I’ve happily noticed that people love to talk about health related information. However, sometimes I hear things I know aren’t scientifically correct. When this happens, I sometimes point them out but other times it is better if I just snicker quietly and keep quite. I won’t reveal the culprits but these are my favorite diet/exercise fibs!
1. “I know diet soda is better than regular but all the sugar in diet soda makes me really hyper!”
FYI – Diet soda contains no digestible sugar and therefore no calories. It contains calorie free artificial sweeteners. Diet soda does contain caffeine, which may increase your energy level.
2. “Fried rice is better than white or brown because the carbs are cooked off.”
FYI – I don’t even know what to say to this….. Here the carbohydrate information for 1 cup rice: brown long grain: 45 g, short grain white rice: 37g, fried rice: 56g. (taken from: http://www.annecollins.com/dietary-carbs/carbs-rice.htm ) Also, the brown rice is better for you because it has 5 grams fiber as apposed to the 0.2 in white rice.
3. “If a female trained hard enough, they could be just as good at a sport as the best male”.
FYI – This one is tough. I think there are some sports that women can and do excel at. However, men have higher aerobic capacities than women because they have higher blood volumes (78ml/kg in males versus 56 ml/kg in females). Blood carries oxygen and nutrients to working muscles and the higher your aerobic capacity, the higher your performance will be at endurance sports. Men also have much higher testosterone levels than women. Testosterone helps store protein and increases muscle mass. Therefore, men tend to be much stronger than females. The many factors that influence male versus female performance in a sport make it impossible to conclude the statement above.
4. “I don’t need to do any cardiovascular activity because I weight lift.”
FYI-Weight training is great to increase muscle mass, keep your joints healthy, maintain a healthy body composition and increase your metabolism. It does not result in the same cardiovascular benefits as cardio training such as increased blood volume, increase in mitochondria density, and increase in heart health and decrease in blood pressure. In fact, heavy weight training in absence of cardio can increase the muscles of the heart, leaving less space for blood and increasing blood pressure to dangerous levels.
I’ve also heard the reverse “I don’t weight lift because I work my muscles when I run and cycle and I don’t want big muscles anyway.”
FYI-We have two types of muscles, those that respond to endurance training (running, cycling) and those that respond to heavy loads (weight training). EVERYONE should train BOTH muscle types in order to maintain healthy lean tissue. This helps protect your bones and joints, improves flexibility and stability, and helps you enhance your overall athletic performance. You will not develop huge muscles unless you are doing a specific type of weight lifting known as bodybuilding.
It is easy to believe certain health myths and we have all passed on incorrect information accidentally. This is just a reminder to think about and research ideas you may have heard before passing them along and making my silly fact list :)
