{"id":570,"date":"2013-01-21T09:30:01","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T17:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gahealthguide.wordpress.com\/?p=570"},"modified":"2013-01-21T09:30:01","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T17:30:01","slug":"debunking-what-to-eat-before-bed-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/21\/debunking-what-to-eat-before-bed-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Debunking: What To Eat Before Bed and More!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The post about our HIIT cardio routine will come next week. . .\u00a0 For now, we had to debunk an article!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On Facebook, people post a lot of links to articles and tips for health, “weight loss,” and nutrition;\u00a0 Often times there are quality articles out there, but it seems like almost as often, there are articles posted that are misleading, incorrect, or have their hearts in the right place but don’t understand science.<\/p>\n

Case in point, this article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, I admire that they’re trying to give lifestyle advice to people seeking it, but there are a lot of tidbits of information here that are just plain wrong–\u00a0 You can’t completely fault them, though.\u00a0 A lot of what they write are recycled health and nutrition myths that almost everyone believes.\u00a0 (Before I was enlightened, I believed them too.\u00a0 Honest mistake!)<\/p>\n

Error #1:\u00a0 Fat is the only result of excessive calories.<\/strong>\u00a0 Let’s start with their explanation of what a calorie is.\u00a0 They very correctly state that it’s a unit of energy, but then they go on to say that if your body doesn’t use it for energy, it will store it as fat.\u00a0 What about eating an excess of calories after hypertrophy (weight training to failure) training?\u00a0 The result of that “unused energy” is muscle tissue.\u00a0 Perhaps they’ll argue that you’re “using” that energy, but if the author tried to claim this, then they would not be able to claim their “Calorie neutral” stance.\u00a0 What’s that?<\/p>\n

Error #2:\u00a0 “Practice being ‘calorie neutral. . .'”\u00a0<\/strong> They explain that this means you should burn the calories you consume before eating more.\u00a0 Their logic states that, they’re pretty sure your 400 calories breakfast will be burned off by the time you eat again.\u00a0 What if you eat a lot of fat, which takes hours to completely metabolize?\u00a0 I know I’m being picky here, but seriously, a beginner error (that I even I made) is treating all calories equal, when you must<\/strong> take macro nutrients into account–\u00a0 All calories are different.\u00a0 (To relate to the muscle building rhetorical claim from error #1, if you’re “calorie neutral,” then you can’t eat enough to gain muscle, ever.)<\/p>\n

Error #3:\u00a0 Nutrient timing is too real!\u00a0 Be afraid of dinner!<\/strong>\u00a0 Wrong.\u00a0 A common beginner error is to believe that you shouldn’t eat after 6 or 7 PM, and more importantly, you shouldn’t eat carbs.\u00a0 This is an old wives tale, and I really wish this thinking would go away.\u00a0 To quote the article:<\/strong>\u00a0 “Now, if you eat a 1,000 calorie dinner, I can guarantee you that, unless you will be sprinting for the next 2 hours afterwards, you\u2019ll store these calories as fat to be used later. It doesn\u2019t matter if you eat carbohydrates, fat, or protein, if you\u2019re body doesn\u2019t use it, it\u2019ll store it as fat.<\/em>”\u00a0 At the end of the day, the only way you’ll store those calories as fat is if you ate above your TDEE\u00a0 (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) throughout the day.\u00a0 If your TDEE is 2000 calories, and you end the day at 1600 calories, with 1000 of those eaten during dinner, the result is the same as if you ate 4 meals at 400 calories each–\u00a0 You will lose weight as you will be in a caloric deficit.<\/p>\n

Notice I said “weight” and not “fat.”\u00a0 They also incorrectly state that the macros don’t matter for fat storage (and thus, body composition).\u00a0 Well, it does if you’re eating above or below your TDEE.\u00a0 Fat and Protein won’t directly contribute to fat gain, whereas carbs can have a direct effect on your Adipose Body Mass \/ ABM\u00a0 (read: Body Fat).\u00a0 Again–\u00a0 Not all calories are created equal.\u00a0 Graduate past this!<\/p>\n

On top of all of that, I would argue<\/a>, as would others<\/a>, that you should only eat carbs at night.\u00a0 Thus far I have seen fantastic results by isolating carbohydrate intake to late in the day, after weight training.<\/p>\n

Error #4:\u00a0 Eating breakfast kick starts your metabolism!<\/strong>\u00a0 This is something that, I’m pretty sure at one point we advocated, but is now in the myth column as far as nutritional research is concerned.\u00a0 Your body does not need you to “kick start” your metabolism by eating–\u00a0 If you’re healthy and have a healthy metabolism, your body will burn calories just as it should regardless.\u00a0 Admittedly, they claim in the article that you’ll burn them at a “normal” rate instead of an accelerated rate, however, the amount of calories you would burn by “kick starting” your metabolism are negligible.\u00a0 (Also, there are great benefits to skipping breakfast<\/a>)\u00a0 If there’s any adjustment to be made to breakfast, it’s to avoid carbs at all costs.\u00a0 Carbs in the morning can trigger an insulin response, which can promote fat storage and can start the blood sugar roller coaster early.\u00a0 (We reiterate this in the next point.)<\/p>\n

Error #5:\u00a0 If you skip breakfast, you’ll be so ravenous that you will eat junk food!<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, that really boils down to self control, and whether or not you have it.\u00a0 It’s also worth noting that if you eat your carbs for breakfast, you will have a carbocrash earlier, which could lead to making you ravenous.\u00a0 Instead, if you use Intermittent Fasting<\/a> to push your breakfast later, or stick to low to no carbs, you won’t run into that problem.<\/p>\n

\"No<\/a>

No hunger, and no carbocrash if you control your carbs. (Image stolen from getslimshop.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

At the end of the day, if this advice is helping you to lose weight, keep on keeping on–\u00a0 Just understand that the advice given in this article is flawed, and eventually, your goals will likely need to expand outside of the myths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The post about our HIIT cardio routine will come next week. . .\u00a0 For now, we had to debunk an article! On Facebook, people post a lot of links to articles and tips for health, “weight loss,” and nutrition;\u00a0 Often times there are quality articles out there, but it seems like almost as often, there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fitness-myths","category-health","category-nutrition"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3DfsS-9c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}