The fitness industry has always been full of fads and gimmicks designed to fleece an unsuspecting public and there's a few things that everyone knows in their heart of hearts, but many refuse to believe it and are taken in by the promises made by unethical sales people:

There is no magic bullet. There's no pill, no potion, no single piece of equipment that will automatically shape you up. You have to exercise, eat right, and get enough sleep. Fail at any of these three and you will not succeed in the long run.

That's right. But there are more things that people want to believe that simply ain't so, and a number of things that they don't know. Here are a few that just really bug me...

1. "Beginner Magic": If you have not been doing regular exercise you will likely experience the wondrous phenomenon known as "beginner magic". In the first month or so (about the same period of time that most fitness products have a "trial period"), you will make great gains. You'll lose weight, you'll gain muscle - fast... Regardless of what you do. This has the benefit of encouraging you to continue - but has the drawback of causing a lot of people to quit when it stops. Enjoy the early gains, but when it gets hard - don't give up, it's just time to work a little harder. Treat this initial period of quick adaptation as a "settling in" and use it to build a solid foundation of good habits, not as an excuse to take it easy.

2. "Six-Pack-Abs": Everyone has a six pack. It's true. All you have to do is get down to a low enough body fat and - there they are! No amount of crunches, curls or gimmicky machinery can give you these. It is completely dependent on body fat, and is no more a sign of physical fitness than having eyelids or a nose. There are so many myths surrounding this one. With rare exceptions - It is really not healthy to maintain that low of a bodyfat level for too long, and few people actually do. Sure those models you see with perfect abs had them - when the pictures were taken. Aside from professional models and people with a questionable survival-narcissism ratio, no-one has them all year 'round.

As a side note: many people who maintain a low bodyfat for professional reasons use pharmaceutical means.

If you equate low bodyfat with fitness you could be selling yourself short. Without a slight "buffer zone" it is entirely likely that the body will use muscle as fuel to a certain extent. Gaining any muscle mass while maintaining a low bodyfat is only possible to any great effect, during beginner magic, or by chemical means. For women, having this low of a body fat often has side-effects, including the cessation of menstruation - never a good sign. This leads to...

3. Women should have a higher bodyfat than men: Women are designed to have babies. I know this may shock you, but I've done the research - and it's true. As a survival trait their bodies are designed to carry more fat. When the body starves (and I won't go into a deep description of ketosis here but...) it switches over to a fat-based metabolism and eats its own fat for fuel. When you may have to eat for two, the benefits become obvious. Which brings to mind

4. Starvation Diets: ...are incredibly dangerous and stupid. It's true that in order to lose fat you must eat less food than the body needs, and there are benefits to ketosis, but without doing certain, important things, in order to shift your body over to a fat-based metabolism, the first thing it will do is go after protein, and break your muscles down for fuel (It reminds me of the part in "Around the World in 80 Days" with the steamship... but I digress). Eventually the lack of calories will cause your metabolism to shut down (clever thing that human body) to conserve fuel, at which point you will stop losing weight. Once you resume eating, your body's metabolic rate will be so slow that it is highly likely you will store more food as fat until it kicks in again. If you're interested in this kind of thing you should read Lyle MacDonald's book "The Low-Carb Diet".

5. "Weight Loss"... is not necessarily a good thing. You can easily drop 10-20 pounds within three days, and with many diets you will - but it 'ain't fat - it's water! That isn't a bad thing, but it causes many people to fret when they gain it right back again. Another danger of the "weight loss" myth comes from the wonders of "beginner magic". Because people are often changing their body composition (gaining muscle, losing fat) they either stay at the same weight, or gain. That's okay. You should judge your progress with the mirror, measuring tape, and perhaps some skinfold calipers. Ignore the scale unless you use it to monitor trends and water retention. Weighing more isn't bad. Most people seem to have a pretty strange idea of what a healthy weight is. I've checked and people seem to think that if you weigh over 200lbs - you're fat, regardless of your height. Sill, you can't entirely blame them - they have no clue how much people really weigh because they are constantly lied to.

Me? Right now, I weigh around 225lbs. Guess I must be grotesquely obese, huh?

6. , Spot Reduction and the Wonders of More Muscle: Your muscles need food when they move, so the more muscle you have - the more fuel you use. What does this mean? That you can create that small fuel deficit using exercise. Here's a big lie tho'... you can't reduce fat in one area by exercising it more. Get it? Abdominal exercisers will not make your tummy flat - only your wallet. People lose fat all over, we just store more in certain areas (yer belly, for example) than others (wrists). Thermogenesis is a strange thing. Because we're warm-blooded animals, our body generates heat, which burns fuel... so just by staying warm we are, potentially, using fat. It can never be used as the only means for fat-loss, but it can give a nice boost at lower bodyfat levels. "Muscle Mass"?... that reminds me...

7. "I just want to tone my body": Impossible, there ain't no such thing. Muscles either grow or shrink. They don't just get harder. Many females are afraid of becoming "too muscular". Get over it - it won't happen. Not without years of hard work with that specific goal in mind. You will gain some mass, and that's what people call "tone" - but it ain't. If you can gain serious mass without trying, you are one of the rare few - but I doubt it.

8. "beach muscles" and "imaginary lat syndrome": You know the guys, you've seen em. Pecs, biceps abs. No legs, no back, they'd blow away in a strong wind- those are beach muscles and they're only for show. Just silly, these people need help. If you know one - teach him to squat, introduce him to deadlifts and bent rows...Please!? You may also know someone who's elbows stick out like wings, as if there are huge lats under there, keeping them up. He's not fooling anyone either - Flexing is one thing, but standing like a goof is quite another.

9. S.A.I.D. This is a great little phrase - Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. The principle here is - your body gets used to whatever you do to it. If you like to cycle, your body learns to be an efficient cycling machine, if you deadlift - your body gets good at deadlifting. So if you want to get better at doing something - you have to actually do it... just because you have gargantuan calves - doesn't mean you can cycle worth a damn. So trying to apply the standards of your exercise regimen to someone else is foolish. You don't see speed - skaters entering powerlifting competitions, or marathon runners boxing... but that doesn't make one any better than the other. Your sport is not the be all and end all of sports, just because you can squat more than someone, doesn't mean you're better than them. They may be built for something that they enjoy - like yoga, and believe me, unless you do a lot of it yourself they will kick your ass in their element. Yoga 'ain't as easy as some people think. Have respect for anyone who puts in the effort. Which leads me to...

10. Contempt for Beginners: This one really bothers me. I have far more respect for the endomorph who is dedicated and persistent, who works hard, and has fun, than I do for the snot-nosed ectomorphs who spend hours unnecessarily torturing themselves on the treadmills. Everybody has to start somewhere, and there's always someone bigger, faster, or stronger than you. Be proud, but have some perspective. That chubby kid struggling with an empty olympic bar could be a future Mr. O - so play nice. That goes for you mesomorphs too... Frank Zane was that beanpole over there in the corner with the 15-pound dumbbells, once upon a time.

11. To Each Their Own: With fitness - it's supposed to be fun. You don't have to be thin to be healthy, and if you're on a diet remember the rest of the world may not be. Don't tell them how to eat, don't tell them how to exercise. Just because you can't have the extra scoop of ice-cream doesn't mean that those around you should feel guilty. You may find yourself thin, but you'll also be alone. Which reminds me...

12. Don't Binge - Indulge: Any diet or exercise routine is subject to the law of diminishing returns. When you stall, it's time to try something different. Once in a while you should have that extra scoop of ice-cream. It shakes up the metabolism and ice cream can be a darn good thing. The occasional indulgence can help prevent bingeing, and it's better to give in occasionally, than to give up. Ultra-strict diets are impractical, and foolish.

###