It is not easy for everyone to start workouts. Even if they do for a few days, laziness drives in and you may stop in the middle. In most cases, there are people around who discourage you. There are many hacks and myths surrounding workouts. Through this column, 8 myths busted. These points can guide you to do your workouts and take proper food in a better way. Many of the common misconceptions are cleared here.
Fitness is the formula of healthy life
Fitness is very important for everyone. If you are not physically fit and healthy, it affects you badly and can completely destroy the balance of your life. Sometimes we may take tough decisions, start workouts, reach our goals, but after sometime, we are back to our old life style. All the efforts we put in to achieve fitness and body weight go to the drain. While it is important to begin something, it’s equally important to sustain it too. While some people follow strict diet along with fitness regime, they may carry some wrong piece of information too. They may have some common doubts as well.
Some people believe that without protein supplements, you won’t get good results from workout. Some ladies fear that, if they do exercise, they may develop muscles like men. Such myths discourage people from continuing fitness regimes in a sustained way. People feeling bored is yet another factor. Let us bust some of the common doubts associated with fitness and exercises.
Workouts – 8 Common doubts cleared
I am doing workout. Then what’s the need of a diet plan?
Some people who do cardio-strengthening training workouts assume that there is no need for a proper diet plan. There is a common myth that if you are doing exercises, you can eat anything and control of calories is not needed. People assume that all the excess calories will be burnt off through extensive workouts, which is totally false. Balanced diet and total calorie intake come first before any form of exercise. You can lose more pounds through a healthy diet than through heavy exercises, and it’s easier too. But if you are able to do both together, your body remains fit and you get quick results.
Fitness can add muscles to your body, which improves metabolism and more burning of calories. But for the proper maintenance of muscles, you need a protein rich healthy diet too. Otherwise with your severe exercises, you lose muscles along with fat, which is not good for your body. Food also plays a major role in maintaining a healthy body and mind, daily metabolic activities of the body, cell repairing and healing and defense mechanism to fight diseases. If your body is not supplied with enough supplements, the deficiency will affect the proper and smooth functioning of your body. When you are doing exercises, your muscles can get damaged and proper diet is needed for their repair. A healthy diet can prevent lifestyle disease and delay aging process.
Along with carbohydrates and proteins, body needs good fat in moderate quantity too. Different varieties of fruits and vegetables can give you enough supplements of vitamins and minerals, and also fiber. Nuts can provide you good fat. Processed food which contains excess trans-fat, preservatives, artificial sugars and colours should be avoided. You have to choose the diet based on the fitness regime you choose.
Ensure protein supplement intake if you are doing workouts – Myth
Per kilogram body weight, 0.8 grams of protein is needed. For example, if the weight of a person is 80 kilograms, he needs 64 grams of protein every day. If you are doing strength training as a part of your fitness program, you can take 1.2 grams per kilogram body weight. You can get this excess protein through regular diet, but slightly making some changes. Include a few more protein rich items.
Fish, egg, meat, milk and milk products, pulses, soya and nuts are rich in proteins. If you eat one cup of chicken you will get 38 grams of protein. An egg contains 6 grams, one glass of milk contains 10 grams, 100 grams of green gram contain 24 grams, 100 grams of paneer contains 19 grams, 100 grams of curd contains 11 grams,100 grams of pumpkin seeds contain 19 grams,100 grams of peanut contain 20 grams and 100 grams of soya chunks contain 40 grams.
If you are a non-vegetarian, your normal n- vegetarian diet will contain the daily requirement of protein. But if you are a vegetarian going through fitness training, you need to go through a little more effort, that’s all. Without adding protein supplements, you can emphasis on milk and its products like paneer, tofu, curd etc. You can also consume peas, pulses, dal, nuts, seeds etc.
For body builders, powerlifters and sports professionals, to get more muscles, they may need protein supplements which help them in strengthening the muscles and muscle enlargement. If you are taking protein powders, you should consult a health expert, dietitian or doctor first. They can tell you how much supplements are needed for your body. Take supplements that is needed only. If you have kidney related issues, excess protein intake is harmful.
Cardio is sufficient for ladies, as they can develop muscles – Myth
Female hormones are not so friendly in developing big muscles like their counterparts. Not only that, muscle fibre mass is lower in females comparing men. Also, they have more body fat. So, they won’t get muscles like men. But when they do weight lifting exercises, their muscles will strengthen and become tighter. When a woman reaches 40, she starts losing muscles, which directly reduces metabolism, and she starts gaining weight. Hence the prime motive is to compensate muscle loss by adding protein rich diet, and doing exercises. Within the 10 years she may loss of 5% of total muscles, and the rate increases by 8 to 10% when she crosses 65. More you lose muscles, weaker you become, and even small falls can result in bone fractures. Your bones turn brittle as you age, and lifestyle diseases affect you more. Hence it is very important to strengthen your muscles once you cross 40.
Cardio and aerobic exercises are often mentioned as exercise for heart. Apart from reducing weight and providing a healthy heart, such exercises can control diabetes and many Lifestyle diseases. It also relaxes your body from mental stress. Walking, running, swimming and cycling are among the most common aerobic exercises. To strengthen body muscles, you can add strength training to your exercise routine. Push up, pull up, squats and flank, along with weightlifting in the alternate days is sufficient.
You can also do flexibility exercises to improve the flexibility of joints. When you add body balancing exercises along with the mentioned ones, your fitness pack becomes complete.
Body sweating and pain – together implies results – Myth
It is true, when you exercise, you will sweat and your muscles pain too. But it doesn’t imply that your exercise is done effectively. Sweat is loss of water content from body, not fat. Body pain following a workout is due to the stretching of muscles only. It is not necessary that you will sweat after doing exercise. You may or may not sweat, and it differs from person to person. Factors like climate, humidity, the place you choose to do work out and the temperature will directly affect sweating. Based on the cardio exercise you choose the rate of sweating also differs. If you want to get results of cardio exercises, you have to do it in moderation but continuously. When you do strength training, you should take care of the position, and take sufficient time.
Your muscles and body will pain after you do exercises. It’s common. You may also feel Delayed Onset Muscle Pain (DOMP). It mostly happens when you begin the exercise regime. But as soon as your body adapt to it, the pain slowly leaves you. Do exercises regularly. Your body won’t pain anymore. Some people have the tendency to add more weight to weight-training at this point of time without any scientific basis. But it can lead to injuries. Even when your body aches, you assume it to be muscle pain after a workout and ignore it. If so, you won’t get medical attention, or proper care is delayed.
To lose belly fat, exercises for belly muscles is enough – Myth
There are quite a few people who shit gyms with desire to lose belly fat only, which is literally an impossible task. You can’t reduce the fat of belly alone. If you seek the help of an expert, he will definitely suggest you a full body workout. Along with fat across the body, fat of belly will also be reduced with a proper workout plan. It’s not that easy to get rid of belly fat. To burn visceral fat of belly, aerobic exercise gives good results. Add a balanced diet to your lifestyle too. Then only you can lose weight. Through strength training exercises you can strengthen your muscles and your body achieves good shape.
Fitness can be achieved through surgery – Myth
Fat loss comes with a lot of hard work and dedication, along with a strict and balanced diet. There is no shortcut. Bariatric surgery, based on body mass index (BMI) helps in reducing body weight. This surgery is recommended only for those with BMI above 40. It can also be done on people who are suffering from obesity issues even after changing lifestyle to fit into the best way they can. After surgery they have to put some extra effort too. They should have a balanced diet and do regular exercises.
A lot of patience and determination is needed to achieve your goals. You can’t compromise with diet and exercise. People who are not able to take effort from their side may fall prey into such surgeries, which are highly expensive and can also come along with side effects. You can’t do this surgery all of a sudden. A medical team consisting of Bariatric surgeons, physician, endocrinologist and a nutrition therapist should observe the patient for a long period, and do some important tests and counselling before reaching a conclusion that the surgery is inevitable. There are some fat-removing surgeries too. But there should be done only under the supervision of experts. If not, they can have many side effects.
There is no significance of what you eat before and after doing workout – Myth
To do exercise without much strain, we can have small meals. It provides you with sufficient energy for half hour or 1 hour to do workouts. It is equally important to eat food after workout, with emphasis on regaining muscle strength. You can have a quick meal consisting of a bread slice with peanut butter or a robusta banana along with 5 or 6 almonds or seeds and apple added to curd. All these are excellent pre-workout snacks. There should be at least 1-2 hours gap before doing exercises. It helps in proper digestion of food and provide you with sufficient energy for your physical exercises.
After an excellent workout, a good diet is needed for good energy. You need to drink sufficient water also. You can use electrolyte drinks. They contain essential minerals (electrolytes) like sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium, which help your body to maintain proper fluid balance, nerve function, and muscle activity. An egg, oats-nuts smoothie, granola bar, white chickpeas – vegetable salad etc are good post-workout meals. They help to get rid of tiredness after workout.
I have lost weight, now no need for workout – Myth
A common mistake most people make is to give up exercises, soon after reaching desired weight loss goals. It is most important to know that calorie loss plays a magnificent role in weight loss and keeping it in balance. Exercises help you to regularly loss some calories easily. You can reduce the efforts and total time of exercises, but you can’t give up completely. Gone weight can come back quickly, and you won’t even notice. Giving up healthy diet and going back to previous unhealthy ways can also lead to same consequences. All the hard work you took will go into the waste bin.
To keep your muscles energetic and not to gain weight again, you have to maintain a healthy lifestyle with a complete diet and also spend a little time for workouts. Please remember, fitness is not what appear from outside, but it is something which improves the overall health and functioning of your body. It strengthens your muscles, keep lifestyle diseases at bay and delay the aging process too. Regular exercises improve skin tone and release happy hormones, thus keeping you young and happy.
Never see workouts as a tool for losing weight only. Instead consider it as a healthy regime for a disciplined way of living. Regular exercises and healthy balance diet improve your mental health too.
To conclude: Based on the workouts you choose, total time you take, your metabolic and health condition, the food your body needs also differ. You can consult an expert to give you a proper diet and workout plan.
Recent Comments