Myth 1
You should have a high carb breakfast to fuel your day
Truth:
It is a common belief that you need to have a high carbohydrate breakfast to fuel you for your day and replenish depleted glycogen stores. The truth is that you only need a small amount of carbs in the morning to replenish liver glycogen stores. Having too many carbs in the morning will negatively effect your hormones, creating an imbalance for the rest of the day. You are far better off having a high fat, moderate protein and low carb breakfast as this will stabilize your hormones and create sustained energy for the day. Contrary to popular belief, carbs are better consumed directly after exercise and later in the day.
Myth 2
You need to do lots of slow long distance cardio to lose weight.
Truth:
Interval Training is the fastest way to shred off body fat. This is due to what is known as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) and it is during this phase that true results are achieved. You do not lose weight during exercise itself. It is the hormonal and metabolic impact of training after the workout that will have the biggest effect on fat loss. With interval training you will use your fat stores to refuel your muscles (as long as you follow our dietary recommendations) and your metabolism will stay elevated for the next 24 hours. Compare that to slow steady state cardio where your metabolism will return to normal within 10mins and as a result you won’t burn any fat post workout. Interval training is far superior! The one caveat is that you must push yourself as hard as you possibly can to truly deplete your glycogen stores.
Myth 3:
Saturated Fat is the source of all things bad
Truth:
Saturated fat has been condemned as the root of poor health, disease and obesity since the 1970’s. However, with the reduction of fat intake we as a society are continuing to get larger and larger. There has to be another solution and in my view that answer is the reduction of refined sugars, e.g. cereals, breads, pastas, lollies, cakes, flour, biscuits, chocolate etc.
Not all fats are created equal and the fat you must stay away from are trans fats which are commonly found in seed oils – they are very detrimental to your health. If you read the ingredients label on your food and see hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated, this means it has trans fats and you do not want to eat them.
Saturated and unsaturated fats are extremely important for us to consume in the appropriate amounts as they are the both the building blocks and the fuel for our bodies. Without fats we would cease to exist and a highly important factor to remember is that our hormones are built on cholesterol. Therefore with a low cholesterol diet you cannot create hormones that are essential for life.
Fats from avocado, meat, eggs, nuts etc are essential for health and to drop body fat. Combining fats and sugars is a sure fire way to screw your body up. However, fats when eaten away from sugars will be essential to your results.
We go into great detail about the benefits of consuming fats and finding the right amount for you during the 6-Week BodyTransform Package but for now it is imperative to start recognizing the benefits of healthy fats. Break down the negative beliefs associated with fats and stop following the low-fat diets.
Myth 4:
Weight training is going to make me bulky, I don’t want to end up like Arnold Schwarznegger
Truth:
When your goal is to drop body fat, the most important aspect to achieve this goal is increasing your metabolic rate. Having an increased metabolic rate will mean that you burn more calories throughout the day and this is when great results happen. To increase your metabolism you must increase lean tissue A.K.A. muscle. This does not mean that you need to turn into Hercules to do so. Truth be told, it is incredibly hard to put on noticeable muscle and requires hours and hours in the gym accompanied by a great surplus in calorie consumption (check out our muscle building posts for further informatino). At BodyLean we manipulate food intake and training density to achieve max results in a short time that enhances the amount of fat you can burn whilst improving muscle tone.
Myth 5:
Crunches will flatten my stomach
Truth:
I am sorry to be the one to break this to you but you can throw your ab roller, ab king pro, arc trainer and whatever else you have bought online and throw it in the bin. Get it out from where it has been collecting dust and throw it away because you are never going to use it and nor should you. By doing ab crunches you will be strengthening the abdominal muscles but if there is a layer of fat covering them, no one will ever see them.
To achieve a flatter stomach you need to do big compound movements, e.g. squats, deadlifts, lunges, chest press, seated rows etc. Not just that, you need to do them in a specific fashion that creates ‘peripheral heart activation’ (you will learn much more about this in the 6-week package). To really get results you also need a nutrition plan that compliments your training which depletes glycogen and liberates fat stores (all of which you will learn about and put into practice in BodyTransform).
Myth 6:
You must eat every 2-3 hours to ‘stoke’ your metabolism
Truth:
You may have heard that an effective way to keep you metabolism elevated throughout the day is to eat every 2 hours. Wrong! You do need to eat consistently throughout the day, but every 4 hours will suffice. Eating too regularly will cause your insulin levels to soar in an attempt to lower the constant blood sugar spikes. This will cause a negative roller coaster of a hormonal environment which will lead to fat gain. It’s more depth than we can go into here but you will learn a lot about the importance of controlling insulin and the effect it has on your health and weight in the BodyLean programme. The idea that you need to stoke your metabolic ‘fire’ is crazy – trust me that when you eat your body’s metabolism will work just fine, it doesn’t need to be ‘stoked’.
Myth 7:
It is as simple as calories in vs calories out
Truth:
There are many factors that effect how much body fat we carry that unfortunately it is not as simple as the above equation. This equation has a role to play, but no way is it this straight forward. It is this very reason why you may have tried in the past to cut calories, do some more exercise and didn’t get where you want to be. BodyLean recognizes that we are all different and require specific dietary and lifestyle needs to achieve your goal.
Factors that will affect weight loss
– Sleep?
– past weight loss attempts – diets etc?
– have you lost weight before?
– how long you been overweight?
– hydration?
– gastro intestinal health?
– family history?
– exercise history?
– Ethnicity?
– Stressors – mental/emotion, physiological, biochemical
You must take all this in to consideration to drop body fat optimally and troubleshoot when need be. If you don’t consider these you are missing a BIG part of the fat loss picture
At BodyLean we take an approach that helps you learn what is the best way to eat for YOUR body and YOUR goals as there is no one diet that is perfect for everybody.
If you have ever been thinking about working with Andrew or Ben, now could be the best time for you to start. We only take on clients that are motivated to take the necessary change and we only have limited space available per week. You can apply here to work with one of our coaches. We don’t take everybody that applies, so make sure you include your goals and why you want to achieve this change.
Click here – I want to apply for a coach
Look forward to hearing from you.
