| MYTH 1: |
The more you sweat during exercise, the more fat you lose. |
| TRUTH: |
The harder you work out, the more calories you'll burn and thus the more fat you stand to lose. But how much you sweat does not necessarily reflect how hard you're working. You sweat more in hot weather or dense clothing than you do in cool weather or wearing porous clothing. |
| MYTH 2: |
While light exercise yields some benefits, it's not nearly as beneficial as strenuous exercise. |
| TRUTH: |
Strenuous workouts do improve aerobic capacity far more than light or moderate workouts do. But that does not necessarily translate into a great health advantage. The death rates from coronary heart disease, cancer, and all causes combined are only a little lower in heavy exercisers than in moderate exercisers. Walking can control weight almost as effectively as jogging since the number of calories burned depends mainly on how much ground you cover, not on how fast you cover it. |
| MYTH 3: |
Sports Drinks can help you exercise more safely and effectively. |
| TRUTH: |
Sports drinks contain two main ingredients that are theoretically beneficial for exercisers: sodium, which helps the body retain water, and sugar, which the body burns for energy. But very few people exercise hard enough to sweat away much sodium or to use up their carbohydrate reserves, which the body converts to sugar. Unless you're running a marathon or doing other exhaustive exercise, plenty of plain water is all you need. |
| MYTH 4: |
Aerobic exercise tends to make you hungry, so it can actually undermine your efforts to lose weight. |
| TRUTH: |
Aerobic exercise, such as jogging or brisk walking, may indeed increase your appetite -- but only, it seems, if you need extra calories. Working out does not seem to boost appetite in overweight individuals, so exercise should help them slim down. |
| MYTH 5: |
Strength training won't help you get thinner, since it burns few calories and adds pounds of muscle. |
| TRUTH: |
Strength training, using weights, machines, or elastic bands, can substantially increase the calories you burn. A typical session, in which you rest briefly after each muscle building maneuver, uses up calories at least as fast as walking does. Circuit training, in which you move quickly from one strengthening maneuver to the next, burns calories faster than walking. And your body continues to burn extra calories for hours after either type of strength training. More important, the muscle tissue you build consumes calories rapidly, even when you're not exercising. |
| MYTH 6: |
You can lose fat from specific parts of your body by exercising those spots. |
| TRUTH: |
There's no such thing as "spot reduction". When you exercise, you use energy produced by burning fat in all parts your body -- not just around the muscles that are doing most of the work. However, spot exercise can strengthen, say, your abdominal muscles and can make you look as if your were thinner by helping you hold your gut. |
| MYTH 7: |
Building muscles reduces the body's flexibility. |
| TRUTH: |
If you strength train without moving your joints through their full range of motion, you can indeed lose flexibility. But strength training can actually improve flexibility if you do move your joints fully. Be sure to stretch after a muscle-building workout to help keep yourself limber. |
| MYTH 8: |
Strength training builds muscle and bone but does nothing for the heart. |
| TRUTH: |
An analysis of 11 clinical trials found that strength training can reduce levels of LDL cholesterol, the artery clogging kind (though it has little effect on HDL cholesterol, the artery clearing kind). Also, by fortifying the muscles, strength training reduces the likelihood that sudden or unaccustomed exertion, such as moving furniture or shoveling snow, will trigger a heart attack. |
| MYTH 9: |
Strength training tends to give women a bulky, masculine physique. |
| TRUTH: |
It's very difficult for most women to build large muscles because they have relatively low levels of the hormone testosterone. Both men and women can build firmer rather than bulkier muscles by working against lighter resistance more than about 25 times rather than heavier resistance fewer times. |
| MYTH 10: |
When you stop exercising, your muscles turn to fat. |
| TRUTH: |
Lack of exercise does make the muscles shrink, reducing the body's calorie burning rate. But that doesn't mean that the muscle tissue actually turns into fat - fat and muscle are totally different types of tissue. Nor does it mean you're doomed to gain fat around the muscles after you stop exercising, you just need to cut back on the calories you consume. (Of course, the best way to stay slim is to eat a lean diet and continue to exercise regularly.) |
