Do not eat, sweat, swing: 10 popular misconceptions about sports and nutrition
Text: Maria Karachina
The world of fitness is full of myths and contradictions. We all want to keep ourselves in excellent physical shape, without losing health and sanity. Often, however, popular statements only prevent us from playing sports effectively, simply and safely for health. We chose ten misconceptions about fitness and healthy nutrition and figured out why we should not believe in them.
All products labeled "fitness" are helpful.
Whatever the temptation to eat crackers labeled "fitness" or "diet", you should always pay attention to the composition of the product. A popular marketing ploy has played a cruel joke with lovers of a healthy lifestyle. In addition to the promised cereals, cereal bars, ready-made breakfasts, granola and the rest of the healthy food seem to have a lot of sugar or its substitute maltodextrin, as well as flavor enhancers, artificial flavors, sugar syrups, palm and sunflower oil. Hoping for the benefit of such products, we eat them in even larger quantities, exceeding the rate of simple carbohydrates, fats and calories, which generally disrupts the metabolic processes in the body. A huge number of words in the composition of something supposedly useful should be alarming, while natural ingredients (dried fruits, nuts, honey) in reasonable portions are unlikely to damage.
A hearty breakfast helps keep weight under control.
In order to be healthy and not to overeat during the day, mogie follow the advice about a hearty breakfast and light dinner. British biochemists have studied the effect of abundant food in the morning on well-being during the day. As a result of the experiment, which was attended by 300 people aged from 20 to 65 years, it was found that weight loss does not depend on the time of food intake, but on the daily calorie intake - the total amount of nutrients that a person receives per day regardless of how many meals they are divided into is two or six. However, scientists argue that you should not miss breakfast and those who start their working day very early: even a small morning snack will reduce the likelihood of overeating during the day.
To burn fat, you need to train for at least 20 minutes
There is an opinion that at the beginning of the workout glycogen burns first (glucose residues), and only after 20 minutes - fat, so short, intensive exercises are useless. This is not entirely true, although muscle glycogen is a really important source of energy. The fact is that oxidation ("burning") of fat occurs all the time - even when we sleep, but the speed of the process depends on the load on the muscles: during intense workouts, the maximum power is reached in the second or third minute. Studies show that short, intensified exercises contribute to the loss of fat mass and produce a more significant effect on the cardiovascular and respiratory systems than long and slow ones. For weight loss, one thing is important: that the amount of energy spent per day is greater than the amount received with food.
When strength training there is a risk of too "swing"
“I don’t want to raise iron because I’ll look like a man,” so many girls explain their fear of weight training. Women, as a rule, are not able to build up huge muscle mass due to the relatively low testosterone level. "Swung" athletes, which we see in the photo on the Internet, are professional bodybuilders who consciously (and, we hope, under the supervision of doctors) inject testosterone for muscle growth. On a natural diet without anabolic steroids to build a bodybuilder is very difficult. Muscle tissue cells, consisting mainly of protein and water, are more dense than fat, so that even with weight gain, the body volume decreases - it just becomes prominent and fit.
If there is no pain in the muscles, then the training was in vain.
We often take pride in muscle pain and believe that her absence the next day means that we didn’t train as hard as we could. The fact that there is no result without fascination is not quite a true statement. In fact, always the forceps, it just is not always intense or generally tangible: with regular workouts, this feeling becomes habitual. It can occur due to the irritation of receptors by accumulated in the muscles undecided metabolites (in particular, lactic acid, a product of incomplete oxidation of glucose) or partial damage to the muscles. The presence or absence of pain does not necessarily indicate the quality of classes - usually a matter of changing the load, the type of training or increasing its intensity, and sometimes also of breaking the technique - inadequate warm-up or exceeding the load. Most often, the characteristic sensations in the muscles are enhanced after breaks in classes and can last for one to three days.
To make cubes, you need to download the press every day.
500 curls are not the key to an elastic belly with cubes. Muscle relief depends on the percentage of fat mass, and not on the volume of the muscles themselves. Subcutaneous fat does not diminish from daily injection of the press. It is necessary to create an optimal calorie deficit (up to 10-15% of its individual norm, which is calculated depending on age, weight and daily activity) and draw up a nutrition plan that will, without harm to health, reduce fat mass and detect cubes that essence, every person has. The press is the same muscle as everyone else, and it needs to be allowed to recover between exercises. So, it is much more effective to train the stomach a couple of times a week than every day.
You can lose weight in individual zones
Lose weight in the hips, but keep a big round ass. Remove the sides. Create a relief solely on the hands. Lose weight in the stomach, but leave your chest size. Many people think that the process of reducing the volume is akin to working in Photoshop: narrow somewhere, add forms somewhere, stretch them somewhere or stretch them. A lot of research has been done on the topic of local burning, and they prove that with weight loss, the fat mass decreases more or less evenly throughout the body. It is possible to reduce the total amount of adipose tissue in the body, but on request it cannot be removed in one place and left in another. If you are offered workouts that promise to lose weight in a particular area, know that this is at least an unprofessional approach to business.
If you want to lose weight after exercise you can not eat
As we already found out, the process of fat loss occurs if there is an optimal calorie deficit. A qualified trainer or nutritionist will help with the selection of a food plan: in this case, there is less risk of feeling unwell during training, and recovery after them will be quick. If you set a goal to lose weight, exercise, eat a balanced diet and at the same time consume less calories per day than you spend, you can safely eat after exercise. So the body is restored faster and always has the strength to the next workout. Eating after is needed in the event that you are intensively engaged in or are preparing for sports exercises. In order for each trip to the hall to make sense, it is necessary to restore the glycogen stores in the muscles after it. The international organizations of sports medicine recommend eating 1-1.5 grams of carbohydrates per 1 kilogram of weight, and we have already talked about which ones to use better.
Carbohydrates should be consumed before lunch.
One of the most popular misconceptions about fitness is based on the fact that the calories consumed in the evening, will not have time to spend and "go to fat." Studies show that the metabolism actually decreases during the first phase of sleep, but it grows significantly in the second, closer to awakening. Because of these metabolic spikes, the average energy expenditure during sleep is almost the same as spending at rest during the day. If a person also exercises, the metabolic rate during the night rest increases. If you do not exceed your calorie intake and consume carbohydrates moderately, that is, foods rich in them, you can at any time of the day. It is even known that it is necessary to leave part of the daily share of carbohydrates for the last meal: it is because of the feeling of hunger that sleep problems often arise, and a full dinner, not devoid of complex carbohydrates, can improve the quality of rest a few hours before the end.
You sweat more - you burn more fat
Many newcomers to the world of sports seriously believe that excess fat comes out with perspiration. The composition of sweat includes products of protein metabolism, from which it is important for the body to get rid of (urea, lactic and uric acid, ammonia, some amino acids), but not fat. Wrapping film, two sweaters in a warm gym, grueling intensive training - different tools are used to sweat. Using such methods, we do not burn fat, but we ensure dehydration and destroy muscles, which are 75% water. Dehydration is fraught with fainting, hyperthermia (excessive heat accumulation) and slowing down the process of fat burning. Moreover, when water imbalance inhibits the flow of fat reserves, and to the fore the protective function of the body: you must use the remaining resources for the sake of normal functioning.
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