Carbohydrates are fattening. I have to sweat to get thin. If I don’t have pains and aches the following day, does that mean that I haven’t done a good enough work out? I am confronted with these and other such questions on a daily basis by my clients and friends. So, because of this, in this post, I am going to try and dispel some of the myths which surround the world of fitness. This should allow you to continue doing your activities in a correct and healthy manner, without worrying about such myths. After all, sport shouldn’t be a fashion, it should be a lifestyle which lasts forever. And you should begin to practice starting from TODAY!!
Do these myths ring a bell?
1. MUSCLE CHANGES INTO FAT AND VICE VERSA
Each tissue is totally independent, one has nothing to do with the other therefore fat doesn’t convert into muscle and vice-versa. MUSCLE are all made of the same material, a type of elastic tissue and FAT is divided in two types: nom fat mass (is the essential fat that we need in our body to function normally (located in our bones, liver, kidneys...)) and fat mass (is the stored fat located in our adipose tissue). So you can see that both of them are totally different things so it’s impossible to turn muscle into fat and viceverse.
2. IF I DO CARDIO, I WILL LOSE MORE MUSCLE
We should do cardio training, but so that this doesn’t affect muscle loss directly, you should combine it with strength training and a good diet which suits your needs. To don’t loose your muscles you need to check how to do the cardio, taking care of the frequency, duration, intensity, cardio type, before or after the strength training…if you do it in the right way shouldn’t be a problem regarding muscle loss, the opposite should be a helper to define much more your muscles.
3. EATING MORE FREQUENTLY INCREASES YOUR METABOLISM
Eating more frequently doesn’t increase your metabolism as energy is spent digesting food calories, regardless of when they are eaten. In other words, if you eat the same quantity of food in five meals, in the end the calories consumed are the same amount. Remember, doesn’t matter if you eat 5 times or 3 times per day, the most important is the total calories that you will finish eating at the end of the day.
4. YOU HAVE TO DO REPETITIONS TO TONE UP
The goal of toning up is to maintain our maximum muscular mass and this can be achieved by any number of series of repetitions you need to play with the weight that you want to move in this repetitions, with the resting time in between them, with the number of exercises, with the type of exercises…
5. SWEATING IS THE SAME AS LOSING FAT
Sweating is the synonymous with dehydration, so you are not losing fat when you are sweating, you are losing water. It is not advisable to use strategies to sweat (they are not heathy at all) because to sweat is a natural temperature regulation system of our body. If you want to loss fat, do a good strength workout together with a good food intake and if you want to lose weight, eat less calories than you burn being in a caloric deficit.
6. TRAINING MORE IS ALWAYS BETTER
In training, more is not better, as we have to maintain the volume of training optimum- adequate and if we exceed this volume, we don’t recover as well. We need to rest giving time to the muscles to recover to avoid muscle overload and future injures.
7. YOU CAN LOSE LOCALISED FAT
No matter how much exercise you do for a particular area of your body, you can’t lose this localised fat as our body works as “a whole outfit” when it comes to losing body fat. So concentrate in a good sessions of full body strength training and the fat loss it will come soon (be patient and eat well, it will help to loss the fat faster).
8. CARBOHYDRATES ARE FATTENING
What makes us fat is the excess of total calories in our body. It’s basic maths, if you ingest more calories than you burn, in the end you will put on weight (it doesn’t matter what you are eating, carbohydrates or apples). It’s a simple maths so if you feel to eat carbs any time of the day, is fine, just check the total amount of calories that at the end of the day your are eating and enjoy the food!!!
9. IF I DON’T HAVE ACHES AND PAINS THE NEXT DAY DOESN’T MEAN I HAVE DONE A GOOD WORK OUT
This isn’t true as aches and pains is a sign that you have overworked a certain muscular area or because you have worked out areas that you don’t work normally. However, it has nothing to do with whether you have trained well or badly. Imaging for the professionals athletics that they train 2 or more times per day, every day…are they in constantly sore pain?
10. IF THE TRAINING DOESN’T HURT, IT’S NOT WORKING
This is completely false as the pain during a workout depends on the tolerance you have to lactic acid and how you adapt to training. There are not studies that confirm that the pain is related with the muscle growth so when you train, try to move the right weight for you and to enjoy as much as you can the workout.
These are some of the most common myths which people create about fitness, especially those which I’ve mentioned, which are linked to food and training. What about you? Which one did you believe? Have you demystified any of these myths now?
Carla Pregigueiro xxx