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Joanna Helcke’s Top Five Fitness and Fat Loss Myths… dispelled!

7 October 2013

  1. Running is better than walking because I will burn more calories. It is true, of course, that running is a higher intensity activity than walking and that your heart rate rises and your body starts burning more calories. But… and it’s a big but… just remember that if you are aiming to cover a particular distance – eg 5k or 10k – than the overall calorie burn will be more or less the same whether you walk the distance or run it. The difference, of course, will be in the time it takes you to cover the distance, so if you are short of time, then running will be more efficient. If, on the other hand, you have a bit more time to spare, or if you are prone to injury and want to save your joints from aches, pains and niggles, then walking is the better option.
     
  2. Doing lots of abdominal exercises will reduce my tummy fat. I often get asked what the best abdominal exercises are for reducing fat around the middle. The answer is simple: no abdominal exercises will reduce tummy fat. No amount of abdominal work is going to reveal a six-pack if there’s a layer of fat over the top of it. Moreover, you need to have an extremely low body fat percentage – 12% which is too low for a woman – to reveal the abdominal muscles. So abdominals exercises will get the abs strong and help protect your back – all this is very good but the fat needs to be dealt with very differently. It has to be targeted by eating consistently in a healthy manner which is sustainable over a lifetime, and by exercising in a way that boosts the metabolism and gets your body burning calories over long periods of time.
     
  3. Setting cardio machines onto their “fat loss programme” in the gym is the best way to burn calories and fat when working out. Nope, it really isn’t. For a start, spending your time plodding along on the cardio machines – treadmill, cross trainer and bike – is doing your fitness levels no great favours. This form of training is both ineffective and inefficient. These “fat loss programmes” are only really relevant if you plan to spend hours and hours training. Busy mum? Forget it! The smart way to train is short, sharp and high intensity, leaving your metabolism revved up and burning calories post-workout.
     
  4. Training with heavy weights will make me gain lots of muscle and look bulky. Question: do I look like Schwarzenegger? Erm, not really. I train with reasonably heavy weights, if squatting with a bar that weighs more than me counts! It is very very hard for us women to become muscular because we are not genetically pre-disposed to it. This is convenient (unless you plan to become a female body builder) because we can work towards lifting pretty heavy weights and gain all the accompanying benefits without ended up like the Incredible Hulk! What are the benefits? Muscle is metabolically active. Fat is not. So the more muscle mass you have, the more calories your body burns at rest – even when you’re sleeping. Perfect! There are loads more benefits so I’ll come back to that in another newsletter one day.
     
  5. Going “on a diet” is the way to lose weight. There’s an underlying assumption in the statement “I am on a diet” and it is that you are currently doing something which has an end in sight. It is not, in other words, for ever. Spotted the problem? Yes, you got it: if it’s not a way of eating which is sustainable over a lifetime then it’s a quick-fix, and if it’s a quick-fix then what’s going to happen when you stop it? You’ll revert to however you were eating beforehand and the weight will gradually creep up on you again. So whatever changes you make to the way you eat, they have to be genuinely manageable and, I would suggest, enjoyable. If it’s no fun at all and you can’t wait to reach your target weight and then mercifully stop, then it’s not the right approach for you!


And an extra bonus myth for you:

The scales never lie! Yes they do! If you start gaining muscle and losing fat, you might well become heavier, or remain static on the scales BUT you will be getting more slender. Solution? Use a proper tape measure and always measure yourself in these two spots as follows:

  • Around the widest part of your hips, making sure that the tape measure is not lopsided and is perfectly parallel to the floor
     
  • Round your waist: either through your belly button or through the narrowest point of the waist. Either way, make sure that you always use the same option when you re-measure.

So there you have it: a few fitness myths busted today!

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