Myths in the Fitness Industry

I have been in the health and fitness industry for over 20 years its basically been my life and I have always strived to reveal the truth because it always shines through all the muddy information that circulates around gyms across the globe.

The truth is most often hidden amongst a clutter of inacurate mumbo jumbo. You have to look hard and have a keen eye to dissect that volumes of information that are out there.

The Internet albeit a great tool can also be your worse enemy if you happen to land upon a mumbo jumbo site that only serves to add more crazy information to the already information-overloaded googler!

I find it quite funny because I see sites that run articles with titles like "The top 10 Myths and truths about fitness" only to find myths in their truths!
Not sure what the purpose of exposing a myth if the actual truth in itself is a myth. Is that an oxymoron myth!
I guess you can see how easy it is to get confused especially from the internet.

I am not going to slam the internet because I love it.
It's by far the best thing we have for communicating bar talking to someone direct. However it's important to be selective when choosing your information resource.
Don't jump onto some conspiracy website and be taken in by all the gobble gook. If it does not make perfect sense to you straight away its time to click back on your browser and leave that site to the fairies.

As I mentioned from the start...The truth always shines brightly through all the muddy info and makes perfect sense.

So enough talking about myths how about exposing a few of the myths and double myths of the health and fitness industry.

1. If you don't exercise hard you will never lose weight or get into great shape!

This one is great because I have seen a few so called experts state that you don't need to exercise hard or can in fact just do 5 minutes a day to get into shape!
This is total rubbish, yes some exercise is better than no exercise but if you are serious, and I hope you are....you will need to do at least 30-40 minutes per day to make any real headway. Please no not fall for the 5 minute workout plans because its not going to happen.

The truth is it will take your body at least 5-10 minutes to get warmed up before you commence your exercise routine, so I guess with a 5 minute plan its just warm up!

As for not working out HARD to get results! Ok, since when does doing anything thats easy produce any real results? Right, it doesn't. So let's not kid ourselves into thinking we can drift through exercise like its a walk in the park. The reason its called exercise is because we need to exert ourselves!

2. You need to burn X amount of Calories per day to lose weight and you need to count every calorie you eat!

Do you know what a calorie is?
It's a a unit of heat equal to the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree at one atmosphere pressure! That is the scientific term, make sense to you?
I thought not.....

Makes no sense to me either. Most importantly it makes no sense to your body as well. To think that the brilliant machine, the human body is a simple counting machine that works on simple numbers is an out right insult.

Here's a quick example for you.
In a 100gm Mars Bar you have around 470 calories.
So hypothetically if we use calories as our only guide the average male could eat 4 of these a day and get his daily requirement of calories!

Obviously we would never do this, however the point I am trying to make is calories mean very little to your body.
And the only thing that four Mars Bars means to your body is combination of fat and sugar while being devoid of any real nutritional value. Hence this type of food stimulates the fat storing process and does not enhance it.

On the other side of the coin, if the same average male consumed 4 meals consisting of lean protein, a large bowl of vegetables and it totaled around 2000 calories in all honesty it would be a lot of food in sheer volume compared to the 4 Mars Bars. Now there is one giant difference and this is the important part. Protein generally uses around 30-40% of its own calories in the digestion process and vegetables usually end up burning more calories in an effort for your body to break them down than what they actually contain!

So in this instance that so called 2000 calorie 4 meal per day fit for a king may only net around 1000 calories in real terms, based on the theory of measurement!

Is this a problem, not really. The problem is in the measurement but not in the effect. The effect is exactly what you want. Your body using more energy hence burning more fat from the very food that you consume!
At the same time you are giving your body the ONLY thing it recognizes - NUTRIENTS not CALORIES.

Your body is made from the nutrients you ingest from food not from simple numbers or calories.
The reason calories are emphasized so much in the main stream media is because fad diets revolve around counting, whether this be points, or numbers.

These fad counting diets are an insult to your intelligence once you understand what your body really craves.
So please do not let someone tell you how many calories to consume because it means nothing to your body at all. NUTRIENTS are what you need.

3. No Pain - No Gain. You need to suffer to get results!
I love this one because I have read on a few internet health sites that they felt it was a myth, that indeed you do not have to feel any pain or raise a sweat to get results. This is a real gem!

This is similar to the first topic we touched upon and once again it stems from the fact that some experts want you to believe that you do not have to work hard to get results. Let me just say, if you believe this you can look forward to a big fat ZERO on the results scale from here to eternity. Do not fall for this hogwash because its a total lie and will only serve to frustrate you when you see nothing happening in your pursuit of your personal health and fitness goals.

For every action there is always a re-action.
No action, no re-action.
Hence little effort = little if zero results.
Some people would sooner forget the law of physics and common sense and convince you that you can get a great body by lying down on a vibrating bed, or being strapped into some crazy machine that shakes you up in the hope that fat is allergic to movement!

Don't fall for weightloss trickery that relies on the inherent laziness we all have deep inside to think that we can do little and get more. it is NOT going to happen I am sad to say.

4. Crazy Question myths.

The two most frequent questions I have EVER had over my life in this industry have been. Do you have to drink protein drinks? And ...How much can you bench (press)?

My answers to these are simple. No and 600lbs.
The first answer is 100% accurate the second, well I guess it doesn't really matter so best I pull a crazy figure out of the air rather than a small one.

The first answer about protein drinks is 100% fact. You do not need to drink protein drinks to build quality rock hard muscle. In fact if your goal is to build rock hard quality you are probably best to avoid them.
The lactose ( Milk Sugar) in protein drinks often causes havoc with many peoples digestive system giving them severe bloating and rocket powered gas. Plus the milk sugar tends to soften a physique and make it difficult to get that lean hard look.

I am not saying that protein drinks are bad but they are not for everyone. Someone who is trying to shed unwanted bodyfat should stick with solid protein sources and pure amino acid supplements. The dairy will slow down any real weightloss efforts despite the amount of exercise you perform.

If you experience any of the following after consuming a protein drink you know that it's not something you should be consuming.

- Stomach pains
- Lower abdomen pains and bloating
- Flatuance
- Feeling of lethargy

If you have any of these symptoms you could be one of the many who are lactose intolerant or just allergic to milk proteins.

If you are fine after consuming a protein drink its all good. Just ensure you limit them to just one or two per day maximum. Anymore than this will only serve to add excess baggage all in the wrong places.

Understand that liquid food has ZERO thermogenic value, meaning your body does not generate any heat to break down a liquid protein. Where is a solid protein like a steak will generate more thermogenic effect as your body works to break down the protein in the steak.

Lets just leave it at this, if we were meant to consume pure liquids as a protein source we would probably not have a mouth and teeth, just a hole where we could pour in our next protein drink!

The reason protein drinks are so popular can be explained in one word "Convenience". They are quick and easy. I always say no great physique was built of convenience and is there such a thing as a convenient body? Everything else thats convenient in this world is generally bad for us right? Would you go to the convenience store for your dinner?
Most junk food is in fact classified as "Convenient"
You do not need to prepare it and you can quickly buy and take it away to consume.

Hence I have never seen anyone build a body on convenience food. I will leave you to think about this one, but the key word is - preparation!

Success in anything is not created by convenience, it's having a solid plan, setting goals and preparation.

I will continue this article as more health and fitness myths come up.

Yours in health and fitness

Steve Jones