My Health and Fitness Posts from Around the Web

Want to see some of my articles published elsewhere on the net?

Best Nootropics for Gaming
Video games are a popular way to spend free time, but it’s not always the relaxing experience you anticipated. Some games, no matter how many walkthrough guides you reference, seem impossible to beat. After hours of button mashing, taking breaks, and swearing, you might eventually get lucky and complete your objective. However, this Cro-Magnon approach to gaming achieves little other than frustration and carpal tunnel. There are better ways to improve your gaming prowess so you can enjoy your video games rather than cursing at them.

How to Improve Memory
There are a few steps you can take to improve your memory before turning to nootropic supplements. First, get plenty of sleep. Whether this is six hours or eight hours per night depends on the individual. Other simple measures to improve your memory include getting adequate exercise and reducing sources of chronic stress.

Top 5 Nootropics of 2014
As we close in on the first third of 2014, it is high time to take a look at the trends happening in the nootropic community. While some individuals will be proud supporters of the lesser known nootropics, there are a few that are tried and true with scientific studies to back up their results. Here are the top five nootropics according to our customer reports.

Austinite's Fat Loss Stack: Why it Works and How to Make it Better

When it comes to weight loss, making your own supplement stack can be difficult, especially if you aren't sure what works, when to take it, and other tricky factors. There is also considerably more to weight loss than merely popping some pills and calling it a day.To clarify the weight loss process for you, we're going to cover a popular fat loss stack and tell you what's in it, why it works, and what else you need to do to ensure that your weight loss journey is a successful one.

Top 5 Myths About Women and Weight Lifting
1. Women Who Lift Weights Heavier Than a Chihuahua Turn into MenSee those dumbbells over there? Go pick those bad boys up. Oh you don't want to lift weights because they'll make you manly? Well I got news for you sister, your glutes need some weighted squats. The treadmill is not cutting it and it will not get you toned

How to Cap Your Own Nootropic Pills and Blends

There are multiple methods to capping your own blends; however, many of them are shoddy and produce inferior results. An excellent post on reddit provides a detailed explanation on the materials you need and the best method to get the most accurate nootropic blend.

10 Things That Only Happen at Planet Fitness

Planet Fitness has gotten a lot of positive press by pairing up with the TV show The Biggest Loser. Its judgment-free attitude is appealing to many who are new to the gym (unless, of course, you dare to grunt; then they will have the police escort you off the premises). However, there may be a few other flaws in their plan to help you get fit. Here are our top 10 offenders.

Beta Alanine and Citrulline Malate for Lean Muscle Gains
Even the most dedicated gym member will face the dreaded plateau. Whether you are stuck at a certain weight for your lifts or struggle to finish your reps, it is frustrating to not see forward progression. Sometimes, your muscles burn out and refuse to cooperate, other times you are simply too sore from previous workouts. So how do you improve?

A Review of BeachBody Programs Focus T25, Insanity, and P90X
We've discussed various at home exercise routines before. We've even poked fun at a few. However, the lure of sleeping in instead of spending time driving to the gym is powerful. If you've been thinking about ending your relationship with the gym in favor of working out from home, then you've probably considered a BeachBody program. However, there are numerous BeachBody programs, and many people feel intimidated and uncertain where to start. While there are a multitude of BeachBody programs, we are going to focus on three popular iterations: Focus T25, Insanity, and P90X.

Top 5 Signs You are New to the Gym - Bro Science Edition 

Joining a gym is a great thing you can do for your health and fitness. However, it can also be a daunting task. There is this misconception that you must already be fit to use a gym. The ripped men and women can certainly be intimidating, but the odds that they are watching you is unlikely. Unlikely, that is, unless you commit many rookie mistakes. Most committed gym goers are focusing on their form, trying for new PRs, and so on. They will only honestly take notice of you if you do something incredibly annoying, stupid, dangerous, or some combination of the three. So, here are some of the biggest newbie mistakes often seen in the gym according to Bro Science.

What Your Exercise Regimen Says About You 

When it comes to fitness, there isn't any right style; however, the internet would have you believe otherwise. From crossfit to pole dancing, there are many fads out there that will clearly withstand the test of time, while others will thankfully (hopefully?) fade from memory. That being said, there are advocates and detractors of any type of fitness regimen. Here are some of the extremes.

How NOT to Take Your Pre Workout Supplement 
There are a lot of How To's out there when it comes to supplementing, lifting, and succeeding with your gym routine in general. However, you don't often see the other side of that coin: How not to supplement. Believe it or not, there are some fairly large fails when it comes to pre workout supplements and we are here to demystify them for you.

Eat Right, Exercise, Die Anyway or Lies the Internet Tells You

I really need to lay off the LifeHacker blog posts. Much like with BuzzFeed and Cracked, I find myself going down a black hole of information nuggets doled out in numbered lists.  "23 Things Only Ladies With Big Boobs Will Understand" "4 Ridiculous Things No One Tell You About Being an Adult" "73 Is the New Retirement Age for Today's College Grads" After weeping inconsolably about my lack of retirement before I become a geriatric, I ultimately wound up reading "10 Health Myths That Just Won't Die, Debunked by Science," and was mildly amused by the utter nonsense people believe.

The 1200 Calorie Myth

Anybody who has ever dieted knows about the 1200 calorie myth. There are multiple variations of this myth, but here are the most common two I come across in fitness forums.

1. You must eat 1200 calories per day in order to lose weight quickly (2 lbs per week)
2. 1200 calories is the minimum caloric intake a person needs before they go into starvation mode

I've heard this myth and parroted #2 a few times myself. However, after calculating my BMR and realizing I needed 1491 calories just to exist (as in to just lay in bed all day doing nothing) I started to doubt the 1200 calorie myth.

Mmmm delicious burger...aaaaand I'm not eating again for three days.

The first thing most of these forums don't tell you is where this myth even came from. Some of them site the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM), so I started my search there. And I found nothing. Well, not nothing. I just found some super complicated formulas. No magical explanation about the 1200 calorie myth.

So I turned to Google and tried to find the 1200 myth's connection to AMSSM. What I found was a connection to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). I found one article with no citations and no author. It references the ACSM guidelines, but gives no link to them. I also couldn't find them after scouring the web. Nevertheless, I had my first source outside of public forums quoting the myth. It also added to the myth including men need to eat at least 1800 calories per day.

By the way, this is what a 1200 calorie diet looks like.

I turned to Google again to try and find the root of this myth and I finally struck gold. Here is the direct quote from the article:

So where did the 1200 and 1800 calorie floor numbers come from? Those are generalizations based on average caloric maintenance levels (TDEE), as determined by exercise physiologists. According to Victor Katch & Frank Mcardle, the average female between the ages of 23 and 50 has a maintenance level of about 2100 calories per day and the average male about 2800 calories per day.

Based on the maximum recommendation of two pounds of weight loss per week given by organizations like the American College of Sports Medicine, these "calorie floors" are based on 1000 calories below the average person's TDEE (2800 calories per day average for men, minus 1000 calories equals calorie floor of 1800 calories per day. 2100 calories per day average for women, minus 1000 calories equals a calorie floor of 1100 calories, and most health organizations round up that number to 1200 since 1000 calories under maintenance is a larger relative deficit compared to men.)

This blows the 1200 calorie myth out of the water. Very rarely have I heard an argument for a net of 1200 calories; usually I see diet plans that account for 1200 calories exactly as well as an exercise regimen. Thus, anyone who is actually working out while sticking to 1200 calories exactly is most definitely throwing themselves into starvation mode.

Not only that, but the 1200 calorie diet is meant for the average person who is purposely trying to lose the maximum safe amount of weight per week. But what exactly does average mean? I don't own the book by the physiologists cited above; however, I can guarantee you the average person is not busting their butt in the gym every day.

This is where your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) comes into play (check out my post on the Biggest Loser fiasco, I get more into how it is calculated there). I included links to a few different equations for determining daily caloric need. Using the Harris Benedict equation, my daily caloric need came out around 2300 (using all the various equations I got a range of 1900-2300).

According to the Harris Benedict formula, I am 200 calories over the suggested average. 200 calories may not seem like a lot, but after a week that is 1400 calories. Imagine how out of whack my diet and metabolism would get if I continued that deficit unknowingly.

Also, in general, leaner bodies will need more calories. For example, two women who are the same height and wear the same clothing size, but have totally different body composition will have different caloric needs.

To sum it up for those who don't like reading:

Myth 1: You must eat 1200 calories per day in order to lose weight quickly (2 lbs per week)
Reality: You need to calculate your BMR to determine your daily caloric need. Then you subtract 1000 calories from that in order to lose 2 pounds a week. You also need to take into account calories burned through exercise (ex: 1300 calories/day to lose 2 lbs + 300 calories burned through exercise = 1600 calories total for the day).

Myth 2: 1200 calories is the minimum caloric intake a person needs before they go into starvation mode
Reality: 1200 calories in the minimum caloric intake for the average woman who does not exercise. Again, you will need to calculate your BMR, daily caloric needs, as well as calories burned from exercise in order to determine what your minimum is.

About Samantha Bookwalter

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Samantha Bookwalter is currently Associate Web Content Manager for Health Supplement Wholesalers. She specializes in web editing, copyediting, SEO, HTML, CSS, and other web-related acronyms. Samantha has an affinity for health and fitness; in her free time she enjoys working out with her husband and researching recipes that are not only healthy but delicious too.

Biggest Loser Taking Things Too Far

I've had gripes in the past about the show The Biggest Loser. I always enjoyed the premise, and really there is nothing wrong with the basic message of "Get healthy" or "Get your life back" or all those other trite things every contest on the show says.

I am a Biggest Loser addict, I will admit it up front. I'm a health and fitness junkie and I cannot tell you what it is about the show that keeps me coming back week after week, season after season. I would like to think it's because I enjoy watching people discovering a new, healthy life style but my dad has an alternate theory. It goes something like this:

"A producer sat down one day all excited. He had the idea for the next big hit reality television show. 'Get a bunch of over weight people, put them in spandex, then make them run and cry, at the same time if at all possible. America will love it!' There is something clearly wrong with us."

Spandex, spandex everywhere.

If the problem is not with us, then there is something clearly wrong with the show. I've always been bothered by the obscene amount of weight these contestants lose in a week. I know they throw up that disclaimer that all the contestants are monitored. I know that they are isolated on that ranch with nothing to do but work out probably 8 or more hours a day. I also know there is no way that losing that much weight that quickly is good for them.

Has anyone else noticed how almost all of the previous contestants gain some if not all their weight back? They brought multiple contestants back in season 15 alone to discuss how difficult it is to maintain that weight loss and how unrealistic their environment is at the ranch compared to the real world. Other contestants have come clean on how they would take pills or starve themselves to lose the weight. Somehow, I think the show has gone astray from it's original intent.

Then there is the advertising. I'm aware no television show can exist without sponsors; however, the only sponsor that doesn't make my skin crawl is Brita. Cleaner water, all right I'm on board with that. But Lara bars? Yoplait smoothies? Progresso soup? Subway?

You may be shaking your head at this point. Let me break it down.

1. Larabars. Great for energy and a healthy lifestyle, so the show would have you think. Go ahead, chow down on one of those bad boys...if you want to be in a sugar coma until next Wednesday. The cherry pie variant has 23 grams of sugar. There is a lot of debate on the recommended daily recommended (RDA) allowance for sugar, but in general most sources say around 50g max.

That one Larabar is 46% of your RDA for sugar. You may think you can balance this out with your other meals, but everything has sugar, even in minute amounts, and let me tell you it adds up quickly. I actively try to pay attention to my sugar intake. I do not have a sweet tooth whatsoever and yet I often have a hard time staying below the 50g mark.

My other beef with Larabars? Where's the protein? If you are going to seriously try to sell me something as a health food, it had better bring something to the table. That cherry pie Larabar? 5g of protein. That is pathetic and so not worth my time.

You want a real protein bar sans all the sugar? Check out pure protein soft baked (double chocolate vanilla and double chocolate peanut butter). They have 190 calories, around the same as the cherry pie Larabar, but with 17g of protein and only 5g of sugar.

So many Americans (well probably the entire world honestly) know so little about nutrition. So many of the people I know focus solely on calories and then don't understand why they aren't losing weight.

"But I'm only eating 1200 calories a day!!! Why can't I lose weight?"

Possibly because the 1200 calorie myth is parroted across the web without any research to back up its claim. It is also known as the bare minimum. If you want to learn more about its origins, check out my blog post here.

If you exercise or have an active job/lifestyle you will need a heck of a lot more than 1200 calories. First, you need to calculate your BMR to see how many calories you need just to exist. You can find a calculator here. My BMR is 1491. That is 291 over the very basic minimum everyone talks about.

Once you have your BMR, you need to calculate your daily caloric need based on your activity level. There are some pretty basic equations for this with the Harris-Benedict method:

1. If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.2
2. If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
3. If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
4. If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
5. If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9

I fall somewhere between moderately and very active. I have an extremely sedentary job, but I workout 5-6 days a week.  Because of the sedentary job, I tend to lean more towards the moderately active description. Based on that, I need 2311 calories to live. Using other methods, I see a range of 1900-2300. You can see a few different options with this tool.

Now let's say I wanted to lose weight, in general you need to burn 3500 calories to lose one lb. Thus, if I merely wanted to do this from diet, I would cut 500 calories per day from food resulting in a total of 1500-1800 calories. This would burn around a pound per week. Of course this is all very basic and there are other factors.

So why am I telling you all this?

Because think how many calories these contestants must be burning and/or not eating to drop 10+ pounds in a week. I don't count the first week on the show as I am a firm believer that a good chunk of that weight loss is water weight. So let's say week two or five or whatever a contestant pulls the coveted double digits. This means they would have burned 35,000 calories more than they consumed. That is insane.

But whatever, there are doctors monitoring their health and meals being planned for them...it's totally ok, right? Sure.

2. Yoplait smoothies. I won't go into the sugar rant again since I just got derailed from Larabars getting all angry about it. At first glance it does not look like the end of the world. It has fruit it in (albeit frozen, but better than no fruit at all) and 10g of sugar (not nearly as bad as the Larabar). However, that is for half a pouch. Show of hands, how many people eat the whole pouch because you can't easily dump out half of it and reseal it for later? That's another thing I see that tricks people.

"But it only has 70 calories!!"

Wrong. One serving is 70 calories, one serving prepared has 110. The whole pouch is 220 calories, which really isn't a lot at all if you are using it as a meal replacement (I personally do not see a smoothie as a meal; I've tried and I am hungry again within the hour). However, that whole pouch has 20g of sugar.

People also similarly misunderstand other nutrition labels as well. They very rarely pay attention to portion size and even when they do, how many do you think actually stop to make sure they're only getting 2/3 cup of whatever they are eating out of a container with 2.5 servings? Not many is my guess.

So many people get caught up with counting calories and nothing else or strange fad diets requiring you to cut all carbs or all dairy or all something. Pro tip: If the diet calls for extreme measures, it will not work for the long term. If you want to get serious about your health, you need to be serious about your nutrition. Does never eating bread again sound normal to you?

Basically, extreme diets are crap as is only paying attention to calories. At the very least, you need to watch sodium, sugar, and fats (especially what kind of fats, as some are necessary and others not so much). Yes, it is more difficult; however, this is your life. You only get one. Don't throw years of it away because it's easier to ignore the nutrition label.

Now about that sodium...

3. Progresso soup. Low fat, low calories, what's not to love? Sodium. Holy crap, all the sodium. Their light chicken noodle soup? 690mg of sodium in one serving. How many of you only eat half the can? If you're like me 70 calories and half a can of soup does not a meal make. If you slurp down that whole can, you just had 1380mg of sodium. The RDA is 2300mg. In other words, that soup is 60% of your RDA for sodium and, much like sugar, sodium is in everything. The Center for Disease Control reported that Americans over the age of 2 consume on average 3436mg of sodium per day.

Check out that link to see the dangers of excessive sodium intake, then get back to me on if it now annoys you that the Biggest Loser pushes Progresso as healthy.

4. Subway. And Jared. But mostly Subway. I get it, out of most of the fast food options, Subway is probably the healthiest one out there. That by no means makes it healthy. Being the best of the worst is not usually something to brag about.

So what's my beef with their Fresh Fit menu? Once again, sodium. The 6 inch turkey breast (assuming you get it exactly as advertised and don't put any condiments on it) has 670mg of sodium. The Black Forest Ham? 800mg. The Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki? 770mg of sodium and 16g of sugar. And these are just the 6 inch subs. Obviously, this doubles if you got a foot long. I could go on but I think you get the point. Oh wait, did you pick up a bag of Doritos as well (as a treat since you were being so healthy by going to subway)? Add on an additional 180mg of sodium.

5. This is a brand new issue I have with the Biggest Loser. Never in my life have I sat so horrified as I watched the final three reveal themselves.Bobby looked great and David looked fine. There was something a little off about his skin, but that could just be chalked up to massive weight loss in a short period of time. Often times, the skin just doesn't snap back. All the same, he looked a little too thin in the face.However, he looked an absolute vision of robust health compared to Rachel.

Now let's take a closer look at her face

This girl is 24 years old...so why does her skin look so taut and dry? Why has she seemingly aged dramatically? Some are making claims of malnourishment, others defend her saying it is simply because of the dramatic weight loss.

This was how Bob and Jillian reacted to her transformation:

 

Shock and horror. Bonus, check out Tanya's face in the upper right. Those were pretty much all of my reactions. 

Rachel went from class III obesity to underweight. She is 5'4. At 105 that puts her BMI at 18; 18.5 is the bare minimum to be in your healthy weight range. I don't put a ton of stock in BMI since plenty of people can have a really high BMI but be incredibly healthy. BMI cannot distinguish between muscle weight and body fat weight. However, it is clear from just looking at her that something is very wrong.

So where were the doctors who supposedly monitor the contestants? The experts? I'm guessing once the semi-finale is over the contestants go home and the doctors say sayonara.

You can watch her big reveal below.

UPDATE: Bob and Jillian have posted the following message to their facebook:

"Bob and I want to take a moment to congratulate all of the BL contestants on their hard work. We're not comfortable commenting on Rachel’s journey because weren't her trainers and weren't given an opportunity to work with her at any point. Any questions about the contestants on the Biggest Loser should be directed to the show’s producers."

What an utter load of tripe. Not her trainers? I'm sorry, did the contestants not all go back to singles? Were you not all working with each and every one of them? Do you not have eyes? If you even saw her after the semi-finale then you are culpable.

That being said, I don't think they saw her. I think once the semi-finale is over, the final three go home to take a crack at it on their own where they can engage in horrific tactics. Apparently they are allowed to do pretty much anything short of taking drugs. Check out this article for a full report on excessive dehydration, urinating blood, and more.

About Samantha Bookwalter

Google+
Samantha Bookwalter is currently Associate Web Content Manager for Health Supplement Wholesalers. She specializes in web editing, copyediting, SEO, HTML, CSS, and other web-related acronyms. Samantha has an affinity for health and fitness; in her free time she enjoys working out with her husband and researching recipes that are not only healthy but delicious too.