Kitchener Personal Trainer

Before social media there was fitness advice in magazines and T.V. Some of it was good but a lot of it was pretty bad. Along comes social media and now it’s worse than ever before. Anyone and everyone can come online and say whatever they want with no consequences. As a result, we are seeing fitness influencers who know nothing about basic fitness and exercise principles and they certainly know absolutely nada about exercise science and basic Physiology.

Which leads me to some fitness statements made by fitness influencers on social media, specifically Instagram. These statements are not only untrue, they’re completely stupid and only someone with no brain could come up with these “facts”.

False Fitness Statement #1: “If You Really Want To Lose Weight, Don’t Eat Before Bed.” This could not be further from the truth. It doesn’t matter when you eat. What truly matters is how many calories you eat over the course of a week. This will determine how much you will lose weekly, biweekly or monthly.

False Fitness Statement #2: “People Think Running is The Best Way To Burn Fat But Its Weight Training That Burns The Most Calories.” Wrong. Running is indeed one of the best ways to burn fat because cardio will burn way more calories than weight training ever will. People do get this wrong all the time. Compare an hour of weight training to medium intensity cardio in terms of burning calories in someone who’s about 150-160 pounds. One hour of weight training burns approximately 200 calories and one hour of cardio will burn 350-600 calories depending on the cardio. And running? It’s on the high end, closer to the 600 calorie mark.

False Fitness Statement #3: “If You Consume Too Many Calories One Day, Then You Need To Eat Less Calories The Next Day.” This kinda makes sense right? If you eat too much one day, then consume less the next. But this is completely unnecessary. Why? Because there are so many variables that go into how many calories you take in vs put out. There is basal metabolic rate, non exercise activity which goes into how many calories you burn that day, and of course how many calories you ate and what types of food you did eat because foods like protein have a thermodynamic effect to it and also less likely to be stored as fat. Instead of hyper focusing on the fact that you had a few extra calories that day, just accept it and eat normally the next day. If you do this, and not keep eating at a surplus day after day, you will not even notice any amount of difference when it comes to weight loss or maintenance.

False Fitness Statement #4: If You’re Not Sore, You Didn’t Work Hard Enough And Won’t See Any Results. This is not necessarily true. Being sore is a good gauge in knowing that you put the work in but in most cases it just tells your body that you did something new or something extra taxing. An example is you didn’t work out for a week. Your body got used to sitting around and then you worked it out. Your body sees this as a new activity and will cause you to be sore. It doesn’t necessarily mean you will gain more strength or muscle because of this. Another example is you are indeed doing the same activity but you decide to increase the weight or reps. Your body will also see this as something new and cause you to be sore. Another point to soreness not necessarily being a factor, is some people never get sore at all. Their body is very resilient to change and thus never get sore but also are seeing better and better results every week and month to years. Instead of being focused on getting sore, focus on whether you are getting stronger in the gym or you’re getting bigger muscles and or getting leaner.

False Fitness Statement #5: Exercise Is An Anti-Cancer Machine. Wrong. The person that stated this obviously knows nothing about Cancer and has never had Cancer. They should be thankful instead of making arbitrary statements regarding the subject. Anyone can get Cancer. Even someone who is working out, eating healthy, and all the most positive things they can do to ensure a long and healthy life. Cancer happens when cells overturn the wrong way, it goes all wonky instead of turning normal. It has very little to do with exercise. Yes your immunity cells can and will attack it and if you exercise moderately you have more immunity cells but what if you are someone who works out like a maniac in the gym? With intensity? And you’re working out 2-3 hours at a time? The you have the opposite effect. Your immunity cells decrease! So you see getting Cancer has almost nothing to do with how often you exercise or don’t exercise and it certainly doesn’t make you immune. I know because I am one of the regular exercisers that got Cancer.

Have you seen these types of posts on social media? Always read these kind of things with discernment. Almost everything on social media is fake or false and both! If you’ve seen something and are not sure, please ask and I can clarify it for you. If you have thoughts, comment. Thank you for reading!