Supplements: Part One

The supplement industry is growing drastically every year, in 2012 estimated revenue was 32 billion USD.  This is not surprising when you think about it, in Vero alone there are two GNCs, one vitamin shoppe and countless multi level marketing supplement distributors. With fitness becoming more and more popular it makes sense to see such a rise in supplement use. Something we should all ask ourselves, do all those supplements actually do anything?

A little background of me to show the possible bias I may or may not have. I worked at a local supplement store for year and a half, like most young adults who just recently fell in love with the gym I was astatic about my new job. I could now make money helping people reach their goals with fitness, picking out the right protein for that mother of two or the perfect testosterone booster for the serious gym rat. So I was excited to say the least, my knowledge when it came to actual fitness (exercise and nutritional science) was non existent and was even lower when it came to supplements. So off the bat all I had was my limited bro-science and what my fellow employees and manager told me, which if you can guess was nothing less then amazing when it came to supplements and especially our own company's brand. Not too long after getting the job I wanted to be able to answer most of my customers questions, "what does this do?", "how will this affect me?". So I started to do my research online and make my own cheat sheet for the most common supplement ingredients. This was a mistake but at the same time is what helped me open my eyes. My "research" was nothing more than googling the name of the ingredient and reading the first one or two links about it. Now, the mistake was that this wasn't real research, this was nothing more then me looking at information that I wanted to see, I was heavily biased that these ingredients worked (so information that proved my bias to be right was all I looked at).

So I have been there, wanting to help people with supplements, the belief that supplements actually did what they said, I even spent usually half my paycheck on protein powders and muscle builders believing that was what I needed. Thankfully about eight months into my job my views started to change with actual evidence being presented to me, at first I disregarded the evidence since it didn't agree with what I thought, thankfully after sometime I was able to see that the supplements really didn't work, it helped that anecdotally I saw hundreds of people continue to waste 30-80 dollars every few weeks with no change visually over the span of almost a year. Once the knowledge was presented to me my whole mind set of work changed and I saw things how (I presume them to be)  they are, supplement companies don't care about 80-90% of their consumers as long as about 10% are showing progress (just being consistent and not from the actual product) they could continue to advertise as flowery as possible to sell their products to the 80-90%. A few months later I quit my job because I couldn't stand the amount of half truths and lies that supplement companies and employees spew to their customers.

Ive gone through it, I have gone in blind believing every hype and passionate speech from the huge companies, to seeing the truth of what most educated people see the supplement industry as, half truths, overpriced and corrupt. So yes because of my experience my bias does lean toward not favoring supplements, but my opinion is not just based off of anecdote but actually data that is available at this time.

Advocare, Herbalife, Nutrilite, BSN, Muscle Pharm etc, the list could literally fill up a page because the amount of supplement companies around continues to grow because of the growing market. The rest of this article will be a “detailed” breakdown of why most companies are the same and supplements in general are a waste of your time, even with all the scientific "evidence" for them.

I will breakdown supplements up into 3 categories (no doubt a case can be made for more and companies undoubtedly make more to try to set them apart); health, weight loss and muscle gain. Lets me start with weight loss, for weight loss to occur our bodies need to be in a caloric deficit, this is probably nothing most you have not heard of, a caloric deficit is made through extra activity, eating less or more favorable a mixture of both. So how do weight loss supplements fit into the above equation? Most weight loss supplements are usually sold as aids (it isn't hard to find marketing that sounds as if the pill or shake does all the work), fat burners are usually marketed to add extra calories expended through thermogenesis, weight loss shakes are nothing more than protein meal replacements that can help with lowering calories through eating less with higher levels of satiety. Let me go through some of the most popular ingredients in weight loss pills and lets see what the evidence actually says.

1.Caffeine 

2. Synephrine 

3.CLA

4. Garcinia Cambogia

5.Raspberry Ketones

6. Alpha Lipoic Acid

7. Yohimbe

Caffeine
Look at any thermogenic and caffeine will be in there in some form or another. Caffeine is a easily obtainable drug found in coffee, teas and sold in pills at your local pharmacy for relatively low cost. Caffeine is a pretty well researched drug, we know that most effects of caffeine are habitual (effect weakens longer we use it) even its thermogenic properties. So, yes caffeine is thermogenic but how practical is it when looking at weight loss? A typical dose is around 200 mg with the upper threshold being 400 mg, with 200 mg depending on body weight you can see an increase of about 8-14 kcal/h(1,2). To lose weight one has to be in a caloric deficit this will mostly be done by reduction in calories and increase in activity, now taking a pill with caffeine might show a small advantage for a limited time, but will it even be worth it with all other variables being on point? (http://examine.com/supplements/Caffeine/)

Synephrine
Synephrine is a similar product to the famous ephedrine that was banned from sale in the united states around 15 years ago. Unlike ephedrine synephrine is not as strong, but does show a slight increase in resting metabolic rate (75 minutes) about 65 kcal with a single dose of 50mg(3). Synephrine does seem to synergise well with caffeine with the hypothesis of increasing the effect of both products(4). Again the effect is quite small and not 100% positive to be effective in men and women(5), so again its up to the consumer to decide if the product is worth their time and money. (http://examine.com/supplements/Synephrine/)

CLA
Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) is marketed as a healthy fat that reduces body fat without stimulating the CNS. The researched dose amount is anywhere from 3,200mg to 6,000mg. There are a few human studies done with CLA to look at its effectiveness on weight loss and the consensus leans toward ineffective to very unreliable(6,7,8,9). (http://examine.com/supplements/Conjugated+Linoleic+Acid/)

Garcinia Cambogia
Garcinia Cambogia (GC) is another highly marketed non stimulant fat burner, similar to CLA the consensus is that GC has a very limited to no effect on weight loss(10,11,12,13). The idea is that GC inhibits the de novo lipogenesis pathway allowing more stored fat to be used as energy. This seems to be very prominent in rats but when done on humans with a typical dose of 3,000mg (50% HCA) spread out with meals we really don't see an effect(12). One study did show a slight difference with the GC group losing an extra 4%(13), but remember one study does not prove or disprove anything, the whole scientific consensus and available knowledge needs to be taken into account, and as of right now its pretty negative when it comes to Garcinia Cambogia. (http://examine.com/supplements/Garcinia+cambogia/)

Raspberry Ketone
Very similar to GC it is highly marketed and over rated. A majority of the studies are done on rats (14), and we can only make hypothesis based on rat research not factual jumps and conclusions. Its is speculated that taking Raspberry Ketone (RK) orally may not be effective. One study with RK taken by humans in conjunction with other ingredients Caffeine, Capsaicin, Garlic, Ginger and Citrus aurantium had a positive outcome, an extra 5% weight loss was recorded from the supplement group compared to the placebo group (15). This is interesting as the cocktail of ingredients seemed to be effective but RK by themselves have no evidence of having any benefit in human trials. (http://examine.com/supplements/Raspberry+Ketone/)

Alpha Lipoic Acid
Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) is a fatty acid mainly seen in the mitochondria, its been researched very well with positive evidence in appetite suppressing. ALA as an appetite suppressant is usually seen in doses of 300-600mg, I will not be discussing its appetite suppressive behaviors any more, but here is some ample information about it (16). Now when it comes to ALA effecting fat loss it seems to be through AMPK inhibition (17) but more research is needed to fully understand. One study looking at weight loss took one placebo and two ALA groups (1200 mg, 1800 mg of ALA), both ALA groups saw increase in weight loss and it was significant at the the higher dose of 1800 mg (18). More research needs to be done to really understand why and how effective ALA may be pertaining to fat loss (besides through suppressing appetite) before claims can definitively be made.(http://examine.com/supplements/Alpha-Lipoic+Acid/)

Yohimbine
Yohimbine also known as yohimbe is a stimulant that has high promise for effecting weight loss in obese and lean individuals. Yohimbe seems to work through thermogenesis by acting on aregonic receptors by increasing enzyme catalyst (19) and by increasing adrenaline (20). There seems to be some evidence that the spike of increase adrenaline fades over time (2 weeks), but thermogenesis from aregonic receptors seems to stay. There are mixed results of yohimbine in human trials. One study showed an approximate 2kg fat decrease in soccer players taking 20 mg of yohimbe compared to placebo (21), but another study has shown null results in healthy individuals (22). It seems fair to say that the evidence is unclear as of right now and more interventions are needed to expand the evidence. (http://examine.com/supplements/Yohimbine/)

If you haven't noticed I have placed the link to the supplements page from Examine at the end of each paragraph, they go into greater detail and over more areas of the supplement then I ever could. A recurring theme for most weight loss supplements is that more research is needed and what research we do have shows a minor effect on weight loss through thermogenesis (if you are lucky maybe an extra 200 calories burned at the end of the day). So what you have to ask yourself, is the price worth it? For some I understand that supplements may be more helpful psychological (buying that supplement once a month keeps you going to the gym/motivated), but that doesn't mean we can just discard all the lies and half truths supplement companies are saying about their products (and how long will that motivation last?). So its seems that caffeine and yohimbine are some of the most reliable and potent “fat burners” from the above list, remember you can cheaply buy caffeine from walgreens for almost ⅙ of the price compared to your typical name brand thermogenic. My opinion is that when it comes to weight loss supplements, if you are in caloric deficit and doing some type of activity the weight will come off and adding in a thermogenic pill will have a small effect that you wouldn't be able to even realize you are taking it (I know people scream that they can feel the fat burning off or after starting the pill the weight just started dropping but I would argue that they are BS you or just giving all the credit to the pill).

Part Two on Muscle gain/building supplements will be out soon

Crossfit: The Good, The Bad and The Not So Different

You either hate it or love it when it comes to Crossfit, or thats how it seems. We as a culture are so wrapped up in the idea that you have to be for something or against it and we seem to bypass all the people who decide to sit in the middle. This is no difference when it comes to Crossfit, every internet article/blog post is either bashing the unsafe injury plagued activity or praising the sport as the bringer of health and elite fitness to this sinful world, or thats what the world of facebook shows us and if its shared on facebook it must be true, right? Like almost all things in life there are pros and cons, context surrounding any decision is key and there is more than one way to curl in the squat rack. Here is my 2 cents on Crossfit.

Some say that Crossfit is a chiropractor's best friend, many people blame Crossfit for being inherently injury prone and that it does not put the safety of its clients in mind. Now before I place some very funny but weird Greg Glassman quotes I want to get this out there, I highly dislike Crossfit HQ, HQ is a money hungry ass hat that cares more about being different than actually improving people's overall health and completely shit talks about the science behind Strength and conditioning that itself is based on. Now that I let that out I would like to clarify, when I am talking about "Crossfit" in this article I am referring to the individual Crossfit boxes out there, even though these are affiliated with crossfit HQ I believe that most of them do not entirely hold the same values as HQ but if they do then they are too a ass hat. So to differentiate the two here are some Greg Glassman quotes and if a box has these same "beliefs" than those are (hopefully) the few not the many.

The Glassman:

“We have a therapy for injuries at CrossFit called STFU.”

“It can kill you…I’ve always been completely honest about that,” he said. “If you find the notion of falling off the rings and breaking your neck so foreign to you, then we don’t want you in our ranks.”

“The bodybuilding model is designed around, requires, steroids for significant hypertrophy. The neuroendocrine response of bodybuilding protocols is so blunted that without "exogenous hormonal therapy" little happens. The CrossFit protocol is designed to elicit a substantial neuroendocrine wallop and hence packs an anabolic punch that puts on impressive amounts of muscle though that is not our concern. Strength is. Natural bodybuilders (the natural ones that are not on steroids) never approach the mass that our athletes do. "

“No successful strength and conditioning program has anywhere ever been derived from scientific principles. Those claiming efficacy or legitimacy on the basis of theories they’ve either invented or corralled to explain their programming are guilty of fraud. Programming derives from clinical practice and can only be justified or legitimized by the results of that practice.”

Well that is that and a simple google search will show more of Glassman's idiotic rants or check out this article for an in depth of glassman and crossfit (1). Back to the possible high injury rate of Crossfit WODs, there is one study that has shown a 16% drop out rate from “overuse” (2), but the study did not explain overuse and this is only one study so we can not make absolutes about any topic off of one sole study. So it seems there might be something with injury, but its nothing that is not uncommon with other sports. Anecdotally I think everyone has heard or seen a friend on facebook who went a little to hard and injured a shoulder or their lower back, but thats not just in crossfit. It is just as easy to hear of the war stories by the bench bros at any commercial gym who were on their 5th set of half rep bench press with 315 when they missed reped and droped the weight and almost tore their supraspinatus but thankfully Brosef was behind them to save the day. As you can hopefully see with my in depth sentence there are people who use less than safe form and let their ego get the best of them in any fitness setting, not just in crossfit. I believe that the reason for crossfit being targeted more is the fact that instead of just your bench bros and gym rats hurting themselves we now have soccer moms and former high school athletes in greater number doing it now. So Crossfit is not solely exclusive to people not training smart. My problem with crossfit when it comes to these injuries is that people attending crossfit classes are paying somewhere around 150 dollars to learn and train so the least these trainers and coaches can do is implement solid technique and ego check their clients so people who are cleaning 135 for 15 reps or maxing out on deadlifts do not harm themselves. The fact is there are great boxes out there who do not allow for ego and terrible technique to run rampant but its the few/many who are not qualified or care enough to go the extra mile to allow for injury prevention that ruin Crossfits image when it comes to injury.

Get primal, eat paleo and rid ourselves of our modern diseases and ailments. This is a pretty common held belief in crossfit boxes, they have adapted the newest diet fad and ran with it and held on to it with every dogmatic and elitist finger they have. The fitness industry is not new to diet fads veganism, clean eating, low carb, raw food, the zone, atkins, these are just some of the diet fads that the fitness industry has seen and held on to. So again being dogmatic in a diet is not exclusive to Crossfit, you're just as likely to be told about the magic properties of clean food in a commercial gym as you would in a box about paleo. So to single out Crossfit is wrong, this though does not excuse the problems of boxes and their dogmatic view when it comes to nutrition. Context and preference are key when it comes to ones own nutritional plan/diet. Arbitrarily excluding foods and pushing a cookie cutter diet to everyone is never going to work. Yes, some people may love and do well on a paleo diet but the next person might love milk and bread and restricting those may be the downfall of their fitness journey. Having a flexible approach to diet and understanding that moderate intakes of most things and eating a varied diet is actually healthy and will allow for people to reach their goals and keep them.. Here are some articles debunking paleo (debunking the idea that legumes, dairy, starches, gluten and yes even some say fruit is inherently unhealthy):

http://www.nsca.com/uploadedFiles/NSCA/Inactive_Content/Program_Books/PTC_2013_Program_Book/Aragon.pdf
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-paleo-diet-half-baked-how-hunter-gatherer-really-eat/
http://scepticalnutritionist.com.au/?p=873
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/its-a-part-of-my-paleo-fantasy-its-a-part-of-my-paleo-dream/

Look back three or even a year from now and you can see the massive increase of more women and men training with strength and performance in mind. This has to do with the  expansion of crossfit (along with internet). It was not uncommon to see most women who worked out stick to pink dumbbells and bosu balls and even some men saw the free weights and strength training as things only those big powerlifters did. Crossfit has helped change the stigma of strength training and that along with its expanding audience has and will continue to be one of crossfits biggest contributions to the fitness industry. More now than ever it is common to hear a group of people talking about cleans, snatches, squats, hitting new pr's and just over all loving strength training.

So to wrap it yes crossfit does have injuries (anecdotically), they do (usually) promote a fad diet, but this is not exclusive to crossfit, these are things that already are in the fitness industry. Main point is, the the fitness industry is corrupt that lies, tells half truths and lives off of people who will continue to throw money away without seeing the results they seek. So a question to think about is, will crossfit with its major audience and continual growth help the fitness industry or just follow footsteps of the people before and let the lies and half truths continue (I am looking at you progenix).

Toning, Real or Marketing? Part Two

Here is part two of my toning discussion, here is part one if you haven't read it, but if you don't care to read it I wont shed a tear. Now lets see if doing push ups and dumbbell lunges will make us look like fitness models

Looking Back

In part one I talked about the idea and use of “toning” and how it can/has lead to misuse and misinformed ideas about the body. Now in part two I am going to dig deeper into the programing that a lot of these “toning” workouts/routines will have.  First a quick review, we can not "tone" a muscle, the look of “toning” comes from a lower body fat percentage and more than average amount of lean body mass (simple overview), and when we break it down “toning” when used to describe a look has no holding. Now let me get started on why most of these programs fall short when it comes to reaching your goals and why their results do not continue.  

Overview

As I stated above improving ones body composition comes from lowering body fat/raising lean mass and/or (preferably) both, so when you look at these workouts/programs how are they doing this? Most are just body weight or band movements put together with short rest periods and continuous rotation of the movements with some type of aerobic work mixed in, but how is that going to increase lean mass or decrease body fat? Both factors are highly dependent on one's dietary habits (caloric deficit or surplus), doing such programs may stimulate the body for muscle growth and will burn calories but without the other piece of the puzzle its very hit or miss. Yes, people will probably see results when they first start programs like the above, but this is mainly due to it being a new stimulus and the fact that most people who start these are sedentary or minimally trained individuals (so anything you throw at these people will show results). How long do the changes or results last, weeks maybe a month or two? Sound familiar? Let me explain below...

The Thick of It

So if a increase in muscle and or decrease in body fat is what someone is looking for they should be lead in that direction, first making sure they are eating towards their goal (deficit or surplus) and then specific training for that goal. So remember that the “toning” workouts rely on mostly bodyweight and band movements with little rest time as the main way of changing intensity (mechanical tension and exertion level). This leads into one of the falls of most “toning” routines, the stimulus you usually give your body is low and can not vary/increase to the degree of weight bearing exercise (machines and free weights, also the varying repetitions and intensities). As I stated above if you are a beginner this will be enough to see improvements at first but eventually your body will adapt to the stimulus and then will plateau (increase in muscle size will slow or fully stop). So if most of if not all "toning" routines use a stimulus that most trainees will get used to after around 3 months what are they to do after? Now a lot of people usually shy away from strength training or the idea of using weights that only allow for rep ranges of  3’s and 6’s, but a lot of great adaptations can come from this since the body is being greatly stimulated. Also varying intensity and volume is a main factor to further progress after someone is out of untrained category and even more necessary once they are not a beginner anymore. Most routines will sell a second package or more advanced version but the stimulus has not changed much when it comes to intensity (mechanical tension on the body) which is a primary variable in adaptation, so the effect for the person will be no more than a caloric burning routine that like I previously stated unless ones nutrition is being accounted for then the program will possibly not do much (when it comes to improving body composition). After all this rambling I come to my problem with “toning” programs, low stimulus routines when it comes to intensity, and lack there of to raise that intensity to further produce results that people are seeking.

To Sum It Up

Now I know not everyone wants to deadlift 3x their body weight, some people prefer machines, others free weights, powerlifting, olympic lifting, crossfit etc. So the most important thing is to stick with what you love because that is going to allow you to adhere to an active lifestyle. The problem rises when people are telling others that they can grow 20 inch biceps by doing their “toning” program, or that they can gain 25-35 pounds of muscle mass from it as well. The outcome of those two are highly unlikely, this is when (if those or any similar goals are yours) some more specific programming will have to come in to play. One might have to start doing more free weight or machine movements while implementing a structured periodized program, but this doesn't mean you have to stop doing cross training or whatever else you love, you just need to add some specificity to your programing to reach your desired goal. If you or someone is happy with these programs and you don't have any specific goals then keep on going. I a not trying to deter anyone from programs like these if they are happy with what they are getting out of them, I am just trying to shake loose some of the lies and misinformation that they usually come with.  

Toning, Real or Marketing? Part One

This is going to be a two part series, part one I dig into the definition and semantics. Part two I dissect the programs that are usually associated with "toning". Please do not be so emotionally tied to this term that you automatically disregard everything I say, now break out the pink dumbbells and get the circuits started, its time to tone!

What is Tone?

You see it in on headlines all over, magazine covers, the internet and youtube, “toning”, what does it mean? Most people use the term "toning" in place of desired body composition, usually the image of a lightly defined body where the the major beach muscles are etched through body fat is what comes to most minds. When we say body composition we are usually talking about

“In physical fitness, body composition is used to describe the percentages of fat, bone, water and muscle in human bodies. Because muscular tissue takes up less space in our body than fat tissue, our body composition, as well as our weight, determines leanness”.

how much lean body mass and body fat you have on your person, someone who weighs 190 pounds at 15% BF (body fat) is going to look more "toned" than a gentleman who is 190 pounds at 20% BF, with muscle mass being the exact same. So we can argue that "toning" is mostly understood but it is vastly dependent on body fat where usually the focus is on the muscle itself. This part is more about semantics and some may think its a petty thing to argue about, but if the base of an idea is wrong even in the slightest it allows for other ideas that stem from it to be vastly deranged.

Here is the actual definition of tone, 

verb past tense: toned; past participle: toned

1.give greater strength or firmness to (the body or a part of it)."exercise tones up the muscles"

2.harmonize with (something) in terms of color."the rich orange color of the wood tones beautifully with the yellow roses"

Breaking it Down

So you see that tone only speaks of the actual firmness/strength of a muscle from exercise, a muscle can be as firm as it can be, but if you still carry enough body fat your body will not have that prefered sculpted look to it or your desired body composition. So now you may be thinking, “okay, yea so the term may not be 100% correct but people get what we are saying and I know what I mean”. Yes, you may know what you mean but how does that help anyone else? Why use a term if it changes per person (similar to the term clean eating), the term has no holding. Now remember that the definition of tone talks only of the strength/firmness of a muscle, but the whole idea of a “toned” body heavily relies on having a reduced body fat (in most cases, some people may need only to increase muscle size but both is more likely) and the definition makes no connection to body fat, very similar to how people think of toning the body.

As I stated earlier, “if the base of an idea is wrong even in the slightest it allows for other ideas that stem from it to be vastly deranged”, now we get to the deranged parts of using the term “toning”. People sell programs and devices of all sorts with the idea of “toning” behind them, but very rarely will the idea of losing body fat be the main focus, most of the time it will be some quick 20 min home workout circuit to tone the body (focusing on the muscle development not body fat). So from the start these programs are terrible because the idea they are based on is wrong (In part two I go into deeper inspection of “toning” programs). I saved the best for last (in this article), the bastardization of “toning” has become so bad that people (who usually are trying to sell you something, go figure) have used toning as an idea of changing the shape and length of an actual muscle/muscles. Human physiology would like to say other wise, the shape and length of a muscle is already pre determined by ones own genetics. We can not “tone” a muscle, the muscles insertion point, muscle belly, and genetics have decided that for us. A muscle can grow and shrink, holding a dumbbell semi lateral while doing tricep kickbacks while sanding on a bosu ball in hope to tone the tricep muscle to grow a certain way is futile. We can only hope to increase the muscle size (hypertrophy) and keep our body fat at a desired level to give us the body we are looking for.

Toning Real?

I hope this post has shown how a wrong use of a word can lead to such deranged branches of it, usually in the hope of selling something by appealing to the masses. So remember to tone is to strengthen or make more firm, if you are looking to change your body composition then usually a increase in muscle size and reduction in body fat (neither have to be to the extreme) will more than likely give you the body and “look” you desire. I might add that following those “toning” routines/workouts will usually have a very small effect that will not last long, but I dig deeper in part two.

Food is Fuel, It Also Taste F#cking Amazing

This post is more of a rant than educational piece, I go and rant on the ideology that food is fuel and you shouldn't enjoy it and if you do enjoy your food it's probably unhealthy.

The fitness community is a weird one (generally speaking, mainstream fitness), when you sit back and really take a good look at it. “Food is fuel!” and “Food will not control me!” are very popular sayings among the diehard health wairy. I dont care how any one person decides to eat or their philosophy on food, if they decide that food is just a means to survive and they feel that anything else and they are being controlled then that is fine it doesn't bother me (even if I see that as a very unhealthy view on food). When people start to proclaim that the above view is healthy and is the way to better oneself to others is when I have a problem, why is it that people who try to be 110% healthy seem to only view life in black or white? Back to the idea that food is fuel, yes food is fuel, it gives us macro and micro nutrients that enables our bodies to run at its finest, why do people then make the correlation that if they enjoy their food then they will immediately be controlled by it and then fall into a vicious downfall of gluttony and laziness? A recurring theme I bring up is the overrestriction that leads to such binges that is rooted from misleading and wrong information. 

Here is a scenario to think about, Lacy is 5’3” 120 pounds, she works out 6 times a week doing HIIT resistance training along with cardio 3 times a week. Lacy wants to lose 10 pounds and maintain it so she overly restricts the food she will allow herself to eat and follows the ideology that food is fuel. Now over a 2 week period Lacy lost 7 pounds, but on the third week she binges on food she saw to enjoyable (“unhealthy”) and gained back 4 pounds (mostly water weight but some tissue weight), Lacy then becomes depressed and believes food is controlling her again so she falls into a slump for another week until she feels she is strong enough and goes back onto the program again. Lacy continues this vicious cycle posting things on facebook and instagram about her journey and how happy she is and also how she will never let food control her again because “healthy” feels so good. 

The above scenario is not far fetched a quick look through your friends list may show some similar journeys. Now compare Lacy to Bethany...

Bethany is 5’3” 130 pounds, Bethany has decided she wants to lose 10 pounds so she starts to work out 2 times a week weight training, she doesn't do any hardcore or advanced style of weight training she just goes at her pace and uses progressive overload. Bethany puts herself in a slight caloric deficit with no restrictions on the foods she eats, she does start to eat more vegetables, fruits, protein and whole foods all while still eating foods that others (Lacy) might see as “unhealthy”. Two weeks go by and Bethany has lost 3 pounds, on the third week Bethany decides to introduce some walking with friends once a week for some SS (steady state) cardio. Another 7 Weeks go by and Bethany has hit her goal of 10 pounds lost, Bethany continues to eat foods she enjoys and has introduced one more day of weight training. Bethany is able to follow her lifestyle since she can adhere to it very easily. 

Now decide who is more healthy, Lacy or Bethany? So why do people continue to push the idea that food is controlling and only fuel? If someone has a real issue with self control and food then they need to go see a medical professional to advise them and help them through their disordered eating. 

My unprofessional advice would be to take a deep breath and understand that food can not control you if you understand that eating foods you enjoy in respectable amounts (depending on the person and goals of said person “respectable” changes quite a bit, context is key) is not going to damage you, yes food is fuel but it also taste so f#cking good! There are so many different cultures around the world that prepare and cook foods so differently, different taste and textures are amazing to experience and yes, enjoy. I have just recently been eating more guava, guava jelly on my toast with small amount of butter is amazing, also I have been mixing 3 servings of vanilla ice cream with a 4 oz of guava nectar in a blender, the guava shake is highly enjoyable and refreshing and I make it whenever I feel like one, that can be once a week or maybe 3 times. The thing is I have not gained 10 pounds or lost controll, my health has not plummeted and you could say my mental health has improved. 

Like I said in the beginning if you want to eat food on the idea that its mainly fuel and you are in control then by all means go ahead, but it is not necessary or some would say even healthy. In the end eat how you want but don't let people make you think that enjoying one of lifes greatest pleasures is counter productive to health or your goals.