diet/exercise myths.

some day i will continue with many more. anyways, on a daily basis i hear “myths” that people take as fact that are very far from the truth. it gets annoying, especially when i try to talk to them and maybe help them out and give them information that i have been fortunate enough to learn – yet no one wants to listen to me because the commercial on TV said otherwise. i study these things/learn about this stuff, because it interests me. and ive been fortunate enough to have a lot of close contact with pro body builders, and big time nutritionists.

myth #1

lift heavy weights/low reps if you want to get big, lift lighter weight/more reps if you want to get cut/toned/defined.  

 

dumb. muscle can do 3 things. get smaller, stay the same size, or get bigger. the ideal range of reps to build muscle is the 8-15 rep range. you will actually build more muscle doing lots of reps vs doing few reps with a lot of weight, because you do more muscular damage with the higher reps. if you want to get cut or toned, you do cardio to burn fat, you dont do it by lifting weights. the only shred of truth to this myth, is that you will in fact burn more calories by doing higher reps, simply because you are spending more time doing it. but the extra amount of calories burned is pretty negligable.

 

myth #2

dont eat late at night because it will make you fat.

 

stupid. calories make you fat, not what time you eat them. even though people make it extremely complicated because they hear so many stories from “experts” that have hidden agendas, losing weight is about as simple as can be. calories in vs calories out. a FACT, is that nighttime is not good for your diet, because you go for such a long period without eating. ideally, you want to eat around every 3 hours to keep a steady stream of nutrients going into your body throught the day- this helps prevent starving periods, insulin spikes, etc. well guess what, at night when you sleep you cant do this. the longer you go without eating, your body starts to go into “freak out mode” and slowly starts to store fat to protect itself in case no more food is coming for a long time. so how ever many hours you dont eat before bed, is just adding that much longer to the “starving period” that already isnt good for your body. the best thing you can do is eat healthy fats and casein protein before bed. casein is a very slow digesting protein, and fats are very slow digesting as well. what this will do is slowly digest throughout the night so your body/muscles wont be completely starving as you sleep.

 

myth #3

eating a lot of fat, will make you fat.

 

retarded. if you lived on fish, nuts, avacados, and olives (some of the fattiest foods in the world) you would be eating 1000 grams of fat a day, but you would be as healthy as a horse and probably be thinner than you are now. of course try and keep your saturated fats low, and avoid trans fats. but thats another discussion. not to mention all your “fat free” foods are either filled with sugar, or use fat substitutes like olean/olestra that cant be absorbed by your body because of the molecular structure. btw pretty much anytime something cant be absorbed through your digestive system theres a good chance it isnt good to be ingesting.

 

myth #4

you can turn fat into muscle. or if you stop working out, your muscle will turn to fat.        

 

seriously? once again. muscle can do 3 things. shrink, stay the same, or grow. you can lose fat and add muscle, or lose muscles and add fat… but the 2 have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

 

myth#5

lifting weights at a young age will stunt growth.

 

nothing could be further from the truth. your typical 8-12 year old puts 5 – 10x the amount of raw force on his muscles/joints/tendons/bones during recess playing on the jungle gym than he would if he spent those 20 minutes in the weight room lifting heavy weights.

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