Five myths and essentials to kick starting your healthier lifestyle

We’re not on a diet; we’re trying to eat healthy

Recently the office as a whole struck out on an endeavor to eat healthy. The motivation: to lose weight, fit into a different size pants, lean out, BE HEALTHY. The tool: Beachbody’s 21 Day Fix. The basic premise is to exercise every day and eat healthy, properly portioned meals using color coded containers.

It takes 21 days to break a bad habit and 21 days to start a new habit. Since we’re all focused on healthy eating and exercise around here, I thought this was a good time to talk about some essentials and maybe a few myths.

Myth: You have to have the diet to support the exercise.

You have heard the phrase calories in versus calories out. If you want to lose weight, you take in less calories than you spend so your body burns fat. If you want to maintain weight, eat an amount equal to what you expend. Likewise, if you want to gain weight, then eat more.

Essential: You need to eat the right types of food.

It’s not just a simple formula. Calorie counting without concern for the type of food you put in your body is not healthy either. You can’t trade lunch for a 250 calorie 20 ounce soda and expect to lose weight. Your body needs all the essential nutrients to build muscle, lose fat and function at its best.

Myth: You can target areas to lose fat.

You cannot target areas to lose fat. While we all would love to lose a little here and a little there, we can’t pick and choose. Sadly, no amount of squats or crunches will whittle away only your thighs or stomach. The whole body approach isn’t a bad thing though, since the whole body will benefit from some trimming.

Myth: I will bulk up if I weight lift.

Weight lifting does not have to mean bulky muscles. While most men, and some women, enjoy lifting weights to gain bulging biceps, that doesn’t have to be the case for everyone. Lifting heavy weights and “maxing out” creates more muscle mass to give you larger muscles. Lifting lighter weights at a higher repetition gives long lean muscles. Increasing your muscle mass increases your metabolism. Who doesn’t want long, lean muscles and an increase in metabolism?

Essential: Drink plenty of water.

Drink water! Hydration is the key to all body functions including recovery. Drinking a glass of water when you first wake up in the morning also starts your metabolism. Eight glasses of water is a great place to start, although you should aim for half your body weight in ounces a day. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds then you should drink 75 ounces of water a day. It sounds like a lot, but consider how much soda or juice you can drink in a day.