10 Pieces of Terrible Fitness Advice

You know the saying, everyone can teach you one of two things: what to do, and what not to do?

There's a lot of truth there, especially when it comes to health and fitness. Everyone has something to say. There are so many voices saying contradictory things that it's hard to know who to trust.

I don't think it all comes from a bad place. There are different paths to the same destination. That said, here's how not to get there.

10 Pieces of Terrible Fitness Advice:

1. Cardio is the way to drop fat fast.

2. No pain, no gain.

3. You must confuse your muscles.

4. You don't have to worry about calories, all you have to do is "eat clean."

5. You must do squats.

6. Carbs are evil and must be avoided at all costs.

7. Fats are evil and must be avoided at all costs.

8. Take this supplement if you want to get ripped!

9. Being miserable and hungry is a sure sign your diet is working.

10. Women shouldn't lift heavy weights.

Cardio is the way to drop fat fast. Let me say loudly and clearly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing cardio. It's great for keeping your heart and lungs strong and functioning well.

It is not a great method to drop fat fast. What tells your body whether to add, maintain, or burn body fat is not how many miles you log. It's how much food you're eating. You can run your little heart out and burn a couple hundred calories. It sounds like a lot, but you could easily eat that back with just a chocolate bar.

The best way to drop fat is to consistently eat less food than you burn over time.

No pain, no gain. The best way to know you had a great workout is gauge how hard it is to walk up a flight of stairs the next day, right? Nope.

Soreness isn't a good indicator your workout was on point. You can have a great workout and be sore the next couple days. You can have a great workout and not be sore at all. You can even do a terrible workout and be sore for days. Soreness is usually a sign that you did something your body isn't used to. When you're new to strength training you will experience some soreness as your body adjusts to the new program. As you get used to it, you'll get stronger and you'll also get sore much less often.

Chase progress, not soreness.

Soreness is to be expected from time to time. But sharp pain or pain in your joints is not. If this is happening, you're doing something wrong. Most likely you should adjust your technique to make sure it's solid. Often how we think we look when we're doing a lift isn't the way we actually look. A coach's eye can be very beneficial here. You can also video your form and review it to see if you need to make any changes. And honestly, not every lift is going to work for every person.

You must confuse your muscles. Constantly switching up your workouts is the way to keep them guessing! Nah. You don't want your muscles guessing. This is a marketing idea that someone came up with. Your muscles don't get confused so stop trying. If you're constantly changing your workouts how can you assess if you're making any progress? Instead, choose a handful of exercises that target your body's large muscles. Then focus on getting really strong at those. The fancy name for this process is progressive overload. Work on increasing the resistance, and/or the repetitions you do, and/or the number of sets you do. It takes time, dedication, and patience. And it works.

You don't have to worry about calories. All you have to do is "eat clean." If only this one were true. How do you define eating clean anyway? I certainly don't know what that means. Generally eating mostly whole foods and food that isn't highly processed is a good idea to improve the quality of your diet. That's important. Eating quality food is going to provide your body with various nutrients and will help you be healthier. However, if you "eat clean" and you eat too much, guess what happens? You will gain fat. Calories matter. Whether you count calories or don't, please understand that your body counts them. You don't have to count calories to lose fat (it's very useful to many people), but you do have to take in less energy from food than the amount of energy you burn.

You must do squats. Squats are a great exercise. They're often called the king of all exercises because they're very effective at training several of your body's large muscles. But there is no single exercise that you absolutely must do. So if they just don't work for you, don't feel like you have to keep doing them. There are workarounds you can do to train your legs. This is true for all other exercises also.

Carbs are evil and must be avoided at all costs. No food is evil. Carbs get a bad rap. Carbs are delicious. They're also your body's preferred energy source. Your body has evolved to efficiently process carbs into energy for you to use. It's not eating carbs that makes a person get fat. It's eating too many calories. So, please don't feel like carbs are the enemy.

Fats are evil and must be avoided at all costs. No food is evil. Fats get a bad rap. Fats are savory and delicious. They're very calorie dense, which means that they pack a lot of calories in a very small package. Carbs and protein each have 4 calories per gram. Fats have 9 calories per gram. This doesn't make them evil. Your body uses fats to help create hormones (including sex hormones) to keep you functioning well. It's not eating fats that makes a person get fat. It's eating too many calories. So, please don't feel like fats are the enemy.

Take this supplement if you want to get ripped! Supplements get a ton of press. The people who want you to buy them make all kinds of wild claims about their effectiveness. The truth is you don't need any supplements to be healthy or to get in better shape. Can some help? Sure. But don't feel like you have to buy them in order to reach your fitness goals. There is no supplement that will get you in amazing shape if you eat too much and your exercise regiment is lying on the couch and watching tv. Where supplements can help is once your eating and training are locked in, they can add on a little boost. Kind of like a cherry on top of a sundae.

Being miserable and hungry is a sure sign your diet is working. When you drop your calories there will be some adjustment and some discomfort. But you don't need to drop them so drastically that you're crabby all the time and your stomach is always rumbling. In fact, I think it's a great idea to eat in as little of a deficit as necessary. Eating at a calorie deficit is just another way to say you're eating less than you're burning. If you eat as much as you can while still being in enough of a deficit to see the changes happening is the sweet spot.

Women shouldn't lift heavy weights. The people who say this think that women who lift heavy will get big and bulky. I hate this myth. You want to know what happens to women when they lift heavy? They get strong. But what about the bulky part? The key to getting bulky is eating in a calorie surplus (eating more than you burn). The examples those people point to in order to try to support this bogus claim are women who have deliberately trained and eaten to look the way they do.

If you lift heavy, you will get strong. You will build muscle. If you eat an amount of food to support your training, you will then be strong and lean. Your muscles will give you strong looking curves.

There you have it. Ten examples of terrible fitness advice. When you hear them next, you can roll your eyes and plug your ears and ignore them.