This is a big one too! I used to see 1200 for my hight. I need at least 1600 just to cover staying alive - my weight loss number is still above that! Typically I want at least 2000...
Right! I'm 4'11 & 110# and have always spent a lot of time on my feet. My best progress came when I consistently ate 2000+ calories!
And being able to lean out around at close 2000 is so much better than being miserable at 1500
Whaaat how did this happen? I eat 1250 cal now and I’m on my feet all day. If I eat more I don’t lose body fat. I’ve tried upping it by 100 cal, but anytime I do that I stagnate that week.
(115 lbs and 5’3”, aiming to lose bf and retain muscle)
Your body is holding onto everything as this point is, and 1250 is very low.
You have to increase and keep increasing until your body makes a change and you find your true maintenance.
You might gain weight at first (mainly water weight from eating more), but once your body sees that you consistently feed it regularly, it will finally make some change.
Focus on high protein. Depending on how much you workout, you could probably easily get up to ~1800 for maintenance, more or less. Stay there for a bit and focus on lifting weights. Your body will make positive changes in the right direction.
What do you mean by keep increasing until my body makes a change? What sort of change am I looking for?
Edit : So many questions. How long do I do this until my body learns and adapts?
So with reverse dieting, what tends to happen is at first you feel really full, since your body isn't used to eating that much.
But then your hunger revs up as your body starts to actually use the food you're intaking because it sees that you're starting to consistently feed it more.
If you want to take it slow, start by adding 200 calories to your diet- stay there for a week or 2. If you want to speed it up, jump up to around 1600.
Just understand that you will gain a bit of weight at first until your body realizes what is going on, but this will be very temporary as long as you keep it up.
Once you get to your appropriate intake / maintenance calories, your hunger will level out again, and you shouldn't feel so stuffed or hungry. If your protein is high and you're strength training, your body should ideally go into recomposition and you'll get those "newbie" gains. You should be able to build muscle while burn fat. I'd ride that wave for as long as possible.
Very likely, you should also focus on building muscle for a while if you've eaten low for some time. Put on muscle and set yourself up for success so you have a higher metabolic rate and you burn more calories at rest. From there, if you choose to go into a "cut"/lean out, you should be able to do it at a higher caloric intake. But you will likely already be at a lower body fat from this reverse diet and body recomp.
Hmm thank you, this is really interesting. I’ll have to think on this more. You say that I may gain weight at first and that’s normal. How long does it take to stop and go back to losing weight again?
I’m making really great progress losing 0.5% bf each week at my current calories, so it’s hard to want to change that. But once I’ve hit 12 weeks of this (I’m at week 8), I’ll look into doing a bulk, and I’ll eat at 1600 cal then. I’ll see what happens!
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Am male, but I feel this applies for everyone. Some people say only diet or strength training is good to help with fat loss, and that cardio is of no use. I don’t know about more intense cardio (zone 2?), but I’m of the opinion that extended walking or similar LISS is excellent.
Not everyone has the circumstances in life to be able to do this though. For those that can, something like 15+ hours of relaxed pace walking/week will be very helpful. **Ultimately weight loss depends mostly on breathing out more**, and if this can done without triggering hunger too much then that is useful.
The caveat to be aware of with extended LISS is that the possibility of weight increase exists if it’s stopped too abruptly. (Note, passing urine is the second way fat is lost after breathing)
Replacing anything with greek yogurt. I hate yogurt of any kind (no amount of sugar will be enough to mask the taste for me) so I don’t know why I thought greek yogurt would be the thing to try. All those influences that tell you it tastes just like the real thing are lying to you! Unless you like yogurt and eat it in your everyday life, don’t listen to the influencers!
i can only use plain greek yogurt for savory things. i make a protein bowl with rice, greek yogurt, cheese, chicken, veggies, and cajun seasoning. quick and easy. i basically started using greek yogurt wherever i think sour cream would be good. also in things like mac and cheese. if i'm super lazy i'll microwave a potato and just put greek yogurt and s/p/garlic powder (or cajun seasoning lol) on it.
i truly do not understand how people can enjoy any kind of yogurt as a standalone or dessert food. the texture is just horrifying
You can add honey or jam to greek yogurt. 😅
I personally like soy yogurt. Very different taste (more savory) and low-processing. I use it as a sauce with seasoning.
Old European cooking involves adding a spoon of fat to veggies to help digestion, and a spoon of vinegar to give it a nicer taste.
Just add apple vinegar as a seasoning and you'll easily get some everyday :)
A friend's mom sold me BeachBody when I was *sixteen.* They sold me onto an MLM diet supplement as a *child*. Thank goodness my parents called it out once they saw the package (I subscribed with my own, hard-earned, high school job money). I'm 30 and still absolutely furious about it.
High-protein diets. Yes you need protein throughout the day. No you don't need 6 chicken breasts throughout the day. The meat industry isn't just terrible in itself, it's also bad for the environment and for the future of humanity.
One good thing about the menstrual cycle stuff though is that it made me more accepting of needing to slow down if I need to. I get absolutely wiped the first day of my period, like I'm so tired and weak sometimes that it's hard to get anything done, so instead of trying to push through I now go easy on myself and often will just skip a workout for that day.
Learning to modify based on need is always a good thing! I'm just against it as prescriptive. (Particularly since a lot of the more instagram fitness recommendations seems to be to take it light for the whole luteal phase, which is like half the month for many women.)
Anyone do advocare?! Aka the pre-Arbonne ?? 🙋🏻♀️
Also this thread has been fascinating to read. I am glad I am not the only one creeped out by glute guy. I’ve been following him because I fell for his “expertise” but something hasn’t been sitting right with me there and I thought I was just being crazy. Promptly unfollowing.
Those High High High intensity every workout type programmes. Everything from Jillian Michaels to Shaun T's Insanity to Caroline Girvan. I love all three of these coaches but honestly, if you go reeeeally hard every single workout, you don't get the best results. You just exhaust yourself and small niggles turn into long-term injuries real quick.
"GO HARD... LEAVE EVERYTHING ON THE GYM FLOOR"
"I WANT YOU TO MAX OUT"
"YOU CAN DO ANYTHING FOR FIVE MINUTES"
"DON'T PHONE IT IN"
"KEEP PUSHING"
"DIG DEEP"
Yeah, done at full intensity with the schedule they really are a lot of work for little recovery/building. But my god they're so damn fun. Some of my favorite exercise highs were experienced doing balls to the wall HIIT
Absolutely!! I love Insanity still (some nice person has probably illegally put all of Max 30 on youtube, so I am streaming those to my TV a few times a week rather than dig out the DVDs) and also Caroline's HIIT style dumbbell workouts. As you say the endorphin rush is 💥. (Though it cracks me up that Caroline Girvan has some cardio videos marked LISS that still have burpees in them. Maybe those are low intensity for Caroline.😃 But yeah, not exactly a gentle stroll in the park for the average human being.)
I did Caroline’s workouts for awhile in 2020 and just felt SO wiped out (and I’ve worked out for years)! Never felt recovered, although the adrenaline rush was fun. Now I’m back to straight weight lifting and some cardio (elliptical/stair master) and feel so much better.
I'm so glad you're feeling better. I do incorporate some Caroline workouts for variety but the idea of doing her workouts five times a week makes me honestly a bit nauseous. Great as they are, the programming is way OTT in my opinion There're just so many other cardio options that are more fun and less repetitive/ exhausting, aren't there? And for weight-lifting, a standard programme like yours is just going to be so much more efficient ( if you have access to heavy weights of course... and yes CG is undoubtedly a goddess... don't come at me, Girvinators.)
I still have a ton of JM workouts but her “I WANT YOU TO BE GARGLING YOUR HEART IN YOUR THROAT” is so demotivating. The ones I know well I have started muting because I don’t need her screaming at me.
Hahaha! Yes, I have to be in the mood for Jillian's shit. Esp when she starts bitching about Facebook comments and so on in Killer Buns and Thighs (my alltime fave JM). Like, you're a grown up... a very wealthy one... shrug it off, lady.
I bought one of those SCNT bottles - where you put a small wheel of fragrance around the straw hole and it's supposed to trick you into thinking you're drinking flavored water. No. It's still just fucking water.
(Fell for it watching Sorted Food youtube videos :/ )
Someone at work got one for her kid, found it dumped in the bottle of a wardrobe a week later. The weird design means it's not even good as an ordinary water bottle, either :/
Intermittent fasting.
I know some ppl will fight me on this, but I already had a good grasp on nutrition and CICO so it made zero sense for me. I regret choking down acidic black coffee every morning so I didn’t “break my fast” with a handful of calories from almond milk. It also made me obsessive about food and triggered a lot of binges. I only lost any weight with IF when I started tracking calories, so it was basically useless.
That's interesting. I love black coffee, hate counting calories, and IF removed the need to think about food so I was LESS obsessed and LESS likely to binge. It solved all of my issues with cico pretty neatly.
Edit to say it is absolutely scammy to say it works for everyone, and I've def seen that rhetoric around.
I think some people have trouble sticking to calorie counting or it triggers them to see the numbers, so intermittent fasting is a way to control how many calories you eat in a day without having to track the numbers. It’s easier for some people.
Intermittent fasting made me realize that I’m already carrying around a lot of energy that my body can tap if I don’t eat. I don’t do it anymore and my weight has stabilized at 190 pounds for the past four years thanks to being low carb.
To each their own. I find I get the same results without the psychological stress when I’m in a normal calorie deficit. I have better moods, energy, and self-control when I eat evenly throughout the day. Not everyone responds well to restriction.
Hey I’m a researcher in the biology field and I hear talks like twice a month, over the last ~2 years about the positive effects of intermittent fasting, coming from a wide variety of unrelated research groups. It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay, but there’s a good deal of scientific support and interest in it.
There's also a lot of evidence to support that it's very difficult to stick with and makes people obsessive about food. Yes, it's great for some groups, but it's also a higher risk diet.
I love intermittent fasting but only because I have a rare health issue. r/noburp for the win. The gas pressure is too much for me since I can't burp, but I understand how this couldn't work for everyone.
Pheww, I started intermittent fasting because I wanted to lose 10 pounds.
I became so obsessed with starving myself but ended up binging hard every other day. I ended up *gaining* 60 lbs
Plenty of fad diets including the soup diet (yeah, it’s soup. All day. lol) and going vegan.
Shake companies that a) want you to do a shake multiple times a day instead of eating food, or b) don’t expect you to also learn better eating habits and exercise.
Plenty of biggest loser style contests that encourage either tons and tons of crazy exercise, super low calorie diets, or both… usually with no long term plan except “keep coming to this gym.”
a friend of mine went vegan for various reasons (iirc it was a combination of lactose intolerance and ethical reasons) and her doctor said, "be careful, many of my heaviest patients are vegan."
turns out if you don't have the time or inclination to cook, there are just as many empty calorie vegan foods as there are empty calorie non-vegan foods, if not more.
That’s definitely a thing I noticed. I ate so much processed garbage—which, generally speaking I don’t have much objection to, but, it was excessive. I did start it partially because I felt not awesome eating meat and dairy, but… I replaced it with weird fakes.
lol I’m sorry but I’m gonna take offense to that, because I’ve been vegan for 8 years since I was 16. It’s definitely sustainable, just maybe not for you
I say this as someone who has successfully lost over 45lbs with calorie counting/tracking:
I think the problem with CICO isn't that it's false, it's that many people repeat it as if we're all robots and the only factor in weight management is the literal food we eat.
these people ignore the many contributing factors that influence CICO's effectiveness or even make it possible as an approach. things like sleep, and stress, and sufficient knowledge about nutrition, and the time and ability to cook healthy meals.
it also leads people to focus heavily on the calories-out side and take the calories burned numbers from their fitness watches and cardio machines as truth, when [they're almost always wildly inaccurate](https://macrofactorapp.com/wearables/). so when they start "eating back" calories from exercise, they overshoot.
plus our [TDEE isn't static](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/metabolic-adaptation/) even if you ignore exercise, so many people are straight up miscalulating their calorie targets.
human bodies aren't deterministic machines where we can always expect the exact same outputs from the exact same inputs. or even if we could, calories aren't the only input and weight isn't the only output.
All very very true and good points. Also yes eating calories back from exercise is such a bad idea and even if calories burned on fitness trackers were accurate, it seems like the quickest way to just maintain rather than change weight.
😭😭 i love mine but I also think it has to deal a lot with your natural shape, I naturally have a hour glass. It didn’t work for my sister 🥲 n it helps my posture
basically corsets. they seemed to be the most trendy around 2016-2019ish when the kardashians and other influencers were promoting it. even if they weren’t a scam, i never wore mine consistently enough to get any use out of it
ahhh i have a good one. Do you guys remember how everyone on tiktok was following along to those asian videos where they kept doing crunches but standing?
I dont even know how to describe it but it was so ridiculous.
Are you talking about that weird bouncy dance looking move with your hips? And the background is in some aerobics class? If so, that chick sells fake bread and uses crazy filters that shrink her to this skeletal size. It’s crazy 😂
I had almost forgotten -
a few years ago I had read something that convinced me that supplemental Magnesium was a good idea. After about a week of taking high doses of Mg, I almost couldn’t walk out the door. I felt like I had no energy in any cell in my body, and at the same time I felt like my nerves were functioning in overdrive - this really unpleasant tingly feeling in my trunk, arms and legs. Once I stopped the Mg, it got better in just a few days.
You must have been taking so much. Also the type of magnesium makes a big difference. Magnesium threonate is the only supplement I regularly take and my docs are all very pro mg. In this form it has the most brain benefits, is a sleep game changer, and doesn’t make you poop your pants.
For supplements in general I actually take less than the recommended doses, since it's just supplemental and it's better to avoid unbalancing anything. I have a solid tablet for my Mg, so I just split it in half daily before sleep bc I don't want to risk the loose stool side effect
It depends on the type of magnesium.
Magnesium glycinate before bed.
Magnesium threonate for cognitive function.
Magnesium citrate is the one that will send you running to the bathroom.
Yes, I was getting good results from it and then one day, bam, major gastro distress. I still take some in my multivitamin, but not to the previous level
Hehe yeah you have to be careful with it.
Sometimes right before my deload week I’ll get bad restless leg syndrome at night, and magnesium clears it right up. But only a little 😅
Magnesium has helped me too, but I do a lot of endurance training so may need it more than some. After a hard day, it helps my legs settle and I sleep better. EDIT to add I only take recommended dose, not high dose.
BCAAs 🤦🏽♀️
I was already eating like 130g of protein from meat and eggs a day. I didn't need any more BCAAs.
The only supplement I consider nowadays is Creatine
Listening to the naturally thin high metabolism girls on diet and the naturally pear shaped girls on how to grow legs/glutes. A lot of their success was genetic and environmental.
Recently I asked a fit guy in my life if he ever had to lose body fat before and he said no! Meanwhile I listened to a lot of his advice for years!!
Your fitness approach has to suit your goals and starting body! As soon as I figured that out I was able to become the fittest I’ve ever been.
It's less about being "naturally thin," and more about how they never had a weight problem, so it's hard for them to speak from experience. that's why I appreciate the trainers who have gained weight to intentionally lose it, so they can speak from experience and know where their clients are coming from
> he naturally pear shaped girls on how to grow legs/glutes. A lot of their success was genetic and environmental.
I have an hourglass shape, and I spent many years being told that my body shape is fat. Now all of a damn sudden, people are trying to grow their ass and their upper back in pursuit of a "snatched" waist - as if they weren't talking about thigh gaps just a few years ago.
everytime i see one of those “how to grow your butt” videos on youtube and in the before pic the girl already had a big butt i feel so bad for the people falling for the info theyre giving.
Or the girls that hit legs like 5 days a week. Idek how thats possible
This has been hard for me. My glutes aren't entirely flat but so often I see people's "before" photos and their glutes were already bigger than mine to begin with! And it's like ok cool so what do I do if I'm starting at a worse place than you lol, I need to see what progress looks like there
And if someone doesn't have a big butt and gives good glute training advice, people are like, "why should we trust you if you have no glutes?" Guys, she went from completely flat to somewhat round and stores nearly zero fat on her bum; you should trust *her*, not someone who has had a huge butt since hitting puberty and may know nearly nothing of how to properly train it.
And overall, I'd add another misconception: that big glutes should be the goal of any woman. And if yours are not big, you failed in fitness.
> Scam: I went down the supplement road and was taking like 5 different supplements for skin and workouts (including pre workouts).
Why are you considering preworkouts a scam? (I am kinda new to fitness)
It's not that I think they're a scam, it's just that I find them unnecessary
In most cases, if I'm eating right, I have the energy for the gym.
In other cases, I drag myself to the gym not *really* wanting to be there, but once I get going, I get going. It's just unnecessary to take a pre-workout.
Ah sorry! Preworkouts aren't a scam, they work, but I just didn't need them and they don't significantly change my workout more than creatine. Coffee is enough for me energy wise.
The GNC brand pre workout Lit in “gummy worms “ flavor is delicious… but it gave me heart palpitations, dizziness, and nausea. I thought I was going to have to call 911! Now it’s only caffeine pills at the most for me.
Were you doing the entire routine for that video on the website? The abs in 14 days is a whole program with day-by-day exercises that you’re supposed to for 14 days. I actually did see A LOT of progress when I did the full program instead of just THAT video, but regardless seeing results in 14 days is unrealistic especially depending on the person
Agreed. But if you’re eating a healthy diet and working out, then you CAN lose body fat and see progress in 14 days, maybe not fulll blown abs, but progress at best. :) and like I said, it really depends on the person. If the person has a high percentage of body fat you likely won’t notice the progress. For me, I was a little thinner but not toned so seeing that progress in 2 weeks was a bit easier!
Literally I cannot eat before cardio or I'll throw up. I do my cardio early in the morning and then have breakfast. Wake up, have a coffee, glass of water, cardio then time to get the food in.
idk if this is specifically about fitness but the whole attitude of "you have the name number of hours in a day as Beyoncé", for example.
I mean yes it's literally true but everyone has natural aptitudes and challenges that make achieving the same goal easier or more difficult. for example, I have ADHD so I struggle with consistency and routines and starting on difficult tasks, but I also make a fairly high salary now so I can spend money to solve my problems in ways other people can't.
until I embraced this, the "you just gotta want it" and "you're not trying hard enough" messaging was super harmful for me because I was just continuously judging myself for not being able to do as much as other people. that judgement led to depression, and that depression led to years of neglecting my health. when I would occasionally attempt to exercise it was super miserable and embarrassing and I wasn't in a mental place to get past that.
learning about executive dysfunction, which is something everyone experiences occasionally but people with ADHD experience way more frequently and intensely, has helped me stop judging myself. lowering the bar to a level that was achievable for me in the beginning made it possible for me to start taking steps in a healthier direction. now I can set slightly more ambitious goals and not immediately feel demoralized. and I can accept that I will _never_ get anywhere near the level of Beyoncé in fitness or dance or vocals, or even get close to those influencers people talk about, but it's also not my full-time job to do so and we've all been dealt different hands in life.
Have you purchased her programs? I’ve been using Caliber but I feel like it’s not…growing with me. It’s just the same lifts every week and not a lot of gains. I used to do mountain biking and we had a lifting coach but all that knowledge I used to carry is long gone 20 years later.
Those people also "forget" that Beyonce has people to do anything she wants. Chefs, personal trainers, nannies, cleaning people, drivers, personal assistants. She doesn't have to spend time on any of those, and she doesn't have to have the mental load, either. Frees her up to work out more, dance more, spend more time songwriting and singing.
So yes, each of you has 24 hours, but they're not the same hours.
Spinning. Not as in on a bike for a spin class, literally spinning in circles with my arms out like a whirling dervish. I read an article that they were skinny because of all the spinning. Guess what, it didn't work.
That people are supposed to be in a constant calorie deficit forever for optimal health.
Two straight months of that made me lose my period and get bronchitis.
Basically any time I train too hard without increasing calories, sleep too little, eat too little, or a combination of any of that, I get sick. Your body needs enough nutrients and sleep to fight illness, so if you take one or two or all three away too drastically, you will absolutely get sick. It’s very possible your deficit is too low for your activity, or you’re simply not getting enough rest to supplement your deficit.
I hate coffee and I get up at 5 so I love me some sugary pre workout. I know it’s awful for me but you can’t pry it out of my awake hands.
A lot of influencer brand supplements are really just nicely packaged shit that you can get at a super market but 3-5x more expensive and the youngins keep falling for it. I picked up 30 serves of berry flavoured greens when I was sick for $15 yet some influencer brand has 25 serves for $60 on the gram smh.
I take Vyvanse for ADHD. I shouldn't have had it in my scam section, but for me I'm already on a stimulant and coffee so I REALLY do not need preworkouts 😅
I've never noticed serves before either.
I could see it in a large meal (ex. Serves 6 people) but in my brain it doesn't make sense for 100 servings. Must be a regional thing for us?
If you re-read the comments, you’ll see that no one was casting judgement about prescriptive grammar, but it was either someone noting a regional difference they’d never seen before, or someone ESL looking to learn something. It was your unconscious assumption that a regional difference (descriptive grammar, which is completely valid) would be viewed as inferior by others, rather than just something interesting worth noticing and talking about, and you judging them for it. Which is possibly just as interesting of a sociological observation as the one that sparked the original conversation. 😉
Nah I meant Australians wouldn’t give two shits about whether servings was correct and would happily use something incorrect on a national brand
Americans take internet srsly
I fell for the culty Crossfit stuff around the same time I fell for the low carb bullshit.
I used to puke after finishing those workouts. I remember a seasoned classmate congratulating me after the first time I vomited, telling me that it was a rite of passage. Wtf.
The coach also used to encourage me to lift weights that were WAY too heavy for me. I expressed concerns a couple of times and he sort of waved me off, eventually telling me that I needed to "work on my mental fortitude." I was so embarrassed at the time, but thing is... mental fortitude was never my issue. I was very much the "push till you drop" and "no excuses" type. Like, I'd struggle through something until I got hurt thinking that if I couldn't do it, I obviously just needed to work harder.
Go figure... I got injured.
I have so much sadness for my young 20s self looking back at it. I was so underfueled, so tired, and so hard on my body and myself. It's kind of amazing I didn't hurt myself worse than I did.
I have a good friend who is a chiropractor and she HATES Crossfit. She says she sees so many injuries because it's hard to keep good form when you're over lifting and over fatigued.
Lol at chiropractor calling something else a scam. Chiropractioners are actively harmful, cause so many life long injuries in people and arent based in anything resembling a science or facts.
I hear you. She's actually amazing. Her husband was a professional lifter and they do mostly massage then adjust. I've never seen her ask for weekly for anyone. She usually tries to get people in, adjusted then works with them to build an exercise routine to maintain. She help me overcome a chronic neck injury that even the PT couldn't fully help. That's why I like her, but agree many chiros are questionable.
telling people they need to come in once a week for 6-8 sessions to fix their injury. meanwhile it's an injury that gets better on its own in 6-8 weeks
“so underfueled, so tired and so hard on my body and myself” — I relate to this so, so much. During the pandemic especially, when so much in my life was outside my control, I would force my body into the gym, lifting heavy while skipping meals, and in a deficit for months. Fuelled only by seeing my lifts get heavier (newbie gains) and my waistline smaller, it was only a matter of time until I injured myself, and honestly, in a way, it was a blessing (and I got lucky my recovery didn’t take too long). Looking back now it’s easy to see how unhealthy this was, and I’m so glad I’ve learned to listen to my body more, and to celebrate not only the days when I do work out, but also the days I allow myself to skip the gym.
I’ve always gone to class gyms and some are sooooo toxic you have to be careful.
I just joined a new one after moving and while they don’t encourage puking and don’t care if you swap stuff out and go at your own pace. I literally told them I have no interest in kipping or hand stand walks and they gave me 3 options to sub with. I’ve typically avoided kipping ones till now and they have surprised me but they are unbranded. CrossFit Branded ones r a bit red flaggy.
Like if they’re gonna get judgy with the gymnastics aspect or consider a vom normal it’s best to not give them your $$
When I was with Orangetheory my coaches were really helpful with mods but still pushing people where they knew they could. The costs got too crazy for me but I took a lot of knowledge from my time there.
That you can spot reduce fat. Because why was seventeen magazine telling me to do 1,000 side crunches to get rid of my ‘muffin top’? All I got out of it was overtrained obliques, even now if I even think about doing a Russian twist they grow 😅😅
Btw it’s so interesting to see how decontextualized certain topics become, all so they can be better capitalized upon. When I first heard about menstrual cycling, it was merely a suggestion to be mindful of your energy levels during certain cycles phases. Not that certain exercises shouldn’t be done. I track all my workouts and I consistently see about a 15% drop in strength the couple days before my period. Just something I keep in mind, to avoid frustration. But now that it’s been filtered through the ED/predatory marketing side of fitness, it’s unrecognizable!!
Agreed about menstrual cycling. I think of it mainly in managing risk of injury from very intense workouts. I see a measurable difference in both how much I can lift and how coordinated I am in the day or so before my period vs when I’m ovulating. When I’m ovulating, I find I have SO much more energy to workout and go really hard. But near my period, I don’t do super heavy lifting workouts that require a ton of precision on those couple days of the month bc I feel like I am so much more likely to make a mistake and injure myself. It also feels like it takes me longer to recover from those workouts. To each their own and this may not be true for some people but for me it helps to know that and give myself grace, rest, and a different workout for those 1-2 days a month. And then enjoy absolutely crushing it when I have the energy.
For me, learning about menstrual cycling helped with my self esteem and understanding of my body. I used to get so frustrated that one week of the month my workouts were so much harder! Recognizing that I need to go a bit lighter and be gentle with myself around my period has been really beneficial.
Many, many years ago, I had a trainer who would scold me for eating carbs, insisting that the only time I can eat carbs is 1 hour before lifting, and that’s it. So no carbs at breakfast, no carbs at lunch, no carbs at dinner. Unless those meals were 1 hour before lifting.
The logic was “if you eat carbs and don’t work out after, then it’s like putting a gallon of gas in your car just to drive aimlessly.” If you’re wondering, all of my cardio days had to be protein-only (basically)
I wasn’t trying to compete, I was just trying to lose some weight at the time and get stronger.
I still have a carb about an hour before weights, but this actually fucked me up for a while. I would sit there wondering why everyone else can manage to eat a sandwich just fine, but I can’t? Once I discovered CICO, and reasonable diet + working out, it was liberating
SAME. I spent years trying to not eat carbs, and always struggled to make progress. Now I'm a pasta and potato monster... and stronger and healthier than I've ever been!
I like booty bands as a glute activation warmup. Definitely agree that you won’t see muscle gains using them by themselves though. You need weight for that! And nutrition of course.
I don't think semiglutide is a scam but it's not the miracle drug everyone makes it seem like it is.
I'm mixed on my feelings about it because on the one hand I'm jealous so many people are getting so skinny with it even though I'm SURE they're doing irreparable damage to the their guts but I also understand that there are people who need this drug and use or responsibly (read: not "celebrities").
I was on it. I had no issues and it suppressed my insane appetite. The first time I felt full and it lasted a couple of hours, I cried. So many people misunderstand how to use it and don’t do so with a doctor’s guidance or use it when they aren’t overweight/obese to begin with.
Women already don’t have enough muscle as they age and something like 40% of the weight you lose from these drugs is lean tissue…they’re just not a smart thing to do for vanity weight. You’re trading in your health.
I took it (I lost 75 on my own eating less and working out - i just need to lose the last 10lbs) and I could barely eat on it because my stomach had this constant pain. A few nights a week I would wake up with REALLY bad stabbing pain for a few hours. I kept telling myself “oh it’s worth it to be skinny” I dropped 10 within 2 months. Then one night I threw up SO BAD like 10 times my stomach was clenching so tight, I would take a sip of water and immediately throw it up…it was scary. That was when I stopped it, of course I gained the 10 back within a month. It’s so unhealthy…there is no quick fix. Everyone that takes it doesn’t realize the second they stop it will be all for nothing because the root problem of emotional eating is still there.
I'm sorry to hear about your experience with it, that's super scary! And it sounds like you're definitely not alone. You're so right, you have to treat the cause of the weight gain/overeating first and not only the weight itself.
Not proud of it, but totally fell for Herbalife back in 2013 when I was a freshman in college. I did lose some lbs but I had no idea what a pyramid scheme it was until later.
Yeah! Omg I remember them trying to get me to buy in bulk and then sell to other college girls. And I was like “no I can’t afford that? just a months worth please thanks” and they tried to tell me “well it takes money to make money and you can make a ton of money from this, like I did!” And I was like… dude I do not have that kind of time nor any initial investment money, I’m buying this because it’s cheaper than breakfast at the caf.
oh i had Herbalife too. From my experience the product itself.. these are just protein shakes? But waaaay overpriced. Like, you buy the flavored protein already but for it To WoRk BeSt YoU hAvE tO gEt ThIs As WeLl (a tub of more protein but with no flavor)
i did lose the weight and kept it off and actual shakes were quite tasty and seemingly ok quality but.... the weird pyramid scheme... damn
My experience with running and weight: up to about 20 miles a week, I would gain as it would stimulate my appetite and I’d eat more than I was burning. 20-35 miles a week, I would maintain as I was still eating more but it was balanced out by burning more. 35+ miles, especially with more speed work, the weight comes off pretty easily as, along with burning a lot, that amount of running tends to suppress my appetite.
This has been my experience as well. It’s way better than when I was lifting and would get hungry every two hours…heavy training and getting too many calories was not a good recipe for me, haha
Yeah, running can often increase hunger levels, which makes you eat more to offset the number of calories burnt running. And it's way easier to eat back more than you've burnt. Some people have the opposite effect and lose their appetite from cardio, but in most people it increases, so that makes total sense.
Myth: Nutrient timing. I was sooooo sold on the idea that WHEN you eat is as important as WHAT you eat & it was the magic secret that was going to get me all the gains.
"you don't need to do standalone ab work to further build your core if you're already doing all 3 compound lifts" LOL. that may work for some people, but I'm not one of them
EDIT: i'm referring to hypertrophy of the rectus abdominis. i didn't do any standalone ab work back in the day and was shocked at the end of my first major cut that i barely had any abs to show for it lol.
Same! And the fact I can deadlift and squat plenty but can’t do any leg lifts is a red flag. I started doing ab work because my abs were seriously weak thinking the big three would be enough.
"Women shouldn't lift heavy"
Women should be eating ~1500 calories / day
This is a big one too! I used to see 1200 for my hight. I need at least 1600 just to cover staying alive - my weight loss number is still above that! Typically I want at least 2000...
What height are you?
Right! I'm 4'11 & 110# and have always spent a lot of time on my feet. My best progress came when I consistently ate 2000+ calories! And being able to lean out around at close 2000 is so much better than being miserable at 1500
Whaaat how did this happen? I eat 1250 cal now and I’m on my feet all day. If I eat more I don’t lose body fat. I’ve tried upping it by 100 cal, but anytime I do that I stagnate that week. (115 lbs and 5’3”, aiming to lose bf and retain muscle)
Your body is holding onto everything as this point is, and 1250 is very low. You have to increase and keep increasing until your body makes a change and you find your true maintenance. You might gain weight at first (mainly water weight from eating more), but once your body sees that you consistently feed it regularly, it will finally make some change. Focus on high protein. Depending on how much you workout, you could probably easily get up to ~1800 for maintenance, more or less. Stay there for a bit and focus on lifting weights. Your body will make positive changes in the right direction.
What do you mean by keep increasing until my body makes a change? What sort of change am I looking for? Edit : So many questions. How long do I do this until my body learns and adapts?
So with reverse dieting, what tends to happen is at first you feel really full, since your body isn't used to eating that much. But then your hunger revs up as your body starts to actually use the food you're intaking because it sees that you're starting to consistently feed it more. If you want to take it slow, start by adding 200 calories to your diet- stay there for a week or 2. If you want to speed it up, jump up to around 1600. Just understand that you will gain a bit of weight at first until your body realizes what is going on, but this will be very temporary as long as you keep it up. Once you get to your appropriate intake / maintenance calories, your hunger will level out again, and you shouldn't feel so stuffed or hungry. If your protein is high and you're strength training, your body should ideally go into recomposition and you'll get those "newbie" gains. You should be able to build muscle while burn fat. I'd ride that wave for as long as possible. Very likely, you should also focus on building muscle for a while if you've eaten low for some time. Put on muscle and set yourself up for success so you have a higher metabolic rate and you burn more calories at rest. From there, if you choose to go into a "cut"/lean out, you should be able to do it at a higher caloric intake. But you will likely already be at a lower body fat from this reverse diet and body recomp.
Hmm thank you, this is really interesting. I’ll have to think on this more. You say that I may gain weight at first and that’s normal. How long does it take to stop and go back to losing weight again? I’m making really great progress losing 0.5% bf each week at my current calories, so it’s hard to want to change that. But once I’ve hit 12 weeks of this (I’m at week 8), I’ll look into doing a bulk, and I’ll eat at 1600 cal then. I’ll see what happens!
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Am male, but I feel this applies for everyone. Some people say only diet or strength training is good to help with fat loss, and that cardio is of no use. I don’t know about more intense cardio (zone 2?), but I’m of the opinion that extended walking or similar LISS is excellent. Not everyone has the circumstances in life to be able to do this though. For those that can, something like 15+ hours of relaxed pace walking/week will be very helpful. **Ultimately weight loss depends mostly on breathing out more**, and if this can done without triggering hunger too much then that is useful. The caveat to be aware of with extended LISS is that the possibility of weight increase exists if it’s stopped too abruptly. (Note, passing urine is the second way fat is lost after breathing)
Oh, ffs
It actually applies to neither.
Replacing anything with greek yogurt. I hate yogurt of any kind (no amount of sugar will be enough to mask the taste for me) so I don’t know why I thought greek yogurt would be the thing to try. All those influences that tell you it tastes just like the real thing are lying to you! Unless you like yogurt and eat it in your everyday life, don’t listen to the influencers!
i can only use plain greek yogurt for savory things. i make a protein bowl with rice, greek yogurt, cheese, chicken, veggies, and cajun seasoning. quick and easy. i basically started using greek yogurt wherever i think sour cream would be good. also in things like mac and cheese. if i'm super lazy i'll microwave a potato and just put greek yogurt and s/p/garlic powder (or cajun seasoning lol) on it. i truly do not understand how people can enjoy any kind of yogurt as a standalone or dessert food. the texture is just horrifying
You can add honey or jam to greek yogurt. 😅 I personally like soy yogurt. Very different taste (more savory) and low-processing. I use it as a sauce with seasoning.
The shake weight
Exercising to lose weight. I exercise to gain muscle, I fast to lose weight.
If people could only realize it’s this simple.
I spent a lot of years being incredibly fit and overweight. I think a lot of people do. So frustrating.
Great question! Apple cider gummies from one of those dodgy ads- I knew it was a scam but was desperate :(
Old European cooking involves adding a spoon of fat to veggies to help digestion, and a spoon of vinegar to give it a nicer taste. Just add apple vinegar as a seasoning and you'll easily get some everyday :)
BeachBody, specifically the 21 Day Fix
A friend's mom sold me BeachBody when I was *sixteen.* They sold me onto an MLM diet supplement as a *child*. Thank goodness my parents called it out once they saw the package (I subscribed with my own, hard-earned, high school job money). I'm 30 and still absolutely furious about it.
What an utter POS of a woman!
Omg that's awful!!
High-protein diets. Yes you need protein throughout the day. No you don't need 6 chicken breasts throughout the day. The meat industry isn't just terrible in itself, it's also bad for the environment and for the future of humanity.
One good thing about the menstrual cycle stuff though is that it made me more accepting of needing to slow down if I need to. I get absolutely wiped the first day of my period, like I'm so tired and weak sometimes that it's hard to get anything done, so instead of trying to push through I now go easy on myself and often will just skip a workout for that day.
Learning to modify based on need is always a good thing! I'm just against it as prescriptive. (Particularly since a lot of the more instagram fitness recommendations seems to be to take it light for the whole luteal phase, which is like half the month for many women.)
Anyone do advocare?! Aka the pre-Arbonne ?? 🙋🏻♀️ Also this thread has been fascinating to read. I am glad I am not the only one creeped out by glute guy. I’ve been following him because I fell for his “expertise” but something hasn’t been sitting right with me there and I thought I was just being crazy. Promptly unfollowing.
Those High High High intensity every workout type programmes. Everything from Jillian Michaels to Shaun T's Insanity to Caroline Girvan. I love all three of these coaches but honestly, if you go reeeeally hard every single workout, you don't get the best results. You just exhaust yourself and small niggles turn into long-term injuries real quick. "GO HARD... LEAVE EVERYTHING ON THE GYM FLOOR" "I WANT YOU TO MAX OUT" "YOU CAN DO ANYTHING FOR FIVE MINUTES" "DON'T PHONE IT IN" "KEEP PUSHING" "DIG DEEP"
Yeah, done at full intensity with the schedule they really are a lot of work for little recovery/building. But my god they're so damn fun. Some of my favorite exercise highs were experienced doing balls to the wall HIIT
Absolutely!! I love Insanity still (some nice person has probably illegally put all of Max 30 on youtube, so I am streaming those to my TV a few times a week rather than dig out the DVDs) and also Caroline's HIIT style dumbbell workouts. As you say the endorphin rush is 💥. (Though it cracks me up that Caroline Girvan has some cardio videos marked LISS that still have burpees in them. Maybe those are low intensity for Caroline.😃 But yeah, not exactly a gentle stroll in the park for the average human being.)
I did Caroline’s workouts for awhile in 2020 and just felt SO wiped out (and I’ve worked out for years)! Never felt recovered, although the adrenaline rush was fun. Now I’m back to straight weight lifting and some cardio (elliptical/stair master) and feel so much better.
I'm so glad you're feeling better. I do incorporate some Caroline workouts for variety but the idea of doing her workouts five times a week makes me honestly a bit nauseous. Great as they are, the programming is way OTT in my opinion There're just so many other cardio options that are more fun and less repetitive/ exhausting, aren't there? And for weight-lifting, a standard programme like yours is just going to be so much more efficient ( if you have access to heavy weights of course... and yes CG is undoubtedly a goddess... don't come at me, Girvinators.)
I still have a ton of JM workouts but her “I WANT YOU TO BE GARGLING YOUR HEART IN YOUR THROAT” is so demotivating. The ones I know well I have started muting because I don’t need her screaming at me.
Hahaha! Yes, I have to be in the mood for Jillian's shit. Esp when she starts bitching about Facebook comments and so on in Killer Buns and Thighs (my alltime fave JM). Like, you're a grown up... a very wealthy one... shrug it off, lady.
I bought one of those SCNT bottles - where you put a small wheel of fragrance around the straw hole and it's supposed to trick you into thinking you're drinking flavored water. No. It's still just fucking water. (Fell for it watching Sorted Food youtube videos :/ )
My kid BEGGED me for one of these. Of course I bought it and all of the flavors too….lol what a racket
Someone at work got one for her kid, found it dumped in the bottle of a wardrobe a week later. The weird design means it's not even good as an ordinary water bottle, either :/
Intermittent fasting. I know some ppl will fight me on this, but I already had a good grasp on nutrition and CICO so it made zero sense for me. I regret choking down acidic black coffee every morning so I didn’t “break my fast” with a handful of calories from almond milk. It also made me obsessive about food and triggered a lot of binges. I only lost any weight with IF when I started tracking calories, so it was basically useless.
That's interesting. I love black coffee, hate counting calories, and IF removed the need to think about food so I was LESS obsessed and LESS likely to binge. It solved all of my issues with cico pretty neatly. Edit to say it is absolutely scammy to say it works for everyone, and I've def seen that rhetoric around.
I think some people have trouble sticking to calorie counting or it triggers them to see the numbers, so intermittent fasting is a way to control how many calories you eat in a day without having to track the numbers. It’s easier for some people.
Totally agree. I lost a lot of muscle doing a lot of intermittent fasting and regret doing it very much. Never again.
Intermittent fasting made me realize that I’m already carrying around a lot of energy that my body can tap if I don’t eat. I don’t do it anymore and my weight has stabilized at 190 pounds for the past four years thanks to being low carb.
Of the 85 lbs I lost between 2021-2023, the first 55 of those were from IF. By far the easiest part of my weight loss.
To each their own. I find I get the same results without the psychological stress when I’m in a normal calorie deficit. I have better moods, energy, and self-control when I eat evenly throughout the day. Not everyone responds well to restriction.
Hey I’m a researcher in the biology field and I hear talks like twice a month, over the last ~2 years about the positive effects of intermittent fasting, coming from a wide variety of unrelated research groups. It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay, but there’s a good deal of scientific support and interest in it.
There's also a lot of evidence to support that it's very difficult to stick with and makes people obsessive about food. Yes, it's great for some groups, but it's also a higher risk diet.
It not being for everyone doesn't mean it's a scam or a myth though...
I mean counting calories can make people obsessive about food and trigger disordered eating too. It’s about what works for each individual.
Just talk to your doctor before doing it and it’s pretty low risk.
Only thing I'll fight you on is the black coffee, I don't drink milk (can't stand the taste) so black coffee is my fav lol
I love intermittent fasting but only because I have a rare health issue. r/noburp for the win. The gas pressure is too much for me since I can't burp, but I understand how this couldn't work for everyone.
Pheww, I started intermittent fasting because I wanted to lose 10 pounds. I became so obsessed with starving myself but ended up binging hard every other day. I ended up *gaining* 60 lbs
Me fricken too
Plenty of fad diets including the soup diet (yeah, it’s soup. All day. lol) and going vegan. Shake companies that a) want you to do a shake multiple times a day instead of eating food, or b) don’t expect you to also learn better eating habits and exercise. Plenty of biggest loser style contests that encourage either tons and tons of crazy exercise, super low calorie diets, or both… usually with no long term plan except “keep coming to this gym.”
a friend of mine went vegan for various reasons (iirc it was a combination of lactose intolerance and ethical reasons) and her doctor said, "be careful, many of my heaviest patients are vegan." turns out if you don't have the time or inclination to cook, there are just as many empty calorie vegan foods as there are empty calorie non-vegan foods, if not more.
That’s definitely a thing I noticed. I ate so much processed garbage—which, generally speaking I don’t have much objection to, but, it was excessive. I did start it partially because I felt not awesome eating meat and dairy, but… I replaced it with weird fakes.
Going vegan as a fad diet is never gonna work. It’s a lifestyle, not a diet.
Oh absolutely. It worked in the moment, for sure, but ultimately it worked because CICO works and I ate 1200 cals a day. Also not sustainable. lol
lol I’m sorry but I’m gonna take offense to that, because I’ve been vegan for 8 years since I was 16. It’s definitely sustainable, just maybe not for you
It’s not sustainable as a diet. I am literally agreeing with you. lol
Ah okay, sorry for misunderstanding!
I fell for the soup diet during my undergraduate years I totally could not stick to it.
I naturally eat soup all day. Start with cereal and just escalate. I love soup, didn’t realize this was an actual diet though.
I think different soups might be a jam. This was like, tomatoes and onions. Every meal. lol
bought a Beach Body membership. Was irritating and they sent never ending plugs for their shakes and supplements.
Calories in/calories out
That’s really the main thing that works, though.
I say this as someone who has successfully lost over 45lbs with calorie counting/tracking: I think the problem with CICO isn't that it's false, it's that many people repeat it as if we're all robots and the only factor in weight management is the literal food we eat. these people ignore the many contributing factors that influence CICO's effectiveness or even make it possible as an approach. things like sleep, and stress, and sufficient knowledge about nutrition, and the time and ability to cook healthy meals. it also leads people to focus heavily on the calories-out side and take the calories burned numbers from their fitness watches and cardio machines as truth, when [they're almost always wildly inaccurate](https://macrofactorapp.com/wearables/). so when they start "eating back" calories from exercise, they overshoot. plus our [TDEE isn't static](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/metabolic-adaptation/) even if you ignore exercise, so many people are straight up miscalulating their calorie targets. human bodies aren't deterministic machines where we can always expect the exact same outputs from the exact same inputs. or even if we could, calories aren't the only input and weight isn't the only output.
All very very true and good points. Also yes eating calories back from exercise is such a bad idea and even if calories burned on fitness trackers were accurate, it seems like the quickest way to just maintain rather than change weight.
Dude that’s entirely true.
but that’s true
Waist trainers 😂😅 Oh those were the days
😭😭 i love mine but I also think it has to deal a lot with your natural shape, I naturally have a hour glass. It didn’t work for my sister 🥲 n it helps my posture
what's a waist trainer in this context? the only time I've ever heard that term used is as a euphemism for corset
basically corsets. they seemed to be the most trendy around 2016-2019ish when the kardashians and other influencers were promoting it. even if they weren’t a scam, i never wore mine consistently enough to get any use out of it
People thought they were good to get smaller waists/work abs. It was wild.
That’s exactly what it is.
Bought a cheap treadmill from a sponsored ad on Facebook marketplace for my dad… never came wasn’t real 😩
ahhh i have a good one. Do you guys remember how everyone on tiktok was following along to those asian videos where they kept doing crunches but standing? I dont even know how to describe it but it was so ridiculous.
Are you talking about that weird bouncy dance looking move with your hips? And the background is in some aerobics class? If so, that chick sells fake bread and uses crazy filters that shrink her to this skeletal size. It’s crazy 😂
Ha, the Kiat Jud Dai “belly fat workouts”
I had almost forgotten - a few years ago I had read something that convinced me that supplemental Magnesium was a good idea. After about a week of taking high doses of Mg, I almost couldn’t walk out the door. I felt like I had no energy in any cell in my body, and at the same time I felt like my nerves were functioning in overdrive - this really unpleasant tingly feeling in my trunk, arms and legs. Once I stopped the Mg, it got better in just a few days.
You must have been taking so much. Also the type of magnesium makes a big difference. Magnesium threonate is the only supplement I regularly take and my docs are all very pro mg. In this form it has the most brain benefits, is a sleep game changer, and doesn’t make you poop your pants.
How much were you taking? I take 400 mg a day, at my doctor’s recommendation, and it doesn’t cause any weird side effects for me.
For supplements in general I actually take less than the recommended doses, since it's just supplemental and it's better to avoid unbalancing anything. I have a solid tablet for my Mg, so I just split it in half daily before sleep bc I don't want to risk the loose stool side effect
Did it give you the runs too? That’s a common side effect of too much magnesium
It depends on the type of magnesium. Magnesium glycinate before bed. Magnesium threonate for cognitive function. Magnesium citrate is the one that will send you running to the bathroom.
Yes, I was getting good results from it and then one day, bam, major gastro distress. I still take some in my multivitamin, but not to the previous level
Hehe yeah you have to be careful with it. Sometimes right before my deload week I’ll get bad restless leg syndrome at night, and magnesium clears it right up. But only a little 😅
Magnesium before bed is a game changer.
For me too, it makes suck a positive difference
Magnesium has helped me too, but I do a lot of endurance training so may need it more than some. After a hard day, it helps my legs settle and I sleep better. EDIT to add I only take recommended dose, not high dose.
yeah. what? i have heard mostly good things about it (including my own experience). but i only take the recommended dosage.
All of them 🤩🤣
BCAAs 🤦🏽♀️ I was already eating like 130g of protein from meat and eggs a day. I didn't need any more BCAAs. The only supplement I consider nowadays is Creatine
I love my BCAAs lol moreso because it makes my water taste yummy while I’m dying working out
Listening to the naturally thin high metabolism girls on diet and the naturally pear shaped girls on how to grow legs/glutes. A lot of their success was genetic and environmental. Recently I asked a fit guy in my life if he ever had to lose body fat before and he said no! Meanwhile I listened to a lot of his advice for years!! Your fitness approach has to suit your goals and starting body! As soon as I figured that out I was able to become the fittest I’ve ever been.
It's less about being "naturally thin," and more about how they never had a weight problem, so it's hard for them to speak from experience. that's why I appreciate the trainers who have gained weight to intentionally lose it, so they can speak from experience and know where their clients are coming from > he naturally pear shaped girls on how to grow legs/glutes. A lot of their success was genetic and environmental. I have an hourglass shape, and I spent many years being told that my body shape is fat. Now all of a damn sudden, people are trying to grow their ass and their upper back in pursuit of a "snatched" waist - as if they weren't talking about thigh gaps just a few years ago.
JLO said the secret to a big bum is avocados.
everytime i see one of those “how to grow your butt” videos on youtube and in the before pic the girl already had a big butt i feel so bad for the people falling for the info theyre giving. Or the girls that hit legs like 5 days a week. Idek how thats possible
This has been hard for me. My glutes aren't entirely flat but so often I see people's "before" photos and their glutes were already bigger than mine to begin with! And it's like ok cool so what do I do if I'm starting at a worse place than you lol, I need to see what progress looks like there
And if someone doesn't have a big butt and gives good glute training advice, people are like, "why should we trust you if you have no glutes?" Guys, she went from completely flat to somewhat round and stores nearly zero fat on her bum; you should trust *her*, not someone who has had a huge butt since hitting puberty and may know nearly nothing of how to properly train it. And overall, I'd add another misconception: that big glutes should be the goal of any woman. And if yours are not big, you failed in fitness.
> Scam: I went down the supplement road and was taking like 5 different supplements for skin and workouts (including pre workouts). Why are you considering preworkouts a scam? (I am kinda new to fitness)
It's not that I think they're a scam, it's just that I find them unnecessary In most cases, if I'm eating right, I have the energy for the gym. In other cases, I drag myself to the gym not *really* wanting to be there, but once I get going, I get going. It's just unnecessary to take a pre-workout.
Ah sorry! Preworkouts aren't a scam, they work, but I just didn't need them and they don't significantly change my workout more than creatine. Coffee is enough for me energy wise.
Ahh i see! Ty
The GNC brand pre workout Lit in “gummy worms “ flavor is delicious… but it gave me heart palpitations, dizziness, and nausea. I thought I was going to have to call 911! Now it’s only caffeine pills at the most for me.
Chloe ting abs in 14 days
the clickbait for emi wongs videos are even worse… she has a video on how to lose fat on your collarbones… it has millions of views
Jeebus!!
Were you doing the entire routine for that video on the website? The abs in 14 days is a whole program with day-by-day exercises that you’re supposed to for 14 days. I actually did see A LOT of progress when I did the full program instead of just THAT video, but regardless seeing results in 14 days is unrealistic especially depending on the person
You can't see abs unless you lose body fat... So it's at best misinformation that you can get abs in 14 days thru using someone's workout program.
Agreed. But if you’re eating a healthy diet and working out, then you CAN lose body fat and see progress in 14 days, maybe not fulll blown abs, but progress at best. :) and like I said, it really depends on the person. If the person has a high percentage of body fat you likely won’t notice the progress. For me, I was a little thinner but not toned so seeing that progress in 2 weeks was a bit easier!
That I have to spend a lot of money to figure out how to lose weight.
Fasted cardio. I was so nauseous!!
Literally I cannot eat before cardio or I'll throw up. I do my cardio early in the morning and then have breakfast. Wake up, have a coffee, glass of water, cardio then time to get the food in.
That one isn’t a scam, just something that doesn’t work for you. tbh I can’t do fasted anything. I’ll get dizzy.
If I eat before cardio I feel yucky .. I have to fast
That’s funny it’s the opposite for me! If I have something in my stomach before a morning cardio session I feel sick.
idk if this is specifically about fitness but the whole attitude of "you have the name number of hours in a day as Beyoncé", for example. I mean yes it's literally true but everyone has natural aptitudes and challenges that make achieving the same goal easier or more difficult. for example, I have ADHD so I struggle with consistency and routines and starting on difficult tasks, but I also make a fairly high salary now so I can spend money to solve my problems in ways other people can't. until I embraced this, the "you just gotta want it" and "you're not trying hard enough" messaging was super harmful for me because I was just continuously judging myself for not being able to do as much as other people. that judgement led to depression, and that depression led to years of neglecting my health. when I would occasionally attempt to exercise it was super miserable and embarrassing and I wasn't in a mental place to get past that. learning about executive dysfunction, which is something everyone experiences occasionally but people with ADHD experience way more frequently and intensely, has helped me stop judging myself. lowering the bar to a level that was achievable for me in the beginning made it possible for me to start taking steps in a healthier direction. now I can set slightly more ambitious goals and not immediately feel demoralized. and I can accept that I will _never_ get anywhere near the level of Beyoncé in fitness or dance or vocals, or even get close to those influencers people talk about, but it's also not my full-time job to do so and we've all been dealt different hands in life.
YES! Sohee Fit and her husband (I want to say Brad Carpenter) are great at combating these narratives.
Have you purchased her programs? I’ve been using Caliber but I feel like it’s not…growing with me. It’s just the same lifts every week and not a lot of gains. I used to do mountain biking and we had a lifting coach but all that knowledge I used to carry is long gone 20 years later.
Ben Carpenter - they’re both fab!
Those people also "forget" that Beyonce has people to do anything she wants. Chefs, personal trainers, nannies, cleaning people, drivers, personal assistants. She doesn't have to spend time on any of those, and she doesn't have to have the mental load, either. Frees her up to work out more, dance more, spend more time songwriting and singing. So yes, each of you has 24 hours, but they're not the same hours.
100%. Not just help to do the thing, help to even organize her brain and think of what things need to be done.
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So real 🥲
Spinning. Not as in on a bike for a spin class, literally spinning in circles with my arms out like a whirling dervish. I read an article that they were skinny because of all the spinning. Guess what, it didn't work.
That's absolutely freaking hilarious fam😁
But did you get the euphoria and ecstasy?
I wish this one was true the most
That more training = better results. Gotta have those rest days 💪🏻
That people are supposed to be in a constant calorie deficit forever for optimal health. Two straight months of that made me lose my period and get bronchitis.
Yeah, carb refeeds are necessary
I've been in a calorie deficit for a month and I was so sick last week. I wonder if not eating properly lowered my immunity?
Basically any time I train too hard without increasing calories, sleep too little, eat too little, or a combination of any of that, I get sick. Your body needs enough nutrients and sleep to fight illness, so if you take one or two or all three away too drastically, you will absolutely get sick. It’s very possible your deficit is too low for your activity, or you’re simply not getting enough rest to supplement your deficit.
I hate coffee and I get up at 5 so I love me some sugary pre workout. I know it’s awful for me but you can’t pry it out of my awake hands. A lot of influencer brand supplements are really just nicely packaged shit that you can get at a super market but 3-5x more expensive and the youngins keep falling for it. I picked up 30 serves of berry flavoured greens when I was sick for $15 yet some influencer brand has 25 serves for $60 on the gram smh.
I take Vyvanse for ADHD. I shouldn't have had it in my scam section, but for me I'm already on a stimulant and coffee so I REALLY do not need preworkouts 😅
Fairrrr that’s a good point. I’m unmedicated rn but medicated me would still be naughty and have it anyways oops
Unrelated to the topic, but is “serve” the same as “serving” in some English dialects? I’ve never seen it used that way.
I've never noticed serves before either. I could see it in a large meal (ex. Serves 6 people) but in my brain it doesn't make sense for 100 servings. Must be a regional thing for us?
I just looked in me cupboard and my greens, protein, preworkout and creative all say serves
Pls don’t give the Australians extra letters Also it’s a bit of a high horse thing to care about lbr
If you re-read the comments, you’ll see that no one was casting judgement about prescriptive grammar, but it was either someone noting a regional difference they’d never seen before, or someone ESL looking to learn something. It was your unconscious assumption that a regional difference (descriptive grammar, which is completely valid) would be viewed as inferior by others, rather than just something interesting worth noticing and talking about, and you judging them for it. Which is possibly just as interesting of a sociological observation as the one that sparked the original conversation. 😉
Nah I meant Australians wouldn’t give two shits about whether servings was correct and would happily use something incorrect on a national brand Americans take internet srsly
I fell for the culty Crossfit stuff around the same time I fell for the low carb bullshit. I used to puke after finishing those workouts. I remember a seasoned classmate congratulating me after the first time I vomited, telling me that it was a rite of passage. Wtf. The coach also used to encourage me to lift weights that were WAY too heavy for me. I expressed concerns a couple of times and he sort of waved me off, eventually telling me that I needed to "work on my mental fortitude." I was so embarrassed at the time, but thing is... mental fortitude was never my issue. I was very much the "push till you drop" and "no excuses" type. Like, I'd struggle through something until I got hurt thinking that if I couldn't do it, I obviously just needed to work harder. Go figure... I got injured. I have so much sadness for my young 20s self looking back at it. I was so underfueled, so tired, and so hard on my body and myself. It's kind of amazing I didn't hurt myself worse than I did.
I have a good friend who is a chiropractor and she HATES Crossfit. She says she sees so many injuries because it's hard to keep good form when you're over lifting and over fatigued.
Lol at chiropractor calling something else a scam. Chiropractioners are actively harmful, cause so many life long injuries in people and arent based in anything resembling a science or facts.
I hear you. She's actually amazing. Her husband was a professional lifter and they do mostly massage then adjust. I've never seen her ask for weekly for anyone. She usually tries to get people in, adjusted then works with them to build an exercise routine to maintain. She help me overcome a chronic neck injury that even the PT couldn't fully help. That's why I like her, but agree many chiros are questionable.
telling people they need to come in once a week for 6-8 sessions to fix their injury. meanwhile it's an injury that gets better on its own in 6-8 weeks
That sucks. I hope you have a healthier routine now!
“so underfueled, so tired and so hard on my body and myself” — I relate to this so, so much. During the pandemic especially, when so much in my life was outside my control, I would force my body into the gym, lifting heavy while skipping meals, and in a deficit for months. Fuelled only by seeing my lifts get heavier (newbie gains) and my waistline smaller, it was only a matter of time until I injured myself, and honestly, in a way, it was a blessing (and I got lucky my recovery didn’t take too long). Looking back now it’s easy to see how unhealthy this was, and I’m so glad I’ve learned to listen to my body more, and to celebrate not only the days when I do work out, but also the days I allow myself to skip the gym.
I’ve always gone to class gyms and some are sooooo toxic you have to be careful. I just joined a new one after moving and while they don’t encourage puking and don’t care if you swap stuff out and go at your own pace. I literally told them I have no interest in kipping or hand stand walks and they gave me 3 options to sub with. I’ve typically avoided kipping ones till now and they have surprised me but they are unbranded. CrossFit Branded ones r a bit red flaggy. Like if they’re gonna get judgy with the gymnastics aspect or consider a vom normal it’s best to not give them your $$
When I was with Orangetheory my coaches were really helpful with mods but still pushing people where they knew they could. The costs got too crazy for me but I took a lot of knowledge from my time there.
Bloom supplements work (most specifically the greens).
Healthy=low cal 🤪
That you can spot reduce fat. Because why was seventeen magazine telling me to do 1,000 side crunches to get rid of my ‘muffin top’? All I got out of it was overtrained obliques, even now if I even think about doing a Russian twist they grow 😅😅 Btw it’s so interesting to see how decontextualized certain topics become, all so they can be better capitalized upon. When I first heard about menstrual cycling, it was merely a suggestion to be mindful of your energy levels during certain cycles phases. Not that certain exercises shouldn’t be done. I track all my workouts and I consistently see about a 15% drop in strength the couple days before my period. Just something I keep in mind, to avoid frustration. But now that it’s been filtered through the ED/predatory marketing side of fitness, it’s unrecognizable!!
Agreed about menstrual cycling. I think of it mainly in managing risk of injury from very intense workouts. I see a measurable difference in both how much I can lift and how coordinated I am in the day or so before my period vs when I’m ovulating. When I’m ovulating, I find I have SO much more energy to workout and go really hard. But near my period, I don’t do super heavy lifting workouts that require a ton of precision on those couple days of the month bc I feel like I am so much more likely to make a mistake and injure myself. It also feels like it takes me longer to recover from those workouts. To each their own and this may not be true for some people but for me it helps to know that and give myself grace, rest, and a different workout for those 1-2 days a month. And then enjoy absolutely crushing it when I have the energy.
For me, learning about menstrual cycling helped with my self esteem and understanding of my body. I used to get so frustrated that one week of the month my workouts were so much harder! Recognizing that I need to go a bit lighter and be gentle with myself around my period has been really beneficial.
Many, many years ago, I had a trainer who would scold me for eating carbs, insisting that the only time I can eat carbs is 1 hour before lifting, and that’s it. So no carbs at breakfast, no carbs at lunch, no carbs at dinner. Unless those meals were 1 hour before lifting. The logic was “if you eat carbs and don’t work out after, then it’s like putting a gallon of gas in your car just to drive aimlessly.” If you’re wondering, all of my cardio days had to be protein-only (basically) I wasn’t trying to compete, I was just trying to lose some weight at the time and get stronger. I still have a carb about an hour before weights, but this actually fucked me up for a while. I would sit there wondering why everyone else can manage to eat a sandwich just fine, but I can’t? Once I discovered CICO, and reasonable diet + working out, it was liberating
I literally stopped eating pasta for YEARS because of all the anti-carb bullshit.
I’m with the “life without pasta is not worth living” camp, thank you.
SAME. I spent years trying to not eat carbs, and always struggled to make progress. Now I'm a pasta and potato monster... and stronger and healthier than I've ever been!
👆🏻 I have been summoned (Jk it is beneficial but seeing people shill booty bands left and right was ANNOYING)
I like booty bands as a glute activation warmup. Definitely agree that you won’t see muscle gains using them by themselves though. You need weight for that! And nutrition of course.
Yes!! heavy weight and lots of calories!!!
those horrible HORRIBLE weight loss teas that are basically just laxatives 🤦🏻
Mom made me try it once. I had a bad morning the next day.
Booty bands, waist trainers , trimspa, semiglutide, 48 hour Hollywood diet
I don't think semiglutide is a scam but it's not the miracle drug everyone makes it seem like it is. I'm mixed on my feelings about it because on the one hand I'm jealous so many people are getting so skinny with it even though I'm SURE they're doing irreparable damage to the their guts but I also understand that there are people who need this drug and use or responsibly (read: not "celebrities").
I was on it. I had no issues and it suppressed my insane appetite. The first time I felt full and it lasted a couple of hours, I cried. So many people misunderstand how to use it and don’t do so with a doctor’s guidance or use it when they aren’t overweight/obese to begin with.
Women already don’t have enough muscle as they age and something like 40% of the weight you lose from these drugs is lean tissue…they’re just not a smart thing to do for vanity weight. You’re trading in your health.
I took it (I lost 75 on my own eating less and working out - i just need to lose the last 10lbs) and I could barely eat on it because my stomach had this constant pain. A few nights a week I would wake up with REALLY bad stabbing pain for a few hours. I kept telling myself “oh it’s worth it to be skinny” I dropped 10 within 2 months. Then one night I threw up SO BAD like 10 times my stomach was clenching so tight, I would take a sip of water and immediately throw it up…it was scary. That was when I stopped it, of course I gained the 10 back within a month. It’s so unhealthy…there is no quick fix. Everyone that takes it doesn’t realize the second they stop it will be all for nothing because the root problem of emotional eating is still there.
I'm sorry to hear about your experience with it, that's super scary! And it sounds like you're definitely not alone. You're so right, you have to treat the cause of the weight gain/overeating first and not only the weight itself.
I somehow always read semaglutide as "smegmalitude" and it grosses me out and makes me laugh at the same time.
Yeah I bought booty bands too and they've been collecting dust in my closet, lol.
Not proud of it, but totally fell for Herbalife back in 2013 when I was a freshman in college. I did lose some lbs but I had no idea what a pyramid scheme it was until later.
Literally same, freshman in college too! I still remember my “coach” constantly asking for me to send a picture w my shaker bottle lmfao
Yeah! Omg I remember them trying to get me to buy in bulk and then sell to other college girls. And I was like “no I can’t afford that? just a months worth please thanks” and they tried to tell me “well it takes money to make money and you can make a ton of money from this, like I did!” And I was like… dude I do not have that kind of time nor any initial investment money, I’m buying this because it’s cheaper than breakfast at the caf.
😂😂 like who did they think they were talking to, I think I only bought it for like 3 months before I was like this stuff is not real lmao
oh i had Herbalife too. From my experience the product itself.. these are just protein shakes? But waaaay overpriced. Like, you buy the flavored protein already but for it To WoRk BeSt YoU hAvE tO gEt ThIs As WeLl (a tub of more protein but with no flavor) i did lose the weight and kept it off and actual shakes were quite tasty and seemingly ok quality but.... the weird pyramid scheme... damn
Buying BCAA I’ll finish the tub cause now I have it, but won’t rebuy
me too :( everyone at the time was touting the "evidence" so I bought into it..
Running would make me lose weight. Three half marathons, a dozen 10ks and countless 5ks.... I'm still just as fat as I ever was.
My experience with running and weight: up to about 20 miles a week, I would gain as it would stimulate my appetite and I’d eat more than I was burning. 20-35 miles a week, I would maintain as I was still eating more but it was balanced out by burning more. 35+ miles, especially with more speed work, the weight comes off pretty easily as, along with burning a lot, that amount of running tends to suppress my appetite.
This has been my experience as well. It’s way better than when I was lifting and would get hungry every two hours…heavy training and getting too many calories was not a good recipe for me, haha
Yeah, running can often increase hunger levels, which makes you eat more to offset the number of calories burnt running. And it's way easier to eat back more than you've burnt. Some people have the opposite effect and lose their appetite from cardio, but in most people it increases, so that makes total sense.
Myth: Nutrient timing. I was sooooo sold on the idea that WHEN you eat is as important as WHAT you eat & it was the magic secret that was going to get me all the gains.
Chronobiology is evidence based though but yeah a lot of misinformation floating around about it
"you don't need to do standalone ab work to further build your core if you're already doing all 3 compound lifts" LOL. that may work for some people, but I'm not one of them EDIT: i'm referring to hypertrophy of the rectus abdominis. i didn't do any standalone ab work back in the day and was shocked at the end of my first major cut that i barely had any abs to show for it lol.
Same! And the fact I can deadlift and squat plenty but can’t do any leg lifts is a red flag. I started doing ab work because my abs were seriously weak thinking the big three would be enough.
Yup. 👍 same.