Myth 1: Walking for 30 minutes will make me lose weight.
done 1: It’s true that walking for 30 minutes every day will have a positive effect on your overall health, but it won’t necessarily make you lose weight. Many recent studies have established beyond a shadow of a doubt that consistent exercise will not stimulate metabolism enough to have a marked effect on reducing body fat without introducing major dietary changes at the same time. Sprinting and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) have been shown to have significant advantages over walking if weight loss is the goal. Regardless of the type and duration of exercise you do, if you don’t control your calorie intake, reduce your intake of processed foods, soft drinks, and alcohol, you will NOT lose body fat.
Myth 2: When you’re pregnant, you have to eat for two.
Fact 2: No, being pregnant does NOT require you to eat enough food for two people. Both pregnancy and lactation are very demanding from a nutritional point of view, and while a pregnant woman’s body demands more, it is more important to focus on quality rather than quantity. During pregnancy, gastric emptying will slow down significantly, increasing the rate of absorption of nutrients from food. A pregnant woman will need to slightly increase her calorie intake, but only enough to meet her own basal metabolic rate (BMR) and the needs of the fetus. Eat fresh, unprocessed foods and be guided by your Healthcare Professional, who can monitor the growth rate and health of the fetus.
Myth 3: My pregnancy made me fat!
Fact 3: No, your pregnancy did NOT make you fat. It is true that all healthy adult women will gain weight during pregnancy and a large part of that weight gain is body fat; however, pregnancy is not the reason you fail to lose excess postpartum weight. The accepted profile of weight gain during pregnancy in Australia is:
• 44% fat deposits and fluid retention
• 25% fetus
• The remaining 31% is distributed among the placenta, increased blood volume, increased maternal tissue, ie, uterine wall and breast tissue, and amniotic fluid.
Failure to shed fat stores postpartum is usually due to continued low prenatal activity levels (remember walking is not enough!), high stress elevates cortisol production, this promotes storage of fat and catch up on all of those “lost treats” you couldn’t have during pregnancy, eg a glass of wine, Macca’s, etc.
Myth 4: Lifting weights will make me look like a man.
Fact 4: Ever since women’s bodybuilding became a professional sport, this myth has gained momentum and popularity as a reason for women not to do weight training as part of their fitness regimen. When female bodybuilding went professional, without the doping controls of other professional sports (prior to the establishment of natural bodybuilding organizations), competitors routinely injected and ingested a range of natural and synthetic male hormones. These drugs effectively turned them into men, from the inside out, and allowed them to gain massive amounts of bulky muscle and shed unbelievable amounts of body fat. The appearance was, in my opinion, horrendous and the health consequences horrible. It was testosterone and human growth hormone that created this possibility for them, nothing more.
A healthy woman with normal hormonal function will have about the same level of testosterone in her body as a 10-year-old boy. The ability to build large volumes of muscle without adding testosterone and/or human growth hormone is a completely male attribute and it is the very, very rare case that a woman will be able to do it naturally.
When a woman lifts weights, her muscles will get stronger and gain a small percentage of volume. When muscles grow they require more energy just to exist and this results in an increase in metabolic rate (how many calories you use). The net result, assuming you don’t increase your calorie intake, is weight loss. For women, this transformation will manifest in reduced girth measurements (tape measure and dress size) and a more ‘toned’ appearance. It can result in weight gain on the scale due to muscle weighing more than fat and for that reason alone, I recommend ditching the scale and relying on the tape measure and skinfolds.
Myth 5: If I just do arm exercises, I’ll get rid of my candy store lady arms.
Fact 5: If ‘spot reduction’ worked, everyone would be walking around with absolutely no belly fat. The reality is that spot reduction, that is, working only on one part of the body to remove the fat around that area, does not work; EVER! When body fat increases, it starts in one area, usually around the middle, and spreads everywhere from there. In many ways, our body acts as a storage system, in the sense that when we subsequently shed body fat, it is shed in the reverse order. For example, if I gain body fat first around the waist, then the hips, thighs, buttocks, etc., when I lose that fat, I can expect it to go from the buttocks first, then the thighs, hips, and buttocks. waist. Exercising for hours on end on your arms will build strong muscles, but it won’t necessarily do anything to get rid of ‘grocery store lady’ arms. You’re better off spending your time doing a full body weight training session or a HIIT session to build good quality muscle and increase your metabolism, then correct your nutrition. Eat only fresh, unprocessed foods, eliminate sugar, salt, alcohol, and carbonated beverages from your diet completely, and you will become slim and healthy.