6 Fitness Tips Everyone's Heard (That Don't Work at All)

Cracked.com, one of the funniest websites out there these days, has a hilarious article, 6 Fitness Tips Everyone's Heard (That Don't Work at All)

#6. You MUST Eat Breakfast. When subjects were asked to skip breakfast, and even both breakfast and lunch, they actually ended up eating the same or fewer calories than when they'd been eating breakfast.

#5. You Must Get Your BMI Down. You could be 200 pounds of muscle or 200 pounds of fat (give or take some bones and blood or something) and BMI wouldn't know the difference.

#4. Barefoot Running is Best. How can people be so stubbornly sure that barefoot running is the only way for humans to run? There must be a lot of really good research on it, I guess. Except there isn't.

#3. P90X/Muscle Confusion is a Revolutionary Way to Get in Shape. But no, muscles are not people, and they don't get bored. If you're squatting 40 pounds (yes that's me, I'm a weakling) for three sets of 15 reps every single time, then sure, they'll become accustomed to that exact exercise and you'll stop seeing gains after a while. But all you have to do to fix that is lift more weight or change the number of reps or sets, as seen in every single workout program ever. To your muscles, that's new and exciting enough. You don't have to do an entirely different new kind of squat to entertain/shock your jaded muscles. They're muscles, not the Internet.

#2. Want a Snack? Eat Carrots or Celery Instead of a Candy Bar! This advice depends on the assumption that everyone would psychologically accept the celery as a treat when they crave treats. The dirty truth is that sometimes when people want chips, they want goddamn chips. I don't want no carrot sticks or lightly salted fat-free popcorn.

#1. Shed Pounds By Drinking Lots of Water! As Scientific American reports the whole idea seems to stem from a misunderstanding of a 1945 study which recommended that amount of water for the average person. What researchers in that study understood, and people parroting their conclusions don't, is that unless your diet consists wholly of dehydrated biscuits, food also contains water.

This is only a quick summary of the article. Go to their site to read the whole thing in its hilarity.

Now, on to the discussion.

I'm in pretty much full agreement with their assessments of items 6-3. #2 just seems like a petty grudge written by someone who wants to justify eating crappy food. There's no mention of studies done or anything. Just bitterness. Personally, my desire to snack comes mostly from a desire to shove something, anything in my mouth. You're a pervert. I know what you're thinking.

#1. I don't know. I feel better when I drink a crap ton of water. I eat less when I pound a glass of water beforehand. Probably because there's less room in my stomach, and I tend to overeat anyway.

Yes, intelligent discussion going on here.

Anyway, the article is funny, and the points are somewhat interesting. Check it out.

Are there any points you strongly agree with or disagree with?