The Biggest Fitness Mistakes You’re Making (Part 1)
Are you trying to lean down and gain muscle at the same time, by restricting your calories? Are you running around in circles? Here's my list of the biggest fitness mistakes…Are YOU making them?
All of these mistakes go along with huge pet peeves of mine, and reflect unfortunately very common wrong ideas:
Mistake #1: Restricting, and Still Trying to Gain Muscle
Okay, so you see all these articles on how to lose weight and gain muscle at the same time. But you're basically asking your body to carry on an almost impossible task. In order to lose weight, you just plain have to be spending more calories than your body is taking in. No way around it.
And I recommend a simple way of "cutting calories," using something like intermittent fasting or low carb.
Now, please DON'T mistake this as me saying that you SHOULD be restricting your calories. Not at all!
It's just that, a lot of people find these diets to be an extremely useful way to kill two birds with one stone, when it comes to weight loss. Because, both IF and HFLC generally tend to eliminate overeating, without having to think about it. And also, both of these cause you to burn fat (for fuel/energy). If you want to know more about that, check out this article I wrote on intermittent fasting, or this article I wrote on low-carb!
And remember, there's nobody stopping you from combining the two! Nobody can stop me, anyway. 😉
But if you restrict too much and try to lose weight too fast, then of course your body is going to be trying to hang on to all the fat it can. So I recommend, don't be in a calorie deficit if you're trying to gain muscle. Eat your protein!!
Then, later, if you want to lose some fat, then use one of those two awesome diets to do so.
This is also called "bulking and cutting…" Most people don't attempt to do both at once!
Mistake #2: Cardio, No Weights. Or, Weights, No Cardio
Sometimes we act like the "cardio people" and the "weights" people have to be enemies in the gym, like the Montagues and the Capulets…or the Jets and the Sharks…or WHATEVER… 😉
But in reality, that's one of the biggest fitness mistakes, or misconceptions, out there.
The most well-rounded people are the ones who do both. In a past blog I talked about how I used to just do cardio, like a long time ago…and the first thing that got tired was my legs! I was thinking, what the heck, until I realized that strong legs are extremely important for successful cardio. Having leg muscles improves blood flow to that area, which improves endurance. And then on the flip side, strong leg and back muscles improve your balance, and make you less likely to injure or strain yourself during your cardio!! They really do go hand in hand, don't they?
