You don't really notice the pounds sneaking up on you, until the morning when you can't tug your jeans up past your thighs.
No, they didn't suddenly shrink while hanging in your closet - you've gained weight or, more accurately, fat.
Once you've decided to change your diet and start exercising, it's important to know that your good intentions and hard work will set you up to start getting back into shape, but without a solid grasp of the facts - and how to avoid the most common myths - you won't get much further.
Myth #1:
You Should Judge Your Efforts By What The Scale Says
When you step on a scale, it measures your total body weight - including fat, lean muscle, organs, the last meal you ate and everything else that's inside of you. But what really matters is the composition of your overall weight: specifically, your lean body mass percentage and your body fat percentage.
For example, a 5-foot-3, 130-pound woman with a relatively high percentage of lean body mass and a low body fat percent will look smaller and fitter than a woman with the same height and weight whose body fat percent is higher and lean body mass percentage is lower.
As a personal trainer, one of the first things I do when assessing a new client's readiness to exercise is measure his or her body fat percentage, using a quick, simple skinfold test. That way, we have a more appropriate goal - how much body fat to reduce and lean mass to build, rather than just losing overall body weight.
Myth #2:
When Trying To Lose Fat, Cardio Is The Only Type of Exercise You Should Be Doing
Besides the fact that working out with weights increases your muscular strength and endurance, it can also raise your metabolism by increasing your lean muscle mass.
According to Fitness: The Complete Guide (8th Edition: International Sports Sciences Association):
“A review of the available data strongly indicated that, in general, combining a conventional aerobic exercise program with a calorically restricted diet does little (IF ANYTHING) to help you preserve lean body mass during your weight-reduction efforts…The optimal exercise prescription for sound weight management is one that combines aerobic conditioning and strength training. Such a prescription will allow you to expend a relatively large number of calories, while simultaneously preserving or increasing your level of lean body mass.”
Strength training is also the only way to get that sleek, “defined” look that so many people crave. And that leads us to the next myth.
Myth #3:
Women + Weights = Bulk
Working out with weights will not make a woman look like the Incredible Hulk. Genetically, few women have the testosterone and muscle mass required for that, and even among women who do possess those, it takes a long time and lots of concentrated heavy lifting to get anywhere near that look.
Many women lift far less weight than they can - and should - be doing, in the mistaken belief that light weights and high repetitions will help them to lose weight and “tone” their muscles, when they are, in fact, accomplishing very little and not challenging their muscles much at all.
Myth #4:
You Can “Spot Reduce”
If only we could decide from which parts of our bodies we'd like to lose fat first! Wouldn't that make life so much easier?
For the most part, genetics determine the order in which fat gets stored on our bodies - we just can't control the order in which fat is added to and removed from our bodies.. But that doesn't mean you can't lose the stubborn excess fat from virtually every part of your body! It just takes time, as well as an understanding of the fundamental concept that fat loss happens when we burn more calories than we take into our bodies.
Myth #5:
You Shouldn't Work Out With Weights Until You've Lost All The Weight You Want To Lose
You've probably heard and read that you shouldn't start training with weights until you have lost all or most of the weight you set out to lose, right? And “muscle weighs more than fat” and strength training will slow down your fat loss?
First of all, a pound of muscle weighs exactly the same as a pound of fat - it just takes up much less space. Sort of like the space taken up by a pound of feathers versus the space taken up by a pound of rocks.
Contrary to the myth that weight training slows down (or even reverses) losses on the scale, it's actually essential to a fat loss plan, because increasing muscle mass boosts metabolism, which in turn burns calories, and should definitely be a major part of your workout routine from the start.
Now that we've blown apart some of the more common myths that may be keeping you from reaching your fitness goals, it's time to look at what works: Sensible eating combined with a regular exercise program (incorporating cardio, strength and flexibility training) over time will get results.
