The Most Popular Fitness Bloopers – 3406th Edition
When it comes to fitness issues, I never separate exercise from nutrition. These two go hand-in-hand like burger and fries, hammer and nail, and Batman and Robin. Some things are just meant to stay together.
I will be discussing the five common fitness blunders and what you can do to correct them. Just click the arrows to go forward or back.
Blooper 1 — Believing that eating a little less and going on a diet will get the results you seek. It used to be a popular diet strategy before the 80′s. Crash diets like the grapefruit diet do yield weight loss results but it is not only fat that is eliminated but muscle as well. As we all know now, dieters should not be focused on the pounds but on what is actually lost. Losing water and muscle weight is not desirable. During the dark age of dieting, people assumed that all they needed to do to get rid of excess weight was to eat less.
Today we don’t only know that total calories are important, but that the amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fats in the diet are crucial as well. One also has to consume less calories (less than maintenance) and eat small meals and snacks several times throughout the day to help control blood sugar which is what promotes fat loss. When it comes to nutrition, guesswork will never do. I always recommend some sort of structured nutrition program.
Blooper 2 — Attempting 100-percent perfection on your nutrition program all the time. If you have a strict time frame for fat loss, then this is okay, but for most folks, it’s a disaster thats just waiting to happen.
Nutrition for weight loss doesn’t mean starvation or deprivation but moderation. We don’t have to give up the foods we love and enjoy, its okay to include modest amounts of treats in our nutrition plan. Several years back, I was asked by a client to design a nutrition program for her. The thought of having to give up eating the four chocolate chip cookies two to three times per week with her kids depressed her. Naturally she was so happy when I told her that she didn’t have to give it up although I did point out that the four chocolate chip cookies should be reduced to only two, an adjustment that would fit into the overall nutrition plan. This realistic approach helped her lose body fat and allowed her to continue enjoying her treats.
A nutrition plan should yield significant results but it does not have to be a stringent one that leaves the dieter feeling deprived. A sane approach encourages consistency and brings about weight loss. Build a little wiggle room into your program.
Blooper 3 — Performing countless abdominal crunches thinking it will get rid of the ‘pooch’ area on the lower tummy/abdominal area. This is a classic, I see this comment or get a question related to this issue approximately 20 times per week. Let me emphasize again, there is no such thing as spot reducing exercise.
Fat loss is overall, it does not occur in spots and the only way to lose it is through a slight caloric deficit plus resistance or weight training exercise to stimulate the metabolism as well as cardiovascular training to burn additional calories.
Performing crunches till kingdom come will never flatten your abdominal area although it may strengthen the muscles. The concept of doing spot reducing exercises is a huge misconception that wouldn’t go away. Although it appears to be a logical solution, it isn’t. Physiologically, it is impossible.
Blooper 4 — The “cardio queen” mentality. There is one, two or several in every gym. This is someone who joins all the aerobic classes or spends hours on a cardio machine hoping to burn fat. Unfortunately, this is a completely ineffective strategy and a real time-waster. One needs to understand the principle behind fat burning through cardiovascular activity in order to make use of it correctly and experience results.
A fat burning workout can either be a long session at moderate intensity or a short session at a higher intensity (based on ones fitness level). It has to be one or the other, but not both.
Aside from burning more overall calories, a shorter, more intense session also preserves muscles giving you a tighter, leaner body. Furthermore, the shorter/intense sessions enable you to continue burning calories long after you have completed the session, specifically 24 hours after. This is what is called the 24-hour afterburn.
If you want to lose fat efficiently doing cardio, pick up your pace and sustain this increased intensity for 30 to 45 minutes. You don’t need to be huffing and puffing, simply adjust the intensity to a higher level within your target heart rate.
Blooper 5 — Not having a realistic workout schedule that fits into your lifestyle. Most personal trainers tell their clients that a basic workout requires three days of exercise of perhaps an hour or hour and a half at the most. However, not everyone can stick to this plan. Your workout schedule should foremost be one that fits into your lifestyle.
What use is it if I design you a 5-6 days a week program and you have a demanding job, several young children and other responsibilities? It is very unlikely that you would be able to complete the program on a regular basis. As a trainer, what I have really done is to set you up for failure.
If I design your workout around your lifestyle it would be something more doable like starting you out at two workouts a week then increase it to three workouts in the third or fourth week. This is not to mean that you do not need to sacrifice a little bit because you do, but I also have to make sure that the program is something you would be able to incorporate comfortably into your daily schedule.
There are more blunders that people need to know about but these five are vital. If you have read my past articles, you probably already know that a good weight loss program should include a workout that has both a resistance training component and a cardiovascular component, plus a nutrition plan that is based on your activity level. If you want to have a healthy, strong and lean body, this is the only way to do it.
Charles Volcolatte is a health and weight loss researcher for www.skinnyasap.com. He writes and researches actively on Healthy Weight Loss and shares his knowledge at www.skinnyasap.com where he works as a staff writer.
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