With type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and America’s waistline bulging to frightening highs, it is clear that what we think we know, and what we’ve been led to believe about fat loss, is not only wrong, but completely backward.
That’s right. Your difficulty losing weight is truly not your fault. You have been misinformed for years about healthy eating (i.e., fat makes you fat; replace fat with carbs). You have been misinformed about exercise’s role in reducing body fat. And, you have been bombarded by celebrity messages that claim, “This worked for me, so it will work for you.”
At The Exercise Coach® we make it our policy not to cave in to popular fitness trends, but rather to go wherever the science of fat loss and exercise leads us. It is our hope that you take the time to read, understand, and pass along this information to as many people as you can. Share it with others so together you can maximize your fitness and fat-loss efforts while enjoying total freedom from time consuming and defeating conventional approaches.
You can enjoy maximum fitness and fat loss results with just 20 to 40 minutes of exercise per week – and I will tell you how. First, let’s start tearing down the myths.
MYTH #3 CORE EXERCISES ARE TUMMY TONERS
When I look at this one, I think, “C’mon, nobody really believes that.” However, my experience working with thousands of people confirms it has a firm hold on its position as one of the most propagated fat-loss myths. Every year, around the holidays, a news article will be published that goes something like this: “Achieving a toned, sexy tummy might seem like a pipe dream this time of year. Baggy sweaters abound, eggnog is served, and Frosty the Snowman doesn’t offer much in the way of flat-belly inspiration. But getting a sleek, sexy stomach is easier than you think. Spend just five minutes a day on toning your abs and you’ll get an amazing middle.
Wrong! Today people refer to strengthening exercises for the midsection as core exercises. Now, there is a lot of confusion surrounding the term core, but before I get to that, I’d like to focus on the word toning. Look at that excerpt again. It says a toned tummy can be achieved by toning exercises. This is simply not true.
The term tone, scientifically speaking, refers to the residual tension in a muscle at rest. By strengthening a muscle, you do tend to improve its tone or make it firmer. However, this is not what most people mean when they use the term tone or toning.
Instead, they believe that performing exercises for the muscles in a specific area of the body makes that area leaner. So, they believe that exercising the abdominals will flatten their tummy. This myth has been described by exercise scientists as the spot-reduction myth. It’s biologically impossible. Strengthening the muscles in your mid-section has no impact on the fat that lies on top of them. Your fat cells don’t even know that you are exercising.
Imagine if this myth were reality. You could literally exercise the fat off one side of your body. But we know intuitively and from science that it doesn’t work that way. Researchers once looked at the dominant arm of pro tennis players to see if it was leaner than their non-dominant arm. The results: While it was a little more muscular, it was not less fat. This demonstrates that when fat cells are tapped by your body for energy, they are accessed from all over, not just from the area being exercised.
Your body actually has a preference for the order in which it will burn fat from your body. Unfortunately for all of us, the fat cells on the stomach come off last. You can do crunches until you can’t move, but you will lose fat from your arms, legs, and earlobes before your body decides to take it from the midsection. Unfortunately, you can’t change your body’s mind on this one. That tummy can be flattened though. You just have to work your way through the fat cells in the rest of your body before you get there.
Coming next month – Myth No. 4. In the meantime, the choice is yours to make and at The Exercise Coach® we can help.
Make TODAY the day to start on that road to better health and fitness! Let our caring and knowledgeable Certified Coaches get you started! Call, text, or visit us online for your complimentary Initial Consultation and 2 FREE Sessions at (480) 716-6080 or exercisecoach.com\north-mesa.