As with anything else, there are many myths and fictions regarding losing weight and exercise. I am sure you have come across some of them or are even unknowingly helping to spread these myths.
In this article, I am going to bust some of these myths. See if you can recognize any of them.
Your weight is predetermined by your genes - This is perhaps the greatest myth of all about weight loss or weight gain. Many people who find difficulty in losing or gaining weight use this as an excuse not do anything more to get to their ideal weight.
Although your genes do play a part in determining how heavy or light you are, it accounts for only about 25% of how you should weigh. That means that you can still work on the other 75% to get to your ideal weight.
So if you are overweight or underweight, don't just blame your genes since now you know that you can do something about it.
You can lose weight in certain parts of the body - Targeting weight loss in certain body parts such as losing your love handles with side bend exercises is called "spot reduction" in the fitness industry. Many people erroneously believe that they can spot reduce by doing certain exercises such as sit-ups to lose belly fat.
Any decent fitness personal trainer will tell you that there is no such thing as spot reduction although there is new evidence to suggest that you may burn a little bit more fat in the selected area with certain exercises. However, the fat loss is too insignificant to pay any attention to when there are many other more efficient exercises to lose weight.
When you diet and exercise to lose weight, the fat you lose will come from all over your body. So don't waste anymore time doing spot reduction exercises but instead focus on exercises that are massive fat burners such as High Intensity Interval Training.
Women can get bulky muscles when training with weights - As a fitness personal trainer I will usually introduce weight training to women to lose body fat and to tone up their body. However, very often my female clients will tell me that they do not want to train with weights because they do not want to get muscles like mine.
Ladies, it took me years of weight training and sound nutrition to get where I am. If you feel that your muscles are getting bigger, then just stop weight training at that point in time. How else can you tone up your body without weight resistant exercises?
Besides, unlike men, girls have too little muscle building hormone called testosterone to get bulky muscles. The female bodybuilders that you see get their muscles through very specialized training, nutrition and testosterone boosting supplements.
So if you are a woman reading this article, start training with weights to lose body fat and tone up your muscles to get a slender and sexy physique.
Aerobic exercises heart and lungs but weight training don't - This statement was considered true in years gone by. However, modern science now recognizes that weight training offer equal cardiovascular benefits as aerobic training. This is the conclusion of a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
These are just some of the many exercise and gym myths that refuse to go away even when science proved them otherwise. We will discuss more of these in future articles.
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