Top 5 Women’s Fitness Myths… Busted!

Myth 1: Walking for 30 minutes will make me lose weight.

Fact 1: It’s true that walking for 30 minutes every day will have a positive effect on your overall health but, it will not necessarily make you lose weight.  Many recent studies have established, beyond doubt, that steady state exercise will not stimulate the metabolism sufficiently enough to have a marked effect on body fat reduction without introducing major dietary changes at the same time.  Sprinting and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) are proven to have significant advantages over walking if weight loss is the goal.  Regardless of the type and duration of exercise you do, if you do not control your calorie intake, reduce your consumption of processed foods, fizzy drinks and alcohol, you will NOT shed body fat.

Myth 2: When you are pregnant, you have to eat for two.

Fact 2:  No, being pregnant does NOT require you to eat enough food for two people.  Pregnancy and breastfeeding are both nutritionally very taxing and while the body of a pregnant woman is making larger demands, it is more important to be focussed on quality before quantity.  During pregnancy, gastric emptying will slow significantly, increasing the absorption rate of the nutrients from food.  A pregnant woman will need to increase her calorie input slightly but only enough to satisfy her own Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and the needs of the foetus.  Eat fresh, unprocessed foods and be guided by your Health Professional, who can monitor the growth rate and health of the foetus.

Myth 3: My pregnancy made me fat!

Fact 3: No, your pregnancy did NOT make you fat.  It is true that all healthy adult females will gain weight during a pregnancy and a large portion of that weight gain is body fat however, the pregnancy is not the reason she fails to lose the excess weight post-partum.  The accepted profile of pregnancy weight gain in Australia is:

• 44% fat stores and fluid retention
• 25% foetus
• The remaining 31% is spread among the placenta, increased blood volume, increased maternal tissue, i.e. uterine wall and breast tissue, and amniotic fluid.

Failure to shed the fat stores after the birth is usually due to continuing to maintain the pre-birth low activity levels (remember walking won’t do it!), high stress elevates cortisol production, this promotes fat storage, and catching up on all of those “missed treats” that you could not have while pregnant, e.g. glass of wine, Macca’s, etc.

Myth 4: Lifting weights will make me look like a man.

Fact 4: Ever since Female Body Building became a professional sport, this myth has gained momentum and popularity as a reason for women not to do weight training as part of their fitness regimen.  When Female Body Building went professional, without the doping controls of other professional sports (before the establishment of the Natural Body Building organisations), the competitors were routinely injecting and ingesting a whole range of natural and synthetic male hormones.  These drugs effectively turned them into men, from the inside out, and allowed them to gain massive amounts of bulky muscle and shed unbelievable amounts of body fat.  The look was, in my view, horrendous and the health consequences horrific.  It was the Testosterone and Human Growth Hormone that created this possibility for them, nothing else.

A healthy female with normal hormone function, will have approximately the same level of Testosterone in her body as a 10 year old boy.  The ability to build large volumes of muscle without adding Testosterone and/or Human Growth Hormone is entirely a male attribute and, it is the very, very rare case where a woman will be able to do so naturally.

When a woman does lift weights, her muscles will get stronger and will gain a small percentage of bulk.  When the muscles do grow, they require more energy simply to exist and this results in the metabolic rate (how many calories you use) increasing.  The net result, assuming you do not increase your calorie intake, is weight loss.  For women, this transformation will manifest itself in reduced girth measurements (tape measure & dress size) and a more ‘toned’ look.  It can result in an increase in weight on the scales due to muscle weighing more than fat and for that reason alone, I recommend ditching the scales and relying on the tape measure and skinfolds.

Myth 5: If I just do arm exercises, I’ll get rid of my ‘tuckshop lady’ arms.

Fact 5: If ‘spot reduction’ worked, everyone would be walking around with absolutely no belly fat whatsoever.  The reality is that spot reduction, i.e. working on one body part to get rid of the fat around that area alone, does not work; EVER!  When you put on body fat, it begins in one area, usually around the middle, and spreads everywhere from there.  In a lot of ways, our body acts like a warehouse system, in that when we subsequently shed the body fat, it comes off in the reverse order.  For example, if I put on body fat around the waist first, then the hips, thighs, buttocks and so on, when I lose that fat I can expect it to go from the buttocks first, then the thighs, hips and waist.  Working out for hours on end on your arms will build good strong muscles but will not necessarily do anything to get rid of the ‘tuckshop lady’ arms.  You are better off spending your time doing a full body weights session or HIIT session, to build good quality muscle and increase your metabolism and then, fix your nutrition.  Eat only fresh, unprocessed foods eliminate sugar, salt, alcohol and carbonated drinks from your diet entirely and you will become lean and healthy.

Drew Dale is a Fitness Professional with Certificate III & IV in Fitness and an Accredited Certificate of Nutrition.  He specialises in weight loss, strength and conditioning and fitness for older adults.  Visit Drew’s website at www.drewdalepersonaltraining.com for more details.

Copyright © 2014 by Drew Dale

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