Nutritional myth, or a piece of great advice?

We all know that there are many nutritional myths out there, some need to be thrown in the bin and never spoken about ever again, and others are sound pieces of advice that because of a few misconceptions or lack of explanations got taken to extreme measures.

Don’t eat after 6 pm 

This myth states that if you eat after 6 pm, those calories will be stored as fat as you’ll not burn them off before bed. This is not true, your last meal can be at 6 pm, 7 pm or even midnight, it’s irrelevant. However, if you avoid eating after 6 pm, this means you’re likely to reduce the overall calories you consume each day, which can put you in a caloric deficit and will ultimately result in you reducing body fat. Not sure about you, but the times I’ve always ‘binged’ on junk and calorific foods, it’s been after 6 pm. 

Don’t eat carbohydrates 

Carbohydrates don’t make you fat, consuming excessive calories make you fat, often these calories come from carbohydrate/sugar dense foods. The act of reducing/limiting your carbohydrate intake means you’ll reduce the overall calories you consume and consequently steer closer to more protein-rich foods that help with satiety, which results in you eating fewer calories which ultimately results in you losing body fat.

Fat makes you fat

Out of the three macronutrients, which are fats, carbohydrates and proteins, fats are by far the most calorie-dense.

1 gram of protein = 4 calories

1 gram of carbohydrates = 4 calories

1 gram of fat = 9 calories

By reducing your fat intake you can quite easily put yourself in a caloric deficit which is the real key to reducing your body fat percentage. fats can be broken down into 2 groups saturated (bad fats) and unsaturated (good fats) Your body needs a healthy balance of certain fat to be at optimal health, so this is not something you would want to take to the extremes and cut completely out.

Eat little and often to heighten your metabolism

Eating little and often throughout the day to heighten your metabolic rate is just not how it works, whether you eat 1 meal per day or 6, if the calories are equal throughout that day, you’ll get the same results from a fat loss perspective. However, eating little and often keeps your blood sugar levels stable, which helps prevent drops in blood sugar that ultimately lead to you overeating.

Furthermore, eating little and often means you can spread your protein intake out through the day, this will help optimise protein synthesis.

Your body can’t use more than 30 grams of protein in one meal

This myth carries on nicely from my previous point about spreading out your protein intake to best optimise protein synthesis.

If you consume a large amount of protein in one sitting, whether that’s 30 grams or more, your body will use some of it to build and recover muscle tissue, and the rest will be converted into glucose via a process known as gluconeogenesis. 

The protein is not wasted; it’s just not directly used for what you want it to be used for. Spreading your protein intake out through the day and only consuming 20 to 40 grams per meal, is a great way to ensure you're not overdoing your protein intake during each mealtime.

Eat protein within 15 minutes post-training to hit the "anabolic window"

This again was a relatively sound piece of advice that was absolutely taken to the extreme, people were chugging down a protein shake before they even hit the shower or got to their car. 

Now it’s good advice to consume protein after you train, but you can consume protein within an hour after you train and that would still be optimal. And if you didn’t consume protein till a few hours following your workout, that does not mean your workout was then worthless.

Everyone is different, and everyone will reach their health, body composition and fitness goals in all different ways. So, if you feel a particular fitness myth or controversial statements will work for you, I say go for it, if safe to do so of course. Just remember that there are no quick fixes, no matter what methodologies you choose when pursuing your fitness endeavours, none will be easy. Especially if you wish to get super lean, as there will come the point where you will be relativity hungry, you will have heightened sugar cravings and you might even want to quit. You just need to constantly remind yourself why you started to begin with, that nothing worth having comes easy, and having the body of your dream as well as optimal health, is absolutely worth having!