Things You'll Need
- Willpower!
1. Myth: Exercising the abs will burn belly fat.
You've probably seen plenty of products that claim to melt away just belly fat, just thigh fat, just arm fat... From exercising, taking pills, using creams, or even electronic stimulation! The truth is that you simply can't burn fat from one area of your body. Fat loss occurs throughout your entire body at the same time.
Have you ever seen someone will the belly of a 400-lbs person and the arms of a bodybuilder? It's simply not possible (without liposuction!) to burn fat in one area. Your body breaks down fat for energy from all portions of your body so not to deplete any one single area. Fat acts as an insulator. It wouldn't make sense for your body to remove all the "insulation" from a single place.
Aerobic exercise along with appropriate eating will enable you to burn fat all over your body. Working out a specific area is good for you and will build muscle, but will not burn that fat away! You need to do aerobic exercise and strength exercises to burn fat and have a toned body.
2. Myth: Starving yourself will burn fat away.
By not taking in energy through calories, your body is forced to break down the fat in your body for energy. The result of this is an immediate decrease in body fat. One problem: You'll gain it all back and more when you start eating again!
Depriving yourself of food puts your body into "starvation mode." When you reintroduce food, your body (worried about having to survive another hunger strike) stores as much as possible in fat reserves. To make things worse, starving people will overeat resulting in the body having even more fat than before.
In order to burn fat and keep it off, you have to eat so your body has a continuous source of energy and will not go into starvation mode. You burn a little fat at time, and as long as you continue to abstain from overeating the body will not replace the fat.
3. Myth: Fat on my body comes from eating fatty foods.
Instead of eating cookies, you might eat popcorn with no butter to avoid fat. Or maybe you eat a couple chicken breasts because you know they have less fat than a burger. For some reason, your body fat just isn't going down! That's because fat in foods is not the same as fat in your body.
In reality, fat comes from calories and it doesn't matter where those calories come from. Fatty foods tend to have a lot of calories, but they do not turn into fat unless you are overeating them. If your body is taking in more calories than it needs, it does what anyone would do with extras--store them. Stored calories in the body are covered to fat!
Your body needs nutrients from all different kinds of foods, but the important thing is to not overeat any type of food. Eating a small, balanced meal will ensure you aren't getting too many calories and aren't adding to your body fat content.
4. Myth: Exercising the abs will burn belly fat.
You've probably seen plenty of products that claim to melt away just belly fat, just thigh fat, just arm fat... From exercising, taking pills, using creams, or even electronic stimulation! The truth is that you simply can't burn fat from one area of your body. Fat loss occurs throughout your entire body at the same time.
Have you ever seen someone will the belly of a 400-lbs person and the arms of a bodybuilder? It's simply not possible (without liposuction!) to burn fat in one area. Your body breaks down fat for energy from all portions of your body so not to deplete any one single area. Fat acts as an insulator. It wouldn't make sense for your body to remove all the "insulation" from a single place.
Aerobic exercise along with appropriate eating will enable you to burn fat all over your body. Working out a specific area is good for you and will build muscle, but will not burn that fat away! You need to do aerobic exercise and strength exercises to burn fat and have a toned body.
5. Any amount of exercise will burn body fat.
You've seen it: "Exercise in just 5 minutes a day!" "Burn fat in this 6 minute workout!" The stairclimber at the gym is telling you you've already burned 16 calories and you just got started. That's proof that the fat is melting away, right? Wrong.
If you had cans of food stored away for an emergency, you wouldn't eat it for no reason. Your body has the same idea. If there are more convenient ways of getting energy, your body is going to do that first. Food you ate today is energy. Your body has energy stored in carbohydrates and protein, too. Your body only wants to rely on fat if it looks like you might deplete those other resources.
When you exercise for more than 20 minutes, your body starts to get concerned that it will run out of the regular energy source. So, it starts breaking down fat to supplement that energy. If you exercise for less than 20 minutes, your body most likely has not started breaking down fat, no matter how many calories the LCD screen displays. Getting your heart rate up for 30 minutes instead of 20 mean most likely you are burining a good amount of fat for 10 minutes of your workout.