– Weight Loss Myths And Mistakes– It is crucial to pull yourself away from guessing what works or adopting unproven methods in order to achieve your ultimate goal. Let’s clear the air.
– Dietary Terms – What is a calorie? What’s energy? Did you know that most people cannot answer these. Start with the basics, you’ll know more than most people in just a few minutes
– The Right Way to Grow Your Muscles
– The Correct Way to Increase Fat Loss
There are tons of myths out there about what works and what doesn’t. You can write a book only about debunking these myths. The thing is, in the name of greed along with the effort to push senseless sales, more myths are popping up on a daily basis. We’re constantly being bombarded with this information that it eventually washes away and replace the facts. The facts don’t always sell. The information is not that new, in fact it does remain generally simple.
Whenever you feel that you’re falling away from the facts, come back here and get a dose of reality. Keep it simple. Let’s get to it:
Common And Some Of My Favorites
Myth & Mistake #1 – Lift More To Grow –
This has always been wrong, but it depended on how you looked at it. It sounded like it should make sense, but this brings us to a key word in life: Balance. While working out is incredible for you; too much can and will have the exact opposite desired results, muscle fatigue, overtraining, muscle atrophy among other negative impact. Remember the other side of this site is about wealth right. Balance works here in both areas. It is very backbone of everything in good standing.
You don’t need to spend two hours lifting to get the results you need. How about that? You’ll spend 30 to 40 minutes in the gym a few times a week and you’ll look 5 times better than people killing themselves for hours twice as many times per week. Here, you just saved 50%+ of your precious time.
Myth & Mistake #2 To Lose Fat, Do More Cardio –
Ok, so this one is actually interesting. I personally do not love cardio, I used to actually hate cardio and I got my body where I wanted it to be with perfect 6 pack and under 8% body fat without ever setting foot on a track or treadmill. Everyone is different, while this myth has been debunked, to this day you will find tons of people in the gym putting countless hours on the treadmill in order to lose weight.
So we all have a BMR (Base Metabolic Rate). This is the rate at which we burn calories without doing anything or exercising. Running does help you burn more calories not only while we’re running but after the run, for a few hours our body’s BMR is sped up and for that time you tend to burn more calories than you would have at rest. That’s pretty much the gist of running. There are other health benefits associated with running along, but nothing you can’t get from compounding your exercising combining cardio with weighted workouts to increase energy output, enable muscle growth and increase your metabolic for days after you’ve worked out.
To keep it simple, think of it this way, running burns calories while you’re running. Of course cardiovascular benefits are there, but if you’re planning on exercising anyway, those benefits are just as present, so instead of lifting weights and then run after to take off some additional calories, how about you modify how you combine your exercises. Get more muscles involved into a single work out. That’ll get you putting out more energy, get you the vascular benefits, burn even more calories and increase your BMR for much longer after you’ve finished your workout.
Myth & Mistake #3 Work on Specific Area of Your Body to Lose Weight There (Spot Weight Loss)
This one does not merit a lot of explanation. It’s worth pointing out because I see people complain about flabby triceps or a lack of one thereof. As a result they’re doing a lot arm exercises to decrease the flab. It really does not work that way. You can’t pick and choose where you lost weight. Another question is why cheapen the experience? I would think that we all want to get the best out of workouts and time invested into them.
Is there something to this myth? Well if I work out my arms extensively, my arm muscles will grow, if I work my abs muscles, they will certainly grow, no doubt about that. Let’s be clear on something, we are all born with abs already, but I’m sure by now, you already know that. All the muscles you can grow are already muscles you were born with. Adding weights for pushing them to lift more than needed forces them to tear and nutrients cause them to grow. The problem has never been about not having the muscles but directly about the fat layer that is covering them.
Having a 6-Pack does not mean you’re healthy, you could be on the opposite side of the coin there, you could be malnourished as well. Sever malnutrition will reveal your 6-pack because your body fat percentage is so low, your ab muscles will show, it’s very simple. Losing weight is a whole-body deal. You cannot impressively have a 6-pack with a love-handle. Have you ever seen anyone with a 6-pack but excess fat everywhere else? That’d be anomaly. Ditch this mindset, as it’s not even a healthy way of thinking and tackling your healthier lifestyle.
Myth & Mistake #4 – Following Fad Diets
There’s no shortage of diets out there. They’re popping up faster than we can count. Business is booming and what’s new is interesting so people are jumping left and right into one diet after another. We shouldn’t blame them too much though. Again, due to greed and for the sake of selling as much as possible, they hire models, bodybuilders, gym influencers or anyone looking to make a quick with lean body to show up on TV and youtube to promote their diet plans.
Instant gratification kicks in and we want those results now. We spend the money, because it makes us feel like, we just did something, we’ve bought the solution to our problem. They make them sound easy and mindless to follow. Now some are actually alright, but I’ve always hated the word diet. Ok I’m on diet X for 2, 3 months or more, what then after that? I’ve spent a very long time, years adjusting my eating habits because ultimately you know what your goals are. Since you are going to want this to remain in your life for possibly the rest of it, it pays to invest the time to understand what you can live with long term and meet your goals or get as close as possible to it.
Know thyself and be careful here. Know what your weaknesses are, I’m here to help you find the path that works best for you and for you alone. Maybe you have a sweet tooth or other weaknesses. There’s room in here to play around depending on your overall goals, but if you fail to retain much from this, just remember this word, which I will be using over and over again “Balance”. Find balance.
Myth & Mistake #5 – To Cut or Get Leaner, Do a Lot of High Reps with Low Weights.
As if your body would know the difference. If you would want to maintain your state then continue to religiously do what you do everyday without fail. Studies have found that men who trained with 75 to 85% of 1RM would end up burning hundreds of calories than their counterparts who trained at 45 to 65%. That’s quite significant. To get the look you want, it’s quite simple, please understand that I did not say easy (We often mistake simple for easy); If you want to look lean, just find a way to do just this, grow your muscle and decrease your body fat percentage so these muscles can show themselves. That’s it.
To grow your muscles, well you need to lift more weights than normal. If I lift 15 lbs everyday, well my body will prime my muscles for these 15lbs. These may not force my muscles to show any progress, so if I need the muscle to grow, I need to give it a reason to grow. Start lifting 20lbs, 25lbs, 30lbs and so on overtime, increase as my limits allow. You obviously can’t get to 1000 or 2000lbs, so there is a limit, but push to get there. Modify my eating habits for fat loss, then you have a recipe that works. Modify my eating habits further for fat loss and increased energy and protein to increase muscle mass; now I have accelerated the whole process 2x, 3x and more. Results are imminent.
