# What is it about fitness and nutrition that makes us give bogus advice?



## NT the DC (May 31, 2012)

topix said:


> Okay, say I want to maintain weight (~3,000 calories consumed per day if I don't do hard exercise) and I want somewhere between a balanced diet in calorie breakdown (~1,000 calories in carbs) and high carb (~1,500 calories, say if I concluded I was low on serotonin); explain how I could could consume that many calories using only whole fruits and vegetables (if I understand your claim correctly) in a way that most people would consider palatable and inexpensive.
> 
> You were contesting me in your last post on the subject.
> 
> ...


I responded to your comments about mood after you brought up the topic.
You went on a tangent about mood, you brought it up not me.
That's why I clarified what you should provide proof for, because you seemed to have thought I was talking about low carb diets when I wasn't.

What I find ironic is now you're asking me to provide prove that it is "inexpensive and palatable" but you were the one who made the claim that it was "expensive and inpalatable". You're the one making the claim so you provide the proof...isn't that why you made this thread? That's why I said "provide the proof for your claim"... now you're essentially saying: "No, YOU provide proof" LOL.

Why do you expect me to sit here and do some kind of ideal diet that fits the majority of people's palate and financial circumstance? I am waiting to counter evidence you provide but you've yet to provide any that I haven't already countered.

You associate me saying "people should get the majority of their carb from fruit and veggies" as me being a proponent of a l*ow carb diet *and then refute my statement by providing proof about how a *low carb diet* is bad for mood, but like I've stated you're talking about two entirely different things. 

It's not hard to put together a diet high in carb and fruit, I can think of widely available food with plenty of carbs just off the top of my head.
1) Banana
2) Oranges
3) Mango
4) Pineapple

All high carb foods, eat a couple servings of either of those foods (and plenty more) and you're not going to be on a "low carb diet" as it's pretty easy to get well over 50g of carb.
Hell, eating two medium sized apples can just about get you to 50g of carb.
It's nothing like an Atkins diet and no one is going to come close to going into ketosis.
My protein shake with a banana and strawberries is probably going to get me about 40g of carb.

Hence you attempting to counter the validity of my claim via research on ketogenic/low carb diets is a moot point.


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## topix (Apr 11, 2012)

Krou said:


> Being in starvation mode means that your body burns down muscle to convert to glucose, and when you finally eat you will store more fat. So maybe you lose weight but your body fat/muscle ratio will become worse, you might store fat in your belly (increased cardiovascular disease chance) and maybe appear thin but in reality you are obese (judging from fat %) Not to mention how your organs don't operate as good as they can. I've seen two DXA measuring results from people who are thin or slightly overweight by BMI but were obese from fat percentage point of view (the most important).
> Body composition is more important than what your scale shows.


How do you know it had anything to do with their meal frequency? Cite a source on your opinion, please.





INTJ the DC said:


> I responded to your comments about mood after you brought up the topic.
> You went on a tangent about mood, you brought it up not me.
> That's why I clarified what you should provide proof for, because you seemed to have thought I was talking about low carb diets when I wasn't.


Why did you contest me and ask confusing questions about the topic when you didn't have particular interest and weren't suggesting a low carb diet anyway? I have a theory of that below.



> What I find ironic is now you're asking me to provide prove that it is "inexpensive and palatable" but you were the one who made the claim that it was "expensive and inpalatable". You're the one making the claim so you provide the proof...isn't that why you made this thread? That's why I said "provide the proof for your claim"... now you're essentially saying: "No, YOU provide proof" LOL.
> Why do you expect me to sit here and do some kind of ideal diet that fits the majority of people's palate and financial circumstance? I am waiting to counter evidence you provide but you've yet to provide any that I haven't already countered.


This exchange is going like this conversation:
Bob: every family should buy a luxury car.
Jim: that would be financially impractical for most families.
Bob: no it's not.
Jim: okay... prove how most families could afford something so expensive.
Bob: prove that it's expensive.
Jim: ....



> You associate me saying "people should get the majority of their carb from fruit and veggies" as me being a proponent of a l*ow carb diet *and then refute my statement by providing proof about how a *low carb diet* is bad for mood, but like I've stated you're talking about two entirely different things.


Why do you keep going back to the low carb thing? I mentioned it just in my first post to you, as but this is like the third post you've brought it up. I inferred you were pushing low carb because getting all carbohydrates from only whole fruit and vegetables would take a lot of them if one was trying to have a balanced diet (and wasn't particularly trying to lose weight).



> It's not hard to put together a diet high in carb and fruit, I can think of widely available food with plenty of carbs just off the top of my head.
> 1) Banana
> 2) Oranges
> 3) Mango
> ...


A few problems here. One, sure those are palatable fruits, yes, but two of them are about as high as you can get in sugar content for whole fruit, while the other two are on the high side <source>. You're implying that eating high-sugar fruits is better than the healthiest of grains? All the more reason to provide a source.
Second, a thousand calories of fruit would be like 10 bananas and oranges (getting more than just a couple hundred calories from vegetables in a palatable fashion is hard, and you haven't mentioned it). Bananas are relatively cheap but most fruits, including the other three listed, I've seen go up to $4 a pound. This is of little consequence if you just eat a couple a day as would be on a normal First World diet, but that's not what you're apparently advocating.

But the biggest problem is of your lawyer-dancing around your statement that our entire exchange revolves around: _"Your primary source of carb should be veggies and fruits, that's simply all there is to it."_
Either one of two things are going on here: (1) you made this up own, don't care about logic enough to bother verifying it and you're just trying to troll me; or (2) you've tried to get supporting evidence since the beginning of our exchange, couldn't get any, but you want to win an internet argument through any means necessary, particularly veering discussion away from your original statement.
*Are you going to put up proof that you actually know what you're talking about for the statement in question, or will you just yank me around some more?*

Edit: I'm going to make this extra clear since it seems there's some disconnect. You are the one who made the original claim, boldly, that carbs should really only come from whole fruits and vegetables, ergo the burden of proof is on you. Likewise, if I was the first to make an argumentative statement on the subject and you chimed in to challenge the assertion, the burden of proof would be on me.


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## Death Persuades (Feb 17, 2012)

How about we just go back to grabbing food fresh from the tree/ground?  That's bound to keep us healthy. We eat all we want and then we burn it by taking care of our crops/hunting.


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## NT the DC (May 31, 2012)

topix said:


> Why did you contest me and ask confusing questions about the topic when you didn't have particular interest and weren't suggesting a low carb diet anyway? I have a theory of that below.
> This exchange is going like this conversation:
> Bob: every family should buy a luxury car.
> Jim: that would be financially impractical for most families.
> ...


LOL I don't agree with your summary of the discussion as I said you're the one saying: it's expensive and not palatable. But either way I'll play the game because it's not even difficult to answer by a trip to super market. You are saying it's expensive to eat fruit and veggies? And you want me to prove it's not?

Do you ever go to the supermarket? You can get bananas for like 57 cents a lb. You can get organic apples for like 1.30 a lb. You can get 5 lbs of organic pears for 3.99. So in essence you can get about 10 lbs of food for about 10 bucks.. and that's ORGANIC fruit lol. People on food stamps get about 50 dollars a week for food. So hopefully that answer is sufficient. Hell when I lived in cali and went to the farmers markets I could almost always get fruit for $1 a lb, I'd have two giants bags of fruit for like 7 bucks. I currently buy a mixture of organic fruit and non-organic fruit and I pay an average of 1.50 a lb. When I lived in northern california, which is a pretty affluent area it was essentially the same price. Unless you only shop somewhere like whole foods you're not going broke eating fruit.



> Why do you keep going back to the low carb thing? I mentioned it just in my first post to you, as but this is like the third post you've brought it up. *I inferred you were pushing low carb because getting all carbohydrates from only whole fruit and vegetables would take a lot of them* if one was trying to have a balanced diet (and wasn't particularly trying to lose weight).


You answered your own question, which I bolded.
Why do you consider that "a balanced diet" where is your proof that you need even close to 1000 calories from carbs to be healthy? That concept makes me laugh.

Also: What do you consider "a lot of them"? 
Low carb diets are associated with ketosis, in order for that happen you usually need to be below 30g of carb for like 14 days. Nothing under 50g of carb is considered a "low carb diet" as far as I know. It's not hard to get 100g of carbs at all: 1 banana (about 40), 1 apple (about 30), and one pear (about 30). That's hardly competitive eating material and that's definitely not considered low carb anything. 



> A few problems here. One, sure those are palatable fruits, yes, but two of them are about as high as you can get in sugar content for whole fruit, while the other two are on the high side <source>. You're implying that eating high-sugar fruits is better than the healthiest of grains? All the more reason to provide a source.
> Second, a thousand calories of fruit would be like 10 bananas and oranges (getting more than just a couple hundred calories from vegetables in a palatable fashion is hard, and you haven't mentioned it). Bananas are relatively cheap but most fruits, including the other three listed, I've seen go up to $4 a pound. This is of little consequence if you just eat a couple a day as would be on a normal First World diet, but that's not what you're apparently advocating.


You can whatever kind of fruit you want. I just named those off the top of my head because you were referring to fruits as some kind of low carb food or something. Apples, blue berries, strawberries, pears, peaches, apricots, nectarines, whatever is in season will easily get you out of 50g range it's way harder to stay UNDER 50g of carb when eating fruit.

And lol @ calling fruit "high sugar foods" vs grains. Dude.... you do know that carbs are sugar right?
You're actually arguing that "high sugar foods" ie: grains are healthier for you not me. Fruit is always coupled with nutrients, phytonutrients, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber which decreases the insulin spike. They are extremely healthy lol. The "healthiest of grains" are weak in comparison to the healthiest of fruit and veggies, this is essentially common knowledge.

And why do you need to get 1000 calories in the first place? 
It's like a totally different discussion. You've turned me saying that a diet from fruit is not low carb to making me defend against this idea that it's "high carb". That's what we call a strawman argument.

How many studies have you cited that show that 1000 calories of grain are the solution to low seratonin?
If it was that simple it seems there would be little reason to have the vast amount of interventions that we have.
So yeah, provide that proof.

And $4 dollars a pound is organic fruit territory I have no idea where you live but I don't even see organic blueberries get that high. It's a bit ridiculous to imply that's a realistic cost. Fruit goes on sale every week, not hard to find it at $1/lb not hard to find organic fruit for $2 a lb. If your fruit costs $4/lb you're just a terrible shopper.



> But the biggest problem is of your lawyer-dancing around your statement that our entire exchange revolves around: _"Your primary source of carb should be veggies and fruits, that's simply all there is to it."_
> Either one of two things are going on here: (1) you made this up own, don't care about logic enough to bother verifying it and you're just trying to troll me; or (2) you've tried to get supporting evidence since the beginning of our exchange, couldn't get any, but you want to win an internet argument through any means necessary, particularly veering discussion away from your original statement.
> *Are you going to put up proof that you actually know what you're talking about for the statement in question, or will you just yank me around some more?*


Last I checked you're the guy talking about getting 1000 calories of carb is a "balanced diet" and you said you have all this evidence but I've seen nothing that really disputes anything I've said. I am curious why this amount of carbohydrate via grain has been shown to be beneficial for health.

What kind of evidence are you looking for? Honestly the research on how grain diets have a detrimental impact on health is just being studied. The research right now is focusing on how it detrimentally effects the GI system and it's systemic consequences. Here are two studies:

Comparison with ancestral diets su... [Diabetes Metab Syndr Obes. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI



> A diet of grain-free whole foods with carbohydrate from cellular tubers, leaves, and fruits may produce a gastrointestinal microbiota consistent with our evolutionary condition, potentially explaining the exceptional macronutrient-independent metabolic health of non-Westernized populations, and the apparent efficacy of the modern "Paleolithic" diet on satiety and metabolism.


Gut microbiota, immune development and function. [Pharmacol Res. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI



> Furthermore, the over-comsumption of insulinogenic foods and proteotoxins, such as advanced glycation and lipoxidation molecules, gluten and zein, and a reduced intake of fruit and vegetables, are key factors behind the commonly observed elevated inflammation and the endemic of obesity and chronic diseases, factors which are also likely to be detrimental to microbiota. As a consequence of this lifestyle and the associated eating habits, most barriers, including the gut, the airways, the skin, the oral cavity, the vagina, the placenta, the blood-brain barrier, etc., are increasingly permeable.


Sufficient?



> Edit: I'm going to make this extra clear since it seems there's some disconnect. You are the one who made the original claim, boldly, that carbs should really only come from whole fruits and vegetables, ergo the burden of proof is on you. Likewise, if I was the first to make an argumentative statement on the subject and you chimed in to challenge the assertion, the burden of proof would be on me.


Wasn't too hard to back up what I said, your turn to show that a diet of 1000 calories of carb is great for health  It seems like your idea of a "balanced diet" and about as scientific as the food pyramid.

And just to be clear because I can see this becoming a topic later. I am essentially talking about fruits and veggies being the primary source of carbs... but the other sources would be nuts and seeds which also have a fair amount of carbohydrate. You could even include something like sweet potato which has plenty of carb. Not that you need to eat any of those foods but you have plenty of options if you get tired of eating "fruit and veggies"... this goes back to the "palatable" discussion.

If you don't think fruit, veggies, nuts, and seeds taste good I guess you're SOL, heh.


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## Red Panda (Aug 18, 2010)

topix said:


> How do you know it had anything to do with their meal frequency? Cite a source on your opinion, please.


Because I knew them. I didn't find it online, it was during a workshop in my university.


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## albertjr (Nov 28, 2012)

Health is the great gift of God there are many tips for healthy life here i am discuss some of them ..... these are following 
1.Drink a lot of water...
2.Eat healthy food .....
3.Take exercise regularly.....
4.Use green vegetable in your daily life ....
5.Eat fruits and drink juices daily.....


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## topix (Apr 11, 2012)

Krou said:


> Because I knew them. I didn't find it online, it was during a workshop in my university.


Who says their meal frequency wasn't just coincidence? You didn't say how you scientifically/medically knew otherwise.






INTJ the DC said:


> Do you ever go to the supermarket? You can get bananas for like 57 cents a lb. You can get organic apples for like 1.30 a lb. You can get 5 lbs of organic pears for 3.99. So in essence you can get about 10 lbs of food for about 10 bucks.. and that's ORGANIC fruit lol. People on food stamps get about 50 dollars a week for food. So hopefully that answer is sufficient. Hell when I lived in cali and went to the farmers markets I could almost always get fruit for $1 a lb, I'd have two giants bags of fruit for like 7 bucks. I currently buy a mixture of organic fruit and non-organic fruit and I pay an average of 1.50 a lb. When I lived in northern california, which is a pretty affluent area it was essentially the same price. Unless you only shop somewhere like whole foods you're not going broke eating fruit.


You get produce for much cheaper than I do. Straight from the circular of the grocery store I most frequent:

Grapes: $3/pound 
Pineapple: $3 each whole 
Apples, several types: $2/pound 
Blueberries, blackberries: $3 per container (~$11/pound) 
Avocados, Mangoes: 2 for $3 (~$2/pound?) 
Oranges, store brand: $3 for 4 pound bag (sale this week) 
Bananas: $0.79/pound  
To be fair, there are local stores whom usually have cheaper produce, but this one is the cheapest for almost everything else and I don't want to shop at two stores for one shopping trip.

Those prices still aren't that bad if all I have are a couple servings of fruit a day, but say I wanted to replace ~840 calories of pasta (half a 16 ounce box) with ~840 calories of fruit?

~840 calories of pasta = $0.50-$1.00, and there's quite usually a brand for the lower amount, varying by the week. 
~840 calories of bread = similar to above. 
~840 calories of whole fruit = several dollars, if I'm mixing it up.  
 ^ Calorie for calorie, fruit tends to be much more expensive than grains.



> where is your proof that you need even close to 1000 calories from carbs to be healthy? That concept makes me laugh.


This must be one of those cases where you replay an argument in your head and it gets much distorted from what actually happened, because I never said that -- strawman #1.



> Also: What do you consider "a lot of them"?


Uhh.. already answered.



> Low carb diets are associated with ketosis, in order for that happen you usually need to be below 30g of carb for like 14 days. Nothing under 50g of carb is considered a "low carb diet" as far as I know. It's not hard to get 100g of carbs at all: 1 banana (about 40), 1 apple (about 30), and one pear (about 30). That's hardly competitive eating material and that's definitely not considered low carb anything.
> 
> You can whatever kind of fruit you want. I just named those off the top of my head because you were referring to fruits as some kind of low carb food or something. Apples, blue berries, strawberries, pears, peaches, apricots, nectarines, whatever is in season will easily get you out of 50g range it's way harder to stay UNDER 50g of carb when eating fruit.


I forgot to say in my last post to stop speaking of carbs in terms of grams. I never pay attention to them. Vegetables and fruit in terms of energy are composed almost entirely of carbohydrates, opposed to fat and protein, that we can consider them virtually all carbs for the sake of our discussion; this also applies to bread AFAIK.



> And lol @ calling fruit "high sugar foods" vs grains. Dude.... you do know that carbs are sugar right?
> You're actually arguing that "high sugar foods" ie: grains are healthier for you not me. Fruit is always coupled with nutrients, phytonutrients, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber which decreases the insulin spike. They are extremely healthy lol. The "healthiest of grains" are weak in comparison to the healthiest of fruit and veggies, this is essentially common knowledge.


I never said that the "healthiest of grains" were better than "the healthiest of fruit and veggies" -- strawman #2. I compared high-sugar fruits, which you listed, to high quality grains. I'm not even making the case that grains are generally healthier than fruits. I -was- implying that eating a whole lot of fruit can be bad because of its likely sugar content. There's the temporary crash effect you alluded to, and sugar's been found to make rats dumber, which quite likely means similar effect in humans.



> And why do you need to get 1000 calories in the first place?
> It's like a totally different discussion.


Did he repeat a question he already wrote in the same post? Yes... yes he did! And it was to a point I never made -- strawman #3. This gets richer in his next line:



> You've turned me saying that a diet from fruit is not low carb to making me defend against this idea that it's "high carb". That's what we call a strawman argument.


Wow. This is the fourth fucking time you've said I accused you of intentionally pushing a low carb diet, when I didn't oppose you the first time -- strawman #4. 

Guys, he invented a thread meme: say that someone accused you of promoting a low carb diet when you didn't!



> How many studies have you cited that show that 1000 calories of grain are the solution to low seratonin?


Heh *sigh*... strawman #5.



> I've seen nothing that really disputes anything I've said.


Considering all the fuckups you've made in this post alone, that I'm not even finished, is that a surprise?



> I am curious why this amount of carbohydrate via grain has been shown to be beneficial for health.


Strawman #6.. holy shit, this must be some kind of a record!

Did you take several bong hits while composing this post? Artist rendition:












> What kind of evidence are you looking for? Honestly the research on how grain diets have a detrimental impact on health is just being studied. The research right now is focusing on how it detrimentally effects the GI system and it's systemic consequences.


I'm surprised you used such complex language there. What.. did you take a long break between this and the previous paragraph so that the booze and drugs in your system wore out by the time you got back?



> Here are two studies:
> Comparison with ancestral diets su... [Diabetes Metab Syndr Obes. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI
> Gut microbiota, immune development and function. [Pharmacol Res. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI
> Sufficient?


No  First link: if I understand it correctly, it's basically getting at that paleolithic foods are more filling, which I already agree with. That said, you could mitigate much of the difference by keeping tabs on calories, eating a low calorie diet long enough for your body to adjust (I've gone through), or eat a low carb diet. Speaking of which, the article has the line: _"in humans, low-carbohydrate diets spontaneously decrease weight in a way that low-fat diets do not."_ *Your own source suggests that a paleolithic diet is low carb.*

The second link: I read the whole abstract and, whilst being a fairly smart guy, I barely understood anything. Anyone else understand that shit? Inflammation... something something. And what was compared? It could be all theory for all I know. Something more clear should be much better.

Other related notes to this topic: 

This article reads: _"Low-carb diets and and paleo-oriented diets are sometimes mentioned together, because there is a fair amount of overlap in the approaches. Paleo eaters base what they eat on a model of eating as our pre-agricultural ancestors did, since our physiology is essentially the same as theirs was. This means that paleo folks generally don't eat much in the way of grains, legumes, processed foods, and often dairy. So the paleo diet (think meats, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts) tends to be naturally low in carbohydrate, and it has been thought by many that part of the benefit of a paleo diet is due to this. In fact, the dramatic health improvements people report from shifting to a paleo way of eating are remarkably similar to the thousands of descriptions I've heard from people following a low-carb way of eating."_

This article writes about recommended protein-carb-fat calorie ratio: "Forty-five to 65 percent of daily calories should come from carbohydrates."
^ Not that I particularly agree with that, but the average American diet is over 50% carbohydrate calories, I believe. You don't have to push ketosis to be considered to be low-carb dieting. The floor value of 45% is 1,350 calories for a 3k calorie diet and 1,125 calories for a 2.5k calorie diet. Anything just slightly under that would be considered low carb by most standards. ... is this a revelation to you?




> Wasn't too hard to back up what I said


It only took you, what... four posts?



> And just to be clear because I can see this becoming a topic later. I am essentially talking about fruits and veggies being the primary source of carbs... but the other sources would be nuts and seeds which also have a fair amount of carbohydrate. You could even include something like sweet potato which has plenty of carb. Not that you need to eat any of those foods but you have plenty of options if you get tired of eating "fruit and veggies"... this goes back to the "palatable" discussion.


Wow.. forsight. Seriously, it's like you're a completely different person since a couple paragraphs ago. Did some dumbass friend or brother compose the first 3/4 of your post? Do you have some Jekyll and Hyde thing going where some lowly intelligent ESFP (you say you're INTP but you're acting anything but in most of this thread) breaks out? Or were you stoned and drunk through large segments of posting, including most of this one up until the last few paras?

Anyway, nuts and seeds are generally very calorically dense for how filling there are and I don't think they're necessarily nutrition bonanzas, I believe. I think sweet potatoes have a lot of sugar in them, without looking it up. I won't harp on you too much by this point because you stopped writing like a clown and look like you're at least trying the last few paragraphs.

A big irony of this discussion: I very recently started a diet that's fairly close to being considered paleolithic, the first time I've ever done so, and I'm considering going more hardcore just to see how I feel under it. Based on what I've read, most of the benefits of paleolithic dieting can be conferred by doing a low-carb diet that also avoids obvious junk food.

You know, at first I was irritated, but now I'm looking forward to your reply.


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## angularvelocity (Jun 15, 2009)

@topix 

Consuming a diet with high amounts of sodium is seldom a wise choice. Tim Noakes published several articles on hypoatremia where endurance runners supply themselves with water and eventually throw off the equilibrium between sodium and water levels. During their exercise, runners lose both sodium and water through their sweat. As the runners drank water to maintain "hydration," they threw off the electrolyte imbalance by not consuming sodium and other nutrients. 

The question you pose seems like it would relate to the principle above. It would make sense that if you consume a high sodium diet, you can maintain the balance by drinking more water with the hopes that it will remove excess sodium. 

Both consuming high amounts of sodium and having a large intake of water both synergize the human body to release vasopressin, or ADH (anti diuretic hormone), to cause a retention of sodium and water at the renal level within the loop of henle. This will cause temporary bloating in an individual, referred to as edema, however it might not be significant depending on the amounts. This occurs through the extracelluar fluid imbalance.

Long term effects of high sodium diets are well established so I won't go into that, but with a quick google search, you can basically find all of the adverse effects from high sodium, high fat, and high sugar diets.

Source: I read a lot of research articles for my program.


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## Red Panda (Aug 18, 2010)

topix said:


> Who says their meal frequency wasn't just coincidence? You didn't say how you scientifically/medically knew otherwise.


You misunderstood me. What I did in my previous post was to explain how the metabolism works when there isn't enough food, how your body composition is slowly converted to having more fat than muscle and then I gave you an example of thin or slightly overweight people that are obese if you count their body fat percentage. So they are not necessarily in lower risk than a truly overweight person with the same %body fat. They didn't necessarily eat few meals, but a person that does has higher chance of having a bad body composition.


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## InternalWonderous (Sep 1, 2012)

Keep it simple. Eat less stuff, and healthier stuff, and exorcise regularaly. Amiright?


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## Cher Zee (Feb 15, 2012)

Damn Straight.


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## William I am (May 20, 2011)

topix said:


> It seems to me like there's something specific about fitness and nutrition that makes a lot of people want to give advice without bothering to use proper due diligence first. I've even fallen into this trap before. Here are a couple examples:
> "Eat many but smaller meals throughout the day so you'll burn more calories."
> "Every extra pound of muscle burns 50 (or 40 or 30) calories a pound, so build a lot of muscle to really lose weight."
> 
> ...


I'd say the reason people give (and accept) bogus advice is that there is really no way to check - there's very little solid established, respected data out there that people can go and read. Fact-checking usually happens by checking with other people who are equally gullible or misinformed. 
There's also anecdotal evidence - doing something whack "worked" for one person, though you can't be sure it wasn't something else they were doing. 
And then there's a lot of BS out there too - people are making money on keeping people misinformed.

As for salt consumption - I'm not an expert, but there is an upper limit for a reason.


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## LyricalWhip (Jul 7, 2012)

I think it's just human nature to give advice based on our own life experiences. I think a lot of people don't understand that people are different and have a whole different set of circumstances. 

Just because something worked for you doesn't mean it will work for me, or him, or her. I think that's the problem with most fitness and nutrition advice in the first place. People find something that worked for them and preach that anything otherwise is false. Likewise, as a culture we've become an extremist society where we so vehemently praise or fiercely condemn based on status quo. We take ideals that may be good and apply them 100x over hoping to get quicker results. Fitness and nutrition is a lifestyle...a journey. 

What really irritates me is people that give unsolicited health advice when they see me doing something healthy (like eating a salad or something). Inside, I'm like "Who are you really preaching to here? Shut up and let me eat, ugh." I've found the people with the most unsolicited advice to give are the most out of shape, and the ones the most in shape almost never give unsolicited advice--yet they give the simplest best advice when asked.


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## dottywine (Feb 7, 2011)

It's because you don't want to just eat food you know is good for you (like real food, not packaged food) and exercise.


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## Arrogus (Dec 26, 2012)

Supplements and "alternative medicine" are generally unregulated and don't require scientific evidence to make claims, so they tend to attract people with very poor critical thinking skills or questionable ethics.


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## NT the DC (May 31, 2012)

Arrogus said:


> Supplements and "alternative medicine" are generally unregulated and don't require scientific evidence to make claims, so they tend to attract people with very poor critical thinking skills or questionable ethics.


Why would alternative medicine come up in a conversation about fitness and nutrition?
And what supplements do you speak of? Regulation and scientific evidence are separate issues.
Not making claims has more to do with regulating the supplements then it does with evidence of efficacy, depending on what supplements you're speaking of. It doesn't seem like you've put much thought into your statements as they seem quite general, perhaps you'd like an acupuncture treatment.


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## Arrogus (Dec 26, 2012)

NT the DC said:


> Why would alternative medicine come up in a conversation about fitness and nutrition?
> And what supplements do you speak of?


They're quite often lumped together by their practitioners, many of whom are quick to diagnose any ailment as a nutrition problem which can be solved with overpriced supplements like "Keratin extract" or some such nonsense.


NT the DC said:


> Regulation and scientific evidence are separate issues.
> Not making claims has more to do with regulating the supplements then it does with evidence of efficacy, depending on what supplements you're speaking of. It doesn't seem like you've put much thought into your statements as they seem quite general,


In the US, a product can make any claim about "enhancing" bodily functions without any evidence to back it up, this allows unethical companies to prey on the scientific illiteracy of the average US citizen. Remember "Powerbalance"?


NT the DC said:


> perhaps you'd like an acupuncture treatment.


No.


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## NT the DC (May 31, 2012)

Arrogus said:


> They're quite *often lumped together by their practitioners*, many of whom are quick to diagnose any ailment as a nutrition problem which can be solved with overpriced supplements like "Keratin extract" or some such nonsense.


No they're not. Why do you need to see a practitioner to go to the gym or stay at home and lift weight or change your diet? Of course you CAN go to a nutritionist to get information about nutrition and you CAN go to a personal trainer to get information on exercise. 

However neither of them is some sort of precursor to get information on fitness and nutrition. You can pick up anything from a newspaper to a book on that or talk to your dear aunt sally. And you still never clarified what supplements you're speaking of. Obviously things such as vitamins, antioxidants, probiotics, fish oil are all grouped into the broad category known as "supplements". Things like chondroitin sulfate would also be shown to be in that category and that's also something that has also been shown to have plenty of use and hardly something I'd put into the non-scientific category.



> In the US, a product can make any claim about "enhancing" bodily functions without any evidence to back it up, this allows unethical companies to prey on the scientific illiteracy of the average US citizen. Remember "Powerbalance"?


Powerbalance isn't a supplement my friend nor would I consider that part of alternative medicine. The labeling of nutritional supplements is quite strict perhaps you should get up to date:
Guidance for Industry: Evidence-Based Review System for the Scientific Evaluation of Health Claims - Final


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## Zeit (Dec 24, 2012)

What is it about (_______) that makes us give bogus advice?


As with 'personality theories', relationship theories, and so on...


There's a big market for it. Duping people, or simply marketing yourself as someone who has something good to say, can get a lot of response. Most people are content with simplistic answers and don't want to delve deeply into things.


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## Stelmaria (Sep 30, 2011)

Zeit said:


> What is it about (_______) that makes us give bogus advice?


Exactly. :wink:


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