I can understand why fitness readers believe a lot of fitness myths.
But what I don't understand is why trainers believe these myths, and insist on passing them on and perpetuating the myths to thousands of clients.
Here's some junk that I read yesterday in another trainer's newsletter.
"Catabolic foods burn up more calories than they supply. Catabolic foods are the opposite of Anabolic foods. For example a medium sized apple (which is catabolic), would provide an average of 85 calories, however your metabolism would require an additional 99 more calories to metabolize it. To help maintain your weight it is helpful to eat a minimum of ten servings of catabolic foods each day. "
Okay, so if I do the math correctly...then if I eat 10 apples per day, I would actually have a net loss of 140 calories?
Someone better tell the sports nutritionists about this before they recommend an apple as a good post-exercise carbohydrate source!
This is the kind of junk that circulates in the fitness industry on a daily basis. Other myths include "drinking ice cold water burns lots of calories and will cause you to lose weight" and "squirting lemon juice in your water helps you burn more fat" and "1 pound of muscle burns 50 calories", and I could go on and on.
All myths.
But I guess I can see why they exist...they give hope that you can lose fat without working hard.
Too bad the easy way isn't an effective way.
But trainers should know better,
CB
4 comments:
Don't tell gorillas that bananas are a catabolic food!!!
By using this "catabolic food" logic, I would starve to death if all I had to eat was apples or other catabolic foods - if it actually did take more energy to metabolize the food than the food provided.
What nonsense!!!
CB
So an extra pound of muscle that you gain doesn't burn extra calories?
Certainly not 50 calories. A better estimate is 5.
When you do the math for someone that puts on say, 20 lbs of muscle, you realize there is no way that their metabolism is going to go up 1000 calories (20lbs x 50 calories).
That would make it very difficult to maintain muscle mass.
Like the catabolic food claim, it sounds good when you are talking about 1 pound of muscle, or 1 apple having the effect, but when you do the numbers...it's clear that it cannot be true.
CB
Yes, and the weird thing is, I would likely still recommend eating the same foods as a trainer that recommends so-called "catabolic foods" or "negative calorie" foods, but there philosophy sounds so much more "exciting".
Oh well, better than the hollywood juice diet...
CB
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