Debunking The Top 10 Workout Myths

Are you bombarded with fitness advice, but unsure what to believe? It's time to ditch the misinformation and gain real, science-backed knowledge.  Join Kimberly Beam Holmes as she exposes 10 workout myths and reveals the proven strategies to reach your fitness goals.

We'll also cover:

Can you target fat loss? The truth about spot reduction.

Women, fear bulky muscles no more! Learn how weightlifting builds a lean, toned physique.

The role of calories in weight loss and muscle gain. We dive into the importance of calorie deficit and weight loss.

Is sweat a good workout indicator? It's time to rethink that! Discover how to truly measure intensity.

When should you push through pain? We cover proper form, soreness, and preventing injuries.

Why rest days are essential. Learn how overtraining can actually hinder your progress.

Measuring progress beyond the scale. Explore the DEXA scan for fat percentage and other insights.

The best exercise combo for results. Why both cardio and strength training are crucial.

Sleep, nutrition, and VO2 max. Their impact on your fitness journey and how to improve your VO2 max.

Ditch the workout myths and get on the path to achieving your best self!

Links to research:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21804427/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20847704/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3530110/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8075169_Delayed_onset_muscle_soreness_Treatment_strategies_and_performance_factors
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23247672/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3925973/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16526835/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3544497/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12574618/

Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships

Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 200,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.

Website: www.kimberlybeamholmes.com

Thanks for listening!

Connect on Instagram: @kimberlybeamholmes

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

On today's episode, we are going to be talking about fitness myths. In fact, we're going to be debunking 10 common fitness workout exercise myths that are out there, looking at what the truth is and diving into some of the scientific research around that. This is going to be a pretty comprehensive episode and there's going to be a lot of great takeaways. I'm incredibly excited for this. It's one of the first episodes we've done in this format and in this fashion, so I'll look forward to hearing how you all like it, how you would like us to do more, what kind of topics you would like us to do on future episodes and things of that sort. But before we dive in, there's going to be another addition to today's episode as well.

Speaker 1: 1:12

So typically, when I do what we call these solo episodes, where it's just me, I don't have a guest, I typically go through the whole thing by myself, but today I'm actually going to be joined by our producer of the it Starts with Attraction podcast, jason, and throughout Jason is going to be helping me stay on track, but also asking questions about things that maybe I didn't explain well, or giving some insight from his own perspective to help bring a more full perspective into all of this that we're going to be talking about today for people who might be listening, who are maybe newer to working out into fitness, or people who are listening who are more advanced and elite, perhaps in their training regiment. So we want to be able to cover the entire spectrum on today's episode. So, jason, welcome.

Speaker 2: 2:02

Thank you for having me, I'm here every episode.

Speaker 1: 2:06

No one just sees me, so don't see him. He's here. He's the one who makes all the magic happen. So in today's episode, as I said, we're going to be talking about the 10 common or 10 common workout myths. They're ones that I chose, jason chose some of them and we just dived into looking out there and seeing. What do people kind of typically say or what are some of the excuses they give about certain things that may keep them from being active or working out.

Speaker 1: 2:33

I also want to point out as we start the podcast that the goal of this entire podcast not just this episode, but it starts with the traction podcast is that we focus on the four areas of becoming the most attractive that you can be physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually and in each episode we want to highlight the areas of attraction that we're focusing on for that episode and many times in the past. If you go to previous episodes from this you can kind of figure out which episodes focus more on each thing. But on the front end I want to say that today's episode really does fall more under that physical part of attraction and even if you feel like you are good with your exercise routine, that you're working out a good amount and that you're happy with it. I still encourage you to listen to all of today's episode, because we're actually going to be talking about some mechanisms that happen inside of our body when we work out, when we don't work out, and even we're going to be getting into debunking some things about food and nutrition, especially when it comes to weight loss and some different things like that. So I believe there's still going to be a great takeaway for everyone.

Speaker 1: 3:44

So the first myth that we are going to cover today is that spot reduction works. Now, what is spot reduction? Spot reduction is when people go into the gym and they say well, I really want to lose some weight around my midsection, or I want to lose weight around my hips or my thighs, so I'm just going to do a lot of exercises that focus on that one area as a way to target that area in order to lose weight in that area and look more lean. But here is the truth. The concept of spot reduction, which suggests that you can lose weight in a specific area of your body, has been debunked by multiple studies. There was one study that I looked at for this, which was actually done in 2011. So it was a little bit older but it had 24 participants.

Speaker 1: 4:34

There was a control group who did no exercises, and then there was an experimental group that did seven different types of abdominal exercises they did so. They did seven types of exercises, 20 reps per exercise, five days a week for six weeks. So it was a pretty decent amount of workout ab workout for these people and what the results found was that there was no significant effect of abdominal exercises on body weight, body fat percentage, android fat percentage, android fat abdominal circumference. So android fat and android fat percentage are basically the percentage of fat specifically around the trunk area of a person, abdominal circumference, which is if you were to just take a tape measure and put it around your waist, around your belly button, or abdominal skin fold, which was using calipers, and supra iliac skin fold measurements, which is another way of measuring body fat. Basically saying there was no effect.

Speaker 1: 5:34

There was no effect of a change in the fat mass in the area of a person's midsection, even after doing six weeks of pretty, pretty decent amount of abdominal exercises.

Speaker 1: 5:45

But they did perform nearly 50% more reps than the control group who didn't do any, who didn't do any exercises, any core exercises at least, they performed nearly 50% more reps on the post exercise test.

Speaker 1: 6:01

So there was no reduction in subcutaneous fat or fat in their midsection, but there was an amazing amount I mean nearly 50% increase in the strength, you could say, or at least the muscular endurance of their abdominal area by focusing on this. So here's the bottom line. The bottom line is that we cannot control where on our body we lose fat, but we can focus on where on our body we want to increase muscle strength and muscle tone. So, instead of focusing on spot reduction, aim for full body workouts and increase your overall calorie burn, which can help you burn overall calories. I mean, that was redundant, but increase your overall calorie burn helps to lose fat, which is going to happen over your entire body, but that at least allows it to also happen in the area that you're hoping that you would lose fat as well. So that is the key here, the bottom line you can't control where you lose fat, but you can control where you gain muscle and muscle size and muscle strength. So spot reduction does not work.

Speaker 2: 7:16

You can't control where there's nothing that you can do that can control where you lose the weight from correct.

Speaker 1: 7:22

Yes, that's correct Okay.

Speaker 2: 7:24

Okay, big picture. Yes, that's correct. Yes, but you can't control what areas of your body you can focus on to perform better. Correct.

Speaker 1: 7:33

Right. So it would be like targeted muscle groups, like so you can target muscle groups through certain things. So, especially for women and some men, there's a common area that that they want to grow our glutes. Okay. So for women, there's a lot of women who are like well, I want to lose weight, like I want to lose fat from my glute area, which would be the butt, but I want it to be more muscular, like I want to. I still want to have a strong like I want to have a strong muscles in my glutes.

Speaker 1: 8:02

So running, elliptical rowing, like all of that can help to burn fat. But then by doing things like squat, different glute exercises, that can help to build the muscle in that specific area. So that, and especially like this, can also be common for men. Men who don't typically have butts, they will typically do things like deadlifts, more glute exercises, because they want to have that like, they want that to be a more attractive feature on them, and so they'll do those things squats, deadlifts, glute work but it's the muscle work that's actually leading there to be more tone in that area. It's not necessarily the weight loss of that area For men. Another one will be biceps. Right, like it's losing weight will help get rid of some of the extra bulk in that area. That can help lean it out. But it's not just going to get more visually appealing, like it's not going to get more visually appealing unless you also do the strength work to target that muscle group area.

Speaker 2: 9:03

Okay, so spot reduction doesn't work. Right when it turns when it comes to losing fat right, yes, so it's good to pair it with something else. That's right Perfect.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Great takeaway, perfect. All right, we'll move on to myth number two, which is that lifting weight or lifting weights makes women bulky. I love this myth because I hate this myth, so I love that we're debunking this myth. So here's the truth of the matter. The fear of becoming bulky from lifting weights is unfounded for the majority of women, because we do not have the same amount of levels of testosterone as men do. I'm going to get more into that a little bit in a minute.

Speaker 1: 9:45

Strength training will more likely lead to a lean, toned appearance rather than a significant muscle bulk. It enhances muscle definition, like we were just talking about. It increases your metabolic rate and it improves bone density. Okay, so what does all of that mean? Here's how you build muscle. We're going to take just a step back. This applies to men and women. Here's how muscle is built in your body.

Speaker 1: 10:10

The more food that you eat, then the calories that you burn, or the more calories that you bring in, then the calories that you burn bring in an excess amount of mass into your body. This can be stored as fat or it can be created into muscle, but you cannot create more muscle. You cannot add muscle onto your body. Now you can lean out and you can make the muscles that you have leaner and you can make them like through hypertrophy exercises and things like that. You can make them just have a better appearance to them, a better leanness, all of that, but you can't actually add to the bulk of the muscle that you already have on your body unless you eat more calories than you burn. So when you eat more calories than you burn, for men and for women, that is what allows the excess mass in your body that your body, if your weight lifting and weight training can turn into additional muscle mass. So testosterone also plays a part of this.

Speaker 1: 11:20

And even though testosterone is the highest amount in women, our testosterone levels are actually the highest level of hormone that we have in our body. So it's not even right to say well, men have you know that women don't have testosterone? Women, women do we actually? It's actually the, of all the hormones in our body, testosterone has the highest amount. We just have way less than men do. And because men have so much testosterone, there's a role that testosterone plays into this as well of helping the men to turn some of this excess mass into muscle. So that is why, when men sometimes have low testosterone, they tend to carry excess weight. But if a man just gets on testosterone replacement therapy, also known as TRT, even if he doesn't even start working out although the effects of this would be much more maximized if this, if they, if he was working out. But even if a man just gets on TRT, where he's injecting or putting testosterone into his body, he will lose fat and gain muscle, because testosterone is is playing a part of that. Okay, women don't have that same amount of testosterone, so it's harder for us to build that level of muscle mass in our bodies anyway.

Speaker 1: 12:40

But the bottom line of it is this it's not the lifting weights that makes you bulky. It actually makes you lean. Lifting weights leans us out. It helps us to burn some more of that fat. It helps us to do some of those things more of which we'll get into in future myths that we're going to overcome.

Speaker 1: 13:01

The bulk comes from the increase in calories eaten. So that's why, when you hear body builders or people who are really into fitness talk about going through bulk phases and going through cut phases, it's in their bulk phases that they're intentionally eating more calories and doing a lot more weight lifting so that the calories that they are bringing in will not turn into fat but will turn into muscle. So when people are trying to gain a lot of strength even women then yes, you may want to actually bulk up in certain areas, kind of like what we talked about. If you're wanting to to gain strength in your quads, gain strength in your hamstrings and your glutes, if you're wanting to have a higher one rep max on your squat or your deadlift, or if those are things that are important to you, you likely need to go through a phase of bulking to where you add more muscle mass in your body. But then you'll also hear these weightlifters talk about going through cut phases, and it's during the cut phases that they're restricting their caloric intake in order to burn fat. And so in the cut phase it's it's, you know, you really have to prioritize protein because you you're trying not to lose the muscle mass that you have acquired in your bulk phase, but you're trying to lean out, because when you eat more calories, you're going to increase muscle mass, but you're also very likely to increase fat as well during that time. So that's why a lot of times, people go through these bulk phases and these cut phases. Okay.

Speaker 1: 14:26

So the myth is weightlifting can make women bulky. It's not the weightlifting that makes women bulky, it is the increase in calories eaten overall. So what does that mean? It's hard to gain muscle when you are in a caloric deficit and performance also typically suffers when you're in a caloric deficit. But if your goal is to be lean, then it's more about what you eat and the calories that you burn. Period. That's the. That is the bottom line and we're going to get more into that in a in one of the myths coming up.

Speaker 1: 15:00

But there are so many benefits of lifting weights and having strong bones, especially for women, because you lose strength as your age, as you age in your twenties to your forties, should really be a time to focus on gaining as much muscle as you can, because in your 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, we begin to lose muscle all of us, but especially women, at at a much larger rate or a much quicker rate than we accumulated in those years.

Speaker 1: 15:29

So it is important it is so important to lift weights, to do weight training. It's not going to make you bulky unless you're really intentional about overeating. And while you're overeating, you're also doing a lot of weightlifting. And then you might be thinking well, what about the female bodybuilders? Most of them are also taking some kind of steroid to increase their testosterone so that they can have the amount of muscle that they have, and then, overall, the more muscle mass that you have actually helps you burn more calories, because it increases your basal metabolic rate. So it's not the, it's not the weightlifting that makes women bulky. It's the amount of calories they're eating while they're weightlifting that can make them bulky, and it's true for men as well. Jason, I just talked a lot about that.

Speaker 2: 16:13

Yeah, so so lifting in itself, just by itself it refines the muscles, right.

Speaker 1: 16:20

Great word refines.

Speaker 2: 16:21

Yes, it refines the muscles. If you want to gain mass, if you want to gain muscle, bulk up, you need to increase your caloric intake correct and then pair that with lifting right To then refine that, all those calories into muscle. So that they don't convert to fat.

Speaker 1: 16:38

That's right. Yeah, exactly. So there's a guy on on our team that both Jason and I work with and he made a goal for because we're doing a a pie's challenge at work right now and he made a goal to he wants to add some crazy amount of of muscle mass onto his body. It was like 20, 30 pounds, I don't know. It was something amazing. And so in his goal he said the way I'm going to do this is by eating 4,500 to 5,000 calories a day. Like this is a lot of calories and there's probably like 240 grams of that is in protein. But that's the way that. That's the way it happens. That's the way that you increase muscle mass by eating more, by prioritizing protein and prioritizing the, the lifting, especially in the muscle group area that you're wanting to bulk. So for men it's typically like arms and you know legs.

Speaker 2: 17:28

So if you're trying to, if you're trying to lose weight but also gain muscle, how does that work? That's hard, yeah. So is it better to do one at a time? So like, lose the weight and then try and bulk up? Yeah, that's the best way.

Speaker 1: 17:44

The best way to do it is is and that's why these bulk cut phases like that you ever talk about are so popular because you can bulk pretty easily and typically a great time to bulk is through the holidays. You're already going to be eating a lot anyway. So, like, just ramp up the amount of weights that you're lifting during that time and it can kind of help some of some of this, because you're really not going to gain muscle easily at all during a cut phase, but you can. The goal would be to maintain it. So let's at least maintain the amount of muscle that you've worked to gain and cut the fat.

Speaker 2: 18:25

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:26

Yeah, all right, let's move on to myth number three, that more sweat equals a better workout. So here's the truth of the matter. Sweat is not an indicator of how good or hard a workout was. It is simply an indicator of how your body is working to cool itself down, because that is what sweat is. It is your body's way of of Keeping a homeostasis. It's your body's way of cooling itself down. So the amount of sweat that a person has or puts off, lets off during a workout can be influenced by many different factors your environment If you are running in the Nashville Tennessee area in July, you will sweat before you take the first step. It is hot, it is humid, and so your body's already trying to cool itself down. So the environment that you're in has a huge Weight and, bearing on the amount of sweat you have, your fitness level, even your genetics can impact and influence how much you sweat. So using sweat as a barometer of how good or not good or how Hard or intense your workout was, and especially comparing that to someone else Like if you're in a spin class and you're right next to someone and you aren't sweating much at all and they have, you know, a puddle right beneath them. That doesn't necessarily mean that you didn't work out as hard as them. It simply means their body, for whatever reason, had to work harder to cool itself down than yours, or it might be vice versa. So here is what to focus on instead, evaluate your workouts based on the intensity that you're putting into it.

Speaker 1: 20:04

Using something like the rate of perceived exertion can be a great way For you to measure yourself here. So typically, when we're working out, we want if you're doing cardio, you want to get into that rep or to that rate of perceived exertion of around six to seven, maybe even a little bit closer to eight. If you're really wanting to just push it a bit harder and that rate of perceived exertion, you can go online and find the charts. We may even link to one that we just find on Google on the show notes. But you just put in rate of perceived exertion Chart and one is basically like you are laying on your couch, you're not doing much of anything, and ten is really for when you are all out sprinting or you've just done a one rep max, like you have exerted every bit of effort in your body. So you're wanting to look for around a six or seven, if you're doing more cardio based workouts, how much of that effort are you putting out? Another way that you can think of this is is it Especially like for me when I do my zone two training? I'm thinking is this a rate that I can of exertion, that I can continue and keep up for 60 minutes, and so that's kind of allowing me to either ramp it up on a given day, depending on how good I feel, or ramp it back down Depending on how good I feel, because that's a great way to to gauge it.

Speaker 1: 21:19

If you're doing a sprint, you want to get more into the eight to nine, like you really want to push it for shorter periods of time. So the intensity, the duration of your workout, like I was just saying, if you know that you're going to be going on a An hour run, then you're not going to kick it hard out the gate, like you don't want to be sweating bullets in the first 10 or 15 minutes because you're Taking away all of your energy that will get you through to to that hour. But also the big part of it here and this one is the most important for every single person is, instead of focusing on, like sweat, even intensity or duration, asking yourself what are your fitness goals? What are you trying to do? Because if you're trying to, if your goal is you know, I do, I want to lose, I want to lose some fat and I want to gain some muscle Then it's probably a good idea for you to have a really healthy, balanced exercise program that includes some cardio and some strength training.

Speaker 1: 22:18

And so there's gonna be days on your strength training days where the goal isn't to sweat, the goal is to work hard. The goal is to lift heavy. The goal is to do better than you did the time break, better than you did the time before. But a lot of times in strength training workouts You're not just sweating bullets, because there's a lot of rest programmed into those workouts. So, because the goal is for your muscles to work hard, not your heart, although your heart will work hard if you're lifting heavy, heavy for several reps at a time. But the goal isn't to, like, keep your max heart rate up in your, you know, in a 70 or 80 percent range. The goal is to get stronger.

Speaker 1: 22:56

But when you're doing cardio days, then those are the days that you you may want to actually focus on, like your heart rate? How much are you working? Are you in that 70% range? Are you doing a zone to focus which can really help us to lose fat? Zone to is one of those Areas that can you're kind of in that fat burning zone and can help us get rid of, overall, on our bodies, some of that weight or excess fat that we feel like we're carrying. So what is your goal? Sweat isn't really an indicator of of much of anything except how your body is cooling itself down. So what are you looking to achieve? And then ask yourself what are the metrics that you need to follow in order to know you're achieving the goals you have for yourself, not just comparing yourself to the person next to you at the gym.

Speaker 2: 23:46

Yeah, this is a very common misconception, because I actually didn't know this until Five minutes ago.

Speaker 1: 23:52

You're today years old. Yeah, so they told when.

Speaker 2: 23:54

I found this out because two days ago, when I was at the gym, I was working out it was morning time, you know, kind of sleepy whatever, trying to get going, and I was like two reps or two sets into my workout and I was like really not sweating I really need to ramp it up, but now that's how you hurt your back.

Speaker 1: 24:14

It is how hurt my back the day you hurt your back makes sense? Yeah, it makes sense.

Speaker 2: 24:19

So now you're saying that it's not about how much you sweat. No so the healthiest way to go about this is by setting the goals, figuring out what you want to accomplish and then mapping it out, maybe yeah. Writing it down coming up with a plan, a workout plan. Yeah to be able to do this in a healthy way. So they're not trying to kill yourself in the gym right by trying to sweat more right and and that's it.

Speaker 1: 24:43

I mean the goat like Lifting weights, unless you're intentionally doing High intensity training or something like that. If you're lifting weights for strength gain, yeah, you really shouldn't want to sweat that much. But when you are because well, I won't get much into that, we'll, we'll cover it in another thing. Um, but yes, I'm good. I'm glad that you learned that today.

Speaker 2: 25:07

Yeah, I'm glad we got to the bottom of my back injury as well, that's right because I just realized that, yeah, dang it, I should have known this. Now you know.

Speaker 1: 25:17

Right along with that is myth number four, which is no pain, no gain. So the truth of the matter is here that while muscle soreness can be a part of adapting to a new workout regimen, pain should not be seen as a sign of effectiveness. And pain here I would like to split into two different definitions. There's pain which is an acute, sharp pain that you may feel in the middle of a workout. So let's say that you're squatting or you're deadlifting, running maybe even, and In the middle of that workout you start to feel a sharp pain If you feel that you should listen to your body and stop the exercise at least long enough to understand what happened. So sometimes you can feel I know me, if I'm deadlifting, maybe squatting, and my form is off for whatever reason, and I begin to feel pain which is different than it being hard. If I feel a pain, a sharpness, then do not continue doing the movement. With that pain your body is trying to tell you something is not right, that the alignment is not right, that whatever you're doing could be very hurtful and you need to stop, reevaluate less in the load, do something may in you know, try again with a lighter load or after you fix your form, but if it still continues to hurt, switch to a different exercise, because working through pain is stupid, don't do that. But that doesn't mean that you can't work through discomfort. And Discomfort here specifically like well, this is hard. If it's hard, then yes. Like continue to work through that, because that's how you're getting stronger.

Speaker 1: 26:56

But the other pain that I want to, that we want to talk about here, is soreness. So a lot of times people feel like if they don't get super sore after a workout and the the term in In the literature and in, you know, science for this is delayed onset muscle soreness, dom's for short. So a lot of times people feel like if they don't feel that muscle soreness the next day or 48 hours after that, they didn't work out hard enough. And that's actually not true. The delayed onset muscle soreness Is most likely. Most of the time when it occurs, it's occurring because you are doing a new workout. Your body and your muscles are adapting to a new Form, to a new workout, to a new type of load that is experiencing. So it has everything to do with a movement being new and not as much to do as the workout being Effective, because the more your muscles get acclimated to that Move, then the less sore you might be the next time you do it.

Speaker 1: 28:03

Now I'll use squats as an example here. There's been many times that I've done my one rep max on squats and I have not been sore the next day or two days later. There's other times, though, that at the gym that I go to, we do a crazy amount of quads in one day, and even though I I do a lot of leg workouts, I do a lot of squats, the amount of a bunch of different types of workouts all put together, especially with a high intensity, in one day can absolutely lead to delayed onset muscle soreness, but that doesn't mean that that workout was necessarily more effective, although it can definitely feel that way at times. So all of that to say soreness isn't the indicator of the workout being good or not. Your progress is the indicator of whether the workout was good or not.

Speaker 1: 28:50

So don't work through pain in order to get gains. Work through it being hard in order to get gains, yes, but also, if you don't experience the quote unquote pain or the soreness a day or two later doesn't mean that you're not making gains. So prioritize proper form. This is why I absolutely recommend, especially if even if you're a newbie to exercise Even start with machines.

Speaker 1: 29:17

Like find your local rec center Wherever you want to go, start with machines. It's much harder not impossible, but it's harder to get injured when you use machines because they kind of force the proper alignment and they're not putting overall load and strain on your entire body like a barbell workout might do or a dumbbell workout might do. But this is also why I encourage like go to somewhere that has a trainer, go to or even get a personal trainer, because form is so incredibly important to your entire body Getting the positive effect of working out over your lifetime. If you continue to do squats with a terrible form, you're going to end up screwing up your knees or screwing up your ankles or your hips and it's going to impede your longevity of being able to do workouts.

Speaker 2: 30:08

Do you think that, or is there a correlation between Muscle soreness and the amount of reps you do? Because I know, like you just said, when you do like your, like your squat max or whatever, it's not a lot of reps and you might not be sore after. But when you do a ton of different exercises, yeah With like leg workouts or whatever, then you might be sore doing that. Is that like a direct correlation to that's an interesting question the amount of reps?

Speaker 1: 30:38

I don't know that I would say it's a direct correlation, but I do think it goes in line with your, your. Okay, what I'm about to say is completely anecdotal, of my own perception and may not be correct according to science, but even, like we were just saying, of when you're a lot of times when you're sore, and and a lot of people believe that it has a correlation to do with lactic acid buildup, and lactic acid is just kind of hard in your muscles it's kind of the easiest way to put it, and so it yeah. So yes, like you, you're probably more likely to get an increase in lactic acid with new movements because your muscles aren't used to it, but also with super high reps that you're not used to, because I think if a person is used to doing 20 back squats with, you know, 110 pounds or whatever, then they're probably not going to be sore. But if they're not, that they are. And another thing that I want to say about this and it's it's important especially for new, for people new to working out it's really important to avoid trying to get sore if you're new to working out, because it can be a major hindrance for people who are beginning the habit.

Speaker 1: 31:57

So I was actually just listening to and I'm actually going to have this person as a guest on my podcast soon Holly Baxter, who is a female body builder, and she was on Dr Peter Tia's podcast talking about working out and things, and one of the things she said is when she's working with a person who's new, then she will only have them do one set of every exercise, not even like three or five sets, which is typical in the industry, like you want to do three to five sets of 10 reps or whatever. But she said I only have them do one because I don't want them to get sore, I want them to get used to the movement and I want them to come back.

Speaker 2: 32:39

I think that's so important. Yeah, I've never. Actually I've never heard that, cause. This is again. All of these are common misconceptions. That's the point of the episode, but this one especially. Like even growing up, like in high school, like when you first start to work out, like that's like what you hear from all of your coaches, like if you play sports, like no pain, no gain, like if you're not sore, you're not working hard enough, and that's just not true.

Speaker 1: 33:01

Well, I think a much better gauge of that is, if so, whether you're doing a cardio based workout or whether you're doing a strength based workout, like I'll even just take this morning as an example. We did upper body hypertrophy at our gym and it was, you know, four different exercises 10 to 12 reps per exercise, four times, and by the end, like by the 10, 11th, 12th rep, it was hard, I was shaking. That's a better indicator. Yeah, and the actual workout are you having to push?

Speaker 2: 33:36

to get your last two to three yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:38

Then you know you're working hard, got it. But if it's- too easy then you know you need to go heavier. Yeah, I'm constantly giving people heavier weights. Like that's too easy for you.

Speaker 2: 33:49

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:50

All right, the fifth myth. Fifth myth that we're gonna cover is that you need to work out every day. I can sometimes fall into this myth, but we're gonna talk. There's some nuances to it. I do believe that it's healthy to move your body and to be active every day, but there's some nuances that are important to understand.

Speaker 1: 34:13

Working out is a stress response in our bodies, just like stress is a stress response in our bodies. Waking up early can be a stress response. Having screaming kids, deadlines at work, too much coffee All of these things produce and can increase and maintain an elevated cortisol level in our bodies, which is our stress response. Cortisol is the mechanism in which our stress rates are increased. Well, working out does this too. Now, working out can help alleviate stress, and you'll hear people, including myself, talk about this a lot where, yeah, if you're stressed, if you're tense, if you're anxious, working out can help to alleviate that. And while that's true, working out it's not like it negates all the other stress in your life. It's just a kind of a healthier way of releasing tension and working some of that cortisol through your body. But it doesn't necessarily take away the cortisol in your body. In fact, it can add to it, especially if you're working out too much. Well, what is too much? We'll get to that in just a minute.

Speaker 1: 35:20

So the more intentional of programming that a person follows and when I say the word programming, it really just means how you're working out, what are you doing each day? So, like when I talk about programming for myself, I have seven days in a week we all do and I will typically take three of those days and focus on zone two, and one of those zone two days I'm gonna end with zone five sprints. So that's my programming. The other four days of the week or three days of the week, depending on the week I'm doing strength training. So that's my programming. That's just like what I decide to do within a giving week and how I'm putting it, how I'm programming it throughout my week.

Speaker 1: 36:04

So the more intentional programming a person follows that includes higher intensity days the more the need for rest. So the more we're pushing our bodies, especially very hard on a given day, the more likely you are to need to go lighter either the next day or the following day to give your body time to recover, because our bodies recover and actually get stronger during our rest, not during our working out. The working out is what breaks down the muscle fibers. Resting is what rebuilds them.

Speaker 1: 36:39

This is why sleep is so important. This is why you see elite athletes sleeping. They're not staying up partying Like. You see them prioritizing sleep, prioritizing sauna, prioritizing foam rolling, prioritizing a lot of those things, because it keeps their bodies recovered and it's from their recovery that they're able to push themselves and see even better gains, get stronger, get faster, whatever it might be. It's not from their continual working out, it's from their recovery, and continuing to thwart that process by not allowing sufficient rest is absolutely going to hurt you, whether actually hurt you, like you're more likely to get injured or you're more likely to have chronic stress because of overtraining or overworking and things like that. So this is also why people who maybe run a lot three to five miles a day and then try to go into the gym and lift heavy weights it's really difficult for them to do that because their body is already under a chronic stress from a lot of the cardio that they're doing and so they can't exert the effort in order to get the gains that they're wanting to see.

Speaker 1: 37:48

Strength-wise. There's a guy that I follow on Instagram. I'm hoping to have him on the show soon. His name is Joel Jamison and his last name is spelled J-A-M-I-E-S-O-N. He is the creator of this device called Morpheus, and no, it's not the transformer or whatever. I don't know. Whatever y'all were talking when I said it in the office.

Speaker 2: 38:09

Yeah, that was. It wasn't even that. I just it's not even the right word. Oh, no, marvel. Yeah, I thought it was.

Speaker 1: 38:15

Morbius. Morbius, that's right. Yeah, it wasn't even that word. But it's a device that well, it's a heart rate monitor that you wear when you're working out and for the first two and a half minutes that you wake up each morning, and I've been using it for about well since November and I'm recording this in February, about three months, maybe four months now and you put it on in the morning. It tracks your HRV from when you first wake up.

Speaker 1: 38:39

I used to wear one of the sleep rings, but the battery just completely died after three years, and I'm boycotting the fact that they have membership fees now. So I'm doing this Morpheus and it's good Like it's telling me what my recovery score is. So that's the thing. It's looking at your heart rate variability, which is the amount of time between the beats of your heart, which I don't have time to get into all of that right now, but just looking at that heart rate variability to see how recovered you are, and then it gives you a recovery score and that recovery score is an indicator. It's not gospel truth, it's not the law, but it's an indicator of how recovered you are and how hard you may be able to push it that day. Now you can always push it harder in the gym than what the recovery score says, but the harder you push it, the more your recovery score goes down that day. Hopefully he can come on the podcast and go way more into this, but here's what I wanna get to. Here is a post that he had on his Instagram, so what I'm about to say is a direct quote from Joel Jamison, but it goes right in line with whether or not you should work out every day.

Speaker 1: 39:44

You cannot train with both high intensity and high volume for long before you end up overtrained and or injured. The best way to improve your conditioning is to find the right balance between intensity, volume and frequency. The truth is that, for the purposes of conditioning, frequency matters a lot, and most people will benefit more from putting in more time at a lower pace rather than killing themselves every time they hit the gym. The best solution to this problem is to train two to three days per week hard and two to three days per week easy. In other words, follow the high low training model. Even better, use my training at Morpheus, which I do use, and I do like to decide which days should be your hard days and which days should be your easy days and then hit your weekly training targets, because Morpheus also gives you like percentages to focus on, like how many minutes to focus on in each heart rate range every single week, which has been really helpful for me. If you do this, you'll be well on your way to having world-class conditioning.

Speaker 1: 40:56

Here's what I hope you hear. It's not necessarily about working, it's not necessarily about moving your body or being active every day. I believe there is an absolute case to do that. Go on a walk, do some yoga, do some stretching. Absolutely. It's when we want to push it hard every day that we are going to hurt ourselves and hurt our long-term ability to be able to work out at the pace we want to work out for the longevity of our lives.

Speaker 2: 41:26

And that's the thing, though right this is, I feel like this is going to very person to person, right? So if For sure it's not like a generalized thing. So like if you're hearing somebody say, like the gospel truth of like you need to work out, do these workouts this day and do this and do this and do this, like it's going to vary depending on how long you've been working out. So if you're brand new, like you might not work out every day. Like that's the whole point of this. Like you need to have time for your body to recover and overworking working out too much it messes with your cortisol levels, correct, which then leads you to not be able to sleep Right, which then leads your body to not be able to recover.

Speaker 1: 42:07

That's absolutely right. Yeah, absolutely right. Sleep is key. Yeah, the episode's not on sleep, but there will be future episode on sleep and, yes, absolutely Like.

Speaker 1: 42:20

The key takeaway is you need the rest, you need the recovery, not just resting your body, like during the day.

Speaker 1: 42:27

This doesn't mean just like sit on the couch all day on a Saturday and watch Netflix, although there are days where, if you wake up and this is a point from actually, I think I'm stealing a little bit from the next myth we're going to go into but there is a question widely used in the performance psychology field which is called the willingness to train question, and it's as simple as it sounds Like it's waking up every morning and asking yourself how willing am I to work out today? And if you just have this feeling like you've been hit by a freight train and you can't muster the energy to go to your workout class or to go for your run, maybe you just don't Like, maybe your body is telling you that day that you need that sleep and in the psychology literature we see that when people like, that is the question is the number one question that relates to people actually being able to do well that day and perform well in the gym, and this is a completely subjective measure. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:33

So let's go into myth number six you shouldn't work out if you're sick. Now I have many asterisks by this on my notes because it's not necessarily a myth and you could actually phrase it either way that you should work out even if you're sick, or you shouldn't work out if you're sick. There's a lot of caveats to this and, like with everything in this entire episode, you should always consult your medical practitioner or provider. But here's the general consensus. If your symptoms are above the neck, like a runny nose, nasal congestion, sneezing, minor sore throat, then exercise, especially if you're just doing a moderate exercise that day, that's considered safe. Studies have indicated that mild to moderate physical activity may not worsen your symptoms and could potentially make you feel better by opening nasal passages and temporarily relieving nasal congestion. Another thing I would add to this is we also know from the research that working out maybe not when you're sick, but before you get sick like being a person in general who works out you tend to have a better immune system and can fight off infection quicker than someone who is not as active, which is just great to know. But if your symptoms are below the neck, such as chest congestion, a hacking cough, upset, stomach fever, fatigue or widespread muscle aches, it's recommended to refrain from exercise. Exercising with these symptoms could potentially make you sicker by stressing your body's symptoms that are already battling an infection. That's really the key here. Just like we talked about in the last myth stress is stress. And when your body is already fighting off an infection, a sickness, a virus, and if you add in a high or even moderate amount of physical activity in with that, then your body doesn't know what to fix Because, like we said, when you work out you break down muscle. If you're breaking down muscle while you're also fighting off the flu, what is your body prioritizing? Which one is it going to? You're just inhibiting your overall ability to fight the infection and to get better quicker and actually more than likely elongating the amount of time that you're sick.

Speaker 1: 45:58

Now, now, I break this one all the time because I hate being still, but I will say when I've had the flu, there was not a chance that I could barely even walk to my fridge, much less like run. There's definitely days where I know I'm sick and I cannot. I cannot, my body will not allow me to do this, but I got sick in December and, after being sick for like two to three days. About the fourth day I said you know what? I still have a cough and I still have some chest congestion, but I feel decent, like I feel like I can at least go and go for a walk or maybe do a light amount of exercises, maybe some push-ups, maybe some squats, just to like move my body. But here's the rule I follow. Again, you should ask your doctor, an actual like MD doctor go ask your doctor.

Speaker 1: 47:01

But the rule I tend to follow is, if I have the energy for it and I ease back into it slowly. I'm not pushing myself the very first day back in, but I try and take it slow. I just do something for 10 or 15 minutes the first day, maybe 20 minutes the next day, and as long as I continue to feel good, that's worked for me. But you need to focus on what works for you.

Speaker 1: 47:27

And then it also goes back to the willingness to train question that we were just talking about. How, on a scale of one to 10, how willing are you to train today? And if, when you ask yourself that question, your body is like ain't no way, no, do not feel like it. Listen to your body, and this is the other thing from experience that I know to be true. Every time my body has said no and my stubborn head has said yes, it's always been worse. I either get injured that day, I set myself back, I end up feeling worse. It's so much better to just start feeling better, to get to where you have a willingness to train and then get back in the game from that point forward.

Speaker 2: 48:10

So I guess the key takeaway number one consult your doctor.

Speaker 1: 48:14

Yes, for all things.

Speaker 2: 48:16

Yes, number one, consult your doctor. But I think we need to remove the shame and the stigma of like missing a day at the gym is okay If your body is telling you no. It's okay to miss a day because if you go against your body, like you just said, you're going to end up regretting it.

Speaker 1: 48:34

You will regret it.

Speaker 2: 48:35

So a good key, like you talked about, if it's anything above the neck, if you just have a cold and you feel like going, then it's okay to work out, but if your body is telling you, no, do not work out, do not work out.

Speaker 1: 48:49

Yeah, so I would put one more caveat on that, because I'm glad you said that I typically don't think of this because I have a gym in my garage. So I go to a gym, which I love and that's where I typically go, but I also have a gym in my garage. I would not go to a public gym. Oh yeah, be courteous.

Speaker 2: 49:04

Be courteous, don't get other people sick. Yeah, huge caveat.

Speaker 1: 49:07

Yeah. So even if you're like, yeah, I have a cold, like I had a fever last night, but I feel better now, I'd still probably stick to like a home workout.

Speaker 2: 49:15

No one wants to be around anybody, that's sick.

Speaker 1: 49:17

No one wants to. No one wants to. Okay, great point, all right. Myth number seven that's another great one. You can out-exercise a bad diet. That is not true. You cannot out-exercise a bad diet.

Speaker 1: 49:34

The truth is that exercise and nutrition go hand in hand. When it comes to fitness and health, both are incredibly, incredibly, incredibly important. In fact, if I were to break down the three most important parts of physical attraction, it is sleep, nutrition and exercise, probably in that order. If anything, it would still be sleep number one, but maybe exercise and nutrition. Those two can go back and forth in my mind a couple of times, but they go hand in hand and a poor diet cannot be compensated for with exercise alone. You cannot expect to eat McDonald's double cheeseburgers every day there's a bit of a caveat to that but you cannot expect to eat McDonald's cheeseburgers every day and hit the fitness and weight goals that you might have.

Speaker 1: 50:25

Nutritional quality affects performance, recovery and overall health. Here's the bottom line. This is apparently widely debated. Feel free, debate amongst yourselves, it's right. Calories in, calories out. A lot of people want to debate this and say well, no, like with keto or low carb or low fat, like whatever. It really is a math formula Calories in and calories out. If you are bringing in more calories than you are burning, you will gain weight. If you are burning more calories than you're bringing in, you will lose weight. Unless for that last one, you have some kind of dysfunction within your body that is retaining weight for another health related reason. So PCOS could probably have something to do with that. If men are suffering from not having enough testosterone, that can aid in weight gain happening. Not having enough sleep can actually lead you to retain weight. But for like it really is, even with all of that happening, a lot of people will try and say, like you, how do I say this? It really is calories in and calories out. There's not a magic pill, there's not a magic diet, there's not a magic formula.

Speaker 1: 51:48

Exercise can help with weight loss because it increases your basal metabolic rate. So when you exercise, especially strength training, especially strength training strength training will increase the amount your metabolism. It increases the base rate of calories that your body burns just to be alive every single day. That's your basal metabolic rate. So mine is probably around 1300, 1400 calories, because I do strength train a lot, I do work out a lot. So just in general, my basal metabolic rate is probably 100 to 200 calories higher than a counterpart, like a similar woman my height, my weight, my age who does not work out and does not have the same amount of muscle mass than I do. So already I have a higher baseline to work from More calories that I'm able to eat, if we're going to look at it that way. So it increases your basal metabolic rate, and exercise can also help with calories out. So not just because you have a higher basal metabolic rate, but you do burn calories when you work out.

Speaker 1: 52:56

However, I wouldn't, I would not, do not, do not trust the calorie counter on any device that you look at, whether it be your Apple Watch, your Fitbit, your phone, I don't care what it is. It's not accurate, it's it is. I would put money on the fact that it's way higher than the actual amount of calories that you burned. So please don't look at that and say I just burned 600 calories. I'm going to go get a Frappuccino and think that it negates each other. It doesn't. You are eating more calories if you do that than what you actually burned, I guarantee it. So if you're still eating too many calories, you will not experience weight loss. Like it's just. It's just that simple.

Speaker 1: 53:42

So here is one of here's a study it was done by in 2014,. Swift, johansson, lavey, ernest and Church were the researchers that were a part of it. And here's what it said, and I'm reading straight from the study right here the literature is clear that the caloric restriction is more likely to result in clinically significant weight loss compared to aerobic exercise training alone. However, the present literature is less clear if the weight loss from caloric restriction is enhanced, so meaning that could you lose more weight if you also add in exercise training or physical activity? So there was another study they refer to by a researcher with the last name of Wing that reported that although exercise training and caloric restriction together may promote greater weight loss compared to caloric restriction alone, the differences are not statistically significant. Okay, what does all this mean so far? So caloric restriction is what leads to weight loss, whether you add in the exercise training or not. It shows that the caloric restriction is what makes the difference in weight loss.

Speaker 1: 54:42

Continues on by saying there was a meta analysis performed of weight loss intervention interventions and determined that the rate of weight loss was similar after exercise trading and caloric restriction. It was about a kilogram, so 2.2 pounds a week. Then caloric restriction alone, which was 0.98 kilograms per week. So we're talking about like 0.4 pounds difference. The rate of weight loss observed in both of these interventions far exceeded that which can be achieved by exercising alone. So it was one kilogram per week, or 2.2 pounds per week for the caloric but for the exercising and caloric restriction. Just, you know, just under that for caloric restriction alone it was only 0.2 kilograms a week. So we're talking about like less than half a pound 2.2 pounds as compared to less than half a pound by just working out.

Speaker 1: 55:36

So the present literature supports that the majority of the weight loss from combining exercise training and caloric restriction can be attributed to caloric restriction. But they would also like to point out that physical activity has an important role in weight maintenance. So once you get to the weight that you want to have, physical activity and exercise training is important in helping to maintain where you have, the weight that you have lost, basically. And then, furthermore, it continues on to say that exercise training, regardless of weight loss, provides numerous health benefits, especially for overweight and obese individuals at risk for cardiovascular disease and current cardiovascular conditions. Physical activity has a major role in the amount of weight regained after the initial weight loss. So it's important to continue to adhere to an exercise program even after losing weight.

Speaker 1: 56:31

So what does all of this mean? You cannot out-eat or out-exercise. You cannot out-exercise a bad diet. Caloric restriction, eating healthy foods, is the important part of the quote. Unquote number on the scale on your fat mass, like that, is the number one thing that you have to focus on. But exercise is important, not necessarily for the weight loss aspect of it, but because of all of the amazing things that physical activity and exercise training does for your body, separate and apart, but sometimes in conjunction with the caloric restriction.

Speaker 2: 57:09

Oh, that was a lot, yeah it was, but it's something that you said at the beginning.

Speaker 1: 57:14

of this myth was that so I didn't need to say the rest of it?

Speaker 2: 57:18

No, no, you did, you definitely did. But at the beginning you said that there were like the three pillars and you gave them in order the sleep, nutrition and exercise. You really have to have all three of those things to be like the healthiest version of yourself.

Speaker 1: 57:33

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 57:34

So if you only have sleep and nutrition and you're not working out, you're not going to be the healthiest version of yourself. If you have nutrition and exercise but you're not getting enough sleep, your body's not going to have time to recover and you're not going to be the healthiest version of yourself. So the best way to do that is to incorporate all three into your daily weekly routine that's so good.

Speaker 1: 57:56

Now that you've combined some of those, here's what I would say. I would say the worst combination you could have is that you're working out and you're eating right, but you're not sleeping. Well, that's the worst combination. Probably the second work. Probably the best combination would be all three, but the next best. If we had to just pick two, I would say sleep and oh gosh, I can't choose.

Speaker 2: 58:26

All three. It has to be all three is the best one, that's it.

Speaker 1: 58:31

Because there's so much that you miss, that the other one can't provide Exactly. It's like an equilibrium. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 58:38

To really to really get the best out of your body. That's right. You have to do all three.

Speaker 1: 58:41

You have to do all three and you can't sacrifice sleep.

Speaker 2: 58:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 58:45

I think people in this office would like to argue with me on that point. You cannot sacrifice sleep.

Speaker 2: 58:50

I fought this battle for a long time and I gave in. You gave in and she was right and I was right. She was right All along. Another question that I had is the quality of calories that you intake. How important is that in terms of being in a calorie deficit?

Speaker 1: 59:12

God, you brought that up. That goes back to the double cheeseburger comment. So if you are eating less calories than you are burning, you will lose weight, even if it's double cheeseburgers. Here's the thing how are you 100% sure how many calories are in that double cheeseburger? Can you stop yourself? I mean, I'm not asking you, I mean I can't.

Speaker 2: 59:36

I'm looking at you, I can't. No, I can't.

Speaker 1: 59:39

People historically and this is the other problem with this is the other thing that makes this hard. Historically, people are terrible at guessing how many calories they've burned, and every I mean every research study where people are reporting how many calories they've eaten, they underreport by 10 to 25%. Wow, we are terrible at knowing how much we're eating and how much we're not. So because of that, that is why I lean towards the whole foods, the healthier foods, Because it's harder to overeat broccoli and carrots and grilled chicken breast.

Speaker 2: 1:00:18

Because you really don't want to overeat Like you've had enough. You've had enough, I've had enough broccoli. You get to the point where you're done, yeah for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:00:26

Can you still overeat it? Absolutely, but you're like, because of the fiber amount in it, the water amount in it, it's just more difficult to do that. But technically it's calories and calories out. So that's why, you know, there's a lot of things out there like if it fits your macros, and some people will really argue against that and some for it, and some people will say, well, the insulin response matters and we won't even get into that right now. Yes, insulin response does matter, but it matters more, I believe, in terms of your cravings, and then it does necessarily in the amount of calories you're burning, and if you're craving more, it's going to be harder to stop yourself.

Speaker 2: 1:01:09

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:01:11

So that's my take. Okay, myth eight workouts are not working if the scale isn't going down. Okay, we've talked about how there's two different things that we're focusing on. There's a difference in losing fat and gaining muscle Losing fat while aided by cardio. More so happens with the caloric intake, and we already just talked about in depth Well, not as in depth as we could have we already just talked about calories in, calories out. That's really the math formula we're looking for here.

Speaker 1: 1:01:44

So a lot of people will look at the scale and get super discouraged and they'll say gosh, I'm going to the gym, I'm doing all this work, I'm doing all this running and the scale isn't changing. Well, I'm sure we've all heard that the scale is not the best parameter of success, yet it's what we still look to all the time. I am guilty of this as well. So the question really is how are you measuring your success? The scale only tells you one part of it, and here's what the scale tells you the amount of total body mass you have. That's it. That is exactly what the scale tells you. It does not tell you the amount of that that's muscle, the amount of that that's water, fat, bone. There is a test that you can do, called a dexa scan, which I'll talk more about in a minute. That will give you that breakdown. But that's not what the scale does. So the scale, the scale, doesn't tell the whole story. Muscle is denser, as many of us know, and it weighs more than fat does. So you can lose fat and gain muscle, which leads to little to no change on the scale, which isn't going to. So you're not going to see the progress of the muscle you've gained by looking at the scale. You would have to use tape, like you know, get not the kind of tape measure that you would like measure a room with, but the soft kind that you know for bodies, and start actually counting your inches, like measuring around your waist, measuring around your thighs, measuring around your biceps. That's going to be a better and pretty low cost method to actually see if you're losing inches, which is more important than the number on the scale. I mean, you don't want your the number on the scale to go up by like 50 pounds, but the number on the scale can fluctuate, especially for women, given on the time of the month it is and where you are in your cycle. The scale can fluctuate five, maybe 10 pounds for when it, when all other things remain equal, just because of bloating and different things like that. So it's not the best way to look at it.

Speaker 1: 1:03:44

But a dexa scan is a dexa scan is now a dexa scan is not free it for us. In Nashville there's a company and in fact you can go look at it. We have no affiliation with this company called fitnicity and you can Google it. It's in multiple cities around America and you can buy a dexa scan through these places and they partner with different imaging centers that are around the country and you can go to these imaging centers and get a dexa scan done If you are fortunate enough to live in a part of the country where you have like a research university near you. University of Texas, austin, I know, has done this in the past. I think one of the like, maybe UNC, has done it in North Carolina. But some of these places have dexa scans because it's a part of their research lab and you can actually go in and pay like 50 or 60 bucks I mean something relatively cheap to go and get this dexa scan done, or you can go through fitnicity it's like 200 bucks.

Speaker 1: 1:04:42

What does it do? So the dexa scan is kind of like an MRI, but not it doesn't expose you to a crazy amount of like X-ray or anything like that. It's very safe to do. You go and you lay on it for about five or 10 minutes and it measures your body, how tall you are, how much you weigh. But, even more importantly, it measures how much fat body fat do you have, adipose tissue, visceral fat, bone mass density I mean all of these things how much muscle mass you have on your body. And that is the absolute best way I mean gold standard If you really want to understand the composition of your body. I know that there are some places out there different, like herbal nutrition shops and or gyms or things like that that have some of these things. You stand on and then you hold two arms to handles in your in your hands and it's supposed to scan your body and give you a readout.

Speaker 1: 1:05:48

Well, here's, here's what I'll tell you. Last year I went and I did a dexa scan. I got my result, like literally went, got a dexa scan Immediately. They printed out my results at the office. I went from the dexa scan, didn't eat or drink anything, straight to one of those things To see how those two would compare to each other. And the one that was at the nutrition shop said that my body fat percent was like 10 or 10% lower than the dexa scan, which is the gold standard. It's like 99% accurate. So it was wrong. The bottom line was it was wrong. Now, at least now I know the extent to which it was wrong, so I could continue to go throughout the year every so often and get the scan done, and then I would know how far off it was when I first had it. So I could like do the calculations in my head, but it was wrong. So if you want to know this and it's really important as you get older to understand like what is your bone density A lot of times people in their 60s, 70s, 80s they can get this covered by insurance because it's a bone density scan as well, which can really help.

Speaker 1: 1:06:56

Now here's the crazy thing. The myth is, if the scale isn't moving, then you're, then you're not working out enough. So when I went and got this last year, I had gained weight. I was like more than I typically weighed, and so I was feeling really bad about myself all the things. I went and I got this dexa scan done and it came back with my results and I realized like I have a ton of muscle mass. It was like 100 something pounds of muscle mass. It was like super high percentage compared to the general population.

Speaker 1: 1:07:30

And even when I looked at my body fat percentage, which that's what I was feeling the worst about and when I looked at my body fat percentage, I'm not I don't even know if I should say this. Here's why I'm saying this. I'm saying this because it goes to show how hard we are on our bodies. But when it showed me my body fat percent, it said I was in like the 10th percentile and I was akin to an elite athlete. And I just looked at that and I was like I have been beating myself up for the fact that the scale is going up and feeling like I'm not good enough.

Speaker 1: 1:08:04

And then when I actually looked at the data, I realized our bodies are strong and healthy and amazing and the things that we beat ourselves up for we really may not even understand how, actually, inside of our body, things are happening so much differently. So it was I open her in a positive way for me and it's something that I've committed to do every year, once a year, just to see as I age, how, how my body changes and to know, you know, if there's things that I need to shift or change, and it also helps me understand what I need to do. It's part of it's part of what helps me understand, like what I need to focus on in my workouts. So if my strength, if my muscle mass began to go down, then I would know I need to prioritize that again Now, since I got that DeXa scan last year, I've been focusing way more on cardio for the cardiovascular reasons.

Speaker 1: 1:09:03

That's something that runs in my family and I want to get ahead of that. That's one of my biggest like worries as I get older is just, I know I'm going to have cardiovascular problems because it's a strong genetic link, and so I'm wanting to go ahead and do what I can now. So that's another part of what I'm looking at, and none of those things the scale will tell me, and they are the most important things strength and cardio ability and the scales never going to tell me if I'm doing good at those or not. You have to determine how you're measuring success and let that be how you know if your workouts are working or not, not your scale.

Speaker 2: 1:09:45

Yeah, so key takeaway here is that the number on the scale is misleading.

Speaker 1: 1:09:50

It's misleading of whether the work you are doing is working In terms of your success.

Speaker 2: 1:09:56

Yes, Not that it's misleading. In general, Right, exactly. I mean, the number on the scale is accurate to how much you weigh, right. But in terms of measuring success it is not a good indicator because even from personal experience, like when I was at my most unhealthy version of myself compared to when I was at my healthiest version the number on the scale, the difference was not that big of a difference.

Speaker 1: 1:10:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:10:20

But like the way that I looked and the way that I felt was like a huge gap, way bigger than you would think. Yeah, would be like the number on the scale.

Speaker 1: 1:10:29

Such a better gauge.

Speaker 2: 1:10:30

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:10:31

Yeah, such a better gauge. All right, we have two more. Stick with us. Myth number nine is that cardio is the only way to lose weight. Okay, we've laid a big foundation for this up until now, so we've already debunked that. Because we've already debunked this in general, because we've talked about how calories in and calories out is the most important thing to focus on, and we've already talked about how cardio is good. I mean, it can aid in the fat burning, but it is not the only way to lose weight, because it is not the only way to lose weight. It's not even the main way to lose weight. The calories in and calories out is the main way that we lose weight. So, while cardio exercises are effective for helping to burn calories which don't trust how many calories your watch tells you you burned but it does help you burn calories Combining cardio with strength training is more effective for long-term weight maintenance and body composition changes. Strength training helps build muscle, which can increase resting metabolic rate, which we've talked about and increases your calorie burn throughout the day, which we've talked about. So the application here is to integrate a mix of cardio and strength training into your workout to maximize fat loss, to improve muscle tone and to enhance overall fitness.

Speaker 1: 1:11:43

So there was one study done in 2012 by Willis Slintz, bateman, shields, piner, bales and Cross. It was in the Journal of Applied Physiology and in this there were 119 sedentary, overweight or obese adults who were randomized to one of three eight-month exercise protocols. So there was a resistance training group, an aerobic training group or a combination aerobic and resistance training. So the primary outcomes that they were looking at were the body mass, fat mass and lean body mass. So the aerobic training groups the aerobic training and the aerobic and resistance training groups reduced total body mass and fat mass more than just the resistance training group. But they were not different from each other the resistance training and the aerobic training. Resistance training increased lean body mass more than just the aerobic training, while requiring double the time commitment. They're basically saying a program of combining aerobic training and resistance training is the best thing to do. So that's what. So, bottom line, that's what you need to do. It's what we've been talking about the whole time. They do two different things. You will build muscle through your resistance training. You're more likely to burn fat through your aerobic training, through your cardio, strength training and cardio. They both have a place. The question is what is your goal? If your goal is to run a marathon, then you need to have some resistance training programmed in for some cross training reasons, but your main focus is gonna be on cardio.

Speaker 1: 1:13:25

Right in the past year of my life, I've had more of an emphasis on cardio than I did on strength training the several years before that, and so I knew that I wasn't gonna experience the same amount of gains in my one rep max deadlift or my squat.

Speaker 1: 1:13:42

I wanted to maintain those, but I realized that my biggest gap in, just like my health and fitness, was my cardiovascular. My VO2 max, specifically, is what I'm still currently optimizing for, and so that's why I started running more, started doing zone two training more, did a lot of sprinting, have done a lot of sprinting, and I've already seen an increase in my VO2 max. I'm trying to get it to 50, that's my goal, but I have already gone from like 36 to 44, because my focus has been there. But I didn't do it. I got off track. I didn't do it for weight loss. I didn't do it for weight loss. In fact, I haven't lost any weight Doing all this cardio. I haven't lost any weight and, in fact, if anything, I have gained weight, but that's not what I'm optimizing for. I'm optimizing for my cardio health, my cardio output and my VO2 max.

Speaker 2: 1:14:37

Yeah, I mean these generalized truth statements that we've. I mean, I feel like that's all we've covered in all these. What all these myths are the generalized truth statements like the cardio is the only way to lose weight. They're not true, because what works for somebody, for one person, is different from what will work for somebody else. It all depends on what you're trying to do, what your version of success looks like.

Speaker 2: 1:15:04

So just do what works for you so find that balance. That's the most important part is finding the balance between cardio and strength training.

Speaker 1: 1:15:12

Yeah, absolutely All right. Our final myth that exercise alone is enough for a healthy lifestyle. Well, we've already we got ahead of ourselves some in this as well. Exercise, as we have said, is one component of a healthy lifestyle, but sleep and nutrition are also incredibly important, with, I would say, sleep being the absolute most important. Hydration is important. Stress management is important. Getting adequate sunlight is important. There's so many things that are important. Exercise is important as well, though Neglecting any of these aspects can be detrimental to your overall health, and I would even add in there, like your relationships in your life, healthy relationships, positive relationships in your life, Having a great relationship with God, being a person of faith, like all of that, impacts your health as well.

Speaker 1: 1:16:04

It's all tied together, which is why we talk about the four areas of attraction physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. They're all important. So what's the truth? The truth is to adopt a holistic approach by getting enough sleep, eating a balanced diet. I hate the term balanced diet. I don't know what you're balancing, but the goal here, I would say, is to you need enough protein.

Speaker 1: 1:16:28

If we're gonna talk about a truth of anything when it comes to food, you should aim for getting 0.75 grams, 0.8 grams of protein per pound that you weigh as a general rule of thumb. So, and you're not gonna get that if you do not prioritize your protein intake Like you, have to really be intentional in order to hit your protein goals. And eat vegetables, eat fruits, eat those micronutrients that God created for us as we intended. Eat sweet potatoes, brown rice, regular rice, whatever. Eat bread. If you want to Eat a pastry, I don't care about all of that, as long as you are eating mostly that 80% rule foods that are nourishing for our bodies, for your body.

Speaker 1: 1:17:17

That's the important thing to do and manage your stress effectively and stay hydrated, which is also very important, but being in sleep, which isn't even included there, but sleep is also incredibly important. Dietary interventions what you eat is just one aspect, although it is an important aspect, but so is your intellectual attraction, what you learn, what you do, the way that you apply your skills to the world around you, your emotional attraction, how you evoke positive emotions in those around you and those that you love and in those that you love. Your spiritual attractions, or your spiritual attraction being a person that lives in line with your beliefs and values and does positive things for the world. All of that is incredibly important. So no, exercise alone isn't the only thing you need to do for a healthy lifestyle.

Speaker 2: 1:18:10

Again it goes back to the equilibrium that we talked about earlier on. We kind of got ahead of ourselves a little bit, but it's the sleep, the nutrition and the exercise and every area of the pies. Every area of the pies. It's crazy. I wish there was a podcast that talked about this.

Speaker 1: 1:18:29

Someone should make one.

Speaker 2: 1:18:30

Yeah, it's crazy. It's almost like we're doing one.

Speaker 1: 1:18:32

It's almost kind of Almost like we're doing one All right. So here are. I'll share my key takeaways from everything and then I'll have Jason share his. Here's the most thing, here's the most of what we talked about. We started talking about 10 fitness myths that we wanted to debunk, and here's what we learned that muscle mass is important and that it's important not because it's going to be the magic cure-all that helps you lose all your weight and be everything you ever wanted.

Speaker 1: 1:19:04

It's important because muscle mass is what keeps us strong throughout our life, and once we hit a certain age, we begin to lose muscle mass, which is why it's important to prioritize it, especially for long and healthy lives. And here's the point I wanna strongly connect, because I think a lot of times people will be like eh, I don't care, I don't care about being strong, I don't care about losing it, because what am I gonna do when I'm 80 years old? Do you wanna be able to pick up your grandkids? Do you wanna be able to like go to your granddaughter's wedding and be able to walk down the aisle? Muscle mass isn't just about how we look it's and cardio like even working on our cardio. It's not just doing it for vein measures? Now, at least, I hope not. It's because it helps us to live long and healthy lives, so that we can be present with the people that we love for as long as we can.

Speaker 1: 1:19:59

There's a deeper tie-in to all of these things? Or so that we can better fulfill the purpose that each of us has for our life while feeling great and being able to fully focus on it and to give our all Like. There's so many reasons that focusing on exercise and fitness is important for our overall pies. There's also a variety of exercises, including cardio, that support long-term health, not just weight training, but it's a great mix of the two that is important Calories in and calories out. It really is that simple and overall, it's about doing the workouts that you will commit to keep doing, because there are so many positive benefits of exercise Not over-exercising, appropriate exercising, easing into it but it's about doing the things that you enjoy doing, so that you will continue to do those things. What do you think, jason?

Speaker 2: 1:20:59

Yeah, I mean, I agree with all of those things. I think my two key takeaways for this episode would be that. Number one it's about what you determine as successful.

Speaker 2: 1:21:12

So it's not about like all of these are. It's not about these generalized truths. It's not about these things that you might see on social media or whatever. It's about each individual person, what you consider as successful. How can you create a plan that works for you to get, for you to get to be the healthiest version of yourself? The next key takeaway that I have would be that wouldn't it be great if there was like a secret formula to help us live long lasting, healthy lives? Well, this is it. Like this is it Working on your nutrition, working on your exercise, getting enough sleep? You just said it. Like this is what helps us to live long, healthy lives, and it's almost like a preventative measure.

Speaker 2: 1:22:04

You might not realize it now because we're still, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 years away from being in our 70s and 80s. But when you get there like, if you haven't done this, you're gonna wish that you did.

Speaker 1: 1:22:16

So why not start doing it now?

Speaker 2: 1:22:18

Right right.

Speaker 1: 1:22:19

Oh, I love that so much there is. There was a podcast I was listening to last year and they were talking about exercise and just different things, like I think they were even talking about VO2 max, which there's so much research out there, talking about how VO2 max is a direct correlation to longevity, and VO2 max is basically your body's ability to effectively use oxygen in the middle of cardio. So, and it's the higher your VO2 max, the longer people typically live and have better lives as they age, because they're able to continue to do more in their life. The lower your VO2 max is, the harder it is for you to even like walk upstairs, because your cardio system just can't handle it. Why am I saying all of this? So there's one workout out there and it's a test of VO2 max that you can do at home or not probably not at home, but like on your own and it's a 12 minute Cooper's field test. You can go Google it, but basically it's run as fast as you can in 12 minutes and then you can go and find the chart and you can see what your VO2 max is. And here's what they said and this is the part I loved about it and it goes in line with what you just said, jason, is they said the test is also the treatment, like the test of if you're good at these things or not, and exposing the areas in which you can work on is also the treatment that you use to get better at the test. Like the prescription. Yeah, exactly, it's the prescription. So it's important, but it takes intentionality, and not just for the vain reasons, like we said, but because you being at your best is important for all of the relationships and aspirations that you have in your life.

Speaker 1: 1:24:05

So why does all of this matter? We've gone through several different things, not just 10 exercise myths, but also ways that our body works and why exercise is important and why nutrition is important. But, other than just the physical aspect of all of this, why is this really important? In the purpose of this podcast, we really want to highlight the four areas of attraction Physical, which this episode has definitely been mostly about intellectual, emotional and spiritual. And it's no shock to most of you, I'm sure, that I am a spiritual person. I am a Christian, I wholeheartedly love and believe in Jesus and even if you are not a Christian, I love that you listen to this show and I wanna share with you something from my beliefs about Christianity, about the way that God views us, about the way that we live in our faith. That, I believe, is a direct implication of another reason why exercise is important for us. When you are a person of faith and if you're not, then please stick with me as I try and explain this.

Speaker 1: 1:25:11

But when we have faith in God, in Jesus, in something bigger and greater than ourselves, that walk into that journey is difficult. There are times where we go through trials and we go through hard things. Hard things happen to us. We have to suffer through difficult situations walking with a loved one through cancer, walking through being served divorce papers, walking through a season of really intense difficulty at work, whatever it might be. There are seasons of trials and we are called to endure. Even further than that, we are called, as Christians and people of faith, to continue to trust God even when we don't see what's coming next, and to endure in believing in God and in trusting in Him even when we can't see what he has in store for us next.

Speaker 1: 1:26:08

In Hebrews, which is one of the books in the Bible, specifically in the New Testament, there's a chapter chapter 12, which opens by saying, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, and what that means is it's going back, looking at the genealogy of all of our predecessors, of our forefathers, in the faith, going all the way back to Abraham, and going, through the Bible, into many of people like Noah, like Moses, who stood for God even when society and culture didn't. When we look at Noah and how he built an ark on faith, even though many people, when you look at the commentaries, would say that perhaps the earth had never even seen rain when Noah was building an ark he was trusting God even when he had no idea why. And he is considered, he, moses, many others in our lineage of Rahab, who is the woman who was a prostitute but saved Israel from being completely taken out by their enemies. I mean, we could go on and on, but when we look back at all those people who stood on trusting God even when they couldn't see why, that's who he's talking about here, the author of Hebrews. So, since we are surrounded by these people, these pioneers of the faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up, and let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion, who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross and disregarded its shame, and now he is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne.

Speaker 1: 1:28:00

What does all of this mean? Our physical selves, when we exercise, when we train, when we run a race. It is simply a physical and bodily example of what our faith endures every single day. If you've ever trained for any kind of race a 5K, a marathon, whatever it might be then you understand that the more weight you have on you if you're like wearing a backpack it's gonna be hard to run that race. If you don't have the right shoes, if you're not using the right form, it can trip you up, it can hurt you, it can injure you. It doesn't allow you to run freely, it doesn't allow you to run fast.

Speaker 1: 1:28:44

There's another thing that's true as well when you don't know what you're training for, when you don't have your eyes set on something, then it's hard to stay focused. You get distracted, you go off course. Several years ago actually last year, last year I was involved in a fitness competition and I was in first place in one of the races that I was in of it and I was going, I was the first one out the door. We had to run 800 meters, which is about half a mile out and back in, but the cones were not easily set up and I couldn't see where the actual end point was, and so I got to what I thought was the end. I came in, I turned around, I got back in, only to be completely and utterly dismayed and discouraged and ashamed to find out that I hadn't run the full way. I had put in all of that effort, all of that time, all of those months of training, only to not actually meet the goal.

Speaker 1: 1:29:44

And how often does that happen in our faith as well, where we get distracted, we don't see, we keep our eyes, we take our eyes off of Jesus, we forget that he's the one for us to focus on and we end up not doing what we wished that we would have done, not focusing on the things that we later realized we should have been focused on. Exercise is important for our bodies. There's a ton of research that shows why. It helps us. To treat our bodies more like a temple, helps us understand that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. It helps us to be able to better carry out what God has called us in life, or what God has called us to in life. But it's also, I believe, simply a way that we can, on a daily basis, realize that the spiritual warfare, that the trials that we endure in our faith, are the things that are tested in a physical sense on a daily basis.

Speaker 1: 1:30:43

When we exercise. We get to choose if we're gonna continue to go further, if we're gonna keep our eyes on the prize, if we're going to continue to be disciplined in moving forward in what we know we should do, even when we don't feel like it. And then it continues into the rest of Hebrews where it says and this is in verse 11, that no discipline is enjoyable while it's happening. Now, granted, this is talking about how, when fathers discipline their children, that it's because they love them, and mimicking that and showing that that's a way that God, when he disciplines us, it's because he loves us. But listen to the thought process behind it. No discipline is enjoyable while it's happening. It's painful. Exercise is painful. Well, it shouldn't be painful. We talked about that. But it's hard. It's not necessarily enjoyable to go for the heavier lift. This morning I was doing dead lifts and I've got injured several months ago on dead lifts. So I've been working my way back up and today I was scared approaching the bar. It had 200 pounds on it. I was going for three reps and I hadn't done that in a long time and I knew it was gonna suck in the moment. But I did it anyway because I knew it was the next thing I needed to do to grow and to go to the next step.

Speaker 1: 1:32:00

And how true is that. So many times in our faith, walk as well. But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak in lame will not fall but become strong.

Speaker 1: 1:32:26

Mental strength, spiritual strength, is incredibly important, more important, I believe, than physical strength, because it's our spiritual strength that will last for eternity. Not that we have to earn it and not that we have to get strong enough spiritually to a point. But what's the purpose when we are people of faith? The purpose is that we live our lives in such a way that we love others and through our love, they experience the love of Christ through us. But when we aren't focused, life will distract us and we won't be spiritually strong. We'll be the kind of people who, unfortunately, may not experience the love of Jesus on a day-to-day consistent basis with us when we're distracted.

Speaker 1: 1:33:13

For me and I can't speak for you, but for me, starting my day, or at least at some point in my day including the physical aspect of training, of strengthening my grip, of strengthening my weak knees, of having stability in the things that I do physically, is simply a reminder that my faith goes through this as well. And it's a reminder for me that while physical strength and cleanliness and all of those things are important, how much more so is godliness, how much more important is it that people can actually see Christ through me and how I love them, not just because I did six pull-ups or ran a mile in eight minutes or whatever it might be. The physical part isn't really the point. The physical part is simply the reminder to us to continue to work and exercise and strengthen the side of us that continues to love God and to love others well through that as well.

Speaker 1: 1:34:17

I hope that you have enjoyed this episode and, as we said at the beginning, this is a new format for us to really go deeper into some of these solo episodes where it's just me and even bringing in more of my beliefs, and how the science is still backed by what I believe as a Christian, and I see how God works all of these things together for us to be healthy not just to be healthy in our physical bodies, which one day we won't have anymore, but to be healthy so that we can do the things that God has called us to do. If you have loved this episode, please share it. We would love for you to share it with a friend or share it just online for whoever to listen to, and please leave an honest review. We always love to hear from you and I take your feedback seriously. Until next week, stay strong.