3 Popular Fitness Half-Truths You Need to Know About
(~1000w, 2nd person, Casual/Informative/Educational)
One of the hardest parts of staying fit is separating fact from fiction.
Every trainer, coach, and nutritionist may offer different advice, some of it confusing or even conflicting.
You know those diet pills aren’t the magic door to six pack abs – it’s a falsehood. You know water is the best thing you can drink – that’s wellness 101. But what about the countless concepts that fall somewhere in between?
One reason for the wide array of information and frequent disagreements is that a lot of fitness advice isn’t a flat out lie or an empirical fact. Instead, they’re often half-truths, which make more sense in context and with a little added clarification. Let’s explore three of the most common, which could be impacting your health and wellness.
1. Target Fatty Areas of the Body with Specific Exercises
This one is common for anyone carrying excess body fat. Our bodies store fat in different places, and sometimes those places can become problem areas.
The logic is simple. If you have a fatty midsection, arms, or ankles, simply crunch the fat away through exercise. The muscles you build there will force the fat away, in your body’s natural fat-cutting process. Right? Not exactly.
The body loses weight as a single unit. When you lose weight, it comes off everywhere from head to toe. Working out one area of the body won’t make that fat fall away any faster. It may actually tone your muscles up there, potentially adding size – in the short term.
When you eat carbs, your body transforms them into glycogen. Some goes to your liver, others go to refill the glycogen stores in your muscles which empty as you work out. The leftovers are stored as fat.
So when you have larger muscles, your stores are bigger, meaning less fat will be stored. While you can’t guarantee your body will stop storing fat in your problem areas first, it is fair to say firm mass looks better than flabby mass. A little muscle training can be a nice way to get a head start on a leaner, lighter body, so long as you don’t work out so hard you greatly increase your appetite. Speaking of…
2. To Be Healthy, Just Stay Below Your Calorie Level
We’ve all heard the common formula – to lose that weight, all we have to do is consume fewer calories than we burn.
There are plenty of calculators out there you can use to find this magic number based on your age, weight, and activity level. Stay below it, and you’re at a healthy weight.
Could it really be this simple? Yes – for a healthy weight.
But remember – weight isn’t everything. While being overweight stresses your joints and circulatory systems, staying at your calorie level by eating junk food all day poses problems as well.
Unless your calories are coming from foods that give you essential vitamins and minerals, you’re robbing your body of what it needs to function. When I say function, I’m saying it needs these healthy foods to maintain steady processes like a proper heart rate, and to protect you by healing or fighting off diseases.
There are plenty of apps out there that suggest healthy recipes, and you should also get input from your doctor or trainer about the best meal plan. In addition, don’t be afraid to experiment and try foods for the first time.
Healthier foods often have fewer calories than junk snacks and sweets, meaning you can eat more and feel fuller while still keeping below your calorie limit. Even better? Some studies suggest the more healthy food you eat, the more you train your brain to crave it over the unhealthy things you used to eat.
3. Committing 100% to a Healthy Lifestyle is the Only Way to Succeed
Training your brain to focus on wellness is helpful, because half of staying physically fit is the mental aspect.
Diets don’t work in the sense you can’t expect permanent, ongoing results from a temporary change. Wellness is a lifestyle, and it’s one you need to be committed to full-time.
However, hearing wellness described like this makes some people quit before they start. They fear having to give up their favorite foods forever, or sweating daily in the gym. But the 100% commitment part of fitness isn’t as much about being flawless as it is about being mindful.
When you’re conscious of what you eat and how active you are, you take control of your health regardless of what’s going on at that particular moment.
A person who is committed to a healthy lifestyle can absolutely enjoy a treat when out with friends, or pull back training a bit when life gets busy. Remember, the body needs recovery as much as it needs activity.
The only difference between a person who has committed to wellness, is that in these situations, they would log their changes in the back of their mind. I’m splurging at dinner tonight, so maybe I’ll burn a few more calories this week. I’m missing a few gym visits lately, so I’ll try and take walks or maybe do some yoga at home.
These simple adjustments represent the 100% commitment to wellness. We don’t have to completely swear off treats and downtime, we just have to make sure it fits in with the lifestyle as a whole.
Momentum can be a great for helping us stick to our diet and exercise routine. But too much training done and too many treats skipped can cause anyone to burn out. Strive for balance and consistency.
In Conclusion: Fitness is Better in Context
As we can see, much of what we hear repeated in the fitness industry has some truth to it. But, just like fitness itself, you have to view these concepts in their entirety to truly benefit from them.
When we look at the bigger picture of how our body works and what health really means, we see that digging a little deeper and having a solid fitness foundation is the best way to make smart healthy decisions and live a better life.
When you’re looking to get insights about the fitness lifestyle, follow Ice Fitness TV. We provide a wide variety of remote workout sessions, guided healthy shopping and cooking tutorials, plus interviews with a variety of talented minds from the fitness industry. Give us a follow, and you’re entered in a contest to win some cool Ice Fitness TV workout gear.