutton and all that person would need to do is stop eating so dang much food and the weight would just fall right off.
Problem is, when you run the numbers, to put on 10 lbs in a year, your horrible nasty gluttonous self would be eating a mind-boggling 96** extra calories per day...
So again, stoppit!!!
**
3500 calories per pound
10 lbs gained
365 days in a year
so => (3500*10)/365 = 95.89 calories/day6 -
I've heard another one about how everybody has a "setpoint" weight and that it is hopeless to want to be smaller than that, because eventually your body will creep back to that setpoint. This makes no sense from a biology or evolutionary standpoint.
However, it makes perfect sense if you consider people try an unsustainable lifestyle to obtain the weight loss and then eventually fall back on old habits. (That's not a biological "setpoint"!)
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wunderkindking wrote: »That if you are or have ever been fat it is because you lack willpower.
...applies to some people. Does not apply to everyone.
Stoppit
We can take this one even further... I have seen posted here and elsewhere that anybody who could put on 10 lbs in a year is a glutton and all that person would need to do is stop eating so dang much food and the weight would just fall right off.
Problem is, when you run the numbers, to put on 10 lbs in a year, your horrible nasty gluttonous self would be eating a mind-boggling 96** extra calories per day...
So again, stoppit!!!
**
3500 calories per pound
10 lbs gained
365 days in a year
so => (3500*10)/365 = 95.89 calories/day
Yep. And the maintenance calories is a whole 10 calories per pound or so. So, to maintain me at the low end of obese vs the high end of normal would be... 200 calories. Needed to cut more than that to lose, sure, and I dropped to about the middle of the healthy BMI range for my height, but I STILL HAD TO ADD CALORIES AND CALORIE DENSE FOOD BACK.
Getting and staying fat doesn't involve some incredibly gluttony all the time. Usually it's just smallish overages done consistently. Kind of like smallish deficit done consistently leads to steady loss.6 -
dralicephd wrote: »I've heard another one about how everybody has a "setpoint" weight and that it is hopeless to want to be smaller than that, because eventually your body will creep back to that setpoint. This makes no sense from a biology or evolutionary standpoint.
However, it makes perfect sense if you consider people try an unsustainable lifestyle to obtain the weight loss and then eventually fall back on old habits. (That's not a biological "setpoint"!)
I was thinking about that this weekend when I was telling someone I'd technically like to lose another couple of pounds because my brain likes multiples of 5, but ultimately even losing another couple of pounds would involve me changing things more than I was willing so where I am is just going to be where I am.2 -
wunderkindking wrote: »Getting and staying fat doesn't involve some incredibly gluttony all the time. Usually it's just smallish overages done consistently. Kind of like smallish deficit done consistently leads to steady loss.
I read once where professional chefs are commonly prone to becoming overweight, not because they indulge in huge amounts of food, but because they taste-test what they are preparing throughout the day. A spoon of sauce here...a morsel of something there...it all adds up.5 -
wunderkindking wrote: »Getting and staying fat doesn't involve some incredibly gluttony all the time. Usually it's just smallish overages done consistently. Kind of like smallish deficit done consistently leads to steady loss.
I read once where professional chefs are commonly prone to becoming overweight, not because they indulge in huge amounts of food, but because they taste-test what they are preparing throughout the day. A spoon of sauce here...a morsel of something there...it all adds up.
I absolutely believe that and it makes sense. I think people think I'm joking (or lying) when I say condiments made me obese.
But condiments made me obese.
Doesn't take a lot of 100 calorie a tablespoon butter or mayo or salad dressing to lead to an issue.5 -
When my wife wanted to start losing weight at the start of the year, she asked for my help since I'm the food preparer in the family. Specifically, she wanted me to give her pre-portioned amounts of food, so she wouldn't have to think about it, just eat what's in front of her.
Everything was going well at first...measured amounts of pasta, smaller dishes of ice cream, etc. But it all came to a head when I fixed her a salad and added a pre-measured amount of ranch dressing. She stared at it for over a minute, not quite believing how little I'd given her. Ultimately because she was doing so well in most other areas, she asked me to go ahead and give her the usual amount of dressing she was accustomed to receiving. I agreed, but insisted on measuring as I went. Turns out her "usual" was about six to seven times the "suggested serving" on the bottle, so even though she may have had "only a salad" for dinner, she was consuming over a thousand calories just in dressing. Blew her mind.
Today she still has a lot of ranch, but she has cut her former drenching in half. And she's down over 30 pounds. Coincidence?14 -
When my wife wanted to start losing weight at the start of the year, she asked for my help since I'm the food preparer in the family. Specifically, she wanted me to give her pre-portioned amounts of food, so she wouldn't have to think about it, just eat what's in front of her.
Everything was going well at first...measured amounts of pasta, smaller dishes of ice cream, etc. But it all came to a head when I fixed her a salad and added a pre-measured amount of ranch dressing. She stared at it for over a minute, not quite believing how little I'd given her. Ultimately because she was doing so well in most other areas, she asked me to go ahead and give her the usual amount of dressing she was accustomed to receiving. I agreed, but insisted on measuring as I went. Turns out her "usual" was about six to seven times the "suggested serving" on the bottle, so even though she may have had "only a salad" for dinner, she was consuming over a thousand calories just in dressing. Blew her mind.
Today she still has a lot of ranch, but she has cut her former drenching in half. And she's down over 30 pounds. Coincidence?
Nooope. I am absolutely positive that I had days where the cream in my coffee, butter on toast and vegetables, mayo on my sandwich, and ranch on my salad added up to 1K of calories. My diet? Otherwise perfectly reasonable.
Freaking condiments.
And it's weird now because I CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOw I KNEW those things were 100 calories or so a tablespoon, but until I started logging? Never clicked. Wild as heck. I'd have said, and meant 'I'm not eating that much!' and I wasn't. I also wasn't eating over all badly.
CONDIMENTS.
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Today she still has a lot of ranch, but she has cut her former drenching in half. And she's down over 30 pounds. Coincidence?
In case you haven't tried: yogurt-based dressings are usually great substitutes for the cream-based dressings. They taste creamy and are half the calories. The one I like is 45 calories for 2 tablespoons. Maybe she'd like that? She could go back to her normal "drenching" with less calories.
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wunderkindking wrote: »When my wife wanted to start losing weight at the start of the year, she asked for my help since I'm the food preparer in the family. Specifically, she wanted me to give her pre-portioned amounts of food, so she wouldn't have to think about it, just eat what's in front of her.
Everything was going well at first...measured amounts of pasta, smaller dishes of ice cream, etc. But it all came to a head when I fixed her a salad and added a pre-measured amount of ranch dressing. She stared at it for over a minute, not quite believing how little I'd given her. Ultimately because she was doing so well in most other areas, she asked me to go ahead and give her the usual amount of dressing she was accustomed to receiving. I agreed, but insisted on measuring as I went. Turns out her "usual" was about six to seven times the "suggested serving" on the bottle, so even though she may have had "only a salad" for dinner, she was consuming over a thousand calories just in dressing. Blew her mind.
Today she still has a lot of ranch, but she has cut her former drenching in half. And she's down over 30 pounds. Coincidence?
Nooope. I am absolutely positive that I had days where the cream in my coffee, butter on toast and vegetables, mayo on my sandwich, and ranch on my salad added up to 1K of calories. My diet? Otherwise perfectly reasonable.
Freaking condiments.
And it's weird now because I CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOw I KNEW those things were 100 calories or so a tablespoon, but until I started logging? Never clicked. Wild as heck. I'd have said, and meant 'I'm not eating that much!' and I wasn't. I also wasn't eating over all badly.
CONDIMENTS.
You have reminded me to measure my salad dressing tonight to make sure I haven't been creeping up with mine. I don't think I have, but........
2
That would be disturbing!!! I really got a bad mental image here. lol..
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