Apparently, “weight training, running, sports massage, protein and the sun are all bad for you”…
Alternative practitioner myths about exercise, massage and nutrition | In summary
"If you do any other exercise than Pilates you will inflame your body"
“If you do deep tissue massage you will damage your lymphatic vessels”
“If you eat protein you will damage your kidneys…”
“You should never, ever, ever again step out of your house without SPF 50 (ideally an expensive one), even on an overcast day in the middle of the winter in London”
Common sense comes to the rescue
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Alternative practitioner myths about exercise, massage and nutrition | In summary
Many health and wellness claims promoted by some alternative practitioners are not only unfounded but also defy common sense. The suggestion that any exercise besides Pilates causes inflammation, which in turn leads to cellulite, is dismissed as absurd. If this were true, the vast number of active individuals and athletes throughout history - not to mention animals would all be suffering from inflammation-induced degeneration.
Similarly, the claim that deep tissue massage damages the lymphatic system and causes cellulite ignores the long-standing cultural practices of deep massage in countries like Thailand, China, and Russia. Sports massage is widely used by professional athletes with no such adverse outcomes.
Equally flawed is the idea that protein damages kidneys and therefore causes cellulite. This misconception, pushed by some “nutritionists,” has led many women to reduce their protein intake excessively, resulting in poor muscle tone, skin laxity, fatigue, and other health problems. Protein is essential for the structure of skin, muscles, bones, and blood vessels—all of which play a role in cellulite prevention. Thankfully, younger generations are reversing this trend by embracing weight training and balanced nutrition.
Another misguided notion is the insistence on using SPF 50 at all times, even in cloudy winter weather in places like London. This fear of sun exposure has contributed to a widespread vitamin D deficiency, leading to serious health conditions such as osteoporosis, immune dysfunction, and depression.
Ultimately, many of these claims collapse under scrutiny and highlight the importance of applying basic critical thinking. Questioning advice that contradicts logic is a vital step in avoiding health misinformation.
Weight training, running, inflammation and cellulite
"If you do any other exercise than pilates you will inflame your body, and we all know that inflammation causes cellulite…"
A client asked me a few days ago if this “advice”, given to her by a complementary health practitioner, was true: “You should not do any other exercise than pilates, otherwise you will inflame your body. And you know, inflammation causes cellulite.”.
This, of course, is an absolutely preposterous statement which goes against all common sense.
You can only imagine the millions of inflamed athletes - or just billions of inflamed active common people - since the dawn of humanity all the way until the 1920s, when Joseph Pilates developed a method of exercise that would not inflame the human body.
Imagine the trillions of active animals that have never had the opportunity to know about pilates and they all roam this earth inflamed and decrepit.
Imagine the Olympic athletes in Paris, all of them having to be wheeled in the stadiums, as with all that Olympic-level training they are inflamed and decrepit too.
Obviously, such a statement does not hold any water. And, of course, I am not criticising my lovely client here, who trustingly believed a person deemed to be knowledgable in her field - not.
I am criticising the imbecile alternative practitioner who does not have any contact with reality and probably heard this piece of wisdom by another alternative practitioner who believes in all sorts of other woo woo stuff that circulate in those circles.
Deep tissue massage, lymphatic vessel damage and cellulite
“If you do deep tissue massage you will damage your lymphatic vessels, which will lead to cellulite…”
Of course, I wasn’t surprised to hear that. Over the past 25 years in the industry I heard lots of equally bizarre statements made by alternative practitioners.
As in “You should only do manual lymphatic drainage, as any other type of massage, especially sports massage, damages your lymph vessels”, coming from the MLD brigade…
Again, this is a ridiculously ignorant statement which flies in the face of all common sense. Just think of all those millions of hapless athletes who made the grave mistake of having sports massages and they are now walking around with damaged lymphatic vessels.
Think of the billions of people where deep, strong massage is a centuries’ old tradition (such as China, Thailand, Russia and other places on Earth) and where their populations has suffered from damaged lymphatic systems for centuries.
How did they make it through the centuries and up until the 1930s before they discovered Emil Vodder and his manual lymphatic drainage massage, apparently the only massage you are allowed to have that does not damage lymph vessels.
And, again, spare a thought for those poor Olympic athletes in Paris who are not just ruined by all the non-Pilates training they did for years but also from all those lymphatic system damaging sports massages they had during all those years. They must be one step from death with all the inflammation and broken lymphatics.
As you can see there are a lot of really thick people around, confident enough to open their mouth and spout ignorant statements.
Protein, kidney damage and cellulite
“If you eat protein you will damage your kidneys and damaged kidneys mean cellulite among other things…”
…said thousands of so-called “nutritionists” over the last few decades and sowed protein-phobia in women’s minds.
(Men, for better and worse, don’t really focus on nutritionists’ advice, so they escaped that one.)
This mass hysteria against protein by the '“nutritionist” brigade resulted in many women in the past few decades consuming too many carbs and too little protein (including too little red meat even if they were not vegans).
In turn, this ultimately led to skin laxity (skin is made of protein, mainly collagens and elastin), lack of muscle tone (muscles are made of protein), osteoporosis (bones are partially made of protein), poor circulation (blood vessels are made of protein) and cellulite (skin laxity and poor circulation do cause cellulite; too many carbs lead to fat accumulation, which again causes cellulite).
Not the mention the epidemic of anemia in women, which lead to fatigue in millions of women.
Thankfully, the younger female generation has now embraced both weight training and an adequate protein intake and the results speak for themselves, both on instagram and in real life.
Now I am not advocating here the consumption of fatty red meat, which is obviously not healthy, especially when cooked at high temperatures. But unless you are vegan there is nothing wrong with some red meat.
And in general there is nothing wrong with consuming protein-rich foods, as long as you do not go into excess. And believe me, most women are very, very far from having excess protein in their diet.
Likewise, I am not advocating someone older, unfit, overweight and with bad knees to start doing sprinting and triple jumping. Pilates is indeed the perfect exercise for that population.
But to give the pathetic advice that anything other than Pilates will fill your body with inflammation to a healthy 27-year old woman, is really, well, pathetic.
Similarly, to “advise” someone with stiff muscles on their back or legs that a sports massage will damage them (it will, obviously, NOT) and that MLD will sort them out in those cases (it will, obviously, NOT) is extremely ignorant, superstitious and unprofessional.
Sun damage and skin aging in the winter in London
“You should never, ever, ever again step out of your house without SPF 50 (ideally an expensive one), even on an overcast day in the middle of the winter in London, otherwise your skin will age…”
And there we find ourselves with a vitamin D deficiency epidemic, leading to osteoporosis, cancer, heart disease, fatigue, SAD and immune dysfunction, among other adverse health outcomes of such deficiency.
Millions of people have been brainwashed by brain-free beauty and health journalists to believe that excessive UV radiation is found in places like Britain, throughout the day, regardless of cloud cover and even in the winter.
This, of course, is totally inaccurate and preposterous and led to sun-phobia and the excessive use of sunscreen amongst millions of women.
Again, it’s not like people in the north of Europe, America and Asia died in their billions from skin cancer over the centuries. We have more skin cancer these days due to people overdoing it while on holiday in sunny countries and due to the widespread use of sunbeds - not because they don’t wear SPF 50 in Britain at any other time than the 10-15 sunny days we get in the summer.
Some sun exposure (i.e. exposure that does not lead to skin redness) is vital for vitamin D production - and overall wellbeing too.
Of course, I am not advocating here for people not to use sunscreen in the middle of the summer, especially in places like the Mediterranean or in Australia, but this fear of the sun by so-called experts has led to an epidemic of disease in people living at higher latitudes throughout the world - especially black and ‘brown’ people who produce less vitamin D due to melanin blocking the majority of UV rays on their skin.
Common sense comes to the rescue
All in all, there is widespread (unintended) misinformation disseminated in clinics and salons up and down the country and via the press and social media. And the best defence against most cases of such misinformation is for us to use our common sense.
We have to ask ourselves this question: “Does this piece of advice fly in the face of all common sense? If it does, it is probably wrong and it would be a good idea to further research that so-called “advice” before following it.
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