Why It’s Good To Be Aware And Weary of Fitness

Fitness is becoming (and in some places has already become) so popular and ubiquitous it’s amazing how many myths and fallacies are still going strong among even those who deem themselves professionals in the field. Things are becoming even more difficult when people are trying to comply with the same standards as professional athletes. With the popularization of fitness as lifestyle many things pertinent to the professional sport of bodybuilding, a little powerlifting, and a more recent bikini fitness have caught on and clashed with the regular gym goer’s worldview. But let’s address one thing at a time.

Be Aware And Weary of Fitness Industry

Woman doing a plank

Know Your End Goal

Professional athletes’ diet, training program, and supplements (dietary or otherwise) are quite different from the usual people’s. Or at least they should be. If you are a regular gym goer with a dream to build a fit body you don’t even need to know what professionals eat or do in the gym. You just need the basics (knowing your calories, macros, and exercise techniques) and some patience. Fitness is about discipline, professional bodybuilding is about much much more. And if you don’t want to be a bodybuilder or look like one, eat and train the way you prefer. With a little knowledge and consistency you can achieve some very good results without the side effects of being a professional athlete.

Steroids or No Steroids

Contrary to the popular belief steroids won’t make you big and strong just cause you take them. You’ll still need to train and eat like bodybuilders do in order to look like they do. But the side effects and the consequences of this can be too damaging for a non-professional athlete to be anything close to worthwhile.

Low Carb or Gluten-Free?

There are so many diets out there now. Some were popularized by bodybuilders while others by other fitness professionals and still counting calories remains the best tool when it comes to comfortable balanced weight/fat loss. Low-carb, low-fat, gluten-free, dairy-free, grain-free – all of these are either based on some overblown study finds or made specifically for professional athletes to adhere to days before competition to get an edge over their opponents. You as a healthy individual mostly don’t need any of this to train and look good unless you have a certain condition like celiac disease or simply cannot digest lactose.

To Suplement Or Not To Supplement

We’ve talked about fitness as sport, now it’s time to address the industry. The industry is growing bigger by the minute and it’s all about fancy amino acids, recovery and pre-workout powders. While some of these products might help you in achieving your goals, a well-balanced quality diet is still something any doctor will advice you to adhere to. That’s why they’re called supplements. And you don’t need a whole bunch of pills and powders unless you have your diet in check and even then.

So you see how things get mixed up. Regular gym goers think they need to train and supplement like professionals and some professionals only encourage this approach when in fact it’s just about training and eating the way your body responds to. If you want to build muscle eat slightly more calories, if not just eat your caloric norm. And if you want to lose fat and keep muscle just eat slightly less but do not decrease your weights and add a bit of cardio.

This is easy and simple when you know just enough to manipulate your body composition. The rest is just a bunch of noise that gets followers or opponents. If you want to know more about the way body works or responds to different types of training, exercise, and diet just be prepared to sift through a lot of scientific research, which is the closest you’ll get to the truth.

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Mona Liz

Editor/Writer
Mona Liz is a fitness and healthy lifestyle enthusiast with a passion for writing, music, cats, and food.

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