These days there are so many sources to get your information. Facebook, youtube, twitter, google, pinterest, journals, newspapers, the news – the list goes on and on! With so much information out there, it can be difficult to discern what is true and what is totally bogus. Clever marketing schemes, research funded by larger corporations (hello sugar cover up), and online echo chambers are constantly feeding us information that isn’t always complete. This week we have chosen a few of our favourite fitness myths so we can de-bunk them and hopefully help save you time (and money!).
Teatoxes
Never heard of these cleverly named beverages? Essentially these are pre-packaged tea blends that are supposed to help the consumer cleanse their bodies and shed unwanted pounds. The truth: they are laxatives with fancy packaging and cute marketing. The issue with this is that any toxins that your body is absorbing are being absorbed in the small intestine. When you consume the tea, the laxative effect clears out the large intestine – ie. the cleansing effects are minimal and your weight loss isn’t coming from fat loss, it is coming from water loss and waste removal. Prolonged use of these kinds of teas can actually cause severe diarrhea, dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Best just to stick to your pure teas as these are packed with natural cleansing properties like flavanoids, which are powerful antioxidants.
Lifting makes you bulky
I am not sure where this myth came from. For men, if they have the right balance of training volume and caloric intake, they have a good chance of increasing the size of their muscles. For women, due to our much lower levels of testosterone, it is actually quite difficult for women to make gains like men. It would take years of very specific dieting and very high volume training for a women to gain significant amounts of muscle mass. Those images that are out there of women with incredibly large, rippling, muscles most likely did not acquire those naturally. If you are a woman and are avoiding lifting weights because you do not want to get “bulky” you are missing out on some of the amazing benefits of weight lifting for women. Improved bone density, general strength increase, mood and hormone regulation, stress relief – the benefits far outweigh the very low chance of you getting too muscle-y.
As long as you are exercising, you can eat however you want
Ever finish a workout and think to yourself, “Well that was a good workout, now I can treat myself to whatever I want!”? We hope not, because 9 times out of 10, that is not true. Treat yourself to the kind of food that will help with muscle recovery, like a healthy dose of protein (20-30g within 45 minutes of the workout is optimal!). You may also be way overestimating how many calories you burned during the workout. In a harvard medical school study, they found that the average 155lb person burns about 112kcals/30 minutes of training, and
298kcals/30 minutes of circuit training. These numbers are an average estimation. Calorie burn is very specific to the individual, but these numbers are good to show you that treating yourself to a piece of cake, or a large pizza post workout is like taking 1 step forward, and 2 steps back.
Cardio is the only way to lose weight
Although long bouts of hard cardio training does burn a lot of calories, it is not sustainable way to lose weight. These forms of exercise usually result in some form of repetitive strain injury. They can also be really boring, and your post-exercise calorie burn starts to dip off after about 6 hours. When you combine weight training and cardio training, that is where you find the best weight loss formula. Strength training has a higher post-exercise oxygen demand. This means that after doing a good strength training session, your muscles require a lot more oxygen and other fuel sources in order to recover from the workout. This increased oxygen consumption, or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), requires a ton of energy – or calories. So if you combine some quality cardio, with a well-designed strength training program, you will not only be burning tons of calories during your workout, but you’ll also be burning calories for up to 36 hours post-exercise! That sounds like a recipe for weight-loss success to me!
Side Note: Muscles are metabolically expensive so the more muscle you have, the higher your basal metabolic rate – ie. the calories you burn while sitting on the couch, sleeping, hanging out.
Protein Powder Makes You Gain Weight/ Creatine Makes You Retain Water
This myth ends up really limiting people from some amazing supplements that can really take their training to the next level. What is important with these supplements is knowing what kind to choose. Some protein powders are designed to help people build mass. These protein powders will have a higher carbohydrate content, and be higher in calories. If you want a protein that will support muscle recovery but not gain unwanted weight, reach for one that is lower in calorie, has 20g-30g of protein, and less than 5g of carbohydrates per servings. Creatine is an excellent supplement to help you train harder. Creatine is one of the fuel sources used in our explosive-energy system, or the ATP-CP system. Therefore supplementing this gives you more fuel for your lifts. Creatine does help the cells retain water, and so people who supplement with creatine may find that their weight increases from increased water retention. So as a consumer, it is important for you to decide if you’re willing to give a little to get a lot of strength gains. When reaching for a creatine supplement, creatine monohydrate is the way to go. It is usually less expensive AND it has been shown to be more bioavailable.
Core is the Key to Flat Stomach
Our bodies hold onto weight around our middle because fat is an excellent shock absorber. All of our vital organs are in our torso, with the exception of a few glands in the throat, and our brain (duh). So our bodies, being the wonderfully evolved entities that they are, will put on more weight in our middle area to help insulate and cushion our vital organs. Therefore losing the weight around the middle cannot simply be achieved by doing a bunch of crunches. The saying “abs are made in the kitchen” is actually pretty accurate. In order to lose the visceral fat around our middle, we need to eat in such a way that the body does not store any of our food as fat. We also need to be training hard enough that our body wants to shed unnecessary weight so that doing those push-ups and squats are a little bit easier.
These really are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fitness myths. We hope that this has cleared up a few fitness myths for you. If you ever come across a new fitness trend, or hear something about a supplement or diet, make sure you do your research and ensure that it is actually right and healthy for you! Let us know what other myths you’d like de-bunked!
