Three Misconceptions About Health, Physic, and Diet. Wrong!

By AJ a L.I.F.E. contact

If I don’t use my muscles will they turn into fat? 

This is a common fitness myth that has been circulating in the fitness world for years, yet it is simply not true.  Muscle tissue and body fat are completely different types of cellular tissues.  Muscle will not turn into fat and fat will not turn into muscle. 

Yet, the old saying, “If you don’t use it, you lose it” is true to some degree in terms of muscle mass being that if one is inactive or sedentary your muscles will atrophy. Anyone who has broken an arm or leg can relate to this noticing how much the muscle has atrophied when the cast has been removed.  

I have been working hard in the gym with strength training and cardio but the scale has not moved…what am I doing wrong?

Don’t just always assess your progress by what the scale reads.  What might have happened is that you put on muscle mass while losing body fat at the same time.  If you just went off the weight scale you would not know this accomplishment. 

I suggest you take advantage of the scale, skin calibers, and girth measurements and reassess your progress three months down the road.  Skin calibers are going to measure the percent of body fat for your current weight while girth measurements will see how many inches you lost. 

Also when making new goals don’t just shoot for a certain weight, instead have a goal of a certain percent body fat or to lose so many inches.  

I have heard that eating too few calories can mess up my metabolism and make it harder for me to lose weight. Is that true?

In most cases, eating too little will indeed slow down your metabolism, making it very difficult to lose weight.  There are exceptions, and usually, these diets are medically designed and supervised.

I meet people all the time who believe the philosophy… “More is better!”  If I tell them to eat 2,000 calories, they will eat 500 calories assuming that their weight loss will be faster. 

Most of the time, this couldn’t be further from the truth!  Too often this will cause your body to enter starvation mode, meaning that your body fears that food is scarce!  Your body wants to maintain its weight and preserve calories to function; hence, your metabolism slows down. 

Additionally, your body will resort to muscle mass for fuel as a result of an extremely low-caloric diet.  These diets can lead to weakness, light-headedness, and/or headaches.  Drastic deprivation of calories may cause you to binge and overeat, leading to weight gain as opposed to weight loss.

Join Eric Viskovicz on a Talk about dilemmas of Nutrition.