Health myths #3

In this article, we discuss whether it's true that you shouldn't eat before bed if you want to lose weight, and whether exercise has an impact on sperm quality. You can also find out whether overweight people gain weight faster because they have a low metabolism and whether it's a good idea to change your running shoes every six months.

Meals before bedtime are fattening?

Our metabolism is lowest when we sleep at night. This leads people to believe that eating dinner just before bed will help you gain more weight than eating it earlier in the day. But to gain weight, you need to take in more than you burn. And it doesn't matter if you eat it in the morning or in the evening. It's all about total calorie intake and total energy expenditure during the day. This means that eating before bedtime won't make you fatter - unless, of course, it's an extra meal you eat in addition to your regular food intake, so you're taking in more calories than your body needs.

Sperm quality can be trained better?

Environmental factors influence men's sperm quality. Presumably, these environmental factors can affect men's sperm quality even before they are born. However, there are also factors that affect sperm quality that we can influence ourselves. There are studies that show that men who spend a lot of time in front of the TV screen have poorer sperm quality than men who do not watch TV. In addition, it has also been shown that men who are moderately to vigorously physically active have better sperm quality than men who are very inactive. On the other hand, there are also studies that show that men who participate in long-distance elite sports are at risk of reduced sperm quality. In other words, there is a U-shaped curve in relation to exercise and sperm quality. So both too much and too little exercise are bad for sperm quality. Overall, sperm quality is improved by exercise, as long as it is not at the extreme end.

Overweight people have a low metabolism?

People who are overweight often think that the cause of their excess weight must be a low metabolic rate that makes them gain weight faster than others. In fact, this is very rarely the case. In fact, resting metabolic rate increases with weight gain, which means that the more you weigh, the more you burn at rest. So, as a rule, overweight people have a higher metabolic rate than normal weight people, but of course it is possible to have a low metabolic rate even if you are overweight.

Running shoes should be changed every six months?

There is no rule for when to replace your running shoe with a new one. It's up to common sense to decide when it's time to invest in a new running shoe. Depending on how far and how often you run, the terrain you run on, how much you weigh, your running style and the quality of the running shoe, the shoe will wear out more or less quickly.
These myths and many more can be found in Bente Klarlund Pedersen and Morten Zacho's book "100 myths about exercise and weight loss".

By Josefine Huusom