10 Diet and Exercise Myths That Won't Go Away

Have you tried dieting and exercising with very little to show for your efforts? You may be doing it all wrong, says Joseph Mercola.

Popular misconceptions can damage your fitness plans. Yahoo Shine and CNN have collected some of the most pervasive and damaging fitness-related rumors. Here are some of them:

Myth – Strength training will bulk you up

In fact, researchers have found that working out with heavy weights increased exercisers' sleeping metabolic rate (the number of calories burned overnight) by nearly 8 percent. That's enough to lose about 5 pounds in a year right there.

Myth – All calories are equal, so it doesn't matter what you eat

Some foods take more work to eat, and therefore burn more calories while you're digesting them. Eating vegetables and lean cuts of meat can increase your calorie burn by up to 30 percent.

Myth – Eating fat will make you fat

Getting enough of the right kinds of fat in your diet is actually essential for good health. Read more

Weight Training Could Changle Your Life

Many women shy away from weight training. But Naomi Alderman says it has transformed her body.

There's a weightlifting area in my gym – not just the rows of dinky handweights by the stretching mats, but the bit with the squat cage, the bench press and the machine where, with both hands, you pull down weights the size of hefty toddlers. I haven't used it – yet – but I'm going to. I've been weight training since last year and every session takes me a bit closer to the end of the handweights and the start of serious lifting. I'm looking forward to it in a way I've never looked forward to exercise before.

Personal trainers, however nice, give me PE teacher flashbacks. I'm not co-ordinated so the group classes that others seem to find fun and sociable – "step up, touch down, change legs, grapevine, step change and shimmy" – just leave me feeling clumsy and frustrated. But I can pick up an easily graspable heavy metal object, lift it slowly and then put it down again. Not only can I do it: I find I love it. Read more

4 Ways French Women Stay Thin (without the Gym)

There's nothing wrong with lifting weights or doing aerobics, but some women just don't like going to the gym to do their workouts. Does that mean they're doomed to a life of creeping weight gain and poor health? Not at all. French women are famous for their svelte figures, but they don't get them from working out at the gym. Mireille Guiliano, author of French Women Don’t Get Fat, reveals four ways French women stay thin (without the gym).

From the 15th floor windows of my New York City apartment, I have a clear view of a big and many windowed "health center," (aka a four-story gym complex). September is one of the gym’s busiest months. Right after Labor Day, active women, who I hope are incorporating daily outdoor activities with a seasonal summer flavor into their daily routines, flock indoors to the gym and an artificial routine of treadmills, exercise bikes and medieval torture devices. I see them sweating early mornings and late at night from my windows. I see them going and coming from my daily walk as I pass the gym.

It is a sign of the times — but also our American culture — that many women seem to have only two modes: sitting or spinning. They’re either avoiding even the slightest heart rate increase (like those women in my apartment building who take the elevator to the second floor) or they’re sentencing themselves to hours at the gym as punishment for their indulgences throughout the day. So often I see the begrudging look on women’s faces and hear the phrase, "I don’t want to go to the gym, but I have to." Pourquoi? If you are eating mindfully, and eating the correct portion sizes, you don’t have to torture yourself on those metal contraptions or run a marathon to stay trim. French women reject the notion of "no pain, no gain," opting for a more pleasurable notion of mild, sustained exertion. We prefer all-day movement, what I like to call "the slow burn," and we practice it as second nature instead of attacking it like boot camp. Read more

Using Sex for Weight Loss

Bedroom Olympics may be key to fitness and weight loss, according to FOX sexpert Yvonne K. Fulbright

Feed your libido and lose weight? Sounds like a too-good-to-be-true diet, until you really think about it.

Shagging can make you slimmer, if you do enough of it. It can also help the two of you fall for each other all over again. Requiring no monthly fee — dress code optional – you can "sexercise" yourself into shape. This is one gym membership you’ll never want to drop.

Combining sex and fitness is like killing two birds with one stone. Sex gets you fit. And being fit makes you want to have more sex. This is, in large part, because of all of the benefits a good sexercise routine offers, like: Read more