It’s not your fault….seriously. There is SO much misinformation out there, no wonder you’re confused as to what to do and how to reach your fitness and fat loss goals.

With that in mind, here are 10 common myths de-mystified:

Myth #1 –You need a gym membership to have effective workouts.

Have you noticed that most of the equipment in a gym involves a seat? In fact, for many of the exercises you remain in a seated position for the entire exercise. Most of these machines require that you isolate small muscles and disengage all others. Is this the most metabolically challenging way to tax your body? How much do you think you engage your core muscles when you only work isolated areas of your body? Compound (multi joint) exercises including callisthenic exercises can be just as effective or more effective in helping you reach your fitness and fat loss goal.

Myth #2 – You need to buy expensive equipment to exercise at home.

Save your money and don’t invest in a treadmill or an elaborate home gym. You’d be surprised at how intense you can train with your body weight alone, light dumb bells, a skipping rope and a stop watch or timer. Lots of folks like to throw money at a problem (fitness and fat loss can sometimes be viewed that way…), when these pieces of equipment are not only unnecessary, they can be a waste of time, space and money.

Myth #3 – Do long slow cardio exercise for best fat burning results.

It is true that your body will use a greater percentage of fat as an energy source when doing low intensity cardio exercise, but the fact is, your body will burn more total calories when you do higher intensity exercise. In the end, you’re looking to burn more total calories and have an elevated metabolism so that you continue to burn more calories even after you’re done exercising. So your best bet for fat burning is HIIT, or high intensity interval training.

Myth #4 – Crunches are your best exercise to tighten and tone your midsection

Basically you can do crunches till the cows come home (honestly, I don’t even know where that saying came from…) but you’ll never get a six pack by doing them. And don’t let anyone tell you differently. In order to see your abs, you need to whittle away the fat around the middle with metabolically challenging full body exercises. And your best abdominal exercise includes plank-type exercises, NOT crunches.

Myth #5 – Cut out carbs to lose fat.

Sadly many are risking their health by cutting carbohydrates from their diets. One of the reasons this method seems so ‘successful’ is that there’s an immediate weight loss due to water loss with decreased carb consumption. This is NOT lasting weight loss. Not only will you be missing out on important nutrients with this method of weight loss, it almost always results in a rebound weight gain once you start to consume carbohydrates again.

Myth #6 – It doesn’t matter the times you eat, it’s the TOTAL amount of calories consumed that counts.

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Your body needs to be fed at regular intervals. When you nourish it with 5-6 meals or snacks per day, your body responds by using those calories for energy. It will even tap into fat stores when it needs more energy. If you don’t eat all day, then chow down at night, your body will be more likely to store the calories consumed. Your body will think it’s in starvation mode and will lower your metabolism to conserve energy and brace for the famine. You won’t feel energized and will be less likely to expend the same amount of energy. Regardless of whether you consume the same overall calories in 5-6 meals/day or one meal a day, your best bet for fat loss is to eat more often.

Myth #7 – Workout longer for more calorie burning.

Studies have proven time and again that it’s not workout length that’s your primary concern, its workout intensity. As well, there’s a little something called “EPOC” or post excess post exercise oxygen consumption that occurs with high intensity workouts. You can actually elevate your metabolism for up to 48 hours after your workout so that you continue to burn calories even after you stop exercising. So drop the marathon barely-break-a-sweat workouts and opt for short intense workouts for maximum fat burning.

Myth #8 – I don’t have time to exercise.

You’d be surprised how far 15-20 minutes of intense working out can go to improve your fitness level and burn fat. In fat, with HIIT, or high intensity interval training, you can’t go much longer than 15-20 to have an effective workout (refer to myth #7). I challenge anyone who says that they can’t find 20 minutes in their day to exercise. Clearly priorities need to be evaluated if this is the case. As the saying goes: would you prefer to schedule in exercise 20 minutes a day or being dead 24 hours a day?

Myth #9 – I turned 40 and my metabolism tanked!

Trust me, I’m almost 50 and I haven’t experienced this tanking metabolism. The reason for this is because I’ve included some kind of resistance training in my program for years. You need to maintain or possibly increase the muscle on your body, and no, you won’t look like a bulky football player. Muscle is metabolically active tissue that burns more calories even at rest, so I say, bring on the muscle! Plus, muscle is more dense than fat meaning that it takes up less space, so your pants fit better!

Myth #10 – My knees are too sore to exercise.

If you’re experiencing sore knees or any joint for that matter, it’s all the more reason to find some kind of exercise to alleviate the pain and prevent more of where that’s coming from. Your body was born to move and actually being sedentary is killing it. Your joints need to be strengthened by the musculature surrounding that joint. The less muscle surrounding the joint, the less support you have and the more unstable you become. It’s a slippery slope to the wheelchair with this attitude. On the other hand, the more you move, the more synovial fluid ‘greasing’ the joints, the more muscle built to provide stability. See how you can turn this around? The key is finding the appropriate movements and exercise that’s appropriate to you and your issues. Seek out professionals that can get your started. I can help you once you know what your issues are, but I’m not a medical doctor and neither are you: get checked out by a sports minded health practitioner.

There you have 10 myths busted. Your best line of defense against that inner tube around your middle is education.

I’m not a rocket scientist but I’ve figured out the formula. If you want to save time and energy, tap into my years of experience and let me help you too. You can check out my program Female Fat Loss Over 40, or my Virtual Fat Furnace and avoid all the above mistakes…

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This entry was posted on May 2, 2011 at 3:20 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Posted in Mindset by Shawna 2 Comments