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It just seems like every time you scroll your feed, there's some new fitness advice popping up. And a lot of it, which may sound like a weird opinion, I actually think is genuinely good. But sometimes what even feels like really good advice is the exact thing personally sabotaging you. So today I'm going to go over seven pieces of fitness advice I believed and I honestly followed religiously even for years that I ultimately had to ditch or really adjust how I personally used it to finally see results. And I'm saving the biggest one for last. Yes, you've got to listen to the entire podcast episode, but it's probably the one that's going to make some of you very, very mad because in theory, it's really key. But the mindset it created, especially for me, was the thing holding me back the most. So go for a walk, listen as you meal prep or get comfy on the couch because by the end of this, you're going to look at some of the most common fitness advice completely differently.
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So starting with number seven, if you're not sore, it wasn't a good workout. I don't know about you guys, but for the longest time, if I wasn't sore from a routine, I'd be like, "What did I do wrong? Was it not hard enough? Did I not push myself enough?" And I finally realized after doing lots of research that what newness really meant, A, but B, that seeking to be sore every single time was actually keeping me stuck and not only led to injuries, but it wasn't allowing my body to adapt and grow stronger. And yes, we know recovery is key. It's when we rebuild, but we don't think about all the reasons why we actually get sore to put soreness in its place. Yes, and I say this even being satisfied at times when I've started back or started something new or switched progressions a little bit and I'm sore, I like that feeling still.
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I won't deny it, but I also know what it's really telling me. It's telling me I'm doing a move that I haven't done for a while. It's telling me that I'm doing potentially a move that loads the muscle under stretch a lot, that has a lot of muscle tissue damage to the movement component to drive muscle growth. And none of these things are bad, but I also recognize that if I'm constantly sore, my recovery might be off. I might not be eating enough. I'm going to see a point of diminishing returns where my progression's actually going to go backwards, or I might be trying to mix things up or jump too much in my training week over week. And that's where I can see ego start to get into lifts and loads and know that I even need to back off in terms of my prehab work.
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So if I'm sore now consistently, not every once in a while where I really pushed in a workout or I did things in a new order or I did a move I hadn't done for a while with even a new tool, I'll take a look at how am I sleeping? What are my stress levels? Am I hydrating enough? Is there enough rest even between workouts? Am I actually fueling those gains as well? Did something in my workouts change enough that maybe I'm not eating enough or my macros are a little off, but I'll take a look at my recovery. And I've started to realize the less I've actually been sore consistently, the better progression I've seen, both from a fat loss standpoint and a muscle building standpoint, but even my numbers in my workouts actually improving. So if you've been seeking to be sore, recognize that yes, while soreness can be sometimes satisfying and when we do new things, we can get a little sore, which can make us feel like we're pushing, it actually isn't the best indicator that your workout was good enough and is usually truly an indicator that your recovery might be off so you won't see all of your hard work in the gym paying off the way that you want.
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Now, number six was one that really set me down a whole prehab investigation process to come up with the three-part process I now follow, but it was getting the advice to stretch more. I actually began to stretch more after one of the injuries that I had and I was like, "Why isn't it getting any better? Why does it actually feel like my lower back hurts more, like things are getting worse?" And this is when I started to recognize that all stretching is not created equal and also that there's different nuance in why we stretch and when we stretch because there are muscles that can feel tight that are actually over lengthened and stretching them only makes the issue worse and can even lead to pulls, strains, all those negatives that we're trying to avoid. But stretching a tight shortened muscle can be beneficial while stretching a tight lengthened muscle isn't.
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So a big case of this is how much we turn to stretching our hamstrings when we spend a lot of time seated at a computer where actually our hip flexors are shortened tight. So sometimes we need to stretch our hip flexors to actually realign our pelvis to help our hamstrings not feel overstretched because it's almost like the phenomenon of a rubber band being stretched too far. And so foam rolling those, activating the glutes might be a better part of the process to ultimately help your hamstrings feel less tight. So not only can a muscle not be in need of stretching because it's overly lengthened and therefore pulled tight from that perspective, but sometimes tightness is an indicator that a joint isn't stable. And when there's instability, muscles become tight to try and protect you from doing a range of motion you can't control, which is where stability work.
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So that full prehab process of foam rolling stretching and activation, specifically activation for that stability is so key. So don't just stretch more. Stretching is not necessarily the answer. And as I mentioned to start, stretching has a lot of nuance to it. Dynamic stretches are better when you're warming up because they're going to mobilize joints. They're going to help warm your body up. They're also going to help with that activation process if you focus on engaging the opposing muscle group to drive the stretch versus static stretching can be used more in cool downs and has even been shown at times to reduce your power and strength in your workouts. So you don't necessarily want to do that static stretching before you're going to lift. However, there's even nuance to that where if you have an injury, it's less important of lifting heavier and heavy loads and more important that the joint and muscles actually restore the proper length tension relationship that the joint is mobilized.
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So that's where you might then include some static stretching prior to make sure that you can work through the full range of motion, even if it means that you don't lift quite as heavy. So again, there's nuance and not all stretching is created equal and that it can't be used for the same purpose. So just recognize that just because you feel tight, it doesn't mean to stretch more. Stretching is only one component. Flexibility is only one component of moving your best. You need that mobility, you need that stability, and then you need to strengthen through that range of motion. So that advice held me back for a really long time, especially because I didn't enjoy stretching that much, so it was really hard to get myself to do more. And then when I was doing more, it wasn't paying off. So I wanted to give that perspective.
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Three part prehib process, foamral, stretch and activate, magical. Number five, don't eat after X time. And I've seen a lot of different variations of this over the year where it's been like, don't eat after 5:00 PM, don't have breakfast, fast this amount of time, fast every other day, whatever it is, or even eat six small meals, sort of the opposite of it. But there's all these magical timings that promise you if you do this magical timing, you will see results. And I'm going to tell you now, any of those timings work if you dial in your calories and your macros to match what you need. Any of them work. And part of why people started saying don't eat after X time is A, because eating later can sometimes impact your sleep because you're digesting the food. It can wake you up a little bit too.
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So that can be a reason to stop eating earlier, especially during menopause and perimenopause where you might see some changes in your digestion. So it might help to stop eating earlier from a sleep standpoint.
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It was used by popular diets to stop people from doing that mindless munching on the couch. If you can't eat after X time, you can't eat, you can't munch. So that could automatically help you create that calorie deficit, dial in your nutrition in a way that produced results. So it was a rule that was applied for other reasons, but in and of itself didn't have some magical cutof time where all of a sudden you were storing that food as fat. If you're working late and if you're training later, you might need to eat later in the day. That's not a bad thing. Just like I actually do like fasting for some specific goals when it's more focused on fat loss recomp, I think there can be some benefits. However, for a lot of people, if you're trying to force a restrictive eating window, that can backfire and that you get too hungry and then you overeat, you can't hit your macros as consistently.
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Or if you're trying to build, it makes it really hard to get in the calories you're consuming. So recognize that there is no magic time that if you eat after, eat before, you're going to just put on fat, that a lot of meal timing is helping you fit your lifestyle, your schedule to get consistent and even make meal prep work for you. Because for some, it might really work to have six small meals a day. For others, that meal prep is ridiculous and you can't do it and you'd rather eat two meals. So find a variation that works for you that allows you to hit your macros and calories. But just note, if you eat after 5:00 PM, it's not all of a sudden just going to be stored as fat. That's not the way it works. Number four, lightweights, high reps for long lean muscles in that tone.
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I can tell you, I mean, trainers have pushed back on this for years of their muscles don't tone. I don't really care about the word, whatever you want to describe, but I also want to highlight here that if you want that definition, if you don't necessarily want bulk, part of that is very strategically trying to build if you're trying to build bulk, especially as a woman and some even performance enhancing type things. But a lot of times what we see as bulk is actually fat over muscle, not muscle itself. But if you want long, lean, defined muscles in a defined body, you need to still lift heavy. And I actually love higher rep ranges. I think there's a lot of value in them, especially for isolation moves. And I love compound burner sets because it pairs both a compound lift in that hypertrophy rep range with higher rep isolation work right after.
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So I love it. Six / 12 / 25 again is another case of using it. So I have no problem with higher reps. I never like to say lightweights because every weight should be challenging, but yes, when you're going higher rep by going higher rep, you're going to have to use lighter weights to be able to perform all those reps, but it should still challenge you even when you're going higher reps. But there's nothing magic about that higher rep range that will build longer, leaner muscles. If you actually want to build that muscle mass that looks defined and looks long and lean, you need to still lift heavy and you need to still do some work in those lower rep ranges, but you need that combination. And I see this popping up more and more again, especially with Pilates and bar and some of these other things becoming very popular.
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And while I think they have a lot of benefits, they're not going to make you longer and leaner. If you tend to build more easily, take a look at how you're adjusting even your cardio or how you're adjusting your nutrition, that's going to have a lot more to do with it. And as I said, I have no problem with people doing those, but I think we cannot ignore the importance of lifting heavy and lifting in some of those lower rep ranges, especially if you are going for muscle building, that eight to 12 rep range. But longer, leaner from higher reps and lighter weights, that's just not how it works. A lot of times that's actually what keeps us stuck because we're not pushing that progression in our training because we're fearing building to be bulky when that really won't happen, especially if our diet is dialed in, especially for fat loss.
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We're in a calorie deficit, we're not getting enough of anything. Protein is what's protecting even the lean muscles so that we can lose the fat and show that definition. But don't get trapped into only doing that one rep range. That's generally what sabotages us, especially as we get older, because while that rep range is really good for strength endurance too, there can actually be more inflammation created. I've seen it happen where more joint and ligament issues with higher rep ranges because there's more volume to it. And again, I don't want to demonize it because I love higher rep ranges, but there is a lot of nuance to what we use and diversity is generally our best friend when done strategically with progression week over week. Number three and one that I still sometimes have a very hard time with, no pain, no gain, because I am very much of that suck it up buttercup mentality.
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But I also recognize that no pain, no gain is what got me into a lot of issues and created a lot of injuries for me and also made me push to a point of diminishing returns where I wasn't seeing progress and was feeling like I was throwing a lot of effort at the problem and the effort didn't feel worth the outcome. No pain, no gain, it came about because you do have to push. There is some discomfort to succeed and really reach a new goal and step outside your comfort zone to create that change. However, I do think we apply it to, well, I have this injury, I'm just going to keep pushing through and that's what ends up leading to more injuries. And even if we somehow manage to slightly conquer it, we compensate, which leads to another injury or another injury down the line.
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So really be aware of where this mindset might go from a positive of pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, pushing yourself to create that progression in your workouts because lifting heavier each week, week over week is very uncomfortable. There is a point where you're like, do I really have to do a little bit more in the workouts? There is discomfort to that, right? But you also have to recognize where you're pushing through actual injuries or issues that you need to regress to progress because if you don't, you're going to ultimately keep yourself out for longer, you're going to have more things build up and start blaming your age when it's not your age, it's your previous training practices. So really note where this mindset can hold you back and that if you have an injury and even feel like something's starting to just act up, work around it.
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So train around it where you don't feel that discomfort, but also regress to progress, meaning going back to movements or weights where you don't feel it as you address the underlying cause. Rest alone does not heal an injury. It might feel better after it, but we didn't actually address what was leading to overload and issues in the first place because if you have hip mobility restrictions, ankle mobility restrictions, any of these things and you don't actually work on the restriction or the compensation or weak muscle, you're just going to have it build back up. And often as we try and progress, we don't recognize that we start to compensate, especially the more advanced we are because we're really good at cheating and mimicking a proper looking movement pattern and overusing the incorrect muscles. So that's where we have to be conscious of what we feel working to recognize when pushing and that desire for no pain, no gain is backfiring for us.
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Number two and number one are probably the biggest game changers for me and partly because I was really comfortable being uncomfortable in the gym and loved training, even though sometimes there's, even I have weeks I don't want to do it. But number two and number one were things that really opened my eyes to what led to the best body recomp and have shifted everything for me and for a lot of my clients, especially as they've gotten older, number two especially, but it's calories in versus calories out. This sounds really wise. This is even advice I still find myself kind of repeating while knowing the nuance in it. And so the reason I'm highlighting it is not because there isn't some fact to it, but when we boil down our body to a simple math equation, when we focus on only calories in versus calories out, this is why we're stuck on the dieting roller coaster.
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This is why we can eat less and less and not see the recount we want happen, especially as we go through perimenopause and menopause. As we get older, it's why we can feel like we look softer while not having shifted lifestyle habits. It's why also we can lose the weight and then just very quickly regain it. Why anytime we feel like we go on vacation, we're just blowing it, starting back over because it's not simply calories in versus calories out. A, by treating our body this way, it's why we can be good all week and then feel like we're just gaining more and more on the weekends because we're actually creating this adaptation down to the level we're fueling at for the week so that on the weekends, that surplus that we know is sort of there, but we think balance is out because, oh, my weekly averages are still good is actually more of a surplus than we really recognize because our body's adapted down to even less.
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So this is why it's not a simple math equation, not to mention the type of calories we're consuming really have impact. There is a thermic effect that is higher in protein. Carbs are even a little bit higher than fat. And the odd thing about fat is that fat has a higher thermic effect the leaner you get. So I guess added bonuses, you get closer to your goal and get leaner, fat's thermic effect increases very minimally, but it still increases. But protein has a very high thermic effect, which means that it requires more energy to be digested and utilized. So when you actually go higher in protein, when you're trying to create that calorie deficit, you might not have to go as low in calories to already see yourself being put into that calorie deficit, not to mention because protein is the building blocks of muscle when you're tearing your muscle tissue down in your workouts.
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Instead of drawing from your largest amino acid reserve, which are also your muscle, you need to consume enough protein to rebuild. This is why you can control for fat versus muscle being lost when you actually pay attention to macros, even though people tell you recomp is impossible. It is. They just don't want to necessarily have to make you track your macros or do all the hard things. So it's easier to say, well, we do this cat and then we do this build. Yes, you have to have a primary focus for your recomp, whether it's losing fat or gaining muscle, but you can do both at the same time. It's just that one is going to get priority. But the type of calories you're consuming really matters down to your macros, but also the quality. And it's going to sound very weird for me to bring up quality, especially once I reveal what number one is, but the quality of your food even has different thermic effects.
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More processed food, it does not have as much of a thermic effect as more whole natural foods. They did a study literally with white bread and whole grain bread and showed that there was a difference between those two things. So you will actually burn more calories digesting whole natural foods. They also help your body function more optimally. They help improve hormonal balance, all of which will help with fat loss. End of story. So it's not just calories in versus calories out. However, I will also say that by recognizing this next one, we're sort of going to enjoy the foods you love. And the number one piece of fitness advice, which sounds the best in theory is amazing, but I find holds the most people back from actually seeing lasting recomp, creating a better balance, actually being healthier is eat clean. Because when we say eat clean, even though we don't recognize it, we're instantly telling our brains that there is a bad type of food.
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And there is no denying that processed food is not as healthy for us, that candy is not as nutrient beneficial as fruits and vegetables and whole natural foods, right? I'm not arguing this in the slightest. I know there are more quality foods that help our body function more optimally because they're more nutrient dense and less nutrient dense foods. But the whole eat clean thing, a piece of advice, A, what is eating clean? If you're vegetarian, that's different than if you're a meateat. If you're a carnivore, that's different than if you're even following. Although keto and carnivore have become more synonymous, I've seen more overlap between them. That's still different. Paleo is going to have a different definition of it. There's a bazillion different definitions of eat clean. If you are gluten intolerant, gluten is not going to be good for you, whereas it might not be bad for somebody else and other people are going to be touting all these whole grains and how beneficial they are.
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So eating clean is going to vary on a lot of different things. There's not one universal definition, which is part of my problem with it. But also when we try and restrict, when we try and hit these arbitrary standards, that's ultimately where we start to demonize food, feel bad for eating it, and then feel like we're starting over anytime we have it. Instead of finding ways to work in our balance, I can tell you one of the most eye-opening things for clients isn't when we do even a mini cut, which is like they'll see even phenomenal results off of that, but it's when we do a diet break after and all of a sudden they're working in more foods and we even challenge them to work in more foods that they wouldn't normally include. Yes, cookies. Yes, tortilla chips, all these different things, because when you realize that you're not bad for eating them, that they don't have to be the opposite of you seeing success, all of a sudden that desire to even overeat those things goes down a little bit.
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We quiet some of the food noise when we're not making something bad or unclean or demonizing it. The second you tell yourself too, you can't have something, you often want it even more because that's the way our rebellion sort of works. There's a mental resistance. So notice when you're using the eat clean standard, not only to try and hold yourself to these standards that are unsustainable, but also where it makes you really restrictive. And I've seen people take it far too far the other way where they get very restrictive in the types of clean foods they can eat, which sabotages them as well and creates more gut health issues and creates more issues in terms of hormonal balance and health. So it can be taken too far too, and it can also make us not find the lifestyle balance, which allows us to maintain our results long term because at some point, a lot of us do want to go back to eating those things.
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We want to go on vacation and have fun foods. We want to enjoy Thanksgiving holidays in a specific way. And if we feel guilty for it, that's what sabotages the habits we're actually trying to build instead of allowing us to see, "Hey, I can hit my macros. I can hit my protein. I can still prioritize whole natural foods." And often even to work in some those fun foods, while you are hitting macros, you have to eat a lot more whole natural foods. There is oddly enough, a better balance. And then you see that balance become better over the year. I can tell you when I really broke down how many weeks I was eating clean versus not eating clean, when I was trying to force myself to be perfect with clean eating, I actually probably ate far more of the other balance, right? I wasn't striking an 80 / 20 balance.
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It was actually more like 60 / 40, even though I was being so good at some of those times. So as unpopular as that might be, I want you to notice even with all of these, where is it not really about even the advice or... Because some of these pieces of advice are good or perspectives are good, but how are you interpreting them or how do you see them showing up that might be impacting you seeing the results you want or actually you being sabotaged from the success that you want? Because when I start to reframe these things, again, the no pain, no gain and saw it as more sucking up buttercup, for me that reframed it as, okay, I can push hard. I know there's going to be discomfort, but I'm not pushing through pain that is not acceptable and I'm going to regress to progress because that will actually help me come back stronger.
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Not being sore is not the best indicator that workout was hard, right? There's reframes we need to have often to move forward. Would love to hear which one hit home for you the most and even what piece of advice you found holding you back the most that I didn't list.
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