Top 10 Biggest Health & Fitness Losers of 2008 - Part 2

Posted on Dec 06, 2008 by Andrew in General Health & Fitness .

Yesterday, we took a look at number 10 through 6 of the Top 10 Biggest Health & Fitness Losers of 2008. Today we’ll see who made the top 5! So here we go!

5. Richard Simmons

Sorry chief, I had to do it. I think that you’ve dedicated your life to helping other people which is awesome and I commend you, but we’ve entered into a new world where being a health and fitness expert REQUIRES you to walk the walk and talk the talk. This is something that one of my personal favorite bloggers, Rusty Moore of The Fitness Black Book harps on. He doesn’t like taking advice from people that aren’t in shape, and frankly neither do I.

You wouldn’t take stock tips from a bum, so why would you take health and fitness advice from Richard Simmons. I’d like to take a second to offer a personal invitation to Richard to get in shape with me. I will help you refine your diet, shape your body and get you to be a force in the gym, on the field or anywhere else where physical competition is paramount. Really bud, I want to help! We know you’ve got the dedication and determination, now how about some vascularity and muscles to go with that?

4. Bread, Grains and Other Processed Carbs

It’s no secret that I’m officially a caveman these days, having gone Paleo cold turkey. And let me tell you, it’s so easy! (that was really corny, couldn’t help myself) But I really want to show people the health risks that you run when you eat bread, grains, etc. So here are my favorite articles this year that help explain why you should abstain from these types of foods:

Here’s a great article by Rusty Moore on how High Insulin Levels Stop Fat Loss and Cause Weight Gain, and specifically how breads, grains and the like lead to those levels.

Check out Mark Sisson’s Definitive Guide To Grains… enough said!

Scott Kustes of The Modern Forager wrote a great article about how breads and grains greatly increase the bodies inflammation, which can increase diseases like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, Crohn’s disease etc.

3. Ab Exercises

Ok, ok… hold your horses and hear me out. What I’m trying to say is that people have placed WAY too much focus on ab exercises at the expense of a healthy diet. As we’ve shown before, there are some great examples of people who have an eight pack that do not do ab exercises. Take my post on gaining definition in your abs, which shows Mark Sisson, a perfect example of a man who has perfected sustainable fitness… and he doesn’t do ab exercises!

I’m not knocking on ab exercises themselves. I’ll be the first to admit that I personally do planks, crunches and all the other good ones. But I just want people to understand that their diet is 95% of the battle when it comes to seeing your abs, that’s all. Here are a few people that agree with me:

Divine Caroline put up a really cool post titled Fitness Myths Debunked where they discuss how getting definition in your abs is all about lowering your body fat percentage.

When you have your diet under control, make sure you do significant ab workouts, like what Chris of Zen To Fitness subscribes in A Simple Guide To Rockstar Abs!

2. Diet Pills

I’m not gonna lie, this one almost made the number one spot. I am so anti-diet pills that it’s not even funny. Diet pills represent the mentality that keeps America the number one obese country in the world. It’s the idea of taking a short cut, trying to cheat yourself out of responsibilities, responsibilities which oddly enough will end up making your life better, in my opinion.

Diet pills have become extremely prevalent this year, and it’s a shame. Because of the prevalence, people are beginning to view these as the first option to losing weight. I hope that we all know by now that this not healthy, smart or sustainable any way you slice it! This years big time offenders are The Alli System, Hydroxycut, Trimspa, Leptoprin, Relacore, Hoodia, Dexatrim and most recently, Zylotrim and the worst thing is I could go on and on and on. Here are some links about diet pills and just what they do to your body:

Here’s 10 Outrageous Diet Scams from Mark’s Daily Apple.

Chris from Zen To Fitness wrote a fantastic article taking a look at Why Fat Burners Are Bad News… great article!

Rusty Moore discussed the Terribly Embarrassing Side Effects of The Alli Diet Pill. Careful, it’s smelly gross!

The IF Life, courtesy of Mike O’Donnell, explains Why “Fad” Detox Diets/Supplements Are Useless… and he’s right about that!

Diet Blog wrote a very straight to the point article titled Are Any Diet Pills Safe?

1. Statins

You heard it here. Statins are officially the number one LOSER of 2008. Let’s talk about why they’re such losers.

They lower cholesterol, but that doesn’t accomplish anything positive, especially in already healthy individuals!

Dr. Michael Eades put it best:

“There is no evidence that decreasing cholesterol in adults reduces the risk of heart disease or death… And there is no evidence that statin drugs prevent early death in adults except for one small subset.”

Want a second opinion? Allow me to introduce Dr. Briffa:

“…there is no significant evidence that reduction in LDL cholesterol level explains the clinical benefits seen with statin therapy on cardiovascular disease risk…”

I really should do a post about statistics and just how misleading they can be. In the case of statins, it’s practically the example in the encyclopedia entry for why statistics can be misleading! Mark Sisson knows it!

“The study found after two years that there were fewer cardiac and stroke â€œincidentsâ€ in the group taking rosuvastatin than in the placebo group. Fair enough, I guess. But in terms of serious cardiac and stroke events, the reduction went from 1.7 percent in the placebo population to .9 percent in the statin group - a total reduction of .8 percent (zero point eight percent).”

Given no generic exists, they are extremely expensive!

I will again turn to Dr. Eades to help put into perspective the cost of statins:

“Statin drugs cost, depending upon the brand, somewhere between $2.66 and $4.86 a day, so letâ€™s average it out to $3.75 per day. If we multiply $3.75 per day times 365 days per year times 34 million people we end up with $46.537 Billion per year”

I’ve taken a look at the amount of people on statins, and this 34 million people estimate is an extremely conservative number! So how about another look at the cost, provided by Dr. Mirkin:

“About 7 million people in the US have normal cholesterol and high CRP. Treating them with a brand-name statin would cost each $116 a month or $9.7 billion a year, and prevent about 28,000 heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular deaths each year.”

Those are some really big numbers, but like I said above, beware of statistics. I would recommend that you look into the matter yourself, it will help it make sense. So with that, here are some most reads on the biggest LOSER of 2008, statins (Yeah statins, you suck!):

Dr. Michael Eades wrote two posts in particular that you should check out, one titled Statin Panic and the other Nominees For The Reckless Award.

Mark Sisson wrote about statins (one of many posts) called Statin Insanity!

Dr. Gabe Mirkin wrote a great article on why statins are misleading because Inflammation is more important than cholesterol when discussing heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular deaths.

Dr. Briffa wrote an article whose title tells it all: Statins Reduce Cardiovascular Disease In Healthy People, And Why This Study Is A Poke In The Eye For The For The Cholesterol Hypothesis.

A big thank you to all who have made it this far!! I’m really curious to hear your comments on this list. Did I miss any really big losers? What about these losers, what’s your take? I’ll see you in the comments section!

photos provided by flickr users Chris Makarskys, erix!,

Possibly Related Posts:

Tags: ab exercises, bad carbs, diet pills, fitness, health, Nutrition, Richard Simmons, statins

17 Responses to “Top 10 Biggest Health & Fitness Losers of 2008 - Part 2”

Chandra

Dec 06, 2008

3:35 pm

Andrew,

Nice post. I agree with many of your choice and I think you made som very good points throughout your top ten. I found you blog through Mark’s daily apple and I have been impressed. Keep it up bud.

Chandra

Reply to this comment
Oh She Glows

Dec 06, 2008

7:35 pm

Hey there, came across your blog through Grounded Fitness- great boxing video! I have been thinking about getting one.

Angela
http://www.ohsheglows.com

Reply to this comment
Andrew

Dec 06, 2008

7:38 pm

Hey Chandra,

Thanks for checking it out! Would you have put up any honorable mentions?

Thanks for the comment!

All the Best,

Andrew

Reply to this comment
Andrew

Dec 06, 2008

7:45 pm

Hey Angela,

Glad you liked the boxing tutorial! You should totally get one, it’s a great cardio workout and stress reliever all in one!

Thanks for the comments!

All the Best,

Andrew

Reply to this comment
JE Gonzalez

Dec 06, 2008

8:37 pm

Great Post.
Regarding abs, its kind of sad to see what goes on in the gym. Some women will be on the elliptical for an hour and end with 1000 crunches. Moreover the trainers are useless blobs. I always wish to interfere, but knowing full well how people get annoyed by it I abstain, but seeing how people waste their time, and sabatoge their efforts by bringing in gatorade, I always feel ready to blow. As for grains, they are not that terrible of they are prepared correctly. But the problem is that it takes work and time. In order to benefit from grains you must soke them, ferment them, dehydrate them, and if crush them into flour to make bread. I just skip them altogether as I like to prepare my foods quickly.

Reply to this comment
Andrew

Dec 06, 2008

9:55 pm

Hey JE,

I feel the same way about the abs issue. If I ever saw a personal trainer start the first session with a new client by ONLY discussing their diet, I would give them a high five! I too skip the grains because regardless how you feel about the negatives, they really are not the super food that some claim and shouldn’t be a staple in anyone’s diet!

Thanks for the comment!

All the Best,

Andrew

Reply to this comment
Son of Grok

Dec 07, 2008

6:01 am

Many good things here, so I will just comment on a couple hot points.

Richard Simmons - He means well, but all too true. He doesn’t look well! Yet some people will follow him to the ends of the earth,

Ab execises - They have there place. Can anyone say they really don’t train abs? That being said, do you need 8 different folding funky contraptions to hit your abs 8 different ways. No.

Statins - Doom… DOOM! (Ok, its early and I have a small hangover). I love Ace Ventura!

The SoG

Reply to this comment
Andrew

Dec 07, 2008

10:22 am

SoG: Hahaha, I was hoping people would like that youtube!

All the Best,

Andrew

Reply to this comment
Tom Parker - Free Fitness Tips

Dec 07, 2008

11:05 pm

Great list. I need to do some more research into grains. I have cut down on them considerably but I still eat them on training days. I just don’t think I’m quite ready to give them up completely.

Reply to this comment
tuscanystone

Dec 08, 2008

5:19 am

Who is Richard Simmons?? He looks like a complete twat!

I dont know what statins are either?? Obviously some kind of remedy for high colesterol?? Is it prescribed or off the shelf?

Tusc

Reply to this comment
Andrew

Dec 08, 2008

10:19 am

Tom: I think that’s a great idea to at least look into it. You never know, you may find that it’s not something you want to do, but to have the knowledge on the topic is important either way.

Tusc: Richard Simmons is a cross between a self-help speaker and a personal trainer. The problem is, he isn’t much of a personal trainer, or at the very least he isn’t in good shape. He is very popular in the US. Statins are a type of prescription drug that lower your cholesterol in an effort to help reduce the risk of a heart attack. However, there are too many problems with statins (extremely pricey, over prescribed, etc.) and people are using them as an alternative to eating healthy, which is wrong in my opinion. Also, some people who do eat healthy are being prescribed them as well, which is just crazy and the evidence is in the above links.

Thanks for the comments!!!

All the Best,

Andrew

Reply to this comment
tuscanystone

Dec 08, 2008

10:52 am

thanks for explanations Andrew. I agree with you, I’d run a mile if Richards Simmons walked out as my personal trainer. You really have to lead by example! I’m not really understanding why he’s so popular then?

And yes, Dr’s are so prone to over prescribing, I find it quite scary! Think I mentioned this before with orlestat and metformin?

Of course I dont subscribe to the complete withdrawal of carbs from our diet. But you know that I think our body needs all the macronutrients. Otherwise why would they exist in their most natural form? But of course we overeat the wrong types and get fat. The Japanese are the longest living humans and they eat rice and noodles all the time. Like I said, its the processed rubbish that we need to avoid. I agree with that. it’s logical.

Dont’ get me started on diet pills……grrrrr!!

All the rest are losers, I agree.

Thanks for another interesting post hun

ATB

Tusc

Reply to this comment
Andrew

Dec 08, 2008

1:20 pm

Hey Tusc,

Seeing as it’s #4 on my list, I’ve got to back it up. With regards to your pointing to the Japanese diet as being high in rice consumption and yet their life expectancies are remarkably high, I’d like you to check out the following article by Dr. Briffa that looks at this very point:

http://www.drbriffa.com/blog/2007/12/10/the-japanese-eat-rice-so-what/

Here is an excerpt from that article:

“Turning our attention back to the Japanese for a moment, does the evidence show that rice is as benign a food as some would have us believe? Well, rather predictably, the answer is no. Earlier this year saw the publication of a study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition which looked at the relationship between GI and GL and body mass index (BMI) in Japanese women aged 18-20 [1]. The study found that higher GI and GL diets were associated with higher BMI. The differences in BMI were small (but statistically significant), but then again, young Japanese ladies do tend to be on the slim side. Further evidence for the not-so-benign nature of starch in the Japanese diets comes from a study which found the consumption of a high GI diet to be associated with adverse effects on risk markers for cardiovascular disease such as blood fat and insulin levels [2].

Pointing to the Japanese diet as proof of one’s ideological standpoint is not scientific, and is essentially not much more scientifically rigorous than claiming that because your grandpa Joe smoked and lived to be 100, smoking cannot be harmful to health. Come to think of it, Japanese men smoke a lot, but it hasn’t stopped them having one of the best life expectancies in the World…”

You see, the Japanese diet cannot be used in an argument such as this because of the fact that there are simply too many variables to account for. The way that the Japanese live is so greatly different from those leading a Western-style life that isolating one of their eating habits and saying that it accounts for their longevity (or at least does not hinder their long lives) is not scientifically accurate.

Tusc, I know how you feel about this issue, so I don’t want to push it. I do respect your viewpoints and I think that you are developing habits that will account for a very healthy, long life. However, I feel a responsibility to share with my readers the knowledge that I have soaked up from multiple sources citing numerous studies pointing to the fact that a diet high in grains can lead to some very damaging health problems.

I always love your comments as they are thought provoking and help to further the discussion… so keep ‘em coming!!

All the Best,

Andrew

Reply to this comment
tuscanystone

Dec 08, 2008

3:38 pm

You can push it all you like Andrew….lol…… I have read just as many pro carb articles so I think my view is pretty balanced. And please, I have never advocated a ‘high’ carb/grain diet, only a balanced one!

I can see there are many variables in any diet, not just rice in the Japanese or smoking in the chinese. So the same could be said about someone living to 100yrs and not eating any carbs. I guess we just gotta follow our gut feeling and my gut feeling is that a body starved of sugars/starch isnt the answer. I mean, if you want to talk evolution, why do we produce insulin in the first place!!!?? you think paleo man didnt have a pancreas?? Our bodies are designed in a certain way. We gain our energy from carbs. when you get to 4% body fat, then what do you think your body uses for its energy supply?

Anyway, as I said, just as many pros as cons as far as I’ve read it

ATB

Tusc

Reply to this comment
Andrew

Dec 08, 2008

4:19 pm

Hey Tusc,

Fair enough. But we can’t use evolution as a means for saying that we should eat grains and breads, because the duration in evolutionary history where humans have been eating them isn’t even a blip on the radar screen.

All the Best,

Andrew

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