Week 6 of Body Recomp – Fitness Myths That May Be Holding You Back
| What are Myths and Why Do We Believe In Them? Myths in the context of this article are conceptualized as misinformation, misconceptions, false beliefs, or erroneous claims. Myths can be found in virtually every field. Sometimes myths can be relatively harmless, while other times they lead to bad decisions and negative consequences. Why do people so easily believe false things? There are probably as many answers to this question as there are people who have ever believed falsehoods. Nonetheless, psychologists have shown that a relatively small set of cognitive biases or mental shortcuts can explain a lot about how false notions take root. One of the most agreed-upon ideas in the field of psychology is that people routinely use mental shortcuts to understand what happens around them. All kinds of things occur in the world around us, and we don’t always have the time or energy to sit down and carefully examine all of them. So, we tend to use quick and largely unconscious rules-of-thumb to determine what we should believe—and these shortcuts sometimes steer us in the wrong direction. |
| FACT vs FICTION There are many fitness myths out there that can prevent you from achieving your fitness goals. It’s important to separate fact from fiction to ensure that you’re not wasting your time and effort on ineffective exercises or diets. In week 6 of our Body Recomp Challenge, we will debunk some of the most common fitness myths. Misleading fitness myths can hold you back and lead to frustration and disappointment when results don’t align. To avoid such setbacks, it’s crucial to understand the truth about fitness and set realistic expectations. School yourself on the truth now, so your gullibility doesn’t impact your fitness progress moving forward. It’s time to separate fact from fiction and debunk these common fitness myths. Let’s breakdown the fitness myths into 3 sections: *Fitness myths about your training *Fitness myths about your nutrition *Fitness myths about your metabolism |
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| Fitness Myths Busted- TRAINING MYTH: Heavy weights will make you bulky. 🏋️♂️ TRUTH: Lifting heavy weights is the best way to get lean. Lifting heavy weights will not make you bulky, especially if you’re female. Testosterone is one of the main hormones involved in muscle growth, and women simply don’t have as much of this as men do. Muscle growth is hard. It takes months to years of following a structured training program, performing the exercises in that program correctly and progressively overloading, in order to grow a significant amount of muscle. If you start weight training and feel like your pants are tighter, then it’s because you’re eating too much food and gaining fat. You might be gaining some muscle, but this takes up less room than fat does, so it will actually make you tighter, not bulky. MYTH: The burn you feel in your muscles is fat burning. 🔥 TRUTH: You can’t feel fat being burned. Even if you feel like your fat is burning from a particular area, it’s not actually fat being burned. When your muscles can’t get enough oxygen to make energy, they produce lactic acid instead. It’s the build up of lactic acid which results in that burning sensation. One of the most common mistakes people make is doing ab exercises to lose their belly fat. You cannot spot reduce fat. Doing certain exercises to lose fat from that area won’t work. MYTH: The more sweaty you get the more fat you’ll burn. 😅 TRUTH: You don’t need to do cardio in order to lose fat. Sweat is simply a mechanism your body uses to keep its temperature stable. It has no association with fat burning and isn’t a sign that your workout has been effective. If you’re working out to sweat, you’re probably not getting the most out of your time in the hot room or gym, especially if fat loss or muscle gain is the goal. If you sweat a lot during a workout and notice that your weight goes down, it just means you’ve lost water. It’s not fat. MYTH: Sore muscles indicate you’ve had a good workout. 👎 TRUTH: You don’t need to feel sore after a workout in order for it to have been effective. Muscle soreness can indicate that you haven’t used those muscles for a long time (or at all). You’ll also be more sore after a workout that includes lots of eccentrically loaded exercises, or when you’ve increased the intensity or volume. Muscle soreness doesn’t indicate that your workout was effective. In fact, too much soreness can be a bad thing as it impacts your performance in your future workouts, which could impact your results. Some soreness is normal but you want to make sure you’re balancing your training volume with enough recovery time so that you can get the most out of your workouts. MYTH: You need to do cardio for fat loss. 🏃♂️🏃♀️🏃♂️ TRUTH: You only need a calorie deficit for fat loss. While cardio is an effective way to burn calories, it’s not best way to burn fat. Resistance training, such as weightlifting, helps you burn fat by increasing your muscle mass and metabolism. The more muscle you have, the more calories your body is going to burn, especially during cardio. Workouts including HIIT, running, or cycling are also great for burning fat. In fact, a combination of cardio and resistance training is the most effective way to burn fat and build muscle, but remember, you can’t “outrun” a bad diet! MYTH: Weight training converts fat to muscle. 💪 TRUTH: Your body can’t turn fat into muscle. There are a number of biochemical reactions that take place in order for fat to be broken down in the body, or for muscle to be synthesized. Fat doesn’t simply turn into muscle from weight training- this is impossible. Your body can use fat for energy, but in order to make muscle it needs to be getting adequate protein from your diet. Muscle tissue is made up of amino acids which are composed of the elements Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. Fat is made up of triglycerides which is made up of Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen, but not Nitrogen. There’s no pathway in the body that converts triglycerides into amino acids to synthesize new muscle. That’s why it’s essential to get enough protein in your diet if you want to build muscle. MYTH: Your muscles turn into fat if you don’t use them. 🧈 TRUTH: Your body can’t turn muscle into fat. Your muscles don’t turn into fat from lack of use. If you stop using them, they atrophy and the area may feel softer but it’s not because it has turned into fat. Fat and muscle are separate tissues. MYTH: Working out 6 days a week is better than 3 days. 🤷♂️ TRUTH: It depends on your lifestyle and experience! If you’re an advanced lifter, then 3 days a week might not be enough time to get all the training volume you need to stimulate your muscles enough to grow. If you’re a beginner or even intermediate lifter, 3 days can be enough. If you’re super busy and don’t have time to get to the gym 6 days a week, you’re better off doing 3 good workouts consistently each week, than trying to do more and becoming inconsistent (skipping workouts or doing them half-assed). When it comes to high frequency training, you want to make sure your training split is spread out in a way that allows each muscle group to recover properly, while also stimulating the muscles enough throughout the week (more than once a week is better for muscle growth). MYTH: For best results, your workouts should last for an hour or more. ⏰ TRUTH: It’s not about time, it’s about effort in that time. For best results, you need to train with enough effort. If you can workout for more than an hour, you probably haven’t been pushing yourself hard enough. You likely could have used a heavier weight or have done a harder exercise. Unless you’re a powerlifter and need to be taking 5+ minutes of rest between sets, 30-60 minutes is plenty of time to have an effective workout. |
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| Fitness Myths Busted- NUTRITION MYTH: Too many carbs will make you fat. 🍞🥨🍝 TRUTH: No food on its own will make you fat. Eating too much food for your daily energy needs will make you fat. This doesn’t happen overnight. It happens from weeks and months of giving your body too much energy in the form of food. The energy has to go somewhere. If it can’t be used, it’s stored as fat. When it comes to fat loss, you need to make sure you’re eating less energy than your body needs so then it has to use the stored energy (your body fat) for fuel. Carbs are not essential for the body but they are optimal, especially if you want to be happy, build muscle/ strength and sleep well. And they won’t make you fat so you can enjoy them guilt free! MYTH: Fat will make you fat.🐷TRUTH: Fat does not make you fat. We gain weight when we eat in excess of our needs, whether the excess comes from protein, carbohydrates, or fats. From a weight management standpoint, fat makes food taste good. When we eat it, we feel more satiated and wind up craving and eating less food later on. In fact, getting adequate amounts of healthy fats in your diet may make managing your weight easier. Unlike carbs, fat is essential for the body so you want to make sure you’re eating enough. From a health and wellness standpoint, fat is needed to help our bodies absorb certain fat-soluble vitamins, including vitamins A, D, E, and K. In the brain, fat stimulates the creation of new brain cells and improves our memory. Fat is critical for reproductive health in men and women because it is used to both produce and balance our hormones. MYTH: Apple cider vinegar will help you burn stubborn fat. 🍎TRUTH: You probably don’t have to worry about stubborn fat yet. Stubborn fat is stubborn because certain fat cells in the body are easier to metabolize fatty acids out of than others. In order for fat to be used for energy by the body, it must first be metabolized out of the cell it’s stored in. If you are eating in a calorie deficit, the body will take the fat from the cells where fat is easily available first. It will take it from the “stubborn” cells last. To lose stubborn fat, you have to first lose fat from all over your body. Stubborn fat is only really an issue if you’re already lean. Otherwise, a calorie deficit is all you need. MYTH: Sugar is bad for you. 🍪🍩🍭 TRUTH: Anything can be bad for you in the wrong quantity. You’ve probably heard over and over again about how we should all be eating less sugar. But what experts really mean is that we should be eating less added sugar. That’s the additional sugar in foods to make them taste sweet(er) — like the brown sugar in chocolate chip cookies or the honey you drizzle on your yogurt. The truth is that the human body needs sugar (glucose) for energy, and natural sugars found in fruits, vegetables, grains, and milk (and milk alternatives) are an important part of a balanced diet. Ultimately, your body doesn’t need sugar. So having less is better, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have any at all. It’s all about — you guessed it — moderation! When you see food as good or bad, you’re more likely to binge or overeat the bad foods when you can’t control your emotions. Or, you’ll feel guilty after eating something rather than just enjoying the moment. Stop seeing food as good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. It’s not helping you. MYTH: Eating more protein will give you bigger muscles. 🥩 TRUTH: You have to do a lot more than eat enough protein to build muscle. Yes protein is necessary to ensure you have the amino acids required to build muscle tissue, but unless you’re also providing a stimulus to the muscle to grow, it won’t. To grow muscle, you should be following a structured training program and focusing on progressive overload. Even then, muscle growth is slow. Eating extra protein won’t speed this up and it definitely won’t cause your muscles to get big. MYTH: Brown rice is better for you than white rice. 🍚 TRUTH: It depends! There is an argument for and against both brown rice and white rice. For example, brown rice contains anti-nutrients which can prevent the absorption of other nutrients by the body. It’s also more difficult to digest. If you have a leaky gut or some kind of digestive issue, then white rice could be better for you. Overall, eat what you like the taste of better and what makes you feel good after eating it. Both have similar calories. As long as you can fit it into your calorie needs, it doesn’t matter which one you choose. This applies to most foods. There is a good and bad side to anything, and what is “better” for you will depend on a number of factors. MYTH: Eating clean is the key for weight loss. 🥗TRUTH: Clean eating could be detrimental for weight loss. If your diet is so restrictive that you only allow yourself to eat “clean” foods, you create a need to binge or overeat “treat” foods when you’ve had a bad day or when you can’t handle your cravings. For weight loss, you need to be eating in a calorie deficit. It doesn’t matter how clean you eat, if you’re eating too much food you won’t lose weight. MYTH: Supplements are the key for fat loss. 💊💊💊 TRUTH: Supplements may assist in fat loss but are not necessary. You can take all the supplements you want- if you’re eating too much food, you won’t lose fat. Supplements like protein powder can help you get more protein in your diet and assist with fat loss that way. But you don’t need supplements for fat loss and most of them are a waste of money. |
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| Fitness Myths Busted- METABOLISM MYTH: Your metabolism speeds up when you have more muscle. 🎢 TRUTH: Muscle only burns a tiny bit more energy than fat. Your metabolism increases when your weight increases- whether that’s from fat or muscle. It simply costs more energy to run a bigger body than a smaller one. If you gain fat, your metabolism will increase, and if you gain muscle it will increase. The benefit of gaining muscle and not fat should be obvious. Muscle is denser than fat, so it takes up less space for the same amount of weight. Yes a pound of fat and a pound of muscle weigh the same. A person with more muscle on them may look leaner, even if they weigh the same as someone who has less muscle (but more fat). Bottom line, building muscle will help you look better and will help you increase your energy requirements. But it isn’t because muscle burns a lot more energy than fat. A muscle cell only burns a tiny bit more energy than a fat cell. It’s not a significant enough difference to increase your energy needs by that much if you just replace muscle with fat without gaining weight. MYTH: Eating 6 meals a day will help to speed up your metabolism. 🌮🥜🍲🥙🍿🍔 TRUTH: Eating more frequently could be making you fat. It costs energy to digest and absorb the food you eat, but it’s such a small component of your total daily energy expenditure that eating more frequently won’t make much of a difference to your overall energy needs, or your rate of fat loss. If you like eating 6 meals a day you can do that and lose fat, as long as you are eating in a calorie deficit. Sometimes, eating many small meals that don’t fill you up properly is worse for fat loss because you end up in a state where you always want more food or are constantly thinking about when you can have another snack. If this is you, eating 2-3 larger meals that fill you up, can help you avoid the need to snack or think about food. This can help you stick within your calorie requirements more easily too. MYTH: Not eating enough will damage your metabolism. 😵 TRUTH: You can’t damage your metabolism. Not eating enough will cause your metabolism to adapt to the smaller amount of food you’re eating. This isn’t permanent and you can build your metabolism back up to where your true total daily energy expenditure should be based on your body weight and activity level. MYTH: You need to eat breakfast to boost your metabolism. 🥯 TRUTH: Breakfast is not the most important meal of the day. You don’t need to eat anything in the morning if you don’t want to. Breakfast won’t speed up or kickstart your metabolism. Fasting in the morning won’t damage your metabolism or make it slower. Your metabolism is always working regardless of when you eat. If you believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day, you need to question where this belief comes from. Often it’s because you like eating breakfast and don’t want to give it up- that’s fine. MYTH: It’s harder to lose fat as you age because your metabolism slows down. 🐌 TRUTH: Your age is just an excuse for not being able to lose fat. Your metabolism naturally slows down a tiny bit as you age but not enough to make a significant difference to your body weight, as long as you stay active and maintain your muscle mass. What usually happens with age, is you move less and stop using your muscles as much causing them to atrophy. This is how your metabolism “slows down” significantly. It’s not from your age. No matter how old you are, you can lose fat. Your age isn’t to blame for your weight gain. |
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| Drum roll please for the BIGGEST Myth of all…NO PAIN, NO GAIN!!! Truth: In physical fitness, “No Pain, No Gain” is both a truth and a myth Whether you see it is as proverb, motto, idiom, or mantra… No pain, no gain is a difficult truth we’d rather ignore. Yet it holds true to an extent. You cannot make any gains without giving your body some stimulus to change. Your workout (the pain) is that stimulus. Too little stimulus and you don’t gain very much, if anything. True. You can’t improve by staying in your comfort zone. You have to keep pushing yourself to improve. The pain should of course be good pain (delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), fatigue, psychological pain of wanting to stop, etc.), not the pain of injury. While feeling uncomfortable during a workout is normal, feeling pain is not. Many athletes live by the “no pain, no gain” motto, but pain is the way your body tells you that something is wrong. If you start to feel pain during a workout, stop immediately. If you continue to push through it, you could end up with a serious injury. It holds true in the sense that pushing beyond comfort zones is essential for growth in strength, endurance and overall fitness. However, it becomes a myth when interpreted to mean that pain should be the goal or that all pain is a sign of progress. The most effective fitness journey is one that challenges the body and mind, but also respects the need for recovery and enjoyment. |
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| Final Words… If something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Fitness myths are widespread. Some have been around for many decades, while others have sprung up recently through social media. Some myths may seem harmless, while others can lead to dangerous consequences, hindering progress, causing injuries, and negatively impacting health and the enjoyment of exercise. Transforming your body takes effort. Do your own research on everything! Fitness myths and diet trends will continue to keep popping up, but you don’t have to keep trying them. ConclusionTrust the Science! It’s easy to be swayed by the latest diet trends or celebrity-endorsed health tips, but it’s essential to approach your fitness journey with a critical eye. Rather than falling for myths and misinformation, look for recommendations based on research evidence and rely on credible sources as your health can be controlled with simple proper diet and exercise. |
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| Disclaimer: As always, please consult with a healthcare provider before beginning any new exercise program. The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives. |