Being a Personal Trainer, and working in the gym for close to 60 hours a week you begin to hear a lot of nonsense. In order to be a top-level professional trainer and strength coach you have to study all the latest research, attend seminars, and apply this knowledge to both your clients and yourself. You are in a constant state of learning. This information is then best passed on to clients and gym goers of all disciplines. All of this new and innovative research, however, is useless if you to not understand the basic fundamentals of fitness and nutrition. You would think that the majority of people who spend countless hours in the gym “sculpting their guns” would at least spend some time learning the fundamentals. Unfortunately most of my day I end up overhearing some of the most ridiculous concepts that can actually be dangerous, inhibit people’s progress, and just plain goes against science in general. This constantly makes me think to myself; Is this really what the majority of people believe? With all the information out there how is our society so misinformed? And, Where are they getting this information? Many concepts that are just straight up a** backwards have become staples in peoples training and diets for reasons I do not know. What is worse, is that these same people feel the need to share these ideas with new young naive gym goers thus extending the cycle of idiocracy. Hopefully I can clear up some of these misconceptions, and get the majority of people heading in the right direction again.

Quote: “My friend is trying that fad diet where you don’t eat any bread or pasta, they just eat meat and stuff, they are asking for a heat attack”.

I have been hearing variations of this quote since I began in the fitness industry. I am constantly hearing talk in the gym that the idea of limiting crappy carbs like breads, pastas, and sugars is somehow a “fad diet.” First off the idea of being on a “diet” is completely blown out of proportion. A “fad diet” implies that there is a plan that you are going to follow for a short period of time to obtain fast results. Obviously this is an ineffective way to go about things long term because eventually you will fall back into the same habits you did before, thus going back to how you looked and felt before. In turn if someone is on a “diet” people automatically assume that this person in trying to loose weight. In reality being on a “diet”actually means you have a plan, and rhyme or reason to what you are eating and when you are eating it. This, in turn, is extremely important in order to achieve a variety of goals. In this respect everyone should be on a “diet”. Whether you are trying to cut fat, put on muscle, or increase your performance at a sport,you should have a plan that has you eating the correct foods at the right times.

Now getting back to the idea that cutting crappy carbs is a “fad diet”; this couldn’t be further from the truth. Many gym goers do have a primary objective of cutting fat and getting leaner. For this article’s sake, lets pretend that cutting fat and getting leaner is your primary objective. Man made, processed starchy carbs like bread, pasta, and sugars are death to fat loss. It seems through the years, foods like pasta and bread have been construed into being natural and healthy, where as in reality your body does not have any dietary need for them. Your body does have a need for a diet high in healthy fat, quality protein, fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, and berries. Basically if you were put on an island with just healthy fats and proteins you would live until you die of old age. In turn, if you were put on an island with nothing but carbs you will be die from malnourishment. Also in relation to this, over the years unhealthy “trans fats” have been incorrectly grouped with saturated fats and animal fats. While Trans fats should be avoided, animal fats from healthy animals such as grass fed organic beef, and wild salmon, and saturated fats such as coconut oil are awesome, and some of the healthiest things you can eat. In terms of fat loss, if you eat these fats along with proteins, you will actually promote fat loss in the body because your body becomes more efficient at burning fat for energy. Meanwhile the protein will keep your bodies metabolic rate high and, is very thermogenic, and rebuilds and supports muscle mass. However when you introduce simple carbs into the equation your body will use one for energy and store the other as fat, therefore the simple carbs are the enemy, no tprotein or fat. Eating a high percentage of healthy fats and proteins will also increase your body’s insulin sensitivity and put you in to fat burning mode. Eating healthy fats and proteins that are found in sources such as wild fresh fish and nuts, and complex carbohydrates found in vegetables like broccoli and spinach will help fight disease, keep you regulated, better your immune system, fight inflammation, help build muscle, balance your hormones, and increase your sex drive… need I say more? Eating a diet high in starchy man-man carbs like sugar, bread, pasta, and cereal, keeps your blood sugar high, lowers your insulin sensitivity, puts you in fat storage mode, makes you susceptible to disease, increased levels of bad cholesterol, and decreased levels of good cholesterol. Eating a high percentage of these simple carbs also gets your body use to using the carbs as energy instead of the layers of fat on you that you want to burn off. There are times in which to eat simple carbohydrates, but if you are overweight or obese and are trying to loose fat, things like sugars, breads, pastas ect… will quickly kill any success you may have. The idea of just eating smaller portions of these simple carbs, is just as bad. If you are overweight your insulin sensitivity sucks anyway. Insulin can be the fat storage hormone. Eating just one piece of candy can spike your insulin and put you into fat storage mode. Eating these simple carbs throughout the day keeps you on the insulin roller coaster making it nearly impossible to loose weight no matter how many calories you are eating. Now, besides the whole weight loss thing, eating this way can also lead to a handful of diseases such as diabetes, heat disease, gastro-intestinal problems, elevated cortisol levels, and poor adrenal and thyroid function to just name a few. So with all this being said, cutting these carbs out of your diet is not a “fad”, it is the way a lot more people should be eating, PERIOD. Just maybe if we can start eating the way are bodies were designed to, we wouldn’t have such an increasing, out of control health and weight problem in the world.

Here are some other misconceptions that relate with this topic:

-One of the most ridiculous things I have heard is the idea that somehow regular soda is better for you than diet soda. Despite what the fat lady in your office says, diet soda does not cause cancer,and “Pure cane sugar” is not better for you than regular sugar. They both raise your blood sugar and will make you a ticking diabetes time bomb if you are not careful. In fact if you are a male with a waist over the size of 40 inches,or a woman with a waist over 36 inches, there is a good chance you are already insulin resistant, which is just a small jump away from diabetes. If you fall into this group, drinking that sugary drink is as close to poison for your health as you are going to get. The other crazy thing when people try and tell you that diet soda is bad for you, is that the “chemical” thats even in question is also found in regular soda, and other substances such as milk. Not only do those things contain the same “chemical”, but they actually contain the “chemical” in about 10 times the quantity. If you still believe diet soda is worse for you than regular sugar filled soda, thats fine, but know that in multiple research tests, a person would have to consume 17 cans of diet soda a day, for 2 years straight, to even reach a level that could be considered toxic, and could potentially cause disease. Meanwhile people are disease ridden every day by the levels of sugar they consume, which has a more immediate impact.

-Many people believe that if they switch from white bread and pasta, to whole wheat bread and pasta, this will be a strong enough change to affect there health. This idea looks good on the surface, however will only lead to more failure. The correct part about this train of thought is that people should eat more complex carbohydrates and less simple carbohydrates. Unfortunately 99 percent of the “whole wheat” or “grain” products out there are not that nutritionally different than its alternative. Most of it is just the same crappy carbs, with a little wheat or grain thrown in. This allows the companies to market it as “100% whole wheat.” Really it is still just 100% percent garbage. Learn to stop listening to the marketing on boxes, and start reading the nutritional labels for yourselfs!

– Marketing also has us believing that any low calorie foods (though loaded with simple carbs) are good for you. Many people purchase products based on the low calorie, low fat labels. First off as discussed above, fat is actually good for you. Fat yields more calories, but if you are eating and training correctly, those calories will do more good for you than anything else. In addition to all the benefits of fats mentioned above, it also provides you slow burning energy that does not spike your blood sugar, keeps you full longer, and also keeps your body in fat burning mode. Now these “low calorie” foods are usually loaded with sugar or simple carbs because carbohydrates only yield 4 calories per gram and give you a quick sense of satisfaction. However, in the long run, these calories will actually do more to contribute to fat storage. A perfect example of this is the “100 calorie pack” items of cookies and such. Just because it is only 100 calories, this does not mean its good for you. If there is a piece of dog crap on the ground, and you decide to only eat only half of it, it is still dog crap! The same goes for poor food choices.