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Top 10 Dumbest Fad Diets | Diet Reviews

We Take a Look at the Most Popular Fad Diets of the Past 30 Years and Pick The Top 10 Dumbest Fad Diets to Ever Be Unleashed on Dieters. 

The Fad Diet.

Nothing exemplifies the American obsession with quick fixes more than the seemingly endless parade of fad diets cooked up by everyone from modern snake-oil salesmen, to slick Internet entreprenuers, to corporate product marketing teams looking for a new way to sell an old product.

The formula for a fad diet is pretty consistent:

Take a single ”miracle food” , add a little glitz and glamour in the form of a celebrity (nevermind whether she actually uses it, just mentioning it will suffice), sprinkle on some big weight loss promises, mix in some mis-applied clinical research, finish it up with a heaping spoonful of dramatic before-and-after pictures and you pretty much have a recipe for the classic fad diet.  

The Top Ten Dumbest Fad Diets below go by many names and often have many variations.  

Like a virus, some of these diets just seem to naturally mutate once they are released on the Internet, so tracking down their origins or even how they work can be difficult. In this regard, they have more in common with urban legends, than eating plans.

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VO2 Max: What Is VO2 Max? | Fitness, Health & Exercise Glossary

What is VO2 Max and How Does It Work?

Definition of VO2 Max

VO₂ Max is the maximum capacity of an individual’s body to transport and utilize oxygen during exercise.  

Vo2 max is considered the standard indicator of cardiovascular or cardiorespiratory endurance and fitness.  Vo2 Max determines a person or athlete’s ability to perform prolonged aerobic activity.  VO2 Max is also known as known as maximal oxygen uptake, aerobic capacity, or maximal oxygen consumption.

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EPOC: Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption | Fitness, Health & Exercise Glossary

What Is EPOC or Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption?

Definition of EPOC

EPOC, or Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumptionis a measure of increased oxygen consumption after exercise or strenuous activity.  EPOC is also accompanied by a post-exercise increase in energy or fuel consumption  (also characterized as an increase in metabolism.)  EPOC is also known as “oxygen debt” or “oxygen deficit.”  In bodybuilding and fitness training circles it may also be called “exercise afterburn.”

Understanding Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC)

EPOC occurs after both aerobic (cardiovascular) exercise and anaerobic exercise like weight training. 

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How Many Calories Are Burned Weight Lifting? | Ask The Fitness Nerd

Can You Burn Meaningful Calories Lifting Weights?

Dear Fitness Nerd,

How many calories are burned during weight lifting? I ask because I lift weight 5-6 days a week, but really hate doing cardio. If I’m trying to keep body fat off, are the calories burned through weight lifting enough? Or do I have to do cardio on top of it? – Adam  (Waco, Texas)

The amount of calories you burn weight lifting depends on your weight, the intensity of your weight training, and the duration (and your age, to some extent, but this is less important.)

A 180 lb male performing 60 minutes of  weight training with vigorous effort (meaning little or no rest periods between sets) and at an intensity that causes your heart rate to remain somewhat elevated during exercise would burn approximately 400-475 calories weight lifting.

If you tend to take long rests between sets and your intensity is lower, the same person can expect to burn around 250 calories weight lifting for one hour.

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10 Best Foods To Eat | Healthy Eating

What Are the 10 Best Food to Eat? These 10 Nutritional Powerhouses Should Be Part of Every One’s Healthy Eats

Cleaning up your diet and eating healthier is often just a matter of knowing where to start.

Unfortunately, many people think that a healthy diet is only about removing foods, not adding them in.

This list of the 10 Best Foods to Eat focuses on what you should be eating, not on what you shouldn’t eat. 

All of the foods below are nutritionally-dense and are loaded with either antioxidants, lean protein, fiber or  heart-healthy fats.  In some cases, they’ll have all four.

Even better, most of the foods on this list are low in calories compared to their volume, which means you’ll feel fuller and more satisfied after eating them. 

Remember, this list is intended as a starting point — there are tons of other healthy foods out there that could easily have been included.  Share your best healthy food choices with us in the comment section below.

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Catabolism: What Is Catabolism? | Fitness, Health & Exercise Glossary

What Is Catabolism? Learn What Catabolism Is And The Role It Plays In The Body.

Definition of Catabolism

Catabolism is a series of chemical reactions (via metabolic pathways in the body) that break down complex molecules into smaller units and release energy. This released energy is then stored within the molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

Cells use ATP to:

•  Synthesize cell components
•  Power muscle contraction and motion
•  Transport substances across cell membranes.

Catabolism is the opposite of anabolism, which is the process of creating larger, more complex molecules via metabolic pathways.
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Does Whey Have Casein? | Ask The Fitness Nerd

Does Whey Protein Also Contain Casein? We Sort Out The Milk Protein Mystery Once and For All.

Dear Fitness Nerd,

I’m a little confused about whey and casein protein. Does whey also contain casein? And vice versa?  All I know is that both whey and casein are in milk.  Can you help me sort this out? — Janine (Dunwoody, GA)

You’re right that both whey and casein are proteins in milk.

But the important thing to grasp is that they are two totally different kinds of protein.

So in their purest form – isolated from the milk itself (for example in protein powder supplements) — whey typically doesn’t contain meaningful amounts of casein. Same goes for casein in regards to whey content.

Understanding Milk Proteins: Whey vs. Casein

The easist way to think about this is in the context of milk.

Milk contains about 80 percent casein protein, and 20 percent whey. Under normal conditions, you would never be able to differentiate between the whey and casein in milk visually. It just looks … well … liquid and “milky.”

However, when you add an acid or enzyme like rennet (which is used in cheese production), the milk will curdle. This literally separates the whey from the casein proteins.

The result is that the whey — which is a semi-clear liquid — will rise to the top, while the casein (which is heavier and coagulates in the presence of an acid or enzyme) will usually sink to the bottom.

In cheesemaking, the whey is siphoned off from the casein, and the solids are then drained through a cheese cloth, further extracting any residual whey or water and leaving the firm casein solids, which are then shaped into blocks of cheese (there are more steps, but I won’t get into them here.) 

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