You may have heard about a lot of exercise and fitness advice and even fallen prey to some yourself. But they are not going to help you in achieving your target
There are so many myths and misconceptions floating around in the fitness industry that cloud a consumer’s vision and naturally hamper their ability to reach their optimum potential levels of fitness and health. Through this article, we are hoping to set some of these notions right.
The harder I workout, the more fat I’ll burn.
Sorry, but if you’ve been working yourself to the bone, you aren’t burning fat. For fat loss, one must stick to working out at moderate intensities for approximately 30- 45 minutes, and not at a very high intensity. In other words, one must remain in one’s fat burning zone/ target heart rate/ training zone. This can be done in various ways.
Keeping a tab on your pulse is one way of doing it. Speak to your trainer about working out your individual target heart range. Without this range the knowledge of how to implement it, one may be burning other sources of energy like glycogen, quick energy, etc, rather than mainly stored body fats. So, if fat and inch loss is a goal, you would be wasting a lot of time, effort and possibly money, by overworking.
The more I sweat, the more fat I burn.
Not true. Water loss is NOT fat loss, and sweat is only water loss! Burning fat and sweating often go hand in hand, and are therefore confused as being one and the same. However, excessive water loss through sweat can be very harmful, as it can lead to dehydration, heat exhaustion and even heat strokes in extreme cases. Water loss hampers the ability to continue any form of cardiovascular exercise as the body overheats, and is unable to effectively get rid of this heat build-up.
Let me explain via an analogy. Imagine a car to be the human body. The radiator in a car can be compared to our water stores, while the fuel tank can be related to our fat stores. When the radiator is low on water, the car overheats and performance is impaired. When the radiator is completely out of water, the car will stall. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fuel tank (burning fat, in our case). So, to confuse our fuel tank (fat stores) with our radiator (fat stores) would be absurd.
The myth of Steam Rooms are based on the same theory. After sweating it out in a steam room, your inches and weight will have certainly dropped, but this loss is only water loss, not fat loss. It’s also very temporary. As soon as you drink water again, it’s going to go straight back to where it cam from, and weight and inch-wise, you’ll be back to where you started!
While steams and saunas have other health benefits, fat loss certainly isn’t one of them. To facilitate fat loss, one must drink water before, during and after exercise to remain well hydrated, or else you’ll just end up exhausted and unable to continue with your exercise programme.
Electrical muscle stimulators will get me to lose fat & inches immediately!
Electrical muscle stimulators, when placed on specific muscle groups, discharge a small electrical current, causing the muscle to contract. While these devices might help in injury rehabilitation, they don’t do anything for loss of body fat or inches. Due to the stimuli, temporarily the muscles contract, but relax soon after, having one return back to square one.
Exercise is one sure way to lose all the excess fat and weight that you want.
Many factors such as genetics, body type or frame, dietary habits and intake, etc, influence weight and fat loss. There is a wide variation in how different people respond to the same training programme. Each person’s development of strength and endurance may vastly vary from the next. All people will not lose the same amount of fat and weight while on the same programme. So it’s important not to try and compete with anyone else. Work at being the best that you can be!
It can’t be harmful or have any side effects as it’s herbal and therefore natural.
This is with reference to certain diet pills, fat burners and appetite suppressants, which claim that there are no chemicals or drugs in it. Totally natural? So is snake venom and poison ivy! Just because it’s not man-made & found in nature’s bounty, doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful! Don’t kid yourself! Take a closer look!
Once I stop working out, I’ll end up putting on double the weight I began with!
Not true! What will happen is that your body composition will change. In other words, when one is working out, the fat vs. muscle ratio improves. Stored body fat decreases, while muscle tone increases. When one discontinues any form of exercise, fat loss is frozen, and while your inches remain the same, muscle tone decreases.
That’s the way it is with muscle - you either use it, or lose it! In fact, one’s weight on the weighing scales will drop as muscle tone decreases since muscle is heavier and denser than fat. This is provided your dietary habits remain reasonable. If not, get ready to watch all that hard work go down the drain! So eat sensibly- the gates of paradise are narrow!
Diet pills that suppress the appetite is one sure way of knocking those extra kilos off.
These ought to be avoided entirely. They usually contain a stimulant such as amphethetamine. Firstly, the effect of the drug is temporary, and so the rate of fat/ weight reduction tapers off with time. Secondly, these can cause insomnia, high blood pressure, dizziness, headaches and serious complications. They are very addictive as well.
So while you’re on the right track, don’t start off with all the wrong ideas!
(The writer has trained, taught and certified in America as a fitness professional by American Council on Exercise and International Dance Exercise Association. She founded Body Art, the Fitness Centre in 1992. For more information, log onto www.bodyart.in)
