drtbear1967
Musclechemistry Board Certified Member
by Matt Weik
This article, I want to make everyone think. No, it’s not going to challenge you to the point of exhaustion like some brain-teaser. Rather, it’s pointing out something that in my opinion is adding to our obesity epidemic. And that is, the amount of back and forth research being published over the last decade or so. This is bad, no it’s good. This is good, no it’s bad. It’s almost enough to make you throw your hands up—which is exactly what I believe many people are doing today.
[h=4]But I thought you just said…[/h]If you’re anything like me, you hate when someone tells you to do something, and then after you start doing it, they tell you you’re doing it wrong and want you to change again. It’s as if you’re taking one step forward and two steps back. Once this happens more than one or two times, you start to desensitize what that person is saying and simply dismiss it because you’re sick of the back and forth. I feel like we are there with nutrition these days.
Don’t eat too much protein because it’s bad for your kidneys! Just kidding, we were wrong. Don’t eat bacon, there’s too much fat in it and you’ll turn into a blimp! Oh wait, go ahead and eat it… it’s not so bad after all. Don’t eat egg yolks! The cholesterol will clog your arteries and is bad for heart health! Hmm, never mind. It appears eggs aren’t that bad after all. Eating fat will make you fat! Nope, myth. Not all fat is created equal. A calorie at the end of the day is just a calorie! Wrong again, not all calories are the same and utilized by the body identically. See where I’m going with this? What the hell is the general public supposed to think? They must think people in the industry are completely crazy and that they should make up their minds—or at least do more research before deeming something good or bad and publishing it.
[h=4]Just tell me what to do[/h]We live in a society where people don’t want to be held accountable for their actions, or lack of them. We want to blame McDonald’s for making us fat. We want to blame our parents for bad genetics. It’s never our own fault—it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be that we have no clue how many calories we are taking in each day compared to what we actually need. It couldn’t be that we sit in front of the television watching The Kardashian’s and the Bachelor every night on the couch rather than engaging in some form of exercise (cardio or weight training). It couldn’t be any of that because life is about “balance” right?
Now we have back and forth research confusing the people who are actually TRYING to live a healthy lifestyle. Many of these people take an interest in learning new things when it comes to health, fitness, and nutrition—like yourself. But, there comes to a point where everything you hear any more, you tend to take with a grain of salt. Is it true? How long until it’s debunked?
I think something we all need to start realizing and implementing is that, yes, there needs to be a balance in what we do. We can’t live life by extremes. Too much exercise can lead to overuse injuries or a dependency. Cutting way back on calories to help aid in weight loss can destroy your metabolism and completely halt your progress. Too much of a good thing is never a good thing. Heck, people can die from drinking too much water.
A simple way to think of things is to keep your foods as whole and as organic as you can. Skip the processed junk. Find out how many calories you need for maintenance and then adjust it accordingly depending on if you are trying to put on lean mass or cut body fat. We tend to overcomplicate things. And the marketing of products these days isn’t helping. They want you to believe the hype. Similar to all the ketosis products out there today claiming that if you drink their shake it will put you into ketosis instantly. If you know anything about nutrition, the human body, and ketosis, you’d know that is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard. Because you are consuming ketones does not mean you are in ketosis.
If we can educate the public on the bread and butter pieces of nutrition and what they should be looking for at the grocery store, it will help immensely. The back and forth of sugar is bad for you. No, artificial sweeteners are bad for you. It’s ridiculous what’s going on and I’m in the dang industry that’s a part of it. Even I’m throwing my hands up saying enough is enough. It’s out of control. The general public is going to completely shut down and stop paying attention to anything published about health or nutrition. Why start something just to have it change in a few months?
Unfortunately, I don’t know how to fix this problem. If I did, this article would be explaining the details. Researchers are going to continue doing what they do to try and improve the health of Americans. It just seems that as soon as someone publishes a study, someone is out to prove them wrong with their own research. We will never be on the same team with everything health, fitness, and nutrition related. Everyone has their own agenda that they are looking to push. It’s just a shame that we all can’t come together as a single unit to figure some of this stuff out for the better good and health of our society. We are living in an obesity epidemic and things are not getting any better as the years go by. Something needs to be done, and needs to be done quickly.
What are your thoughts on the back and forth these days? Are you getting as frustrated as I am? How do you think we can fix this? Let us know in the comments or reach out to me via my social media @weikfitness. It would be cool to hear different ideas.
This article, I want to make everyone think. No, it’s not going to challenge you to the point of exhaustion like some brain-teaser. Rather, it’s pointing out something that in my opinion is adding to our obesity epidemic. And that is, the amount of back and forth research being published over the last decade or so. This is bad, no it’s good. This is good, no it’s bad. It’s almost enough to make you throw your hands up—which is exactly what I believe many people are doing today.
[h=4]But I thought you just said…[/h]If you’re anything like me, you hate when someone tells you to do something, and then after you start doing it, they tell you you’re doing it wrong and want you to change again. It’s as if you’re taking one step forward and two steps back. Once this happens more than one or two times, you start to desensitize what that person is saying and simply dismiss it because you’re sick of the back and forth. I feel like we are there with nutrition these days.
Don’t eat too much protein because it’s bad for your kidneys! Just kidding, we were wrong. Don’t eat bacon, there’s too much fat in it and you’ll turn into a blimp! Oh wait, go ahead and eat it… it’s not so bad after all. Don’t eat egg yolks! The cholesterol will clog your arteries and is bad for heart health! Hmm, never mind. It appears eggs aren’t that bad after all. Eating fat will make you fat! Nope, myth. Not all fat is created equal. A calorie at the end of the day is just a calorie! Wrong again, not all calories are the same and utilized by the body identically. See where I’m going with this? What the hell is the general public supposed to think? They must think people in the industry are completely crazy and that they should make up their minds—or at least do more research before deeming something good or bad and publishing it.
[h=4]Just tell me what to do[/h]We live in a society where people don’t want to be held accountable for their actions, or lack of them. We want to blame McDonald’s for making us fat. We want to blame our parents for bad genetics. It’s never our own fault—it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be that we have no clue how many calories we are taking in each day compared to what we actually need. It couldn’t be that we sit in front of the television watching The Kardashian’s and the Bachelor every night on the couch rather than engaging in some form of exercise (cardio or weight training). It couldn’t be any of that because life is about “balance” right?
Now we have back and forth research confusing the people who are actually TRYING to live a healthy lifestyle. Many of these people take an interest in learning new things when it comes to health, fitness, and nutrition—like yourself. But, there comes to a point where everything you hear any more, you tend to take with a grain of salt. Is it true? How long until it’s debunked?
I think something we all need to start realizing and implementing is that, yes, there needs to be a balance in what we do. We can’t live life by extremes. Too much exercise can lead to overuse injuries or a dependency. Cutting way back on calories to help aid in weight loss can destroy your metabolism and completely halt your progress. Too much of a good thing is never a good thing. Heck, people can die from drinking too much water.
A simple way to think of things is to keep your foods as whole and as organic as you can. Skip the processed junk. Find out how many calories you need for maintenance and then adjust it accordingly depending on if you are trying to put on lean mass or cut body fat. We tend to overcomplicate things. And the marketing of products these days isn’t helping. They want you to believe the hype. Similar to all the ketosis products out there today claiming that if you drink their shake it will put you into ketosis instantly. If you know anything about nutrition, the human body, and ketosis, you’d know that is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard. Because you are consuming ketones does not mean you are in ketosis.
If we can educate the public on the bread and butter pieces of nutrition and what they should be looking for at the grocery store, it will help immensely. The back and forth of sugar is bad for you. No, artificial sweeteners are bad for you. It’s ridiculous what’s going on and I’m in the dang industry that’s a part of it. Even I’m throwing my hands up saying enough is enough. It’s out of control. The general public is going to completely shut down and stop paying attention to anything published about health or nutrition. Why start something just to have it change in a few months?
Unfortunately, I don’t know how to fix this problem. If I did, this article would be explaining the details. Researchers are going to continue doing what they do to try and improve the health of Americans. It just seems that as soon as someone publishes a study, someone is out to prove them wrong with their own research. We will never be on the same team with everything health, fitness, and nutrition related. Everyone has their own agenda that they are looking to push. It’s just a shame that we all can’t come together as a single unit to figure some of this stuff out for the better good and health of our society. We are living in an obesity epidemic and things are not getting any better as the years go by. Something needs to be done, and needs to be done quickly.
What are your thoughts on the back and forth these days? Are you getting as frustrated as I am? How do you think we can fix this? Let us know in the comments or reach out to me via my social media @weikfitness. It would be cool to hear different ideas.
