What is the WORST fitness advice....

"You're a mom now, so no one expects you to be thin."
Excuse me?! One, I don't care if anyone thinks I'm thin, but I'm not using parenthood as an excuse to be lazy and continue in an unhealthy lifestyle.

"Don't eat fruit because it contains sugar"
Well, duh fruit contains sugar, but 15g of sugar from a pear is not the same 15g of sugar from candy! (Well, even if it is, you get my drift.)

"Walking won't burn any fat."
Yeah RIGHT!! I lost all my weight (initially) walking. Either a few miles at a moderate pace, or 3.0 on the treadmill--almost never running or even jogging!

Gads yes, this. I saw an interview with Jillian where she was saying she had 400lb people doing jumping jacks. Well good for you, but no, not gonna do them. I tried a few a bit ago just to see and holy ouch. Not sore ouch, but body saying oh hells no. So if I come across them I'll modify or do some light jogging (which somehow doesn't bother anything nearly as much).

That people weighing double what I did can do jumping jacks so man up and get on with it. I'm now waiting for knee surgery as I popped the cartilage!

I was told "You didn't gain weight until your quit smoking, so if you start smoking again you'll lose the weight quicker."
I was like "really?! " It wasn't quitting smoking that made me gain weight anyway. It was the constant snacking that I replaced it with.

Another one is abdominal exercises can cause women's vaginal muscles to become weaker.

Both of these came from the same person... Obviously very intelligent.

"fruit is bad for you"

errr.... you want to call your local zoo and warn them not to give any fruit to all the other primates then..?

"don't lift anything heavier than 5lb" and it's cousin "women must not do men's push-ups" with explanations that relate to implications that it will damage the uterus.

Quick! Jump in this time machine! We have to go back to the lower palaeolithic era to warn all the female Homo erectuses not to do anything strenuous otherwise their uteruses will fall out and Homo sapiens will never evolve!!!!

"lifting weights makes you get bulky"

I could rant for hours on this one.... really I could....

3. If you stop lifting weights, all your muscles will turn to fat.
4. If you lift weights, you'll need surgery.
5. You only need to exercise for 10 minutes a day.

All of these pearls of wisdom were prescribed to me by very obese individuals. :huh:

STOP IT
AHAHAHA DYING OF LAUGHTER
those are great... :laugh:

Eat more to lose more.

Be a vegan

Another piece of bad advice:
"It doesn't matter what you eat as long as you burn more calories than you eat!"

Well, if your only goal is to lose weight, then it's actually right. If you also want to be healthy and toned, then it's wrong.

Stay in a calorie deficit to lose weight.

That's how weight is lost.

I would amend this to say the bad advice is that ONLY calorie deficits will help you lose weight. Calorie deficits help, but macros are just as important.

But you are bulky Side Steel :laugh:

You do not need cardio to lose weight.

You don't, though.

This. You can very easily lose weight with little to no cardio. I did!

Maybe I am missing something there. I see the whole cardio is useless mantra all over this forum so I am a bit puzzled about it. Unless you are doing it purely for looks and dismissing the improving your health part of exercise why do some of you set out to do no cardio?

Your heart is a muscle that needs training too, so you may not need to do cardio to lose weight but it will help to improve your general fitness.

You wouldn't work on your biceps and do not triceps exercises hoping they would gain strength purely by some kind of osmosis would you? so why leave the muscle that ensures oxygen gets to the brain, which to me seems an important function as organs go, out of your training programme?

I don't like running and I get that cardio is mostly dull and not as rewarding in terms of happy hormones as weights but I am still curious as to why so many out there feel they are healthier for dropping cardio from their schedule.

You do not need cardio to lose weight.

You don't, though.

This. You can very easily lose weight with little to no cardio. I did!

Maybe I am missing something there. I see the whole cardio is useless mantra all over this forum so I am a bit puzzled about it. Unless you are doing it purely for looks and dismissing the improving your health part of exercise why do some of you set out to do no cardio?

Your heart is a muscle that needs training too, so you may not need to do cardio to lose weight but it will help to improve your general fitness.

You wouldn't work on your biceps and do not triceps exercises hoping they would gain strength purely by some kind of osmosis would you? so why leave the muscle that ensures oxygen gets to the brain, which to me seems an important function as organs go, out of your training programme?

I don't like running and I get that cardio is mostly dull and not as rewarding in terms of happy hormones as weights but I am still curious as to why so many out there feel they are healthier for dropping cardio from their schedule.

I don't subscribe to "cardio is useless" however I don't do much of it. I run up the stairs to my apartment, that's about it.

My heart gets a good workout when I lift weights, because the big compound lifts like squats, deadlifts etc, use several major muscle groups and so tax the cardiovascular system, and are not simply an anaerobic exercise. My cardiovascular fitness has improved from doing heavy lifting. As for what all the advice for heart health is, any exercise that gets you out of breath and your heart pumping for 15 mins 3x a week is what's recommended... squats and deadlifts do that.

I can see the benefits of cardio for endurance. If you want to run marathons or have that level of endurance, then you need to do lots of cardio. And I don't see that there's anything wrong with it, I'm not in the "cardio is useless" brigade and definitely not in the "cardio is harmful" one either. But it's not essential for health either. You can get the same health benefits from weightlifting, if you do it right. Biceps curls aren't going to do anything for your cardiovascular system but the big compound lifts are. Additionally, weightlifting does more for your body composition than cardio does.

You do realize lifting weights helps with heart health as well right?

You'll have to go a long way before you persuade me that doing lifting only will be just as good as lifting + cardio to make sure I am not quite as out of breath and my heart won't take quite as long going back to a normal rate the next time I have to run for 20 minutes to make sure I don't miss my train because a I left the office late.

As I said, I don't enjoy cardio, I only do it because I noticed that when I do more walking/running/cycling my brachycardia improves, lifting alone does squat for it however much I like it. On the other hand, since I started lifting a bit I find that carrying my toddler for longer distances while having to maintain a strong grip because he is having a tantrum is much easier.

My sample size of 1 study concludes that both types of exercise have their benefits and that advocating people drop one in favour of the other is probably misguided in terms of encouraging people to get off their sofas and move more.

Who is advocating dropping one in favour of the other? Personally I'm an advocate of whatever you can stick with in the long term. Also, this thread is about correct information. Insisting that cardio is essential for health is incorrect. It's beneficial, but not essential. You can work your cardiovascular system enough for health through lifting. Can you work it enough for running marathons? No. But if you are exercising for general health and improved body composition, you don't need to have the cardiovascular endurance of a marathon runner. If you want to run marathons or have that level of endurance then of course you must do cardio.

It is important to do the right kind of weight lifting, doing isolation exercises will not tax the cardiovascular system, you need to do the big compound lifts and with heavy enough weights and enough reps and sets to really get the heart pumping. If you're not out of breath and if your heart is not beating very fast from doing lifting, then you're not taxing the cardiovascular system, and if you're not taxing the cardiovascular system when lifting, you're not going to see an improvement in cardiovascular fitness. Free weights are better than machines, because machines isolate muscle groups, while free weights force you to work most of your body, the more muscle groups that are activated, the more of an oxygen debt is build up, and more your cardiovascular system has to work to provide oxygen to the muscles being worked to get rid of the oxygen debt.

Another piece of bad advice:
"It doesn't matter what you eat as long as you burn more calories than you eat!"

Well, if your only goal is to lose weight, then it's actually right. If you also want to be healthy and toned, then it's wrong.

Because fat is bad? what is toned?
Nowadays it would still probably be useful to sit around 15% of bodyfat due to high impact injuries we can still sustain from car accidents.

the person at 8% bodyfat will sustain much more damage than the person at 20% bodyfat due to the cushioning and protection of organs.

I am just posting an opposing statement of being lean and exercising vs a little pudge and exercising

I'm simply saying that you can eat junk food all day long and lose weight, as long as you maintain caloric deficit. Hell, you can eat twinkies as breakfast, lunch, and dinner and still lose weight that way. But, it's obvious that a Twinkie diet is not healthy.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

Personally I'm not looking to be shredded. If I can be healthy and slightly more muscular than the average guy, I'd be happy. I know what it costs to have very low BF. My wife has been doing this for years and she has very low BF. One of the side effects is lower resistance to cold. Subcutaneous fat in mammals serves to isolate the body from cold.

"Don't eat carbs after xx:xx pm".