A recent article from SHAPE magazine covers “The 8 Biggest Fitness Myths You Still Believe”. You can peruse the article for yourself, but in summary they cover:
- It’s Better To Use a Machine (Weight Training)
- Losing Weight Only Happens At The Gym
- You Can Spot Reduce
- Running Alone is the Best Form of Exercise for Weight Loss
- Staying Fit Takes Up A Lot of Time
- Women Will Get Bulky if they Lift Heavy Weights
- You Need A Gym Membership to Stay in Shape
- If It Works for Her/Him, It’s Going to Work for Me
For the most part the list gets a “no duh”, but I do like a few of the classic myths that it goes after, and a few “small step” values that the list reinforces. The values are:
- Being Fit and Losing Weight Should Be A Holistic, Balanced Process (e.g. weight training, cardio, diet, etc.)
- Keep It Simple, and Then Just Keep Doing It – Whatever you do, whether it’s going to a gym, lifting weights and jogging at home, going all “Jack Lalanne” and doing loads of sit-ups, push-ups, etc…. consistently “doing it” probably trumps the debate over what’s best. A Gym membership is definitely NOT required.
- Staying fit doesn’t require a lot of time, it requires stringing a lot of good decisions together, and some discipline. Fitness actually takes a bit less time once you are “fit”, it’s digging out of an unhealthy mode that may take a little more time and feel invasive early on.
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Small steps add up!!!