slightly in shock (after reading a so-called fitness magazine at the gym)

I'm living in a new city for the summer, so I went and became a member of the YMCA this morning.  Since I didn't have a book, I picked up a fitness magazine that was in the cardio room. 

There were interviews with fitness models/figure competitors and they were explaining how they "got healthy".  One exercised two hours a day, and only ate 1300-1400 calories; less when she was nearing a competition.  She advocated drinking flavored water in the evenings to keep from binging on carbs.  If eating a sandwich is a binge, then she needs to re-think what binge means.  And if she really did feel a need to eat some evil carbs and fats, maybe it's because she was exercising hard for TWO HOURS A DAY AND ONLY EATING 1300-1400 CALORIES?! 

The next article explained that one should never eat any fruit, because it is too high in sugar.  Also nuts were to be avoided, because of the fat content.

So, don't eat nuts, or bread or rice or pasta or fruit or potatoes.

There were some nutrition experts at the end of the magazine, offering advice, and they said to eat fruit and nuts, but my goodness no wonder people are confused.  

*end rant*

Yeah, pretty much a lot of things fitness models or bodybuilders do, though effective, are not healthy, especially for people with a more average set of genes.

Ugh, I hate fitness magazines for all the contradiction they contain. There are different fitness/diet plans on every page, in every story; one high-carb, one low-carb, one that involves only strength training 3 days a week, one that includes 80 minutes of cardio 7 days a week. It just reinforces the importance of finding something that works for you.

 Also keep in mind that most fitness/bodybuilding magazines are pretty much guaranteed to be filled with plain BS.

 The real secret to most fitness models/bodybuilders' training regimes is illegal drug use but publishers gloss over that and would like you to believe that the secret is whatever supplement of the month they're pushing, or some crazy diet plan that the ghost writer made up out of whole cloth without actually talking to the model in question.

 It's possible to compete in Fitness, Figure and Classic bodybuilding without using drugs, but these days you're pretty much guaranteed that anyone who makes it to the IFBB pro level has been abusing drugs for years. Given that, I doubt there's much anyone who has a normal human metabolism can learn from them...

About half the guys in my university's gym have admitted to taking roids or show up with little bandaids on their shoulder and don't care if the whole world sees.  A lot of the guys cycle between eating 6000 calories a day for 3 months to bulk and then eating <2000 a day to cut.  Obviously, that isn't entirely healthy.  A recent survey of 100 Olympic athletes showed that, when asked "If you were guaranteed a Gold medal and nobody would ever find out you took steroids, but you would drop dead in 5 years," 63 said it would be worth it.

Potatos aren't good for you.  Sweet potatos are wonderful though.  But regular potatos have a ton of starch and carbs that I'd recommend avoiding.  Most fruit is good... some fruit, not so good.  Fruit juices are horrible though... all sugar.  Nuts are good in moderation... very healthy fats.  The rest are good in moderation.

Heh the only thing worse than fitness magazines are woman's magazines. I remember reading through one of the stationary bike at the gym once. The cover said in bold letters something about the fabulous easy diet contained inside. Curious I flipped to that page. The diet basically consisted of an hour of intense cardio every day and a strict diet was mapped out for a week. Knowing the calorie content of most foods I tallied up day-by-day. Each day had about 500-600 calories... the whole week only ended up about 4000 calories. It boasted that the foods sped up metabolism and some other scientific mumbo-jumbo which caused up to a 10lb loss per week. Ummm, no... thats 'starvation'. This diet would be considered an eating disorder if followed long enough!

Anyways, thats my rant on the subject.

Original Post by dcyounts:

Potatos aren't good for you.  

Have to disagree. 

 "...a very good source of vitamin C, a good source of vitamin B6, copper, potassium, manganese, and dietary fiber." http://www.whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=food spice&dbid=48

I don't know where the poor potato got that stigma, but there was a good discussion about it recently:

http://caloriecount.about.com/forums/post/952 95.html

Original Post by melkor:

Also keep in mind that most fitness/bodybuilding magazines are pretty much guaranteed to be filled with plain BS.

The real secret to most fitness models/bodybuilders' training regimes is illegal drug use but publishers gloss over that and would like you to believe that the secret is whatever supplement of the month they're pushing, or some crazy diet plan that the ghost writer made up out of whole cloth without actually talking to the model in question.

It's possible to compete in Fitness, Figure and Classic bodybuilding without using drugs, but these days you're pretty much guaranteed that anyone who makes it to the IFBB pro level has been abusing drugs for years. Given that, I doubt there's much anyone who has a normal human metabolism can learn from them...

melkor I am a female who bulks up IMMEDIATELY when I do anything like run or use the bicep machine.  I don't understand why it's so hard to be a bodybuilder!

just don't confuse health with professional sports... the latter is almost always unhealthy

"Potatos aren't good for you."

Let me correct myself.  Potatos are a healthy food.  Eating a potato (that isn't loaded with butter, bacon bits, and sour cream) is a lot better for you than eating fast food.  I choose not to eat them because I think wheat, grains, etc are a little bit healthier.  Some people don't believe the GI, some do.  Make the choice for yourself.

Wheat and Potato both have similar carbohydrate content.

Wheat's carbohydrate content is made up of a high percentage of fiber.  Wheat also has a decent amount of protein.

Potato's carbohydrate content is made up almost all starch.  It does have some fiber, however half of its fiber is in the skin which most people don't eat.  Potato has very little protein.

Fiber > Starch.

Wheat > Potato

It is very easy to gain muscle in the beginning.  When I first started lifting, I was able to add 120 lbs to my bench press in just about 7 months to get it around 290.  Then, your body begins to peak.  It becomes increasingly difficult to put on muscle as the plateau effect sets in.  Lots of people then resort to anabolics to get past this.

haha, spiro!!