The Real Dietary Myths​

Let’s face it… corporations run the show. They lobby to get laws passed in their favor, push for deregulation and defunding of FDA programs, and spend years indoctrinating the nation to believe that anything they can make more money off of is the healthy choice. So to put it simply, anything you think you know is probably a load of crap. We then have the diet programs, all designed to make you feel great for a while and then fail, only to buy into the next program being sold to you by the very same people. There exist a lot of nutritional fallacies that have become part of the common beliefs which are preached to everyone regularly, and no matter how poor the results, these fallacies continue to be the key focus of everyone trying to lose weight. So why aren’t pro body builders following these same myths? Because they ignore popular beliefs and focus on what actually works.

Dietary Fallacy #1: Frequent Eating​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

This is the myth I hear the most often. People are often told that if they eat several small meals throughout the day, their metabolism will get a nice boost. The first issue I noticed with this was the fact that this myth is used by a lot of overweight people who have seen zero results. Second, our bodies are the product of evolution, which was occurring long before the invention of supermarkets. Our ancient ancestors had to find their food in nature, and do so without breakfast. There was a rather thorough and extensive review of the studies done on various meal frequencies and the thermic effect of food (TEF) published in 1997, looking at meal frequencies ranging from 1-17 meals per day. The conclusion was this: "Studies using whole-body calorimetry and doubly-labeled water to assess total 24 h energy expenditure find no difference between nibbling and gorging". I’d like to mention that the entire concept of eating small meals 6-8 times per day to speed up your metabolism is kind of dumb. There’s no science behind it, no correlation with any part of our entire human evolution, and simply no logic.

Dietary Fallacy #2: Evil Saturated Fat​​​​​​​​​​

This one has proven to be quite a prevalent myth. People refuse to let go of the view that saturated fat causes heart disease, even though study after study over the past decades has proven otherwise. This myth actually began to get tossed around when Dr. Ancel Keys wrote an article suggesting this myth in 1953, after ignoring a rather large amount of available information, and the public just followed along, as they still do today. To give you an example, a recent Dutch study found that Saturated fats have no link whatsoever to heart disease, though it can have a very minute effect on total cholesterol. Need more? A 2011 study found that “reducing the intake of CHO with high glycaemic index is more effective in the prevention of CVD than reducing SAFA intake per se.” From a 2011 study out of Japan, saturated fat intake “was inversely associated with mortality from total stroke.” A 2010 meta-analysis found “that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD.”

Now let’s go a step further. Here’s where I tend to lose some people, since belief in unfounded concepts seems to be how people prefer to live their lives. Saturated fat can be very healthy for you. Need an example? Coconut oil is considered an incredibly healthy food or supplement. All of its health benefits are derived from medium-chain triglycerides. Yep, you guessed it! A saturated fat!

Dietary Fallacy #3: Eating Fat Makes You Fat​​​​​​​​​​​

Now that I’ve dealt with the saturated fat myth, let’s take a look at fats in general. The claim that you’ll get fat from eating fat is like claiming that eating meat will give you huge muscles. It simply isn’t true. Actually, fat is a very important source for vital nutrients, and by leaving it out of your diet, you are actually becoming deficient in them, which is why people keep pushing multi-vitamins. Why pop pills when dinner should be enough?

Almost all diets tell you cut back on fatty foods. I am going to do the opposite. I will tell you that you are probably not getting enough fats, missing out on all the needed nutrients that those fats provide. Some fatty foods that are good for you, which have gotten a bad rap, include real butter, whole milk, cheese, and the fat on meat. Margarine, however, is incredibly bad for you. I find that much of our “common knowledge” regarding nutrition comes from skewed data, often supported by various food companies.

​Dietary Fallacy #4: Is Soy Really Good For You?​

Something pushed onto us as a miracle food by both media and corporations is the soy bean, used in tofu, soy sauce, and in soy oil, which is used in many of the foods found in almost every household. The truth is that soy is actually quite bad for you, and bad for the environment (it robs nutrients from the ground and gives nothing back).

What makes soy so terrible for our health is that it’s loaded with Lectins, which causes leptin resistance, which can cause high insulin levels, and also make your brain think you’re hungry when you shouldn’t be. One major lie we’ve all been sold is that Asians eat a lot of soy, which corporations claimed because Asians are generally healthier and live longer lifespans. In reality, however, they eat very little soy, and most of it is fermented, which greatly reduces the amount of lectins.

​Dietary Fallacy #5: The Pre-Workout Meal​​

Digestion requires a lot of energy, and if you are digesting while working out, you will have greatly reduced energy and stamina. And as any fighter knows, stamina is everything. Also, if you hope to burn off fat while building muscle, you’ll definitely want to keep insulin well controlled, and almost anything people use as a pre-workout meal boosts insulin, causing fat storage, not burning.

Of course, people will proclaim that the muscles need to be nourished during and after the workout. A German university conducted a study that found that eating food with fast-releasing protein (protein that is more quickly distributed throughout the body) will cause an elevation in cortisol (a hormone that, when chronically elevated, will cause muscle waist and fat gain).

With all that said it has been found that a post-workout meal has benefits. The University of Texas Medical Branch, in Galveston, TX, found that eating foods with fast-releasing protein and carbohydrates after a workout greatly benefits muscle growth. ​

For further reading on various nutritional myths, and a deeper look into ones I’ve mentioned here, check out this article written by Ori Hofmekler, author of “The Warrior Diet.” The Top Ten Diet Fallacies

#nutrition #diet