The fitness fact thread

ThraxThrax 🐌Austin, TX Icrontian
edited October 2011 in Fitness
I amass knowledge about fitness because it's important to me, so I thought I would make a thread with some quick facts that could be useful to people.

1. The concept of "starvation mode" is a myth. I recently learned this. It has grown to be accepted as gospel, when in reality it's little more than a bad interpretation of even worse studies conducted in the 60s and 70s. In other words, no matter what your calorie intake is, the body will continue to burn at a constant rate until you have nothing left to burn. You must literally be wasting away to enter starvation mode.

2. The maximum amount of calories you can safely burn per day (through cutting calories and/or adding cardio) is equal to the number of pounds in fat you're carrying * 32. In other words, no matter how much cardio or calorie cutting you want to do, you have to eat enough food to make sure that you don't exceed your limit; your body will start burning muscle mass if you do.

3. One day of hitting the gym hard with a typical 3 or 4-day gym routine, like bench/squat/deadlift + 4-5 other exercises, only burns around 100 calories per session.

4. Soda is not a diuretic. Caffeine has mild diuretic properties, but pop is something like 90% water, which dramatically outweighs the effects of caffeine.

5. Restricting carbohydrates has been all the rage over the last 20 years, but it's somewhat pointless. The vast majority of the population won't need any more restriction than what's inherent to a reduced-calorie diet composed of 40% protein.

Comments

  • RyderRyder Kalamazoo, Mi Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    Thrax wrote:
    2. The maximum amount of calories you can safely burn per day (through cutting calories and/or adding cardio) is equal to the number of pounds in fat you're carrying * 32. In other words, no matter how much cardio or calorie cutting you want to do, you have to eat enough food to make sure that you don't exceed your limit; your body will start burning muscle mass if you do.
    So if you have 50 lbs of fat, you could have a 1600 calorie per day deficit or you have to eat at least 1600 calories per day?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    1600 per day deficit. Your body will quite happily make up the gap with body fat. This is why people who are intensely overweight can go on hyper-restricted diets, burn 10 pounds of fat in a week, and be no worse for the wear.

    The body fat does the work.

    For example, I have 22 pounds of body fat. That's 704 calories I can safely cut from my diet each day without compromising my muscle mass. Assuming for a moment that I burn 2100 calories per day WITHOUT EXERCISE OF ANY KIND, that means I should go down to 1400 calories on days that I don't do cardio. That's a 700 calorie deficit.

    What happens if I add 360 calories of cardio, though? I can't eat 1400 calories any more, because 1400 - 360 from cardio is well below my safety threshold. The answer is to eat a number of calories equal to what I burned so my deficit remains the same.

    So, if I eat 1400 on non-cardio days, and about 1800 on cardio days, that's 700 per day every day of the week, or 1.4 pounds.

    But somebody with 50 pounds of fat could lose up to 1600 per day! WOW! That means not only can they eat ~1500 per day just like me, but their body can support a lot more cardio before they have to adjust their diet to stay within their threshold. It could be 700 calories from food restriction, and another 900 calories on the bike or treadmill. Holy piss, that's 3-4 pounds a week with no troubles.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    Thanks for the tips and explanation... I do not know a huge amount about deficit manipulation and safety thresholds-- did you come to understand your safety threshold through experimenting and knowledge to make the experimetns more single-factored and thus safer usually?

    John
  • RyderRyder Kalamazoo, Mi Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    Thanks, that is what I thought you meant.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    From my crude and limited knowledge about what follows, pure vitamins and core needed minerals can be gotten and taken to maintain core nutrition needs of body other than minimal calories-- and thus free you from some volume needs of food that contains calories and fat or potential fat=making stuff. From your knowledge and experience, is this true?

    Um, one more question I might have to clarify: Doesn't the human body NEED some fat to have calories potential and insulation to stay warm without stressing the heart more to do so in cooler climates or seasons?

    John.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    Perhaps the result of violating #2 has been misinterpreted as the body entering "starvation mode" - thereby perpetuating the myth?
  • RyderRyder Kalamazoo, Mi Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    Thrax wrote:
    5. Restricting carbohydrates has been all the rage over the last 20 years, but it's somewhat pointless. The vast majority of the population won't need any more restriction than what's inherent to a reduced-calorie diet composed of 40% protein.
    So.. you are saying that getting really serious with low carbs is a waste of time? Just make sure you are at 40% protein?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    Right. More than anything the obsession with low carb/zero carb has come from the hype surrounding the Atkins diet, which offers spectacular results... only because people cutting all their carbs usually puts them in the correct calorie range. It's also based on the ketogenesis model, which guarantees that any calories burned in the day will come from fat.

    Like many common fitness myths, the "omg don't eat carbs" thing is due largely to a misinterpretation or exaggeration of the truth.

    In reality, if you put yourself down to the 1500 daily calories that's really required to lose weight, and shave off 40% of that for protein, you're really only left with around 120g of carbs per day. That's low enough to get the job done for the vast, vast majority of people.
  • GnomeQueenGnomeQueen The Lulz Queen Mountain Dew Mouth Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    The diets also work because so many tasty, tasty things are chock full of carbs. Like cookies. So tasty. Om nom nom.

    Something else I just learned- that whole, you have to eat breakfast thing? Total myth. Your body does not need to have its metabolism jump started in the morning. You can skip breakfast and it won't do a thing, besides maybe make you grumpy. :D
  • CBCB ΖΈΜ΅Μ‘ΣœΜ΅Μ¨Μ„Ζ· Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    Do you have some articles about this Starvation Mode stuff. It's so ubiquitous, even in fitness mags and such, I'd like to see more about the original studies, the misinterpretations, and the new studies. Not detailed numbers, but a history lesson would be cool.
  • MiracleManSMiracleManS Chambersburg, PA Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    For people who are prone to muscle cramps even when well hydrated (like myself) it's important to not only have appropriate potassium but also magnesium. More people suffer from magnesium deficits than they realize. If you're going to be doing something that typically causes cramping (for myself playing football was a good one. Even 12 minute half flag football still gives me cramping issues) taking a magnesium supplement can be a huge boon.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    CB wrote:
    Do you have some articles about this Starvation Mode stuff. It's so ubiquitous, even in fitness mags and such, I'd like to see more about the original studies, the misinterpretations, and the new studies. Not detailed numbers, but a history lesson would be cool.

    From Reddit:

    Starvation mode is a myth. It was popularized due to the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in which subjects were given 50% of their daily calorie intake for months. The result? Well, they lost weight until they had almost no weight left to lose and their bodies simply could not get the calories ANYWHERE. Concisely put: starvation mode happens when you are, quite literally, wasting away. Not when you have a simple caloric deficit. Your body will make up for it with fat stores. That's what they're for.
  • RyanFodderRyanFodder Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    Thrax: Can you list some primary sources that support each of your points? Wikipedia is not valid as a real source for scientific papers. (So says all of my professors and, more importantly, my scientist girlfriend.)

    Have you found any PubMed articles that address these points? These articles would have gone through a peer review process, and are more reliable than fitness magazines (or wikipedia.)
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    I think we're both smart enough to see when Wikipedia is just a layman's translation of the official material (and why I would link it as an easy-to-understand abstract), but there are two books/documents on the topic. Look up ISBNs 0743270304 and 978-0816672349 for authoritative data.

    //EDIT: Also this.
  • CBCB ΖΈΜ΅Μ‘ΣœΜ΅Μ¨Μ„Ζ· Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    I know so many people, including my wife, with their own anecdotal evidence about the trouble they have losing weight when they cut back too far on calories, and so many nutritionists who claim to have seen it happen. If this starvation mode stuff is a myth, then what is going on for these people? Are they just using the wrong term for what's happening?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    A couple things could be happening:

    1) Most people aren't as good at calorie restriction as they think they are. They under-estimate what they're eating over drastically over-estimate the baseline they should be coming from. Even I fell prey to the latter for years.

    2) Extreme calorie restriction (that is, exceeding fat pounds * 33) could have an effect on your muscle mass. This would cause weight loss, but little change in body fat percentage.

    3) The speed of your metabolism is greatly influenced by what, how much, and how often you eat. I imagine there's some sort of break point where the metabolism you "lost" by eating less food less often is overpowered by the body's natural metabolism.
  • RyanFodderRyanFodder Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    Thrax wrote:
    A couple things could be happening:

    2) Extreme calorie restriction (that is, exceeding fat pounds * 33) could have an effect on your muscle mass. This would cause weight loss, but little change in body fat percentage.

    Where does this formula come from?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited September 2011
    Where does this formula come from?

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15615615
  • JokkeJokke Bergen, Norway Icrontian
    edited October 2011
    O, Thrax, great and esteemed God of Fitness, I have questions:

    1. How does caffeine (coffee, energy drinks, caffeine pills) affect your metabolism and physical performance. I've noticed that when I drink one or two cups of coffee an hour or two before a jog I generally feel better / perfom better. Is this fact or am I just imagining things?

    2. Nicotine. I do use snus, and the Norwegian board of sports or whatever I could translate it to are thinking about banning it from professional sports because of its "performance enhancing" effect. Do you know anything about this?

    3. I've heard people say that eating right after a workout is beneficial to restitution. However, I rarely feel like putting anything in my mouth after working out, and I have trouble swallowing food. How much trith is there to this theory?

    Thank you.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited October 2011
    1. Largely imaginary. Most westerners would have to drink an enormous amount of caffeine to significantly impact their metabolism, and their actual energy levels. Most people have built such a caffeine tolerance that any benefits are perceived.

    2. I don't know anything about tobacco products, aside from the fact that they're pretty much all terrible for you. ;)

    3. It's good metabolic sense to eat some good carbs and lean protein right after a workout. The theory goes that having this food in your body will divert your metabolism to the food and fat stores, rather than its tendency to go after muscle when you've depleted bodily sugar from cardio.
  • BasilBasil Nubcaek England Icrontian
    edited October 2011
    Jokke wrote:
    2. Nicotine. I do use snus, and the Norwegian board of sports or whatever I could translate it to are thinking about banning it from professional sports because of its "performance enhancing" effect. Do you know anything about this?

    Probably because nicotine triggers the release of adrenaline/noradrenaline into the bloodstream.
    Elevates heart rate, increases blood glucose/fatty acids and blood flow gets shunted away from nonessential organs to skeletal muscle.
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