14 Fitness Myths that Will Make You Question Everything

Have you ever tried digging deeper into what you hear about weight loss? Most of the times, these beliefs come from certain ideas without any strong backup and make a place of their own in people’s mind. You might have already heard of a million of them when it comes to weight loss. You should stop believing them if you wish to unfold your weight-loss potential. Read on to know the actual story.

1. Small Changes take you a Long Way in Weight loss

There are several articles you might have read about weight-loss that suggests small changes in your day-to-day life make you lose weight steadily. Only taking stairs instead of elevator at office or eating less might not help you lose weight for sure as one or two changes will not yield larger benefits. If you are looking for a change in your body, adopt many smaller changes related to your eating habits, rest, physical activity and more.

2. Gym goers Should Increase Protein intake

Even if you are steady gym goer, you don’t need more than the regular amount of protein unless you wish to increase your muscle mass. Moreover, your timing to eat protein also matters when you are looking at the bigger picture of achieving a muscular body.

3. Stop Snacking to Lose weight

The myth goes, snacking is one of the many reasons why you are not losing weight. This holds true only when you are stuffing yourself with high calorie foods including fries, chips, sugary foods and beverages. Snacking is an important part without which we tend to overeat and also become prone to many digestive problems such as acidity, bloating etc. A healthy snacking promotes weight loss if you eat smart by including more of fiber, protein, minerals etc. and this also keeps your untimely cravings at bay.

4. Remove carbs to lose fat

Limiting carbs intake may help lose weight, but eliminating them completely is not advisable. A healthy diet should be a mix of carbs, protein and healthy fats and approximately 50-60 percent of daily calories should come from carbs. There are some carbohydrate-containing foods like non-starchy vegetables like carrots, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, and bell peppers that help in weight loss as they contain less calories and more fiber.

5. Frequent smaller Meals Spike Metabolism

If you have been thinking that frequent smaller meals make you lose weight and increase your metabolism, it’s time you stop believing it. Eating too often has nothing to do with your metabolism. Frequent meals at regular intervals only help you stay away from untimely hunger pangs, digestive issues (longer food intervals cause gastric problems, acidity etc) and overeating. But, this never helps in amplifying metabolic rate or burning more calories.

6. Fruits and Veggies promote Weight Loss

Including fruits and vegetables can accelerate weight loss as they are low in calorie, contain high fiber, and water to keep you fuller for longer, keeping your hunger pangs a bay. But only eating fruits and vegetables doesn’t guarantee drastic weight loss. To lose weight, one needs to adopt healthy eating habits that include more veggies, fruits, and other nutrients and also maintain a regular fitness regimen which determines higher energy expenditure than the intake.

7. Exercise and you can eat anything

Your energy expenditure should be greater than your food intake so that there is a negative energy balance, which means you should burn more calories than you eat. Your diet and workout regimen is inter-linked. There should be a balance between these two so that you are able to maintain a healthy body. Moderation is the key to maintain a healthy lifestyle that leads to a healthy body and mind. Therefore, heavy exercise with poor diet or heavy diet with poor workout regimen will never help you getting the body you want.

8. Fat-Burning Foods help you lose weight

First of all, the term “fat burning foods” is a tad too misnomer. There is no magical food that can melt away the body fat but they can increase satiety level, and ensure less calorie consumption. Moreover, foods with higher thermic effect help the body burn more calories and break them into smaller digestible components. But, as a matter of fact, only eating them doesn’t make anyone lose weight. They might help you control your calories but do not body to burn fat.

9. Protein shake is only For Body builders

True that is, protein is inevitable for people who are planning to gain muscle mass, and strength. But, protein also plays an important role in increasing satiety level and cut down on calorie intake. A healthy diet includes a mix of protein, carbohydrates, and fat. Protein, of course, helps building muscles but people who are following a regular fitness regimen and planning to get a leaner body can also include it in their diet plan.

10. Exercise and diet are the key to weight loss

It cannot be ignored that diet and regular workout play an important role in cutting down your flab but this is not all. Studies have shown that lack of quality sleep makes you gain two times more weight. This results in decreasing the resting energy metabolism, making you prone to food overindulgence, and lessen the number of calories you burn. Moreover, you cannot stay away from stress for long. Therefore, in situations when you are stressed, the stress hormone, cortisol, releases in the body and slows down fat oxidization, affects immune system, causes mood swings and of course, makes you prone to weight gain.

11. Crunch your way to 6 packs

We have all heard and read that crunches are enough to get us the abs we want but experts have an entirely different thing to say about this, and that is: great abs are achieved as a result of a combination of interval training, utilizing carbs effectively, getting adequate sleep, managing stress, and making the right workout choices. “If you look at big bodybuilders with block abs, they’re not getting those from crunches,” says Allen. “They’re getting them from squats, dead lifts, and chin-ups.”

12. Static Stretching Before Workout

Contrary to popular belief, dynamic trumps static when it comes to stretching pre-workout. In fact, static stretching if done pre-weight training, can make you feel weaker and unstable during workout. While static stretching should still be a part of our post-workout routine, dynamic stretching should be our focus at the start of a workout. A dynamic warm-up consists of exercise that mimic the movements we’re going to do while training and loosen our muscles and tendons, increase blood flow throughout the body, and activate the nervous system so we’re ready for action.

13. Crunch your way to 6 packs

We have all heard and read that crunches are enough to get us the abs we want but experts have an entirely different thing to say about this, and that is: great abs are achieved as a result of a combination of interval training, utilizing carbs effectively, getting adequate sleep, managing stress, and making the right workout choices.  You don’t get abs from crunches, it’s the compound exercises like squats, dead lifts, and chin-ups that help build those shredded core and abs.

14. If you’re not sweating, you’re not doing it right

We might have heard this a million times from different people that sweat is the only parameter that can assure whether you have worked out hard enough or not. Well, according to fitness experts, sweating depends on the kind of workout you are doing- strength, cardio, or endurance. For an example, an Olympic lifter training includes exercises related to strength and his regime requires enough recovery time between the sets for his nervous system recover for peak performance. He may not be sweating but that doesn’t mean he isn’t working hard.

If you have been believing all these myths while trying to lose some weight, its better you keep a distance. We tried to share as much information as we could with you to keep your weight loss journey safer and simpler. Now, it’s your turn to smash those hindrances that come between you and your goal. Share this article with your friends if you found this helpful. If you want to share anything important with us regarding this topic, just leave your comments below. We would love to hear from you! Till then, stay fit, stay healthy!