Fiber One Bars – Fiber is great. My friend’s dad’s colon doctor said if everyone took Metamucil daily he’d be out of a job. Getting fiber from a candy bar isn’t the most intelligent trade off. Fiber one bars are packed with high fructose corn syrup and 150 other calories of chocolaty syrupy sweets. A healthy diet should already contain sufficient amounts of fiber. You’re better off sticking with starbursts soaked in Citrucel.

Multi Grain Bread = Hodgepodge Bread. You’ll usually see a picture of a farm on the package and the word ‘multi’ sounds like multivitamin which means packed with goodness right? It’s really just a buzzword to make cheap enriched wheat flour look like a health food when a rolled oat is added to the mix. Look for 100% Whole Grain and Excellent Source on the label. Most bread still has several additives so try sticking with quality grains such as brown rice, steel cut oats, quinoa, & kamut.

Michelob Ultra – Beer for runners? What’s next a cigarette for swimmers? Okay so it’s nowhere near as bad as that. Drinking in moderation can be good for your health but it should be avoided for the few hours before and after workout time. I see their advertisements with fit guys in swim trunks enjoying the brew but I doubt you’ll ever see Lance Armstrong throwing back a few cold ones in the final stage of the Tour De France unless they pay him out of his bike shorts. Nutritionally it’s about the same as a Miller light at 96 calories except it has .6 less grams of carbs in it. A Guinness is only 125 calories per 12 oz. and has several more health boosting antioxidants. Enjoy a beer for its taste, not in hopes of a six pack.

AirBourne – An Alka-Seltzer meets a glorified multivitamin. It’s not a bad product it’s just that a multivitamin would be much less expensive and the amounts of added herbs and aminos are paltry at best. As a multivitamin for people who hate swallowing pills or lugging around a liquid formula it would be a good buy. Just don’t expect it to work any miracles during the next fad flu season.

Diet Soda – Carbonated artificial sweeteners. Yum. Stick with drinking water. Intake of diet soda is correlated with higher risk of being obese and not surprisingly greater cravings for the real sugary sweets. It actually reminds me any diet food come to think of it. I’ve see women scarfing down those Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches like they’re filled with imaginary calories. They may be skinny but the product itself is still categorizing the consumer as a cow. At least you can’t blame them for tricky marketing. If you’re gonna eat crap – eat crap. Just keep it to less than 10% of the time and have a good calorie burn to boot.

Click here for the Five Illusions Of Health That Are Expanding Your Waistline.

“I believe it’s jogging or yogging. It might be a soft j. I’m not sure but apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It’s supposed to be wild.” Ron Burgundy hit the nail on the head for this hoax with that quote. A book titled Aerobics was written in the late sixties by Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper. This book advocated cardiovascular activity as the sole requirement for healthy living. Combine this bestseller with bodybuilders like

Arnold Schwarzenegger associating weight lifting with freakishly huge physiques you have got the perfect storm for a health hoax. I don’t think having the body of a wiry marathon runner is the intention of most gym goers. Yet people in the gym always flock to the cardio equipment in an attempt to accomplish all of their fitness goals. I love how forty years later each one of my female clients still asked me “Am I going to get big and bulky?” as if touching a dumbbell and the mere aroma of a protein shake would tack ten pounds of manly muscle on to their frame.

Salvation: Mix It Up. Cardiovascular activity such as running is excellent. Just make sure never to forget all the several options you have to get your ticker really tickin’. Every activity such as playing sports, doing yard work, and going on a rowing machine all tax your body in different ways. Cardio is just a single piece of the fitness pie. Resistance training is much more effective at boosting your metabolism and firming your physique but no activity can bring the results you crave if your energy is coming from a dietary disaster.

Health and Fitness is the best arena to swim against the tide and fight against this ever expanding population. We need to be able to utilize our current technologies but never forget that our bodies were meant for living outdoors not sitting in an office chair. Our actions need to be aligned with the goals we have in mind otherwise it is just like jogging on a giant gerbil wheel. Armed with these fresh fitness outlooks and a little elbow grease, society should be able to avert a WALL-E like weight gain and usher in a much friendlier and firmer future.

Salvation: Dynamic Warm-up. Our bodies were meant for jumping, bounding, twisting, and sashaying around town as opposed to posing like a statue. Static stretching is the same as just sitting in your car where with a dynamic warm-up you’re actually starting your the engine. Before most activities it would be wise to perform three to five minutes of light cardio followed by some dynamic stretching such as lunges and arm circles. This will truly prepare your body for a great workout.

This is Part 4 in a series on Health Hoaxes that are Destroying Society – The full series is Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, & Part 5

require executing one insanely intense set. The majority of people tend to sit down and then perform way too many reps with hardly any weight. These machines hamper your range of motion and can cause unnecessary torque on your joints. They tend to inflate the actual work you’re doing while neglecting the stabilizer muscles required for real-to-life lifting. While machines appear to be safe and simple they’re actually the quite the opposite, slightly dangerous and inefficient.

Salvation: Lifting With Free Weights. Free weights such as dumbbells, barbells, and medicine balls work all of those tiny stabilizer muscles that machines neglect. Instead of one very strict motion you can perform just about any movement you can imagine. Some beginners think machines are a necessary starting point but anyone can benefit from a transition to free weights. I have had clients over seventy years old and a few over three hundred pounds but they can still crank out some step ups or lift a medicine ball. These free weight movements are useful outside of the gym and belong in every effective fitness program.

This is Part 3 in a series on Health Hoaxes that are Destroying Society – The full series is Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, & Part 5

The simple carbs found in these foods are less filling so you will feel hungrier and eat more total calories. It’s like going to the gas station, filling up your gas tank, and then spraying another forty dollars worth of fuel all over your interior. Just as that unneeded gasoline would soak into your interior the unneeded carbs soak into your system and turn into fat. Instead of the Big Non-Fat label they should have stickers proclaiming ‘Carbs Readily Turned into Fat!’

Salvation: Eating Complex Carbohydrates and More Protein. Complex carbs, such as the ones found in brown rice and other whole grains, are much more physique friendly than their sugary sibling. Complex carbs contain fiber which makes you feel full and helps slow digestion. So instead of the gas pump spraying all over your interior it’s as if there is a full service attendant that fills your tank as your burn your fuel. So you’re eating less and without the fat gain from spiking your blood sugar. Proteins also give you that sense of satiety as well as help maintain and build muscle mass which keeps your metabolism revved throughout the day.

This is Part 2 in a series on Health Hoaxes that are Destroying Society – The full series is Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4,& Part 5

was around 42% so the trend line of this weight gain doesn’t seem very encouraging for averting this epidemic. But why are people so fat? My grandpa is lean with biceps that are near granite and he’s pushing 80. But he never exercises and he loves himself a big bowl of vanilla ice cream. What is happening to the next handful of generations? Victims of probability? Unlucky draw out of the gene pool?

Technology would be the main culprit to blame in leading us toward a future filled with humans on motorized hoverscooters consuming power smoothies for sustenance. The hard labor which kept our older generations in shape has been outsourced by our innovation. Inventions like the computer have vastly increased productivity but require much more sitting and snacking than physical activity. With all these new solutions for modern living our instinct for survival has been waning. We end up taking our technologic prowess for granted and match it with an equal amount of procrastination and laziness. As Albert said “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

Just as the Buy n’ Large Corporation in WALL-E depicted, a healthy society is not the goal of big business, turning a profit is. Cheap alternatives such as high fructose corn syrup and trans fat are pumped into your food for big savings. Consuming high fructose corn syrup is exactly the same as putting sugar in your gas tank. Your body is your vehicle for life so who would want to do that? Along with your gas tank, each tire on your vehicle would be a different facet of your fitness that helps move you along your path. These facets are your diet, your resistance training, your flexibility, and your cardiovascular activity. Your diet obviously has the most significant impact. If you don’t lift, run, or stretch for a week you might feel a little sluggish but a week without food and you’re toast.

The tricky part of this is that when people finally discover an impetus despite all these impedances their ideas on how to get healthy are coming from clever marketing strategies and skewed exercise tactics from the seventies. Not the most intelligent places to look for advice, especially when dealing with your livelihood. Society needs to change these trends before it’s too late, so here are the four health hoaxes that are destroying society and how we can stop them…

The full series of Health Hoaxes is Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, & Part 5.

#1 – Juice and Smoothies – Jamba Juice, Your Local Smoothie Joint

The Illusion – Fruit is Healthy

The Reality – Not when it is laden with extra sugar. The smoothie mixes at the health club I trained at were basically the equivalent of drinking a pouch of liquid skittles. Combine that with the simple carbohydrates naturally found in the fruit and there is a sugar bomb waiting to blow up some belt lines.

The Fix: Have a piece of real fruit. Plenty of fiber and nutrients are found in the skin. It is also much more pleasant to be able to sit and enjoy a fresh piece of produce rather than drink it from a Styrofoam cup.

#2 – ‘Healthy’ Restaurant Food – Chipotle, Panda Express, Healthy choices on menus

The Illusion- It is Fresh and Healthy

The Reality- ‘Healthy’ Restaurant Food is an oxymoron. It comes loaded with sodium, carbohydrates, and fat, not to mention in Huge portions. I used to think PF Changs was a great choice for healthy dining. Most of their dishes consist simply of vegetables paired with lean meats. Then I found out that every meal there begins in a wok filled with fattening oils and sugar. A sandwich maker at Potbelly’s confessed to me that their wheat bread is actually just white bread dyed brown.

The Fix: Share it with someone. Aside from keeping restaurant meals to a minimum, splitting a dish will cut both the calories and check in half when dining out. The deceiving chipotle burrito contains roughly twelve hundred calories. An innocent looking nacho platter can easily contain over two thousand. Splitting meals will turn those numbers into a much more reasonable indulgence.

#3 – Mini Snacks – 100 calorie packs, Snackwells, Fun Sized Candy Bars

The Illusion – Guilt free indulgence

The Reality – Eating the entire wedding cake, one small slice at a time. This may be the craftiest belly buster of the bunch since it is habitual and perhaps goes unnoticed. It could be a handful of M&Ms from a co-workers candy dish or daily pretzel pack from the pantry. Over a year, this miniscule snack comes out to 36,500 extra calories to burn. I am sure for many people this mini snack strays into the two, three hundred calorie a day range which translates into 73,000 and 109,500 extra calories a year. Yikes.

The Fix: Go Nuts. Nuts are a low carbohydrate snack that provides healthy fats, fiber, and protein which in turn create a feeling of satiety. Purportedly, a person can eat up to five hundred calories a day in nuts and not see any fat gain. Trail mix would be a great alternative if plain nuts are a bit boring for the palate.

#4 – Sports Drinks – Powerade, Gatorade, Vitamin Water

The Illusion – Energy for My Workout

The Reality – Extra Calories to Burn. It is amusing how Powerade has the word energy in parenthesis next to calories on the nutrition label. Depending on one’s body mass it will take an extra fifteen to thirty minutes of working out to expend all of that ‘energy’. If the goal is fat loss, which requires a calorie deficit, it does not make sense to take in an extra two-hundred calories before trying to burn them off.

The Fix: Use it as a Post Workout Drink. After lifting weights your body actually needs the fast acting, simple carbohydrates found in these drinks to jumpstart the recovery process. Twenty grams of whey protein along with forty grams of fast acting carbohydrates is great recovery mix for fat loss. Forty grams of whey protein and seventy grams of fast acting carbohydrates would be great if gaining lean muscle mass is the goal.

#5 – Healthy Foods Smothered In Sauces – Salad, Fish, Poultry

The Illusion- Its Healthy Food

The Reality – It was healthy. Popcorn is the perfect example of this illusion. A bowl of freshly air popped popcorn can be a great source of complex carbohydrates and fiber. But no one thinks it is a health food when it is covered in movie theatre style butter. Why is it any different when a salad is soaked with Caesar?

The Fix: Ditch/Switch The Sauce. Try eating your foods without any sauces or condiments. I find that several meats actually taste better without any additional flavorings. Switching the current sauces with something less fattening would also be a great change. Try vinaigrettes instead of creamy dressings on salads, mustard instead of mayonnaise on sandwiches, garlic salt instead of butter on popcorn, Mrs. Dash instead of barbecue sauce for meats and poultry. If both those options still seem a bit too restrictive then try dipping a fork in the sauce as opposed to pouring it all over an entrée. There is flavor in every bite and the majority of calories are left on the table and away from your waistline.