We’re seriously considering creating a new Category which we here at MuscleFoundry.com would snootily refer to as … “Bodybuilders Have Known This &%#!  Forever.” It would be reserved for mass-cultural fitness phenomena like the Atkins Diet (Suspiciously similar to bodybuilders’ long-used, low-carb, competition diet); the kettle bells “sensation” (Build muscle mass using rapid kinetic movements, eh? Sounds familiar, Comrade-ski), and now this, from a Penn State study, on apples -- which apparently metamorphosed into the new wonder fruit overnight, at least according to USA Today.

 

The newspaper brings us another one of those “duh” academic studies on nutrition, this one showing that eating an apple prior to a meal can cause you to eat 190 fewer calories at said meal. Given that a typical apple contains about 75 calories, and happens to lie pretty low on the glycemic index list of foods that make you fat – it seems to be not an altogether bad trade-off.

I’m here to tell you, folks … it’s a *great* trade-off. In addition to being nearly the perfect size and shape for carry-around snackability, apples contain a decent amount of fiber, they polish off sweets cravings and contain not a milligram of fat . They provide a nice, even and lengthy energy curve prior to and just during a workout. Contrast that with say, a candy bar, which might give you 15 minutes of manic energy before peaking. Once those fast-burning sugars are through though, you’ll come plummeting back to Earth like a pair of spent space shuttle booster rockets. Apples ,on the other hand are like efficient but solidly powerful auxiliary engines. I do prefer to take them with some solid food, though, as the glucose spike and subsequent trough can be sharp on an empty stomach. (See chart).

Graphic: WWW.MUSCLEFOUNDRY.COM 

So even though we muscleheads may be tempted to roll some eyeballs at these supposedly “new” findings, we should take heart. If one or more enterprising opportunists write bestsellers on the “Amazing, Breakthrough ‘Apple Diet(!!!)’” let’s just cut ‘em some slack and be thankful that the word is getting out.