Healthy B.P.M.

There are quite a few untruths out there about health and fitness. And most thinking, rational, sane adults ought to know better. But alas, some people use wild stories and urban legends to get out of doing what they don’t want to do. Check these out.

“If you’re thin you’re fit”. Sorry, but being thin is no indication of how efficient your heart, lungs, and muscles are. Body composition testing has shown that thin people usually have a higher percentage of body fat because they feel that they don’t have to exercise. “You’ve got to exercise” no getting around it. If you come across any “expert��? that tells you it’s not necessary; run like the wind.
1. By doing crunches you get rid of stomach fat. No way Jose! There is no such thing as spot reducing. Fat reduction comes from aerobic activities and is reduced proportionally throughout the body.
2. Sweat loss means fat loss. You do lose weight when you sweat but it’s mostly water weight, and is usually regained after drinking liquid. I hear you saying a loss is still a loss, but you want it to be permanent, right?
3. Extra protein makes you bigger and stronger. It would be great if it did. However, your normal diet more than likely meets your daily protein needs. Extra protein is only converted into and stored as you guessed it; body fat.
4. Sugar before exercise will give you fast energy, Candy bars, honey, and sweets quickly enter your bloodstream and release a tremendous amount of insulin. The insulin increase during exercise causes your blood sugar to drop, leading to faster exhaustion. Then there’s the whole glycemic index thing that I’ll save for another conversation.
5. Lifting weights gives women big, bulky, muscles. Women do not produce enough male hormones for large muscle growth. They also don’t have as much muscle fiber as a man. You must train specifically for muscle growth if you want to gain muscle mass. I don’t know any women that want to spend the amount of time necessary to build huge amounts of muscle mass.
6. Muscles turn into fat when you quit exercising. NO, NO, NO. That’s like saying if you have apples and oranges in the same bowl and you don’t eat the apples, they’ll turn into oranges. Fat cannot change to muscle or vice-versa. When you stop exercising, your muscles start to waste away and lose their firmness. Overeating increases the size of the fat cells and therefore you puff out.
7. Cellulite is a unique type of fat. Cellulite is fat; all fat is fat. Rubbing creams don’t work. Burn the fat through aerobic conditioning, weight training, muscular endurance training, and diet.
8. Certain food supplements and foods can burn fat away. Food doesn’t burn fat nor do supplements you can buy monthly supplies of. Aerobic exercise is the way we burn fat. “The only way”.
9. Low intensity aerobic exercise burns more body fat than high intensity aerobic exercise. The jury is still out on this on. You must look at total calorie expenditure. Everyone’s physical ability is different. Gradually work your intensity up and keep going as long as you can.

Think positive!