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Get the facts, Recruit!

Are you confused with all the ads, infommercials, and headlines about the proper diet, amount of exercise, and optimal physical performance levels necessary for good health and fitness?

Looking for the bottom line?

1. Most guidelines regarding daily nutrition allowances, ideal body weight, and required daily volume/intensity of exercise that you find in the popular press (newspapers, infomercials, etc.) are absolute minimum standards that may prevent you from becoming a burden to publicly funded health care and from premature death.
2. The standards you must maintain to look and feel good, to improve your current fitness level (losing weight, gaining muscularity, improving cardiovascular health and performance), and to sidestep the aging process are higher than what the magic pill sellers and amazing machine hawkers would have you believe, but probably not as difficult as you might imagine.

See if you recognize any of the following fitness myths I've heard often during the past two decades. Read the real scoop beneath each myth. These are just a few of the questions that folks routinely ask me. Follow some of the links to find more information about training, diet, and supplements (but remember to come back here and find out more about how you can get started on developing your ideal physique).

MYTH: 10 minutes of exercise, three times a day is sufficient.

MYTH: Lifting weights will make me bulk up.

MYTH: I just want to tone, so I should only lift light weights.

MYTH: When you stop lifting, the muscle turns to fat

MYTH: If you eat fat-free you don't have to count calories

MYTH: Low carb (or any other diet fad) is the best way to lose weight.

MYTH: For a great body, I'd have to train several hours a day, 7 days a week

MYTH: I need dozens of pills and powders daily to build a good body.

MYTH: The machine on TV will really get me in shape.

MYTH: 10 minutes of exercise, three times a day is sufficient for me to get physically fit.

What the Surgeon General's report (July 1996) actually said is that at minimum, a moderate amount of exercise daily is required to achieve health benefits. It gave some examples of that standard such as 30 minute of brisk walking or raking leaves, 15 minutes of running, or 45 minutes of volleyball on most, if not all, days of the week. The recommendations were intended to demonstrate the least that people need to do to improve their health.

Because most folks look for an easy way around even minimum requirements where exercise and discipline are concerned, the Surgeon General and major sports medicine organizations like the ACSM have tried to find ways to help Americans live longer healthier lives by just getting up and moving a LITTLE BIT during their average day. Completing some form of exercise for at least 10 minutes at least 3 times daily will cause some positive physical changes for the completely inactive person - ANY change is better than none.
Most people already know the truth - if it sounds too easy to be true, it is. Don't be fooled. If you're obese and cannot sustain activity for long or if you just want to feel a little better, just get up and move (walk, stretch, climb some stairs) 3 times a day for about 10 minutes. But remember that the studies showing the effectiveness of this method all use obese completely sedentary subjects - the people for whom ANY change at all would probably yield results. If you're looking to actually GET IN SHAPE, work at least 30 consecutive minutes of vigorous exercise into your daily schedule at least a few times weekly.

MYTH: Lifting weights will make me bulk up.

Many factors control how much and how quickly you will build muscle mass: genetics, pounds lifted and number of repetitions, duration of rest periods, training consistency, daily caloric intake, and quality of nutrients. Most people who express this concern, aren't being realistic. If you're lifting weights that force you to perform no more than 8-12 repetitions per set, for 3-4 sets per exercise AND you consume no more calories than you can burn daily, for example bulking up to gargantuan bodybuilder proportions is not very likely.
Get to know your body and how it responds to exercise. Keep in mind that you must build some muscle in order to have something to shape and that carrying muscle burns more calories than carrying fat (you'll burn calories even while you're resting!!) When you see how your body responds, you can modify your routine to get the shape and size you really want. You may choose to: use lighter weights that allow you to do no more than 15-20 repetitions per set (for definition); change exercises to emphasize different body areas; lift slightly heavier weights for 4-10 repetitions per set (for strength gains), add more sets, and/or moderately increase your calorie consumption to encourage more muscle growth.

MYTH: I just want to tone, so I should only use light weights with high reps.

This one is tricky because it's just been oversimplified and repeated ad nauseam in the sound bytes. The only possible processes involved when you use progressive resistance training (e.g., weightlifting) are: increasing muscular size (hypertrophy), increasing muscular strength, increasing muscular endurance, or increasing muscular power. If you lift weights in the appropriate rep range, you will always build some muscle. There is no physiological process known as "toning." What people are referring to is simply emphasizing defined muscularity without excessive muscle mass. Lighter weights lifted in sets of 12-15 or more reps when combined with a sensible fat loss program of proper diet and aerobic work will help you moderately increase your muscle mass while removing the layer of fat that hides the definition. But remember: you can't shape the vase until there's enough clay on the wheel. You have to build at least some muscle mass before you sculpt out the muscular definition you want.

Also, be realistic about what it means to use light weights. How many rail- thin, shapeless folks have you watched wasting hours each week doing endless reps with dumbbells about the size of an office stapler? This method is a big waste of time unless your office products give you a lot of trouble. Even if you're "body-sculpting" you have to use weight that enables you to complete no more than 12-20 reps each set - if you can keep going with that weight you'll just get really good at lifting light things for long periods of time (muscular endurance). Just remember to start by building some muscle size with weight that forces you to complete no more than 8-12 reps per set for a few months before you start trying to shape that muscle with slightly lighter weights and higher reps.

MYTH: When you stop lifting weights, all your muscle turns to fat.

Once and for all: muscle and fat are completely different substances. One cannot become the other anymore than you could turn lead into gold. But you've no doubt seen (or been) the muscular college athlete who no longer hits the playing field but has kept eating at the training table. The muscle fibers shrink because they're not being challenged in the gym and in the game. But the body size hasn't gotten smaller (in fact, maybe it's a bit rounder?) because it's storing all those extra calories as fat (now that they're no longer being played off).

If you reduce your activity level, you must adjust your diet for your new level of activity. If you stop playing a certain sport or just want to buy a smaller sized wardrobe, reduce your daily caloric intake, reduce your weightlifting poundage, increase your reps, and/or increase your amount of aerobic activity.

MYTH: As long as I eat low-fat and fat-free products, I don't have to count calories to stay in shape (or lose weight).

Boy, the American Heart Association, American Dietetic Association, various physician organizations, and hundreds of trainers are sorry this one ever got out of hand. Of course Americans' consumption of saturated fats became an obvious problem about 30 years ago, but despite our steadily decreasing average daily fat intake, Americans' physical girth has steadily increased during that same time. One big reason: the preponderance of low-fat and fat-free foods that are loaded with sugar and sodium to disguise their lack of taste. Another reason: fat-free foods that have no nutritive value at all (so eating them makes you feel full but keeps you from eating real food). Recent statistics show we're much more likely to consume twice as much food when we know that food is low- or non-fat. Yes, we've lowered the fat ingested. But we're fueling fat storage in our bodies when we consume more carbohydrates (usually processed sugar) than we'll burn or when we consume empty calorie foods that reduce our appetite for quality nutrients.

Despite the possible short-term effectiveness of many fad diets that advocate fat-free food consumption without heed to overall caloric intake or breakdown, you will not get and stay in shape following this quackery.

The truth:

1. You require some fat in your daily diet because several essential vitamins cannot be used by the body without it (the fat-soluble vitamins) and because your body learns to hoard what it gets denied, but there only TWO truly essential fats that must be consumed and can't be manufactured in the body;
2. Your body can make fat from almost any nutrients consumed in excess;
3. If fat-free food contains more sugars (simple carbohydrates) than you can burn, you will convert the extra calories to bodyfat;
4. Junk food with a fat-free label is still junk. What you use for fuel does control your body's performance and the quality of the shape-giving muscle it produces.

MYTH:Low carb (or any other diet fad) is the best way to lose weight .

For starters, the low carb fad is back on the scene again, the only difference is that it's finally found HUGE commercial success. The first one promoted commercially showed up in 1864 when a British undertaker named Willliam Banting got too fat to tie his own shoes; he followed advice from a friend of his, an ear surgeon named William Harvey, and went on a diet of very few carbs but plenty of alcohol. He lost weight and wrote word of the miracle diet in his "Letter on Corpulence" which ultimately sold more than 100,000 copies although he never wanted it published. Banting lived another 14 years and managed to keep his weight in check. But here's the part the low carb fanatics leave out when they cite Banting as a nutrition pioneer and the father of their movement: By the 1860's, Dr. Harvey had written that this regimen should not be carried on for too long, and Banting had completely shifted the diet by simply controlling his portion sizes, reducing his intake of protein and fats, and resuming his intake of carbs. In other words, he learned to balance his nutrition and stop demonizing one nutrient more than any other.

In modern times, the low/no carb craze has emerged again and again:

1. in 1961 with a diet by Herman Taller (2 million copies sold, but Taller convicted of mail fraud in 1962 for selling worthles safflower capsules as a nutritional supplement),
2. . Again in 1967 by Irwin Stillman (dead in 1975 of a heart attack),
3. Again in 1972 with Dr. Robert Atkins' first effort - "The Diet Revolution,"
4. Again in 1976 by Richard Linn (a liquid protein diet which ended up killing at least 60 people by 1977),
5. Again in 1978 with Herman Tarnower's Scarsdale Diet,
6. Again in 1991 with the Hellers' "Carbohydrate Addict's Diet,"
7. Again in 1996 with Dr. Atkins "New Diet Revolution" (same stuff, new cover),
8. And again in 1999 with Dr. Atkins reissue of his same old diet which finally takes off on the bestseller list where it remains today (Atkins, of course, dead now after an icy slip and fall but history of myocardial infarctions (heart attacks) discovered during his emergency room exams after that accident)

1. Good cholesterol levels increase but so do the bad cholesterol levels - leaving you still, if not more susceptible to cardiac problems;
2. Demonizing one nutrient means you won't get sufficient amounts of the many vitamins, minerals and other compounds you need to operate properly from the other foods;
3. Your brain operates on carbs only, so brain functioning, including short term memory, suffers;
4. You lose 2.5 grams of water with every gram of carbohydrate you eliminate, so that body weight lost initially comes primarily from water weight (which will be back when you can't sustain the diet anymore) and you run the risk of dehydration;
5. Those with any history of kidney problems (potentially 1 out of every 4 Americans, unbeknownst to most of them according to the American Kidney Foundation), run the risk of causing kidney damage as the body is overworked disposing of the waste from all that excess protein;
6. With carbs as the body's preferred energy source and the one most efficiently used for that purpose, you won't have enough energy to train as hard as you need to make the physique and performance improvements you really want. You may be smaller, but you won't be any harder;
7. After a year, (in the very few studies that actually follow subjects for longer than a few months), subjects on the most popular low carb diet lost no more weight than those on any other plan and actually gained their weight back faster and with more increases.

MYTH: To get a great body, I'd have to work out several hours a day, 7 days a week.

Nope. Although some elite athletes may practice several hours daily and rarely take a day off, remember that they're working on physical strength, agility, and possibly mass building; improving their playing skills; cycling on- and off-season training time; and getting paid to do it. You should try to keep your workout to about 60-90 minutes and give yourself at least 1-2 days rest each week in addition to plenty of rest each night. Remember that your muscles and heart are being stimulated during the exercise session but that the growth and strength improvement actually occurs outside the gym while you're recovering. The body you want - while not available in the 15 minutes promised by some salesmen - is available for about 5 hours a week, consistently.

MYTH: I'd have to take dozens of pills and powders every day to get in really good shape.

Again, time to separate necessity from desire. Depending on the quality of your diet and the training level you wish to attain, you may want to add a few supplements to your daily regimen. But for the average person who just wants to look better and perform well, you don't need to buy out your local health food store.

The current RDA for most nutrients is insufficient to help you achieve significant muscularity, excellent endurance performance, or quality muscular definition. It's barely sufficient to keep us alive - that's the point of the RDA, a minimum standard for a hypothetical population of sedentary people. The quality of our conventional over-processed foods grown in substandard soils or force-fed hormones and antibiotics also will not adequately fuel great physical performance.

At minimum, you should take a quality, potent multi-vitamin from a reliable source. I recommend Twinlab products because they are consistently rated some of the best in the world with quality ingredients whose presence consistently checks out in independent lab tests (if they say it's in there, it really is).

For those constantly on the run without the time or facilities to eat all of the small, frequent, quality feedings they should get, you may try meal replacement shakes or bars. The key: choose high quality products that aren't filled with sugars, fats, (partially hydrogenated or tropical oils), or low quality ingredients. And be sure to control your serving sizes to fit your actual daily caloric needs. Check out bars by Power Bar Harvest, Luna, Odwalla, MetRx, Parillo and PerfectRx. Check out powders like Gainers Fuel, Mass Fuel, or Diet Fuel by Twinlab. Gainers Fuel and Mass Fuel provide very good meal replacement with good mixability, and you can simply reduce the serving size to meet your needs (thus stretching your dollar as well).

Many other supplements can help you achieve your specific goals, some may provide some sort of benefit, some will simply not do any harm (but probably won't do much good either), and some should simply not be used at all. Read reputable sources for information on the supplements you're considering, check out the claims, read the science behind them (if there isn't any science, put it back on the shelf, it's a joke), look at the results in people you meet who are using them and have goals similar to yours, and look for reliable manufacturers. One very good source is Muscular Development Magazine. It is published by the folks who produce Twinlab supplements, so there is some product bias and some long ads that are cleverly disguised as legitimate articles. They're also on about the 8th change of format in the past few years, with the current one making the magazine look more like men's locker room drooling material than reputable science. But it does contain very high quality articles and is associated with heavy-hitting contributors from the internationally respected sports organizations and certifying bodies. They have always cited the sources behind all claims and all their products. You can then go read the research for yourself to get more information.

Be sure to get quality advice from a trainer or sports nutritionist who is familiar with your goals, physical history, current body composition, etc. But here are some basics: Creatine monohydrate (provided you have no history of kidney problems) and a good whey protein powder supplement are essential for putting on quality muscle mass. L-Carnitine is a good idea for aiding in recovery between training sessions (also the function of creatine) and for burning fat. Chromium picolinate is a good idea for fat-burning y helping make your insulin drive more efficient, especially for those with a large amount of weight to lose.

Stay away from "miracle" promises like you see in the Orange stuff, unnecessarily high dosages that show up in many products called "mega"-something or other, useless doses of herbs and spices added to make products seem complicated (like in the Thermo-this-and-That and Metabo-something- or- other fat burners), and inexpensive "sports bars" available in the impulse buying aisle at the supermarket next to the candy (compare the labels). If you want to throw money away, just head for the casino - at least there's a chance you'll win.

MYTH: The new machine I saw on TV (ab exerciser, aerobic rider, gliding walker, blade-waver - pick one) will make me work out, shorten my workout, make my training easy, and burn fat in my problem areas.

No, it won't. Practically every machine you'll see in the gym or on TV was designed to imitate a free-weight or body-weight exercise. (There are a few exceptions such as leg curls for the hamstrings that are difficult to execute without a machine). Unless you require physical therapy, have problems with balance, have a condition which prevents you from making full use of both limbs, etc. most of the apparatus you find in the mall or on TV is superfluous.

In my experience, most weekend athletes and weight loss seekers will purchase an average of 3 pieces (over a lifetime) of miracle-promising equipment that will each become an expensive coat rack about 30 days after the date on the sales receipt. Recent surveys indicate that half of all American households contain at least one piece of exercise equipment. At last count, only 1 in 4 were still in use in the home

1. Be honest with yourself and keep it simple. First work on the discipline just to complete 30-60 minutes of basic exercises several times each week for several months. After all, if you won't do it with no equipment required (pushups, crunches, dips, and stretching - no shiny stuff needed), you probably won't do it just because there's a brand new Health Climber in your living room.
2. The push to buy a machine that will shorten your workout doesn't even make sense as a goal. We already know you need to train at least 30-60 minutes at least 3 times a week to make serious gains.
3. If the machine made training easy, we wouldn't call it a workout. The point of exercise is to challenge your muscles and your heart so that they rise to the challenge, grow and get stronger. Making training easier = no improvements.
4. As for reducing fat in those problem areas, you should know by now there is no such thing as spot reducing. Therefore, you can't burn fat in specific areas with a new machine. Fat burning results only from reducing total bodyfat by increasing your metabolic rate (the body's energy-burning furnace), working aerobically for at least 30 minutes 2-3 times each week at 65-75% of your maximum heart rate, and by changing your nutrition habits to include small frequent feedings with sufficient protein to help build muscle and no more carbs than necessary to fuel your activity level. In my experience, most people have at least one area that holds out as a fat repository - maybe it's your hips, thighs, obliques (love handles), double chin, etc. - but you just have to keep chipping away at the total bodyfat level until that final area yields as well. It will come.

So why is it still a multi-billion dollar a year industry even though most of the products are probably shlock and most people don't even continue using them? Two hints: 1) most people still want to believe that there's an easier answer than simply "get up and train"; and 2) when was the last time you followed up on a money-back guarantee?

Still have a few questions of your own?