Are you trying to get fit and lose fat for the summer? Are you following insane fitness trends and diets that are totally not sustainable? Going on a crash diet and eating salads every meal for two weeks before a beach vacation is not the way. Neither is jogging or running for 2 hours a day 7 days a week. Health, fitness, and nutrition aren't just a month-long fad... it's a life-long pursuit and needs to be realistic, enjoyable, and sustainable.
I may not be a personal trainer or a professional bodybuilder, but I do have a passion for fitness and nutrition and take it seriously. However, there are so many myths (or half-truths) that people believe in, and sometimes, they just drive me crazy. I'll have to admit: I've been guilty of believing some of these in the past, but with experience, I've learned from my mistakes.
Continue reading to find out what's fact and what's fiction!
1. Carbs are the enemy.
Carbs make me fat. Eating carbs at night is bad for you. I can't eat carbs past 6pm. I need to cut out all carbs to lose fat. I have to go on a low/no carb diet. I've heard it all. Carbs get a bad reputation because some people respond poorly to them and find themselves feeling bloated and gassy ("fat"). Carbs are also not classified as an "essential" macronutrient for humans, and therefore, people find them the easiest to cut out. Fat loss is actually a simple process: all you have to do is burn more calories than you eat. Your body doesn't care if the calories you eat come from protein, fat, or carbs. A calorie is a calorie. A food is a food. But...
Carbs are important to your diet. They fuel the brain and central nervous system and help to support bodily functions. They provide the body with energy for working muscles and physical activity. If you're an active person, carbs are a must. However, there are "good" carbs and "bad" carbs. Carbs from vegetables and fruits are considered "good" because they're nutrient dense and contain many vitamins and minerals. Quality carbs are also loaded with fibre, which helps with digestive health, blood sugar levels, satiety levels, and cholesterol levels. Carbs coming from processed foods, refined flours, sugars, and candies are "bad" because they are full of empty calories and don't contain anything that's beneficial to the body. A healthy diet should consist of a balance between proteins, fats, and carbs.
2. Lifting weights will make me bulky.
This myth mainly applies to women. For some reason, women seem to be terrified of lifting weights because they're somehow under the impression that lifting will make them huge and bulky. For those women that do lift, they tend to lift light weights for many reps because they're afraid that lifting heavy weights will make them big. This is absolutely not true! Why not? Women don't produce nearly enough testosterone to build muscles like men do. Those women that are "jacked" or "shredded" are definitely taking performance enhancing drugs. A normal person's arms and legs will not suddenly blow up after a few sets of shoulder presses and squats. If you only train with light weights, you won't build muscle, and that defeats the whole purpose of weight training.
Everyone's version of a perfect physique is different. What one person sees as "bulky" or "muscular" or "toned," another person might think it's "just right." At the end of the day, lifting weights helps to build muscle, and having a higher percentage of muscle mass in the body helps to speed up metabolism and burn more calories.
3. I can spot reduce my problem areas.
Love handles, belly fat, muffin tops, inner thigh fat, back fat, what else is there? All of us have those trouble areas where fat just loves to hang out (no pun intended): like a bad dinner guest, fat loves to arrive there first and leave there last. It can be very frustrating when you notice progress in other areas of the body but not in those trouble spots (usually in the belly, low back, hips, and thighs). You may have heard about specific machines or equipment or even exercises that can help you spot reduce and target those specific areas for fat loss. Unfortunately, targeted fat loss is not possible. When you reduce body fat, you lose it in the whole body. Some may lose more in their face, and others may lose more in their butt. You can reduce the visual impact of these areas by reducing your overall body fat or building more muscle tone in those spots; however, you cannot choose where or how fast fat comes off. That's determined by your genetics.
The lesson here is this: don't do sit ups and crunches thinking they will give you a six pack. Abs are made in the kitchen (through dieting and fat loss). You can spend hours a week doing abdominal exercises, but if you still have a layer of fat covering them, they're not going to show. These exercises will strengthen the muscles in your midsection, but being able to "see" your abs means lowering your body fat percentage. This goes the same for any type of exercise, including butt and thigh exercises. There's no such thing as a butt-toning exercise.
P.S. If anyone tries to sell you a vibration belt for your belly, say no!
4. I have to do cardio to lose fat.
Stand at the door of your gym and watch where the next 10 people head towards. Chances are most of them are causing a traffic jam at the treadmills or ellipticals. People think that they need to walk/jog/run/bike for hours in order to lose fat, but I can think of so many more better, fun, and effective exercises to do in order to lose fat. It's true that aerobic exercise or cardio helps to burn calories. However, at the end of the day, as long as the number of calories you eat does not exceed the number of calories you burn, you will lose fat. In my opinion, resistance training (weight lifting) is much more effective. You don't burn as many calories per session as aerobic exercise does, but increasing your muscle mass will boost your metabolism, and as a result, you will continue to burn extra calories even when you're not active. Who wouldn't want to burn more calories while they're watching TV or sleeping? There's also something called HIIT (high intensity interval training), which I love to do as well. It incorporates short bursts of intense exercise alternating with less intense recovery periods. Research has shown that these workouts also help to increase metabolism and burn more calories post-workout. The great thing about HIIT workouts is that they take a fraction of the time and are shown to be more effective than regular slow steady-state cardio.
5. I'm working out, so I can eat whatever I want.
Yes, you burn more calories when you work out, but it's nowhere near enough to burn whatever junk you decide to eat afterwards. Just because you're exercising doesn't mean you can go all out and undo everything you just worked so hard for. You need to use restraint and be in control. That's not to say that you can't enjoy foods you love or indulge once in awhile. I'm a firm believer in an approach that allows you to eat whatever you want as long as it fits within your "diet." (I won't go into this here.) I find that if you allow yourself to satisfy your cravings (in moderation), there's a smaller likelihood that you'll binge and overindulge. If you screw up and go overboard, just forget about it, and move on. Don't try to punish yourself by doing more cardio or starving yourself the next day. You don't want to develop unhealthy relationships with food.
6. I'm not making any progress because my weight isn't changing.
That's what everyone is so focused on... losing those xx number of pounds. Don't worry about the number on the scale. In fact, the weight scale can be totally inaccurate and deceiving. Our body weights fluctuate from day to day, depending on so many factors: time of the day, what we ate or drank, our hormones and stress levels, whether we need to go to the washroom, and many more. In addition, if you're working out and lifting weights, you're adding lean muscle mass. This could mean that your body weight on the scale is actually increasing when your body fat percentage is decreasing. Here are some better ways to measure your progress: strength and energy levels in the gym; progress pictures or physique in the mirror; fitting of clothes; and measurements.
You have no idea how much I have to say (and want to say) about the topic of fitness and nutrition. This post doesn't even justify it. However, I don't want to get into the nitty gritty scientific aspects of it and make everything sound complicated. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, don't hesitate to contact me. I have very strong opinions about all of this :)
