I used to believe in certain things, that I no longer do. I used to think Santa Claus is real, but now I know it’s just an obese guy in a red suit. Might even be diabetic, because of all those cookies and milk that he eats. I used to think “Home Alone” is the funniest movie of all time, but then I watched “Home Alone 2.” And a few of the same things apply to exercise and nutrition.
I pride myself of being non-dogmatic when it comes to exercise and nutrition. I don’t have a fitness “religion”, where if it’s not what I believe, then it’s wrong. Thus, when presented with evidence that is contrary to my beliefs, I start to change my beliefs. Better than shutting your eyes, and ignoring the evidence.
So although over my last 10.5 years, that I’ve been personal training, most fundamentals have stayed the same (mostly, it’s thankfully due to the avoidance of reading junk fitness magazines, and starting off by reading good sources, like those of Pavel Tsatsouline, Charles Poliquin, Ron Grisanti, Lyle McDonald, Bryan Walsh, Gray Cook, and Precision Nutrition), certain aspects of my approach and thinking have changed. In this article, I’ll outline some of those:
Changed Belief #1: You Need to Eat 5-6 Meals Per Day, to Keep Your Metabolism Up
FALSE! Three meals per day is just fine. Even 2 or 1 meals per day. The myth of eating 5-6 meals per day came from the calories you burn after your meal. So whenever you eat, some of what you eat, you burn, just to be able to process the meal.
- For fats, you burn about 2-3% of what you ate.
- For carbohydrates, you burn about 10% of what you ate
- For proteins, you burn about 25-30% of what you ate
So let’s say you ate a mixed meal, that contains all 3: fats, carbs, and protein. And you end up “burning” 12% of that meal on digestion. Well, whether you eat 3 meals per day, or 5 meals per day, the amount stays the same, and it doesn’t change.
2000 calories spread across 2 meals and 2000 calories spread across 6 meals is still 2000 calories, and the effect on your weight will be identical.
Original source: here.
Having said that, there are two times that I can think of when it makes sense to eat more frequently:
- If you’re hypoglycemic (you have low blood sugar). Then, you want to keep your blood sugar stable. If you’re not hypoglycemic, and you eat frequently, yeah, you’ll keep your blood sugar stable. But stable, at a high amount. Not good.
- If you’re trying to build muscle. You’ll probably be eating more protein than the average person. And since protein is the most filling of the 3 macronutrients, you’ll be full before you’ve reached your “quota.” So if you break up your meals into 5 or more, it’s easier to get more protein throughout the day.
Changed Belief #2: You Shouldn’t Eat After 7PM
False, as well. I keep hearing people say (and I used to be one of those people, unfortunately) “I don’t eat after 7PM anymore.”
*clap clap*
Bravo!
Too bad that when you eat matters a whole lot less than why you eat, and what you eat.
I’ve never heard of anybody gain excess body fat because they ate too much broccoli at 11PM. Likewise, the ice cream, cookies, or popcorn that you’re eating in front of the TV at the end the day aren’t any less fattening at 2PM, compared to 11PM. How ridiculous is that? “Oh, if I only ate that tub of ice cream earlier in the day, I wouldn’t have gained body fat.” Yeah, right.
Having said that, although the time when you eat doesn’t matter all that much for your weight, for some people, it does make a difference to their digestion. Some people who eat close to bedtime experience heartburn and gas. In those cases, it does make sense to avoid eating within 2-4 hours of bed. It won’t make a difference to their weight, but it will make a difference to their digestion. If, however, you don’t have digestive issues, don’t worry too much about when you eat. Worry about why you eat, and what you eat.
Changed Belief #3: Breakfast is the Most Important Meal of the Day
Another false belief. But the reason it originated is because of the logic that if you miss breakfast, you will eat more the rest of the day. Correct. But when we put some numbers to it, we see that it’s misleading.
Let’s say that all 3 “big” meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) are equal. So that will make breakfast contribute 33% of your calories.
You skip breakfast, and you eat 33% fewer calories, but because you’re so hungry, you’re going to compensate with more than the 33% lost calories at lunch and dinner. Right? Not necessarily.
Yes, you might miss the 33% of your daily calories at breakfast, but most people will only compensate back with about 20% of their calories. So that gives a net calorie loss of 13%. If you’re eating 2000 calories per day, and you lose 13% of those calories per day, that’s a loss of 260 calories per day. At that pace, you’ll lose a pound every two weeks or so.
Does that mean that you should skip breakfast? No, not necessarily. It means that if you prefer to skip breakfast, go ahead and do it. If you like eating breakfast, go ahead and do that. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Having said that, if you have a very fast metabolism, and your goal is to gain muscle, I’d advise strongly against skipping breakfast. You need to eat.
Changed Belief #4: Women Can’t Bulk
It is common rhetoric in the fitness industry to say “women who lift weights don’t bulk. They have much less testosterone than men, so even if they wanted to bulk, they couldn’t.”
And I used to be one of those punks repeating that rhetoric. Mindlessly.
Then, I started paying attention to my clients’ measurements. The more clients I measured, the more obvious this became. Yes, the majority of women can’t bulk very easily. But (and this is a big but), a large minority of women can, and do bulk too easily. Pathologically high testosterone levels are way more common in women than they are in men. That’s why conditions like PCOS are so common. Excess body fat in women is masculinizing, so no surprise that a lot of overweight women do bulk so easily.
If I wasn’t measuring my clients on a regular basis, I would have just kept on repeating this rhetoric, like a parrot. This highlights the importance of measurements.
So if you’re a woman who does tend to bulk too easily, what do you do? Check out my article, Women: How to Avoid Getting Too Bulky.
Changed Belief #5: Low Carbs are the Fat Loss Panacea
I used to say “you have two fuel source you burn to stay alive: sugar (glucose, carbohydrates, etc.), and fat. So if you take away one fuel source (sugar), you’re left with only one other fuel source to burn: fat.”
But after reading study, after study, after study that didn’t really prove this (in the long-term anyway. Low-carb diets are superior for weight loss, but not fat loss in the short term), I realized that total calories are still king. There is no metabolic advantage, as low carb gurus claim, to a low-carb diet.
I elaborate on this in much greater detail in my article on Low Carb Myths.
