Busting fitness myths with Dr. John Jaquish

Things might get complicated when it comes to your training program. Dr. John Jaquish debunks some of the most common fitness myths as well as many more.

Full Transcript

Adam Longo: When it comes to your workout routine, things can get confusing.

It’s hard to tell exactly how much to eat, what to eat, and when to exercise. There are a ton of theories and routines out there. You know all of them. You just don’t know which of them is good or not. You know how our team works. When we see something sketchy online, we go right to the experts to verify.

Joining me tonight is Doctor John Jaquish. He is the author of the Wall Street Journal’s bestseller Weight Lifting Is a Waste of Time. He’s here to bust up some of the most popular fitness myths and much more.

Thanks so much for coming on with us.

First of all, let’s just bang through three of these five biggest myths, right?

Let’s take them one by one here.

A well-balanced diet is necessary for optimal fitness. Let’s hit that first.

Dr. Jaquish: Everyone defines well-balanced as something different.

So that’s the problem. The more you research nutrition and especially look to take bias out of nutrition, so, you know, we don’t want to be reading research that’s funded by Nabisco.

This also comes out of the White House coincidentally we look at, we look at the different things that are recommended that don’t have biases and do.

And what you end up finding out is that we should be eating a lot more animal protein and we should not be eating very much carbohydrates at all.

Carbohydrates don’t even fit the definition of a macronutrient any longer.

Adam Longo: Interesting, even for, you know, someone like me, I’m a runner. I’m a triathlete. I mean, I’m sucking in carbs all day long, you know, potatoes, bagels, rice.

Are you saying I shouldn’t be doing that?

Dr. Jaquish: There’s a reason that you do that and it’s a good reason. However, it’s still very instantaneously used fuel. It’s glucose. Everything breaks down to glucose, pairs with insulin, and then becomes a part of the energy system of the muscle.

The problem is what we need and what we consume are two very different numbers.

Now, if you’re running marathons, the day you run the marathon, you need to consume a significant amount of carbohydrates. But on a rest day, you probably don’t want to have any. Ok.

Adam Longo: This is what Americans do, right? We overconsume in all aspects of our lives. Let’s talk about one of our other myths. To be addictive. Yeah, one of these other myths that are designed to burn fat and shed pounds, we need to do plenty of cardio. Is that a myth?

Dr. Jaquish: That’s a myth. Chronic upregulation of cortisol is what happens. So that’s the stress hormone. And running is very stressful for your body. When you chronically upregulate cortisol. Cortisol does two things. It gets rid of muscle tissue. So usually when people start doing cardio and they’re like ‘hey, you know, I lost 20 pounds, right?’

You lost 20 pounds of muscle and that’s not what people want.

And then on top of that, cortisol has a preservation effect on our energy storage, which is body fat. So it makes you hold on to body fat as long as possible, keeping you fat as possible, as long as possible.

Completely the opposite.

Now, if you want to be a distance runner like you, you got to train for distance. There’s no way around it.

But if you want to be lean and strong looking, that’s not the approach.

Adam Longo: One last question, real quick, 15 seconds, one of these fads that are out there right now, is intermittent fasting, right? 18-hour fast, six hours, eating your meals. What do you make of that?

Dr. Jaquish: It’s awesome. The research supports this very well. There are some comparisons that people will make between calorie restriction, which is an overly simplified look at what we’re after. But there are a lot of hormonal implications for intermittent fasting. It’s just easier to stick to.

Like sometimes you are hungry, and then you begin to eat and then you’re incredibly hungry.

So what you do is just avoid meals for a certain period. Like I eat one meal a day.

Adam Longo: Okay. Well, you look like a healthy guy to me, and we appreciate your time. We’re gonna have to leave it right there.

Doctor John Jaquish, thank you so much.