Why Everything We’re Taught About Diet & Exercise Is Wrong

The Food Pyramid is wrong

In 2011 the Government finally changed their outdated Food Pyramid to a better (but still not perfect) “My Plate” model.

Steady-State Cardio is wrong

“Steady-State” means it’s something done at pretty much the same speed and intensity the entire time.

Most forms of cardio exercise are based on a steady-state method.

It really wasn’t that long ago when exercise was first being seriously studied for its health benefits.

Most of this was done by a Dr. Cooper, the man who coined the term “aerobics”.

He mostly studied the effects of running on sedentary people.

It had positive effects, so running became the big “To-Do” when it came to fitness.

Weight lifting was still considered more of a showy, spectacle thing and so was mostly looked down upon.

Oh, how the tides have turned!

Every year it becomes clearer and clearer that Steady-State cardio is both inefficient and comes with some serious negative impacts.

Our “education” is determined by food lobbyists

Food companies lobby the government in order to benefit their business.

And that means that the ones with the big bucks and a bigger influence often get a little more say in what we’re taught about the food we eat.

The Food Pyramid didn’t even have the “Fats, Oils, & Sweets” category until the sugar industry and snack-food makers put pressure on the government to add it.

Parents learned from commercials & the front of the box

Then you’ve got the mass media singing out their little jingles and mantras, leading to things like sugar-loaded cereals being passed as legitimately healthy breakfasts.

The front of the box of various food has been used to sell itself as everything from “high-fiber” to “low-fat” to “heart-healthy”, all while any nutritionist would look at the ingredients and laugh.

Yet with so much mass media touting the benefits of so many different things, it’s very tricky for people to know what to do.

And so, many of our parents were taught what to feed their kids from tv commercials and the front of these boxes.

Exercise & Nutrition understanding is just coming out of its infancy

An understanding of the correct principles of exercise and nutrition is only now really starting to come out of its infancy, a little behind all of the marketing hype.

In fact, the silver-lining is the fact that much of the growth in our learning was spurred on in large part because of the road we were being taken down.

Coach Forrest