Are you struggling to lose fat, although you’re following all the Rules fat loss advice and doing everything right? You eat healthy, cut your calories, track your macros, go to the gym, and still your dream body is just not there. I understand you. I’ve been there, too.

But what if I told you that a lot of the fitness advice that women follow is exactly what’s keeping us stuck? This blog might just save you years of wasted effort and frustration. For a long time, I wasn’t happy with how my body looked. Nothing worked for me and it took me an entire decade to finally figure it out. However, it required a lot of unlearning things I had learned about fitness, health, and fat loss.

today I’ll share with you 9 fitness myths that every woman needs to stop believing to get healthy and finally lose that fat and tone up.

1st fat loss fact to unlearn as a woman

something that almost every woman does, yet it’s probably ruining your waistline. I used to believe that training my abs will give me abs. So, I dedicate a lot of time and many years to training them. I even used to believe that you can actually burn belly fat by training your abs. But, interestingly enough, my abs and waist just got thicker. So, I trained them even harder to make my abs finally come out. However, instead of my abs popping, I developed insane pain after each session that would go all the way to my pelvis. And I couldn’t really understand what was causing it.

Was it my stomach or something else? But turned out it was my ab muscles cramping. So, I stopped training my abs thinking that now I will never be able to get abs anymore. But the opposite happened. I got abs by not training them at all. So, here’s the thing. Ab crunches won’t give you abs. In fact, you don’t need to do a single ab crunch in order to get abs. And this one was the hard one for me to comprehend.

how to get abs

But here’s what’s up. To have visible abs, you need a low fat percentage. But training your abs won’t burn belly fat locally. Also, a very important thing is that you should understand your body goals because I think that a lot of women and girls confuse this part. Let me explain.

I was training for the body I actually didn’t even want. I wanted a flat stomach and a bit of definition in my abs, but not necessarily a super low fat percentage. But what ended up happening in addition to the pain is that my abs and waist got thicker and more puffier because when you train a muscle, it gets bigger. You train your booty to make it bigger, right?

Well, exactly the same happens with your ab muscles, too. And once I stopped training my abs doing those ab crunches, my waist actually started shrinking cuz I wasn’t training my abs anymore. So, if you want a small waist, I mean, you want to look like image1, then you don’t need to do isolated ab exercises.

Your abs get enough training already just by working out because they’re engaged in many exercises you might be doing cuz it’s your core that’s holding you. So therefore they’re engaged in many exercises. And if you want a small waist, what you definitely want to avoid is training your abs with added weight because that only trains your abs even more and it’s going to make your waist even thicker.

Unless your goal is image2. And one more thing I need to mention about abs is that if you have love handles, you’re probably making the same mistakes I used to make. I used to think that in order to get rid of my love handles, I need to train my side abs. But no, it’s the same thing. Training your side abs is going to just build muscle there. It’s not going to burn fat there locally. To get rid of the love handles, fat loss is the key, not ab crunches.

2nd Fat Loss Fact

If you’re still dieting in hope to lose fat, you need to hear this because it’s ruining your fat loss. To lose fat, I used to be on a diet all the time. I cut calories and kept my cravings in check. And in the beginning it did work, but then at some point it stopped working. So I cut even more calories to the point where I was eating 800 calories a day, but my body composition was getting all worse, which didn’t make sense. Cuz isn’t it that the less you eat, the skinnier you should be? Yes and no. Let me explain.

It works to a certain extent, but if you keep being on a diet without giving yourself a break, you will hit a weight loss plateau because your metabolism will slow down. And to get out of that weight loss plateau, you need to activate your metabolism. to activate your metabolism, you need to start eating more. But if you start eating more after you’ve been starving yourself for ages, you will gain weight, which means that you will be yo-yo dieting. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

I lost fat and kept it off for good. But here’s something you should know. If you’ve been dieting for a long time and you start eating more or I mean you start eating normal, then you will unfortunately gain weight. But after your metabolism will start working properly again, your weight will normalize. And it’s definitely worth it because I didn’t mention yet the worst part that can happen with dieting.

Since I used to cut my calories and be on a diet all the time, it led to crazy binging sessions, usually in the evenings. It was crazy. I would eat everything that came in my way. A bag of bread, Ben & Jerry’s, chocolate boxes. So, my daily diets ended with binging sessions. And if you’re binging, I want you to know that this is not about having poor self-control.

This is about your body working on an animal level, just taking what it needs. But the thing is that your dieting during the days won’t make sense if you’re binging during the nights. That’s why just eat the damn food and stop dieting. Stop being afraid of food during the daytime. It’s not the food that can make you fat, it’s your food habits. Here’s what you need to understand. Constant dieting can seriously damage your health and in the long run can ruin your fat loss for good.

3rd Fat Loss Fact

The next fitness myth that woman needs to stop believing is that hyped superfoods will make you healthy and make you lose fat. I remember the times when I used to only eat chia pudding, quinoa, avocados, drank matcha in hope to get my dream body. But here is the thing. These trendy and hyped health foods are marketing tricks to make you want to give them your money.

For example, currently in the US, the health industry has found the new superfood called kefir. It’s being marketed as the new superfood for your gut health and is being sold for $12, if not more. Here in Finland, this kefir has been available for us for ages and no one even cares about it. Only like old people drink it and me. and it costs €2, so it’s like under $3.

I’m not saying that these hyped health foods are not healthy. They definitely are. But what I’m saying is that the absence of these hyped health foods in your diet won’t make you unhealthy. In order to get healthy or lose fat, you don’t need to specifically have these hyped health foods in your diet if your budget doesn’t allow it, for example, or whatever else.

Health doesn’t need to be trendy. Simple and less hyped is healthy, too. I mean, look into your grandma’s recipes such as vegetable stew, white potatoes, or fermented cabbage.

4th Fat Loss Fact

Here’s the thing. Anything that grows on this planet and it’s not poisonous for you, is healthy for you, unless you have an allergy intolerance or other health issue with that food. A white potato won’t make you fat unless you eat kilograms of it. But that same will apply to sweet potatoes, too. These foods have valuable nutrients and benefits for your health and cutting them out completely at least did big damage for my health.

I had constant loathing. My stomach was super sensitive to everything. I had often stomach issues and pain and often I was also super hungry all the time. In general, eating was super complicated cuz I all the time tried to find different recipes, nutritious recipes that would keep me full for a long enough time from the foods that I was allowing myself to eat. And once I stopped with this nonsense, I got over my fear and I started eating different foods diversely potatoes of all kinds, rice, fruits, and so on. My digestive issues disappeared. And no, I didn’t get fat. Quite the opposite. But this is not everything.

5th Fat Loss Fact

In addition to limiting healthy foods, I also used to over complicate my life by trying to find healthier alternatives for certain unhealthy recipes such as cakes, cookies, and so on.

I was really psychotic about avoiding flour, sugar, white sugar, or butter or anything else is bad for your health to the point where even if I had a party, I will try to find a healthy cake recipe. Because I used to think that if I eat even a small piece, even one piece of cake made of real white sugar and butter, it will make me unhealthy and my fat loss will be ruined. One of the best things I’ve ever done in my life is quitting with this craziness and started eating proper cakes again.

will sugar and fat make you fat?

Here’s the thing. Of course, white sugar and flour are processed foods, which means that their nutrition value is near zero. And if we add their butter, cream, and jam, it obviously is less healthy for you. So, from a nutrition point of view, it doesn’t really make sense to eat them.

But what about just enjoying life once in a while? And if I’m being honest, I don’t think that real cakes are the real problem here. Cuz if you look at people from 60s or 80s, they ate much more of sugar, flour, butter, and all this bad stuff. But yet, obesity was much less than.

So, the question is, is it the sugar, fat, and flour, or is it something else? such as the rise of industrial formulations in our foods for example. Whatever that might be, my conclusion is that a proper cake once in a while won’t do you harm. So if you are having a party, make the damn cake.
Don’t try to find some paleo, sugar, yeast, flour, milk, eggree cake recipe and torture your guests and yourself.

6th Fat Loss Fact

Now let’s talk about the most important thing when it comes to fat loss.

Protein. The holy macro of fat loss.

You’re not going to like me for this, but the entire fuss around protein is a little bit too much in my opinion. It’s like protein, protein, protein. You need protein in order to build muscle and burn fat. And if you don’t get enough protein, you’re going to ruin your fat loss and your entire life.

Now, don’t get me wrong, protein is important, but when it comes to it, everyone can relax a bit. I had to do it, too. I used to be really obsessed about getting enough protein and I often run into the problem that how can I get enough protein? It always felt so hard to get enough protein. So I would search for different protein richch recipes or try to meet my daily protein needs with protein powders or protein bars.

But those protein bars made me always feel really bad. Like I could get really bloated or just feel not completely 100% in my like thinking. brain fog, tired, cause hormonal issues, and just not optimal because they’re filled with artificial ingredients. And at the same time, I would avoid foods that are naturally rich in protein cuz I used to think they’re unhealthy. But once I relaxed with this protein stuff, and I understood certain things about protein, which I’m going to share with you in a sec, my life became so much less complicated.

First of all, I stopped obsessing over protein and I quit trying to supplement it with protein bars or protein powders and instead I just started eating normal food that naturally comes from this earth. And yes, I’m totally fine. In fact, even better. you can get more than enough protein from just eating normal foods.

Cuz the thing is that if you’re just a normal person just trying to tone up, you don’t even need that much of protein that you would need to supplement it. Of course, if you’re a bodybuilder, then that’s a whole totally different thing. And why I say that the fuss around protein is a bit too much is because protein alone isn’t enough to keep you satisfied for long.

But I make sure that doesn’t become my daily part of my daily diet. And second, when I eat a protein bar, I make sure that it’s not made of any artificial ingredients. Speaking of protein

7th Fat Loss Fact

the next fat loss fact, or maybe I would even call this a health fact, that women need to stop believing, unlearn completely, is that eating salads is the most ultimate healthy form of consuming food. No, girl. Been there, done that, and all I’m going to say is that it’s extremely sad.

8th Fat Loss Fact

Which brings me to the next fat loss fact that women need to unlearn, and it’s probably the most toxic one. I used to never miss a day of workouts. No matter if my friends were together having fun, I was at the gym because I used to believe that if you want to be fit, you can’t have a social life. And if I sometimes, really rarely joined my friends, I would feel super bad and guilty. And I couldn’t really relax or be present or enjoy the company of my friends.

And if our plans were to eat out, I would first starve myself the entire day to not feel guilty for eating out with my friends. And I will choose for the healthiest option from the menu, such as salads or something else. Or if you’re talking about drinks, cocktails, I will choose always for Vodka tonic with lime because it has the least amount of calories. And it went even so far that in most cases I will try to work out before I see my friends. If you recognize yourself from this, please stop.

You can be fit and have a social life, too. In fact, it’s even better because being at the gym every day is not going to give you the results you want. In fact, if you’re being serious, you don’t even need to work out in order to lose fat.

9th Fat Loss Fact

Which brings me to the next fat loss fact that women need to unlearn. Each workout, I made sure I sweat. My workout philosophy used to be that the harder the better. I did gym to build muscle and cardio to burn fat cuz I thought that that’s the combo that’s going to give me that toned and lean body. But instead, I was getting bigger, puffier, and more swollen.

Why? Because I was training too hard. I was training like a man. And all I needed to do to see the results I wanted was start working out like a woman. And once I did, the results came so effortlessly, it’s almost unbelievable. So, what I did is that I became more intuitive with my workouts, paying attention to my energy levels, and working out accordingly, and most importantly, heavily reducing the intensity of my workouts. This was really hard for me mentally cuz it was really hard for me to believe that with doing less you can actually get results.

When I say this, it doesn’t mean that you can never now work out hard again and never get sweaty. No. All I’m saying is that if you’re everyday pushing yourself hard, pushing yourself to the limits, it is not beneficial for you.

Been there, done that, and I do not recommend it. If you train more intuitive based on your energy levels and maybe even cycle sync your workouts, it’s much better for your feminine health and therefore your body and fat loss. So, dear woman, you don’t need to push yourself so hard in order to get your dream body.

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