When it comes to working out and nutrition, it’s hard to sift through all the information out there. Everyday brings a new study about how X product is good for you, Y now causes cancer and Z exercise is the best for fat loss. New research is always popping up to help us understand how our bodies work and which techniques and supplements can help us get there.
Everyone likes to act like an expert when it comes to health and nutrition. Coworkers gossip about the latest diet trend and your friends engage in bottomless apps and drinks to “treat themselves” on cheat day. Whether your goal is to hone in on your nutrition to promote fat loss, or push yourself harder in the weight room, it’s important to know the facts on how our bodies respond to certain exercises and foods.
I am by no means an expert in health and nutrition, but I do have years of experience and continuously read up on the latest news to stay informed. I’d never post anything to this blog that wasn’t researched or proved through my own experiences.
I took the fitness industry’s most common myths and am debunking them for you to set the record straight! If you’re ready to start seeing results, be sure to read up and avoid letting these myths distract your efforts.
Myth #1: Lifting weight will make you bulk up
Do we think that powerlifters gained their muscle overnight? NOO. It takes hard work, dedication and inline nutrition to bulk. You lifting 10 pound weights at the gym will not cause your body to lose it’s hourglass curve.
If you are trying to lose fat or drop the number on the scale, weight lifting should become your best friend. And don’t be afraid to increase your weight and push yourself to full on muscle fatigue.
The truth is, the more muscle your body has, the more calories you are burning at rest and while recovering from your workouts, aka the more fat or weight you can burn without any additional efforts. SIGN ME UP! Why do you think these bodybuilders eat an insane amount of calories and continue to look shredded? It’s not because they did endless hours of cardio…
Women especially have a hard time “bulking up.” The hormone testosterone is what creates muscle in the body, and since we have much less of it than men, we tend to carry more fat on our bodies and struggle to tone up. Don’t fear the weight room, it will only make you stronger and leaner!
Myth #2: You can erase bad eating habits at the gym
We’ve all been there and thought to ourselves after eating a heavy meal out or binge drinking throughout the night, “tomorrow I’ll hit the gym twice as hard.” The truth is, one intense workout will not balance out your poor eating. It’s all about your habits over time. If you are continuously overeating pizza and burgers, you won’t see results in the gym, even if you’re working out for hours on end (which is not healthy either).
Lean bodies are made in the kitchen. That’s why it’s so hard to succeed. If we only had to get ourselves to the gym for an hour every day to have those six pack abs, we would all be super-fit. But it’s much harder than that. You have to keep your nutrition in line, maybe say no to the office chocolates or second round of drinks at happy hour.
If you have a bad eating day, let it go. It happens and we are only human. As long as you are staying consistent over long periods of time, you have nothing to worry about. One pint of ice cream or bag of Twizzlers will not ruin your months or years of hard work.
Myth #3: “I want to tone up”
Let’s set the record straight. When people say they want to “tone up,” they really mean they want to lower their body fat and/or drop their weight. This terminology is all over the fitness industry, but it’s an incorrect phrase.
Being “tone” just means you want to see more defined muscles and less flab, but to do that you have to increase the intensity of your weight lifting and cardio workouts, and clean up your meals.
AKA Tone = Strong 💪🏼
Myth #4: Lower weight and higher reps will help tone
Referring back to the last myth, toning means you essentially want to drop body fat. But if this is your goal, the focus needs to be pushing your body to exertion and muscle fatigue.
Lifting heavy weights will help build strength and maintain the muscle you have while losing fat, or “toning.” If you prefer doing lower weight and higher reps, work these exercises in a circuit routine. This means stack 3+ exercises in a row and work through them without little to no rest.
If you’re not feeling the burn, it’s NOT working. Your lifting workouts should not be easy — you should struggle to get the last few reps in. Keep pushing though, you can do it!
Myth #5: More cardio = more weight loss
This is such a common myth and I hear it from friends and family all the time. Doing more cardio does not translate into more fat loss, rather doing too much cardio can negatively impact weight loss.
Doing too much long-form cardio can be counterproductive to weight loss. This type of workout puts your body in catabolic, which is the process of breaking down muscle tissues, and increases the stress hormone cortisol in the body.
Don’t get me wrong, cardio is amazing for your overall health. It reduces the risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, some cancers, depression, and it strengthens your muscles and bones, among other benefits.
Find balance with cardio in your workout routine to see the best results possible. Try strength training and HIIT workouts for faster, more efficient results.
Myth #6: You can turn fat into muscle
People that have excess body fat often hope their workouts transform their fat into muscle. But this isn’t possible. It can not go from one form to another.
Muscle and fat are two different types of tissue, so one can not simply change into the other. You have to lose fat, then gain muscle, but not simultaneously. To lose fat, you’ll need to be in a caloric deficit, while gaining muscle requires a calorie surplus. Take one challenge at a time.
Although if you increase your strength training, your body will burn more calories and fat, causing weight loss. It’s a tricky thing, but you have to figure out which goal you’ll tackle first, accomplish one then transition to the other.
Myth #7: Workouts should be an hour or longer
This completely depends on the person. Some people, myself included, try and go to the gym for about an hour. Sometimes I end up being there a little longer, other days shorter.
To decide how long you should stay is dependent on the type of workout you are doing. You can’t run on and off sprints for an hour straight, but you can weight lift for over an hour with adequate breaks.
If you are looking for a short, efficient workout, try HIIT styled circuit workouts to get your heart rate up, while letting it drop, then ramping up again. This up and down increases your calorie burn and makes for a more efficient workout. HIIT workouts can be as short as 10 minutes and go up to an hour. The intensity of the session will be dependent on how long you can go for.
Don’t feel obligated to stay at the gym for an hour if you feel like you’ve gotten a good workout in! Sometimes you have to get in and get out quick, and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean your workout wasn’t effective!
Myth #8: Intermittent fasting makes you lose weight
This can come off wrong, so let me explain. YES intermittent fasting can help you lose fat but not on its own.
Intermittent fasting is an alternating cycle between eating and fasting windows. Instead of the traditional fasting where you would not eat for 24 hours, intermittent fasting allows you to eat for 8 hours or so a day. The most common form is fasting for 16 hours and eating for 8 hours, and the time of day can vary depending on your preferences.
The reason this works so well is it gives people a shorter eating window so they may eat less calories than if they allowed themselves to eat all day.
But at the end of the day, the only way to lose weight is to take in less calories than you are burning. That said, you can’t eat whatever you want in your eating window and expect to slim down. If you are eating in a caloric deficit and eating healthy, intermittent fasting could help fuel your weight loss.
Myth #9: You can target specific areas for fat burn with specific exercises
This is one myth I really wish was true, but unfortunately, it’s not. You can not target specific areas of the body for fat loss by doing specific exercises.
Why isn’t this possible? The fat in your cells are stored as triglycerides which are used for energy. To be used for energy, these fat cells much be broken down into small versions of free fatty acids and glycerol, which then enter the bloodstream. While you are working, the free fatty acids and glycerol that your body is using for fuel can come from anywhere in the body, not just the specific area being worked on.
Myth #10: Always eat before a workout
This is really dependent on your preference and the time of day you are working out. Regardless, you won’t want to eat a big meal before hitting the gym. Something on the lighter side like a protein bar, yogurt, toast with nut butter or an apple will suffice.
There’s a lot of conflicting research out there on this topic. At the end of the day, I think you can do whatever feels best for you.
For me, I normally do not eat breakfast before going to the gym since I go as soon as I wake up. If I wake up and feel extremely hungry, I may reach for a half of protein bar or a handful of almonds to get me through the workout. But if I’m going on a long run, I know I need to fuel beforehand.
If you notice yourself feeling sluggish at the gym regularly, try fueling before you go. The extra calories may be the extra boost you need to push through those last couple of miles or reps.
Myth #11: No pain, no gain
We hear this phrase all the time, but it’s not necessarily true.
Being sore after a workout really means your muscles are experiencing delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS. AKA when you feel the pain two days after leg day that is worse than the day after. Soreness is caused by tiny microscopic tears in the muscle tissue resulting in inflammation.
Not only does excess soreness not correlate to a harder workout, it can prevent you for reaching your goals. If your legs are sore for 3+ days, you won’t be able to get in other workouts that require those muscles. These are the times you’ll find yourself skipping the gym and resting. Rest is good but not at the cost of overexerting your muscles.
To prevent extreme soreness, find out what your body can tolerate and aim for a little soreness with every workout. But don’t push yourself so hard that you can’t walk the next day. This is something that commonly happens to me and that I’m trying to work on to find a healthy medium. Some days I leave the gym knowing I’ll be really sore the next day, while other times I’m surprised the next morning when I wake up.
Bottom line, you can have a good workout without feeling like your arms are going to fall off. As long as you are pushing yourself in your workouts, you are doing great!
Myth #12: You can’t workout when you are sick
The type of sickness you have depends on whether or not you can workout. But just because you aren’t feeling 100%, doesn’t mean you have to bail.
A good rule of thumb: If your symptoms are above the neck, like a sore throat, nasal congestion or sneezing, then it’s okay to exercise. But if you are experiencing symptoms below the neck like coughing, body aches, fever and fatigue, stay home.
At the end of the day, you have to listen to your body. If you really don’t think you can get a workout in, take a rest. If you decide to hit the gym, take it easy and don’t over exert yourself and make your symptoms worse.
Myth #13: Sweating means you worked your booty off
No. Sweating does not correlate to calorie or fat burn. Sweat is your body’s way of cooling you down. So when you are sweating, your body is trying to maintain your internal temperature.
Instead of focusing on how much sweat you have dripping from your face post workout, look at how your body feels after that workout. Or look at the weight you hit during your deadlifts or the distance you ran. Don’t let sweat determine if you had a good workout or not.
Myth #14: You should workout everyday
Although exercise is great for our bodies, over straining our muscles is not. Overexercising can cause issues with our hearts, tendons, ligaments, and immune systems, and even our brains.
You have to take breaks and let your body recover. Proper rest is just as important as the workouts themselves, and not getting enough could be hindering your results.
Myth #15: Cardio kills your muscle gains
Not necessarily. If you are keeping the intensity high during your cardio workouts, you man be gaining muscle mass rather than deteriorating it. Going for forms of HIIT cardio, like rolling hills or sprints, are efficient and effective for fat loss and gaining muscle.
But if you are sticking to long form running, you likely aren’t building muscle. Look at Olympic runners — they are usually very slim people, but they don’t have a lot of muscle to them.
So if you are doing intense forms of cardio, you won’t kill your muscle gains.
So now that we’ve set the record straight on these gym myths, stop believing them! I hope this post helped educate and motivate you to get you one step closer to fine-tuning your routine and crushing your goals!