Archive for ‘Fitness Myth Monday’
10 items.
Old Lady
I probably hear this the most of any objection when I try to get people started exercising by giving them my testimony as a former fatass who lost 60 pounds in about 6 months. When people say, “Oh, just wait until you’re older, ” I hear, “I’m looking for things to blame for my lack of initiative, and my peers’ collective lack of initiative is an easy target.” The problem is, obesity is an peidemic that knows no age barriers. 2/3 of American adults 18 and above are overweight. It’s not age, it’s attitude.
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Reflexology
That last sentence should be all you need to know how stupid it is, but I’ll continue anyway.
In 1917, Dr. William Fitzgerald wrote a book called Zone Therapy in which he said that the body has 10 “energy zones” and that disharmony of these are what cause illness and affliction. In the 1930′s Eunice Ingham said that Dr. Fitzgerald was wrong. She should have stopped there, but instead she decided to take the batcrapness an extra step by saying that each part of the foot is a “mirror site” to a certain part of the body. The big toe, for example, is considered a reflex area for the head. Reflexology maps the body with the feet, the right foot corresponding to the right side of the body and the left foot corresponding to the left side of the body. Because the whole body is represented in the feet, reflexologists consider themselves to be not just podiatrists, but actual health practitioners.
Reflexologists claim that they can cure a variety of aches and pains by massaging the correct reflex points on the foot, I guess if you’re just going to make stuff up without verifying it, you can kind of just say whatever you want, because other reflexologists claim the ability to cure migraine headaches, relieve sinus problems, restore harmony to hormonal imbalances, cure breathing disorders, correct digestive problems, and restore your circulatory system’s natural harmony.. If you have a back problem, a massage on the right spot on the right foot (which might be the left foot in some cases?!?!) can alleviate your suffering. All from massaging your feet.
To illustrate how completely inane this idea is, imagine you calling someone to fix your plumbing. Instead of a plumber coming to your house, you get a “house reflexologist”. He assures you that he can fix your problem through some mystical power you can’t possible understand, the propmptly begins hitting your ceiling fan with a wrench. When you tell him that’s not where the plumbing problem is, he says they’re connected (meaning they’re in the same house) and that you just need to relax and let house reflexology work.
A recent study, published in The Medical Journal of Australia, searched medical databases for 18 medical studies that met scientific crtieria. In the studies, 12 failed to prove any effect at all, positive or negative.
Foot massages feel awesome, yes, but don’t mistake it for actual medical care, because it’s not. And perpetuating the belief that it is may cause people to look to it to cure their ailments instead of an actual, tested, effective treatment. That’s the real tragedy with any alternative medicine. It’s exploiting people’s health concerns for a cheap buck, at best doing nothing and at worst suspending their recovery. Don’t let the do it to you.
Muscle Milk
Muscle Milk is a protein supplement which has been carefully patterned after a mother’s breast milk, and is said to include the same healthy anabolic properties. Yes – you heard that right, a mother’s breast milk. The idea being, a growing bodybuilder can also benefit from the same anabolic properties of breast milk. “You know, babies grow really fast, so if I, a grown adult, drink it, then I will grow really fast. Actually collecting breast milk would probably get me arrested, so I’ll just buy Muscle Milk.”
One thing I will give Muscle Milk: It tastes AMAZING!!! But, as is often the case, it owes itsrich, creamy taste to the fact that it has lots of fat. More fat in fact, than a double-dipped waffle cone at Ben and Jerry’s, which probably tastes a lot better. Needless to say, anyone looking for muscle definition should steer clear
There’s also the issue of how much protein it has. 32 grams in the average serving. Do you know how much protein your body actually needs? About .12-.18% of your body weight. For someone who’s 200 pounds like me, it maxes out at 80 grams. Because you don’t need much protein, your body isn’t equipped to process much at any given time, any amount over about 25 grams just goes right through your system exactly as it came in.
What it is good for is people (like me) trying to gain both muscle and body fat, and if its advertisers were honest about that instead of marketing it to people with goals for just musclebuilding, I would have no problem with it. But it’s marketing makes promises that the product doesn’t live up to, and the company has propelled itself into the area of fitness myth propogation just to make more money. It’s sad, because Cytosport have a good product, just not good for everyone, in fact not good for 90% of the people who buy it.
Grapefruit Diets
The premise of the Grapefruit Diet is based on a magical ingredient (seriously) in grapefruits, that, when eaten with protein, triggers fat burning. The diet is designed to promote fast weight loss. And because grapefruits are MAGICAL, you can eat pretty much whatever you want. Bacon, french fries, and UNLIMITED MEAT(!!) are actually recommended in some of their meal plans. And as long as you eat half a grapefruit after every meal, you’ll lose 10 pounds in 12 days.
A few problems with a diet:
1) Grapefruits are disgusting. They taste like rancid oranges.
2) Grapefruits are also not magic.
3)The diet is so dumb that nobody has even tried to take credit for it. Which, if you consider the dumb diets that people do take credit for, is pretty mind-boggling.
4)You’ll gain back all the weight as soon as you stop, and the plan only allows for 12 days of the diet. It’s that bad for you.
So, in short, this diet is 12 days of gorging on a limited variety of foods, getting bored and overcaffeinated, and having all your friends hate you because you smell like a rotten orange mixed with bacon grease.
Magnet Therapy
(By the way, Mesmer also is a creator of hypnotic healing (hence the term mesmerizing, and we all know how well that works.)
And, despite NO hard evidence that it actually works, the ball is still rolling more than 200 years later. A cottage industry has sprouted and is generating about $150 million a year producing magnetic insoles, bracelets, knee braces, and even magnets, all claiming miraculous healing powers. The most commonly cited reason is that magnets are attracted to the iron in your blood, and you can draw blood to any part of your body to speed the healing process. Which brings us to the interactive portion of today’s blog. Follow these directions below to participate
1)Prick your finger and place a drop of your blood next to a magnet.
2)Watch your blood not react at all.
There simply aren’t enough iron atoms in your red blood cells to form a magnetic surface. To put it simply, magnets don’t affect our bodies because we’re not made of magnetic stuff. The only benefit magnet therapy has is increasing the wealth of the people who choose to perpetuate the myth. You might as well just burn a pile of money in a ritual sacrifice to cure your pain. It least that would look kind of awesome. That’s more than I can say for magnetic bracelets.
Hallelujah Diet
It all started in 1976, when Reverend George Malkmus was diagnosed with colon cancer. You see, his mom had died from colon cancer, and he decided it wasn’t the cancer’s fault. It was the insipid doctors, and all their science based treatments and medicines that caused his mother’s death. So no more critical thinking for this guy. Ever.
After realizing, much to his surprise, that talking to his imaginary friend didn’t cure cancer either, he decided that the only practical solution was to eat only the kind of food that grew in the Garden of Eden from the Bible. I mean, you have 2 whole people there, and, as far as we know, neither of them got cancer, so it’s 100% effective, right? After his own cancer went into remission by itself (which cancers sometimes do), he devoted his life to promoting what is essentially a raw-vegan diet, telling people that people don’t need to get sick and that his diet can prevent and cure any affliction under the sun.
Of course, eating nothing but fruits, vegetables, and whole grains will almost inevitably lead to weight loss, due to the scarcity of calories, but diets such as this can be very unhealthy for the following reasons.
- No Vitamin B-12, which makes DNA, protects the nervous system, and makes blood cells.
- No Vitamin D, which allows transport of calcium to your bones
- Deficient in 7 other micronutrients
Don’t worry, the always altruistic George Malkmus has a solution for that: supplements that cost upwards of $2,000 a year.
And besides, no energy, osteoporosis, and a faulty nervous system are a small price to pay to know that you’re never going to get cancer, right? I mean, if you go through all the other stuff, and then get cancer, that’s just beyond horrible. Well, guess where humans get most of their carcinogens. FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND GRAINS! That’s right! This diet that causes all kinds of horrible health deficiencies doesn’t even do the one good thing the diet’s creator says it does. In fact, it does the exact opposite. And it costs a lot, too! There’s absolutely nothing good about this diet, and all the wishful thinking in the world won’t change that at all.
Shake Weight
It makes me question my hope for humanity’s future when THIS sells more than about 3 units
Hilarious Shake Weight Exercise for Women
This ridiculous and less-than-subtly suggestive ad was seen on many TV shows, most notably Ellen, and tens of thousands of these devices have been sold! Which must mean that it works, right? Nobody would carry a device like that around unless it actually lived up to the claims made by its manufacturer, right?
THE CLAIMS MADE BY ITS MANUFACTURER
- The Shake Weight works with a method called Dynamic Inertia in which you work your muscles by shaking the weight instead of lifting it. (Dynamic inertia is an oxymoron.)
- A scientific study showed that this product is more effective than regular weight training in many aspects. (I tried to find reference to the study on their website, to know what aspects were tested, but couldn’t so I don’t know who conducted this research and what the exact findings were. As I’ve stated before, if results of a study are hard to find, it’s usually not because they’re good.)
- That you can get terrific results in just 6 minutes a day. (If you believe that, then you deserve to walk around looking like a callgirl for The Invisible Man)
- The Shake Weight can help women get that long muscle growth instead of the bulky growth which men prefer. Traditional weight training machines and dumbbells is what causes bulky muscle growth. (The real cause is genetics. Women generally don’t have enough testosterone to get really bulky muscles.) (There’s also one for men. It’s the exact same product, except now it suddenly STIMULATES bulky muscle growth instead of preventing it.)
There is absolutely no evidence of any kind that using this machine is any more stimulating than waving your arms in front of you. This is one of those products that proves how easy it is to delude people into buying pretty much anything.
Spot Reduction
So far on this blog, I’ve been pretty safe. I’ve kind of been attacking things on the fringe. You may have learned some new information, but deep, down, you probably knew those things were nonsense before I even started. Today that changes. Today I go after one of the most widely believed and profitable myths in the fitness industry: Spot reduction.
Various devices, exercises, and supplements are marketed to target your body fat in a certain area: your hips, your underarms, your thighs, wherever. Because most people will believe anything that someone athletic-looking in athletic attire says, these all sell like hotcakes. And, if they work as intended, it is by pure chance. Your body’s personal fat distribution is determined from the day you’re born, and if you want to attack fat, you have to attack it all.
“But why the stomach?’ You might ask. The answer is simple; that’s where your internal organs are. Early in human history, leading scientists say, people with fat distribution to their stomach were able to keep their organs warmer and more resistant to impact, and thus were able to survive longer and produce more offspring. It’s only very recently in human history that we in the civilized world have enough food to eat and don’t fight wars with swords and shields. Thus, we’re genetically programmed to store fat efficiently and to store it in our abdominal areas. Spot reduction is a physiological impossibility, and anyone who says different is lying.
Within your genetically determined body type however, there are a multitude of ways to make yourself look and feel better. Probably not as good or as fast as you want, but deal with it. And keep in mine, the people selling these false hopes and outrageous claims are the same mesomorphic meatheads who made fun of you (and me) for being fat in high school. Don’t let them lie to you again.
Blood Type Diets
“Blood type is the key to the body’s ability to differentiate self from non-self.”
See what I mean? Inane babble. Blood type is based on the presence or absence of antigens on the surface of red blood cells. The antigens can be made of pretty miuch anything, depending on the blood group system. And it is in no way in control of or affected by your diet. Your diet should be determined by your caloric and nutritional needs, with compensations for any dietary limitations imposed by your body or your own choice.
The real explanation is pretty boring, huh? Let’s go back to the crazy guy.
- Blood group O is the hunter, the earliest human blood group. The diet recommends that this blood group eat a higher protein diet. O blood type was the first blood type, originating 30,000 years ago. (Yeah, and 30,000 years ago, people also lived a maximum of about 30 years, in large part because their diets were awful.)
- Blood group A the cultivator , a more recently evolved blood type, dating back from the dawn of agriculture, 20,000 years ago. The diet recommends that individuals of blood group A eat a diet emphasizing vegetables and free of red meat, a more vegetarian food intake. (Get it? People started growing food around this time, so your antegens need more vegetables today.)
- Blood group B is the nomad, associated with a strong immune system and a flexible digestive system. The blood type diet claims that people of blood type B are the only ones who can thrive on dairy products and estimates blood type B arrived 10,000 years ago.
- Blood group AB, according to D’Adamo, the enigma, the most recently evolved type, arriving less than 1,000 years ago. In terms of dietary needs, his blood type diet treats this group as an intermediate between blood types A and B. (So do you eat dairy or don’t you? Peter D’Adamo doesn’t say)
We (me) here at Fitness Myth Monday, try to be objective. So let’s look at the D’Adamo’s clinical trial record for his blood type diets.
- In his book, he mentions being in the 8th year of a 10 year study. The book came out in 1997, and the results of the study were never published.
- In his other book, about curing arthritis with blood type diets (?!?!?!), he assured us that a clinical trial was pending, and he just couldn’t wait for his claims to be backed up by fact before subjecting all of us to them. The results have never been published.
- A self-reported internet survey with 6627 respondants conducted by D’Adamo’s website reported that people following the Blood Type Diet for a period of one month or more, in 71-78% of cases, had improvement in a variety of health conditions. The most common reported improvement was with weight. These results are self-reported and there’s no reference to how this information was gathered. And, in a 1990 Gallup poll, 67% of Americans said they’ve been able to use ESP.
Here’s the purpose of all those bullet points. If your diet is actually working and effective, you’re getting those results published immedeately. You’re not mentioning studies and then not telling people how they ended. A withholding of results is an indication thart he doesn’t want them to be seen.
This diet preys on a weak point that is the carcass to the fad diet’s vutlure; something that people have heard of but actually know nothing about. Everyone knows their blood type, but very few know what it actually means. And the answer to how different it makes people is, not much. And the answer to how it relates to what you should and shouldn’t eat is, not at all.
Master Cleanse
First, before we rip it a new one, let’s humor the practitioners by explaining how The Master Cleanse is supposed to work. Apparently, our bodies are full of TOXINS (the video on the web site doesn’t name names, making it conveniently hard to test). And, what’s more, our bodies, which have been calmly and efficiently destroying illnesses and viruses for millions of years, have NO IDEA how to deal with them. Thankfully, Mr. Burroughs, the guy who made up the problem, also made up a solution; drink a mixture of water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper 6-12 times a day, while eating nothing for at least 10 days. At the end, you’ll be lighter (duh), but also purged of all those nefarious TOXINS!!! Who knows what those TOXINS would have done to you?! (answer:nobody)
A few problems with this approach:
#1: Most of our foodborne toxins come from plants, like, for example, lemons, cayenne peppers, and maple trees.
#2 It’s never been tested to do anything beyond helping people lose weight (the not eating for 10 days part might help that along just a little)
There you have it. A double whammy of impracticality (consuming toxins in a toxin purge) and ineffectiveness. And a sextuple whammy (huh huh) of essential nutrient deficiencies; protein, carbohydrates, vitamin, minerals, fats, and water. Actually, you do get enough water, but pentuple whammy isn’t as fun to type. They should add another event to the pentathlon.
. The Master Cleanse does nothing it claims to, either in theory or in practice. But, to be honest, coming out of the cleanse with no effect whatsoever is actually the best case scenario. You see, our bodies don’t really like being starved for extended periods of time, and has been reported to have the following responses to the master cleanse: headaches, constipation, lethargy, vomiting, severe weakness, fainting, ketosis (chronic starvation), loss of muscle mass, loss of bone mass, and death.
That’s a small price to pay for the self assurance that your body is cleansed and back to the way nature intended it to be, and that you’ve according to Mr. Burroughs, prevented “all kinds of disorders” and “every kind of disease”. Of course, it’s a huge price to pay if it’s just something a guy made up 70 years ago and hasn’t changed since. Which it is.
But, just when all hope of removing those evil TOXINS from your body is gone, your body comes through, the same way it has since the dawn of human history. You see, your body has its own detoxing system; your liver, kidneys, intestines, and skin. You just have to let it work ;no detox has ever been tested to cleanse your body better than water and a good night’s sleep. Sure, “Just Let Your Body Do What it Does and Keep Your Fat Hands Out of It” doesn’t look good on a book cover, but it works. No frills, nothingto buy, and no hideous side effects.
And, in response to the thousand e-mails I’m sure to get saying, “But Tycco, wuT abOut teh waYt lOzz efct ROFL”, I say this. If you go on a crash diet, wieght loss is pretty much inevitably going to come off, and just as likely will come right back when you go off of it. And for the love of god, if you must go on a starvation diet, even though it’s a horrible idea for so many reasons, don’t pay someone else to teach you how.
