Diet and Nutrition Myths

Everyone from your best girlfriend to your Great Aunt Muriel has advice about losing weight. Sometimes it’s hard to know which information is sound and which is just plain fiction. Never fear! Wo40 is here to help.

Here are some common diet myths along with a good dose of reality.

Myth: Low-fat diets make you lose weight.

Reality: Just because a food is labeled “low fat” or “fat free” doesn’t mean it’s low calorie or calorie free. Often low-fat products have added ingredients such as flour or sugar to help improve taste and texture. These added ingredients are low in nutritional value and often higher in calories.

Myth: Restricting calories is the best way to lose weight.

Reality: Both cutting back on calories and exercising more will help you lose weight and maintain the lean muscle mass needed to boost metabolism. Starvation diets just don’t work. A drastic reduction in calories will leave your body without the fuel it needs to maintain normal functioning and may therefore slow metabolism. A starving body enters “crisis mode” and will slow down in order to conserve what little energy a severely restricted calorie diet provides. Don’t starve yourself. Chances are you won’t be able to stick with a drastic change in diet long term.

Myth: As long as I’m eating healthy foods, I can eat whatever I want.

Reality: A calorie is still a calorie. Oatmeal may be a healthier breakfast than your usual doughnut, but that doesn’t mean you can eat 5 cups of it. You still need to be mindful of your portion sizes, even if you are eating whole grains and lean meat.

Myth: Eating late at night will make me gain weight.

Reality: There is no magic hour to turn off eating. This myth probably formed because of the high-calorie junk foods usually consumed after dinner. Deserts and snack foods can be really calorie-dense. Spreading your calories evenly through the day helps prevent late-night binge eating. A healthy snack before bed isn’t going to go straight to your thighs.

Myth: If I’m exercising daily, I can eat whatever I want.

Reality: Even if you are exercising regularly, you should still keep track of what and how much you are eating. It’s easy to reward yourself with cupcakes and fried chicken when you’ve been consistent with your workouts, but it’s probably not the smartest way to treat yourself. It’s common for people to over-estimate the amount of physical activity they engage in, and under-estimate the amount of calories they consume. For example, the average cupcake has about 250 calories. A fried chicken breast has about 360 calories. Since I burn just over 200 calories on my normal 2 mile jaunt, it’s not justifying the cupcake or the chicken. The bottom line is exercise and sensible nutrition go hand in hand for weight loss and general fitness.

Myth: Eating a high-protein diet will make me gain muscle.

Reality: Only strength training and exercise lead to muscle changes. Eating protein may help in the repair of torn muscle fibers that occur after strength training, but protein itself does not grow muscle. High protein diets can actually be detrimental to your health since they increase the risk of kidney stones and osteoporosis.

Check out the article Eating For Fat Reduction to help with developing a good sound nutrition plan.

If You Want To See Remarkable Results

An acquaintance of mine approached me yesterday. She had heard about Weighting on 40 and was interested in the information here. So she spilled all of the details about her weight gain, and her approaching wedding, and wanting to be thin for her big day. In short she wants to lose 60 pounds in 10 months. That’s certainly not impossible. In fact it’s a very realistic goal. The kicker is that in order to accomplish that goal, she’s going to have to work for it.

In our short conversation, I attempted to talk her out of her original idea of starving herself and encouraged her to exercise while eating a sensible, healthy diet. Her idea of exercise, unfortunately, was limited to walking a mile every evening. While better than sitting on the couch watching American Idol, that’s probably not going to help her achieve the kind of results she’s looking for.

Her body is used to walking. It’s been doing it for YEARS. In fact, she does it EVERYDAY. And in spite of all that walking, she finds herself in a body she’s not happy with. She needs to challenge her body, get her heart rate pumping, make her muscles work. A stroll around the neighborhood just isn’t going to cut it.

In order to accomplish remarkable results, you need to make remarkable changes.

Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that walking a mile every evening isn’t worth doing. Just don’t expect to accomplish something remarkable (like losing 60 pounds of fat in 10 months) doing it.

Let’s look at the numbers. A pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories. In order to rid your body of just one pound of fat, you need to create a deficit of 3500 calories through exercise while at the same time, limiting the amount of calories consumed (try to stay away from those donuts). A 200 pound person, walking at a somewhat leisurely pace of 2.5 miles per hour is only going to burn 109 calories during that mile-long evening stroll. At that rate it’s going to take over a month just to rid your body of just one measly little pound of fat.

If you want to see how many calories your body will use during a certain activity, check out Health Status’s calorie calculator. They have results for everything from brushing your teeth and mopping the floor to lifting weights and cycling. You might be surprised just how few calories your body uses during your favorite exercise. (This is one very good reason You Can’t Out-Train A Bad Diet.)

So if walking your dog around the neighborhood isn’t going to cut it, what exactly is? Try reading Exercise for Fat Reduction, but before you do there are a few other things to consider. Fortunately Keith walks you through the steps and tells you all about Getting Started With Physique Transformation.

Exercise Myths

They are plastered all over the covers of women’s magazines, affirmed by crazy infomercials touting the benefits of the latest exercise contraptions, and perpetuated by conversations with your girlfriends over steaming lattes. It’s challenging enough just to get to the gym while avoiding the cheese danish beckoning you from the local bakery display case. Don’t let these common exercise myths weigh you down.

Myth 1: If I stop exercising, my muscle will turn into fat.

Reality: While it’s true that if you stop exercising you will begin to lose some of the muscle tone you’ve worked so hard to develop, that muscle will not turn into fat. Muscle and fat are two entirely different tissues and it is impossible for one to morph into the other. Muscle cannot become fat, and fat cannot become muscle. However, a decrease in muscle size (which is very likely to happen if you nix your workout routine), makes your body burn fewer calories in a resting state. Add that to the calories you are no longer burning during exercise, and there’s a very good chance for your body to lay on some extra fat.

Myth 2: Weight training will make me bulky.

Reality: Weight training will not make women “bulk up”. They just don’t have the levels of testosterone (at least not without the aid of injected steroids) to develop big, bulky, hulk-like muscles. What weight training will do is help your body become leaner and reduce body fat percentage. Weight training also helps increase bone density, balance, and strength. So don’t be afraid of the free weights.

Myth 3: If I exercise long enough, I’ll get the body I’ve always wanted.

Reality: It’s not necessary (or even advisable) to spend hours upon hours in the gym. Exercise quality is just as important, probably even more important, than quantity. Walking at a slow to moderate pace for an hour every day isn’t going to yield fabulous results in the weight loss department, and you’re probably going to get frustrated over time. Increasing the intensity of your workouts may be far more important than increasing the duration. By utilizing High Intensity Interval Training (or HIIT), you can shorten the duration of your cardio workouts to no longer than 30 minutes, and still achieve great calorie-burning effects. For more detailed information be sure to read Keith’s article, HIIT vs. Steady-state Cardio

Myth 4: If my muscles aren’t sore, then I didn’t have a good workout.

Reality: A lot of people will judge the effectiveness of their workouts by how sore they feel the following day, but you don’t need to feel like you’ve been run over repeatedly by an eighteen-wheeler to have had a great and effective workout. Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) is the muscle soreness that creeps in a day or two after training. It’s most common when you first begin a new fitness routine and usually lessens in intensity as your body begins to adjust to it’s new level of activity. But muscle soreness isn’t always a good sign. A healthy and balanced diet, proper hydration, sufficient amounts of rest between workouts, and a “cool down” period after exercise all help lessen the intensity of DOMS, which is a good thing. Who wants to walk around feeling like a hit-and-run victim?

Myth 5: I can “spot reduce” areas of fat by targeting that area with exercise.

Reality: While it would be cool to think that performing daily abdominal crunches would rid you of that poochy belly for good, it’s just not going to happen. Fat cannot be toned up by targeting an area with weight training or calisthenics. Fat is stored throughout the body and can only be reduced by controlling the calories you consume through your diet and increasing the calories you expend through exercise. Unfortunately, it’s probably your trouble spots like your belly or thighs that will hold on to it’s fat deposits the longest.

Myth 6: As I get older, gaining weight is inevitable.

Reality: It’s true that most women (and men for that matter) gain weight as they get older, but that doesn’t mean they have to. The reason most people pack on the pounds with each birthday is loss of lean muscle mass. Women can lose as much as 8 percent of their muscle mass with each passing decade. Muscle tissue burns more calories than fat, so a decrease in muscle mass means a lower metabolic rate. Couple this with the typical decrease in activity level that seems to come with age, and it’s no wonder waistlines seem to grow with each passing year. But do not fear! Just a few months of weight training can help a woman recover years of lost muscle mass and increase her metabolism, not to mention firm up those floppy underarms.

Myth 7: I need to stretch before I exercise.

Reality: There is no research to support the common misconception that stretching before a workout reduces the risk of injury. It’s the warm-up before exercise that seems to be the important factor in injury prevention. Your warm-up should used to get the blood pumping, something like jumping jacks or a brief jog. Save your stretching for AFTER your workout. Then it will help maintain and even increase flexibility, which, in the long run, could help prevent injury.

Myth 8: It’s better for my joints if I run on a treadmill instead of pavement.

Reality: Joint pain is a result of your body pounding against any surface when it isn‘t used to it. If you experience joint pain when you run try switching up your cardio routine with an elliptical trainer, recumbent bicycle, or stair stepper. If you do decide to run, make sure you have proper shoes. Switching up between a treadmill and pavement might be helpful, too.

Myth 9: As long as I exercise, I can eat anything I want.

Reality: It’s important to eat a healthy balanced diet, even if you exercise regularly. Don’t try to justify the extra empty calories of a brownie sundae or triple cheeseburger just because you spent 30 minutes on the treadmill this morning. The amount of calories your burned on the treadmill aren’t nearly equal to the calories in your most recent diet splurge. This is especially important if you are trying to lose weight. It is common for people to over-estimate how many calories they burn in a day and under-estimate how many calories they ingest. If you aren’t expending as many calories as you consume, you’ll find yourself packing on the pounds. Sorry ladies, I wish this myth was true, too. Recent research seems to indicate nutrition is the key element in weight loss, with exercise helping you along. For more on this subject read You Can’t Out Train A Bad Diet.

Myth 10: Wearing or carrying light weights will boost the effectiveness of my workout.

Reality: Strapping on those Velcro wrist and ankle weights (or carrying light dumb bells) when you walk or run only slows you down. A slower pace reduces the aerobic benefit of the workout, and the weights, usually just a few pounds, aren’t enough to provide the muscle-building benefits of regular weight training. So leave the weights at home and pick up the pace.

Woman Makes Finals of Bodybuilding Championship Just Weeks After Giving Birth

Here's an interesting article about KT Coates, a 32 year-old mother who placed second in British Natural Bodybuilding Federation (BNBF) just weeks after giving birth.  Coates stayed very active during her pregnancy, swimming, cycling, and even running up until days before her daughter's birth.  Too often women use pregnancy as an excuse to limit physical activity, but pregnancy shouldn't be treated as an illness.  Regular physical exercise can help a woman's body prepare for the big (and often very physically taxing) event of childbirth.  Of course, you should check with your physician for any limitations before engaging in any exercise program.

Bodybuilding mother makes finals of national championship just eight weeks after giving birth

A mother has wowed judges by qualifying for the finals of a national bodybuilding championship - just eight weeks after giving birth.

KT Coates, 32, came second in the British Natural Bodybuilding Federation (BNBF) heat despite giving birth to daughter Blossom on May 31.

Ms Coates, who runs her own pole dancing fitness business, was also teaching classes nine days later, training 10 days later and performing on the pole after just two weeks.

Read more at Dailymail.