7 health and fitness myths that could disrupt your training goals

BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

The fitness industry really is full of a lot of bad information, and it makes it harder and harder for us to make informed choices about what we should and shouldn't do to help us work towards our goals.

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The fitness industry really is full of a lot of bad information, and it makes it harder and harder for us to make informed choices about what we should and shouldn't do to help us work towards our goals.

So, once again, to help you make the best choices when it comes to what to believe when it comes to your training and nutrition, here are seven more myths that really need to stop:

High-fat diets have had their fair share of fads (Bulletproof Coffee, anyone?) and the idea of "eat fat to burn fat" has been knocking around for some time. Although a high-fat diet may be more preferable for some people, there has been nothing to show that it is a superior method for losing weight.

As calorie balance is the number one determining factor for weight loss, when you consider that a gram of fat has over double the calories of a gram of protein or carbs, a high-fat diet can easily see the calories add up very quick. Not necessarily ideal for those of us trying to shift some pounds.

You may have heard that cardio on an empty stomach is a great way for tapping into the body's fat stores - after all, if you've no fuel, it has to come from burning fat, right?

Research, however, indicates that fasted cardio is actually no more beneficial for losing weight than when training in a fed state.

Worse still, it may actually put us at a greater risk of losing muscle (particularly high intensity type training)- not great news for improving body composition.

Despite what some say about anything over 30g of Protein in a single meal simply being passed out of the body, the truth is that more protein just takes more times to be digested, absorbed, and used.

The length of time for digestion depends on the overall quantity of food in that meal. When you consider than protein itself is tougher to digest, as well as the effects of fibre, carbs, and previously eaten meals on the rate of digestion, a hefty intake of protein in a single meal can take over 10 hours to be digested and passed into our bloodstream.

Just because it's over 30g doesn't mean our bodies won't use it.

Both carbs and fats have been (falsely) argued as having negative effects on the body, and protein is no different.

It's long been said that a high protein intake is bad for the kidneys, whereas there is actually no published evidence to support this. Although those of us with an existing kidney condition should more likely be cautious of a high protein diet, intakes of up to 1.27g per lb of bodyweight have been shown to have no adverse effect on healthy kidney function.

As protein is essential for muscle growth and repair, it is a huge consideration for those of us who train - 0.8g per lb of bodyweight is a great minimum target to aim for.

Starvation mode is believed to be when the body ceases its ability to lose weight, and starts gaining it despite eating a low calorie intake. However, because calories in vs. calories out is what matters when looking at weight loss/gain, our bodies cannot suddenly just start gaining weight if we were truly in a calorie deficit.

If we are seeing weight gain, it is likely because we not in a deficit, as we are eating more than we realise (often from finding a very low calorie diet too hard to stick to,) or, more likely, because we are burning less calories than we think.

Due to the fact that our metabolism slows when we lose weight (as a lighter body requires less calories to run it,) and we move around less as we eat less (to conserve energy,) our energy output drops, making it harder to create the deficit we need to achieve further weight loss.

It once again boils down to calorie balance.

It's long been believed that there is a golden "window or opportunity" after a workout for us to kickstart muscle growth and refuel the body, but there is very little research to actually support this claim.

What's more, if we are to only look at one single meal, we overlook the nutrition we provide our bodies with across the course of the rest of the day. What we eat across 24 hours will have a much bigger impact on our bodies than what we eat within 30 minutes of training.

A warning typically touted by those who have experienced pain or injury while performing either squats or deadlifts. Despite being two of the biggest full-body exercises, there is nothing inherently dangerous about either exercise when performed correctly and through a full range of motion.

Pain is usually as a result of poor technique, or by letting your ego get the better of you when putting weight on the bar. It is important to remember though that not everyone is suited to every exercise - there's many different reasons why we might find a certain exercise isn't right for us, and if an exercise causes us pain, either a correction in technique, or an appropriate substitution should be considered.

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7 health and fitness myths that could disrupt your training goals - Belfast Telegraph