5 Fitness Myths

Aside from time (which is a b.s. excuse), not knowing what to do is one of the biggest reasons people avoid making the decision to improve their health. Even if they think they know something, odds are that it's turning them even further away from fitness, because the information that was delivered to them was either misrepresented or just plain false. Similar to those nutty Christians on the street corner. It's like "bro, no wonder Christians get a bad rap when you're screaming at people telling them their souls are doomed." Know what I mean? It just drives me crazy. Anyway, I'm here to set the record straight on some of the biggest myths in fitness. Once you've read through this article, you'll have a better idea of how your body operates, and you'll save yourself months (maybe even years) of wandering aimlessly in the gym and in the kitchen. 

1. IF I WANT TO LOSE FAT, I JUST NEED TO DO CARDIO AND HIGH REPS, RIGHT?

I put this one first on the list because I hear it most often. "Adam, If I'm trying to lose weight I should just do a bunch of cardio and 15-20 repetitions when I'm lifting, right?" Nope. Not at all. 

Don't misunderstand me. Cardio burns fat, and weightlifting burns fat. But you need to understand how both work with the goal of fat loss before you implement them into your program. Let's talk about cardio. 

Cardio is very interesting to me because it has a lot of beneficial versatility. While performing cardiovascular exercise over time, your body's ability to use oxygen improves and your body uses different sources of energy to burn calories. Did you pay attention to that? Your body uses different sources of energy to burn calories. Depending on the state of your body, it chooses to use digested energy sources, fat stores, or even muscle tissue as energy. So if our ultimate goal is fat loss, we need to preserve as much muscle as possible and set our bodies up to use stored fat as energy. How do we do this? 

Proper nutrition is the answer. When your body is properly fueled with quality sources of carbohydrates before a workout, your body will choose to burn fat stores during and after your workout. If you are depleted of those carbohydrates and glycogen, your body may choose to use muscle tissue as fuel, which isn't good because we want to maintain as much muscle as possible while cutting fat.

In order to properly hold on to that muscle tissue, we must keep them in as much of a growth state as we can for as long as possible. That means low reps for strength, high reps for endurance, and mid-level reps for hypertrophy. Although we are in a "cut" we must treat our resistance training the same by shocking our muscles, tearing them down, and fueling them to properly recover. 

2. I can spot-reduce my body fat

There isn't much to explain here. The only way to spot-reduce your fat cells is through liposuction. Depending on you body and it's genetic make-up, it will reduce fat cells from wherever it wants to. 

3. cardio before weights burns more fat

Muscle burns fat. Not hours on the treadmill. It is easier for your body to perform intense cardio after weight training than it is for your body to perform intense weight training after cardio. Cardio should always come second to weight lifting. Remember, we want to hold on (maintain) or increase lean muscle tissue because it it helps boost our resting metabolic rate. And, lean muscle looks freaking good, too. I always recommend HIIT (high intensity interval training) with some form of cardio after a resistance training session. 

4. All protein powders are the same

Before I go on, let me say this: it is important for women to be taking some sort of post-workout supplement to re-feed muscles. Don't worry, protein powder doesn't make you look like a guy, testosterone does. And you don't have enough flowing through you to look like a guy anyway. So no more fuss. 

There are all types of protein powders like soy, egg, casein, bean, whey, and more. I believe that some of the best powders for post-workout nutrition are whey, soy, and egg. They all have great Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Scores. I personally take whey protein as it is absorbed by the muscles at a very fast rate. Other forms of protein (let's say casein for example) are digested much slower and therefore are perfect for a late night treat to feed your muscles overnight. 

5. Completely cut out carbs to lose weight

The myth that carbs is the only thing that makes you gain weight has been disproven for such a long time. Anything can make you gain weight. If you eat too much fruit, you'll gain weight. Too much meat, you'll gain weight. It doesn't matter what it is. The truth is that in order to lose weight and cut body fat, you must make conscious, balanced, goal-oriented choices that meet you where you're at. Losing body fat involves a good balance of weight training, cardio, hydration, and good nutrition. It's a very simple process that we often overestimate. This is why all of my clients have custom nutrition guidelines (notice how I said guidelines, not diets or plans). They all come from different walks of life, have different beginnings, as well as different end goals. Are there certain nutritional guidelines that need to be applied to lose weight? Yes, but completely cutting out carbohydrates should never be a part of the question. 

There ya go. 5 myths and their truths. My wish is that you take this with you and apply it to your life. If you have any questions regarding fitness, nutrition, great cheat meals, or anything else in life, reach out to me on these platforms or send me an email! Thanks for reading!

Email: adam@poehlmannfitness.com

Real Talk on the Fasted Cardio Topic

If you've ever wanted to lose body fat but didn't quite understand how to approach it, I'm sure at one point or another you've gone straight to Google to figure out how to get the job done. Upon searching time and time again, you may have learned about certain forms of cardio such as steady-state cardio, high intensity interval training, as well as fasted cardio. 

Many humans have a tendency to take the short and easy route a lot of the time. It's relatively painless, and requires very little effort, comparatively. In this article, I want to discuss the potential (keyword: potential) benefits of fasted cardio, as well as the consequences if not executed correctly.

SO YOU WANT TO LOSE FAT FAST

Don't we all? Hitting any sort of goal in an extremely short amount of time would be great, but that's just not how the world works, nor do our bodies. Losing fat is a slow process that needs to be done with consistent macronutrient tracking, clean eating, and patience. But, there HAS to be a way to speed it up, right? Well, yes and no. There are a lot of factors that go into fat loss during cardio sessions such as prior food intake, current well-being, genetics, etc. 

There are rumors out there that fasted cardio can actually help you target fat loss quicker because the body is in a fasted state after you've slept, thus it has no choice but to use stored fat. This is true, BUT only under certain circumstances as well as precautionary measures that must be taken in order to avoid the one thing we don't want: using muscle tissue as fuel. 

FIRST, SOME SIMPLE SCIENCE (kind of)

In order to transition into the necessary steps to almost guarantee fat loss, allow me to quickly discuss how our bodies operate under these conditions. Believe it or not, our bodies are much smarter than we think they are. They can adjust to certain environmental and behavioral situations without us even realizing it. It's quite fascinating. So what does that mean for fitness? Well, it means that our bodies are quick to enter survival mode (where it wants to hold on to a certain amount of fat), so at a certain point it will hold on to body fat and start using muscle tissue as fuel. When performing fasted cardio, our goal is to trick the body into thinking that it's not in survival mode, and it's free to use whatever fat stores it has for fuel. 

SO HOW DO WE TRICK THE BODY? 

When you wake, your body has nothing to work with. It's been feeding off of practically nothing for the past 6-8 hours. So, we must give our body something in order for it to feel like it's not in survival mode so it will utilize fat stores. Did you catch that? "Fasted" cardio that works isn't actually fasted cardio. Sure, your body has less to work with because you haven't eaten as many calories, but it must have some sort of carbohydrate to work with. This is because the intensity of the training can outweigh the body's ability to utilize fat stores as fuel. So at some point during the fasted cardio session, your body says away with the fat and on to the muscle.

There are studies performed that say those who perform cardio on an empty stomach are more prone to loss of muscle tissue over time compared to those who consume carbohydrates before their training sessions. Not good, because we want to conserve as much muscle tissue as possible. Anyway, we must fuel the body before cardio. Some good examples are carbohydrate protein shakes, fruits, and at the very least, branch chain amino acids. 

THE TAKEAWAY

If you want to maximize fat loss over a period of time, stick to fed, high intensity interval cardio sessions. If cardio fits into your schedule best in the morning, then do it. Just make sure you fuel up with a fast digesting carbohydrate beforehand. If cardio works better for your schedule in the afternoon, great. You will burn fat either way. There are no significant studies that say fasted cardio can significantly increase body fat loss. All we do know is that there is a chance that our bodies can use muscle tissue as fuel after a certain amount of time. So what's the tangible takeaway? Do what works for you. Track your body fat and your lean body mass over time and see where your plan takes you. If you do choose to do cardio immediately after waking, I do suggest getting some fast fuel in your system such as a fruit, carbohydrate protein shake, or branch chain amino acids.

To learn more about my opinions on ridiculous fitness fads, tune in to any one of the following social platforms!

Thanks for reading!

References

Blomstrand, Eva, and Bengt Saltin. “Effect of Muscle Glycogen on Glucose, Lactate and Amino Acid Metabolism During Exercise and Recovery in Human Subjects.” The Journal of Physiology 514.1 (1999): 293–302. Web.