So many people out there want results. But they are very misinformed. Lets take a look and 5 Fitness Myths and why they are exactly that MYTHS!

Myth 1) you can tone a muscle.

I can not count how many times someone has told me they want to lose weight and get TONED.

So what is toning? The word tone simply describes the state of your muscles. When at rest, your muscles are in a constant state of partial contraction in order to be ready for action. The ‘tone’ of your muscles is involuntary, so you can’t change it by lifting weights a certain way.

Over the years, people have taken the word ‘tone’ and redefined it to mean how lean we are–how defined our muscles appear. In fact, it’s even a gender specific word sometimes–women go to the gym to ‘tone up’ while men go to the gym to lift weights. Know what? Those are the exact same things!

The truth is, you’re limited as to what you can really change about your muscles. In a nutshell, this is what your muscles can do:

1. Grow larger and/or stronger
2. Shrink smaller and/or get weaker

So you can say toned all you want when you talk to me I will just laugh on the inside.

Myth 2) Spot reduction

The idea of spot reduction has been around for decades. Many still believe we can lose fat in one specific area, by doing certain movements and exercises. I am here to tell you WE CAN NOT! We cannot choose the area on our body we want to lose fat and actually burn it off by doing one exercise. For example many try to do hundreds upon hundreds of crunches and sit ups to burn fat off their stomach. Doing twists and side bends will not reshape our oblique’s or burn away our love handles. The only way to burn fat properly is through our entire body evenly. To   do this we need a combination of the right nutrition and the right exercise.

Myth 3) Aerobic Exercise is the Answer to Fat Loss

Most think to lose fat hour and hours of running, biking, walking, and taking classes is the best way to lose fat and keep it off.  I love reading or hearing people say the exercise everyday but they never mention weight training. Weight training is equally if not important than aerobic exercise in the role of fat loss. Why? Weight training can help build muscle which in turn will burn more fat. In more muscle means a faster metabolism.

Myth 4) Taking Supplements will be enough to help me reach my goals.

 This is one the biggest and common mistakes by the misinformed. Most fail to realize the supplement industry is a $50 billion a year industry. These supplement companies are not selling theses pill and potions to help people; they are in it to make money!  I’m not saying everyone who makes a supplement is out to make money or that all supplements are worthless, there are a few ok ones out there. But I do believe their marketing is very deceiving. We first have to understand what the word supplement means “in addition to”. Most supplement companies use fitness models to sell their product, to make people think if they take this same supplement they will look just like the fitness model. Unfortunately, most fail to realize these models workout 5-6 times a week and eat healthy meals 6-8 times per day. So it takes much more hard work than just taking a supplement to look like these fitness models and bodybuilders.

 Myth 5) Eat less Lose Weight

This is a very popular diet. Many people assume if they stop eating, or go on a diet they will automatically lose weight. Almost every time someone goes “on a diet” they deprive themselves of some nutritional value. If you look up the word “diet” in the dictionary one of the actually definitions is “deprivation”. When our body is deprived of some nutritional value it needs, it falls out of a healthy balance. When a person burns as many calories as they take in, they have what we call an “energy balance.” These people will not gain nor lose weight. So, because of this most assume to lose weight they must eat less than what their body burns each day. They will lose weight but usually it is water loss, and some very important tissue called muscle. Some people even try to cut out calories, fat, and the newest one carbohydrates! They do not realize these three things are so important in not only in an effective nutrition plan, but also to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

 Calories are very important in order for the body to function. Calories provide energy for our body and we receive more energy by burning calories. So if calories are reduced too low, then what will we be burning to provide energy? Most of us assume we will be burning fat for energy on a low calorie diet, when in fact we are burning MUSCLE! What’s the reason for this? The reason is our body wants to keep our fat stores for emergencies, and feed on our precious muscle first before anything else. By losing muscle we can actually store more body fat! How is this? By depriving our body of nutritional value, our body stops functioning normally. So, we need to eat a nice balance of calories. This includes lean protein, fibrous carbohydrates, and healthy fats to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

-David Modderman