So today I want to take a minute and discuss 3 common fat loss myths to be aware of and not make these mistakes…
Do you want to lose some body fat?
Sure, everyone does! Let’s be honest here… we all want to look better. Losing fat, improving your fitness level and your overall health are usually all wrapped up into one.
But the problem is- there’s so much misinformation out there! Here are 3 of the most common fat loss myths and why you need to avoid them.
3 Common Fat Loss Myths
1. You need to do lots of traditional cardiovascular exercise to lose fat- FALSE
Jogging for an hour is pretty much a complete waste of time if you are looking to lose fat. So is any form of slow cardio that forces you to do the same repetitive movement over and over.
When your muscles have to continuously contract for 30, 45, or 60 minutes that energy has to come from somewhere. The body is stubborn and doesn’t want to burn fat for energy so it eats up your muscle instead. This immediately kills your metabolism and it robs your body of strength and athleticism. In order to burn bodyfat and raise your metabolism you need every ounce of muscle tissue possible. If you want to burn bodyfat, you have to build lean muscle. Only higher intensity metabolic style training, and strength training can do this. Such as how we train here at TFS! (hint:))
The key to quickly getting leaner is by doing workouts that stimulate your metabolism all day long. There’s tons of research now that shows high intensity exercise is significantly more effective than low intensity cardio because it forces your body to keep burning fat and calories after you stop training. This fat burning phenomenan is called EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) or After Burn in layman’s terms… hence our TFS AfterBurn Team metabolic training and personal training programs I created over 16 years ago are based off of this.
2- You must eat fat-free- FALSE
It’s unfortunate that eating foods with fat still gets a bad wrap. Though fat has made a comeback to some degree, many still buy into the fact that they should eat less fat to lose fat. A gram of fat does have more calories (9 cal/gram) as compared to protein or carbohydrates (4 cal/gram), but that doesn’t make a difference in being healthy. It comes down to total daily consumption, and how you moved on that day.
There are so many healthy fats that provide tons of benefits. Wild caught fish, wild game, coconut oil, olive oil, nut butters, avocados, and almonds are just a few whole food choices that are perfect to consume.
Enjoy some fat and stay satisfied. You will stay full for longer, increase brainpower, reduce inflammation, and lose bodyfat in the process. People are usually surprised when I tell them how much of my daily intake of calories is from fat, and I stay very lean year-round.
3- Lift only light weights for higher reps to lose fat and get toned- FALSE
This one has always made me chuckle a little. Lifting very light weights for high reps is similar to the long bouts of cardio at low intensity. Your body simply will not burn fat as fuel, and will not increase any of your fat burning hormones. Higher intensity exercise burns more fat and increases lean muscle tissue (muscle tone).
In order to increase muscle definition, you have to put a high demand on your muscles and nervous system. The stronger you are, the more muscle fibers you can recruit- stimulating all your muscle fibers skyrockets the metabolic cost of your workouts. Metabolic cost is a measure that exercise scientists use to determine how many calories you’re burning through exercise. The higher the metabolic cost, the better.
So make sure when lifting weights you use loads that you struggle to lift but can still do safely. For bodyweight exercises move through full range of motion and always challenge yourself.
I could go on for hours here about fat loss training do and dont’s as this is the stuff I geek out on. I spent several years in college exercise physiology labs researching and testing and now have been practically and successfully applying with training clients for 16 years now…
If you have any specific questions, email me at [email protected] and I’d love to help.
Or if you want to see these scientific principles and concepts applied in a real-world
training environment just reply back and let me know and we can discuss more about what we do here at TFS!
Burn Fat…Build Lean Muscle… Feel Good… Look Good
Clint