5 Fitness Myths That Might Be Holding You Back (and the Truth About What to Do Instead)

One summer when I was a teen in the 1970s, I went on a diet that I dubbed the watermelon diet. All I ate for days was watermelon, but as you could imagine, I quickly realized it wasn’t sustainable.

I was an avid reader of Teen Magazine. Seeing the ultra thin models, actresses, and singers pictured in those pages made me feel like I had to change my body to fit the beauty standard.

I was young, naïve, and easily swayed to believe that I had to resort to extremes to maintain a healthy weight.

Pop culture convinces us to do many extreme things for weight loss, even today. You have probably bought into fitness myths without even realizing it.

Crash diets and overexercising can be dangerous to your health, but on a deeper level, they foster a sort of all-or-nothing thinking that can leave you burnt out, injured, and unmotivated.

Instead, your goal should be to create sustainable, healthy habits that nurture a positive relationship to health and fitness.

You don’t have to give up entire food groups or sweat for hours a day to reach your goals.

Let’s go over 5 of the most common fitness myths we encounter everyday and break down the truth behind science-backed methods to lose weight and stay healthy.

Myth #1: You Have to Work Out Every Day to See Results

Truth: Rest and recovery are vital to protect your muscles and bones, and to prevent burnout.

The Smarter Approach:

When it comes to exercise, the most important factor is consistency. The CDC recommends 150 minutes of moderate physical exercise per week and 2 days per week of full body strength training.

For some people, this looks like 30 minute workouts five days per week, and for others it might mean 75 minute workouts two days per week.

Whatever your routine is, stick to it!

The key here is giving yourself at least 1-2 days per week to rest. Rest days allow your muscles to recover and prevent injury from overexercising.

Putting a lot of pressure on yourself to hit the gym every single day can lead to perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking, which is a quick road to becoming burnt out and giving up all together.

Instead, find a balance that works for you and your lifestyle that you can feel good about sticking to consistently.

The CDC recommends a balanced workout split including cardio and strength training.

Myth #2: Cardio Is the Only Way to Burn Fat

Truth: Strength training helps you build muscle, which increases your metabolism and increases long-term fat loss.

The Smarter Approach:

Cardio does burn calories during exercise, and there was a time when people thought that cardio was the only way to burn fat. However, this blanket statement doesn’t really tell the full story.

Don’t get us wrong, cardio is an important part of your workout split that you shouldn’t skip. Cardio is great for your heart health, joint health, immune system, blood sugar regulation, and more.

However, strength training is just as much, if not more important for overall fat burning.

Muscle tissue uses more calories at rest than fat tissue does, which means when you have more muscle tissue, you have a higher metabolism.

In the end, you might burn 300 calories during a 30 minute run and then quickly make that up by grabbing an oat milk latte on your way home. Conversely, if you focus on building more muscle, you will enjoy more calories burned each day before you even break a sweat.

You don’t have to hit the weight room and become a body builder, either! Even bodyweight strength exercises like squats, lunges, and pushups can be just as effective.

Aim for a balance of both cardio and strength training to get the best results.

Myth #3: If You’re Not Sore, You Didn’t Work Hard Enough

Truth: Soreness is not the best indicator of progress.

The Smarter Approach:

When you start a new exercise routine or change up your current routine, you may be rewarded with some pretty sore muscles.

Being sore is a good indicator that your muscles are becoming stronger, but as you work out more often or if you stick to a more consistent workout routine, you may find that you aren’t sore as often, or your soreness is less intense.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not working hard enough!

In fact, you shouldn’t be so sore you can barely walk after every leg day. This could actually indicate that you’re on your way to an injury.

There are some better ways to measure your progress that actually reflect your increasing strength and stamina.

Some examples of how to measure progress include a decreased max heart rate during cardio, increased stamina during cardio, or being able to lift heavier weights or do more reps over time.

You can track these improvements to get a clearer picture of how you are improving in your overall fitness, but don’t lose sight of the fact that the most important part of your performance is how you feel overall.

Myth #4: Lifting Weights Will Make You Bulky

Truth: “Bulking up” takes specific and concentrated effort through diet and exercise. Most people don’t produce enough testosterone to bulk up from strength training alone.

The Smarter Approach:

Many people, especially women, avoid lifting weights because they are afraid of “bulking up,” or packing on muscle when their goals are to look leaner or thinner.

While weight lifting as a sport does indeed build muscle, not everyone who lifts weights will end up looking like a body builder.

This is because to put on muscle in that way requires most people to adhere to a strict, specific diet, lift incredibly heavy weights, and often use additional vitamins and supplements.

When you strength train with body weight or even moderately heavy weights with higher reps, instead you will enjoy the benefits of building lean muscle.

Like we said before, this lean muscle also helps to strengthen your metabolism and burn fat, resulting in weight loss and toned muscles.

Instead of being afraid of strength training, embrace it for all the ways it benefits your health. Not only does it help with weight loss, but strength training also helps to protect your bones and joints.

Myth #5: You Can Out-Exercise a Poor Diet

Truth: Nutrition plays a huge role in weight loss, and is a vital part of a healthy routine.

The Smarter Approach:

There are 3 ways your body burns calories: 1) your basal metabolic rate, or what your body burns at rest, 2) the energy used in digestion, and 3) the energy used in physical activity.

Your basal metabolic rate makes up about 60-80% of the calories you burn each day and only about 10-30% of calories are burned through exercise.

While in theory, you could exercise longer and harder to make up for those extra calories, the research suggests that actually your body starts to compensate calorie burn in other areas to keep things in balance.

What this means is, you can’t exercise your way into a calorie deficit. Further, you can’t substitute the other health benefits of a balanced and nutritious diet.

For the best results, try to be consistent with a diet full of lean protein, complex carbs, healthy fats, and plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Combine that with regular exercise and you are well on your way to a healthy lifestyle.

Conclusion

There is a lot of bad information out there when it comes to health and fitness. These myths are sometimes started with the best of intentions and misconstrued along the way.

Others are manufactured to try to sell you a diet, supplement, program, or other product that makes big promises it can’t ever fulfill.

The hard truth is that there is no shortcut to weight loss and better health. There are certainly tools like GLP-1 medications, personal trainers, and programs that can help support you while you reach for your goals.

However, there is no way to avoid the fact that you have to put in the work through consistent healthy choices and habits.

That doesn’t mean you have to resort to extremes to reach your goals. In fact, you’ll probably reach then faster if you throw these fitness myths out with the trash and focus on small, sustainable changes you can make and keep up with long term.

For more support, make sure you reach out for a free consultation with us to help you create a weight loss plan that actually works!