The fitness space is a confusing one nowadays. Social media has democratised information to some extent, but it has also lowered the barrier to entry for those looking to share it. The result? There is a lot of information out there, but not all of it is to be believed, with many people moonlighting as self-professed experts.
Fitness coach Dr Milo Wolf is one of those sharing workout tips on the internet. However, he is more qualified than most, holding a PhD in sport science and having founded science-driven training app MyoAdapt. For this reason, I was interested to quiz him on the most prevalent fitness myths he would like to squash. During our interview, he highlighted three in particular that he was keen to address.
Myth one: Exercising for fat loss
“Exercising probably isn’t your ticket to losing a tonne of fat – that is mostly down to diet,” says Wolf.
While movement is excellent for your health, he explains, the calories burned through exercise are going to be relatively small when viewed through the lens of your wider weekly energy expenditure. He adds that a two-hour workout – an unrealistic prospect in most people’s busy routines – will usually only burn between 300 and 800 calories.
“Even in the research, when we look at studies where people are made to either exercise or follow a calorie-restricted diet, exercise tends to be relatively poor at actually making you lose fat,” Wolf says. “The amount of calories you’re able to burn, and therefore the size of the calorie deficit you’re able to put yourself in, just isn’t that large.”
Instead, it is easier to change what you are eating to create the necessary calorie deficit for weight loss – while maintaining the nutrient-dense diet needed to support overall health.
“[You should] exercise for health, exercise for the functional benefits, exercise for the physical benefits, and exercise for the appearance side of things [building muscle], but trying to force fat loss purely through exercise is probably a bad idea,” Wolf summarises.
From this, it can be said that diet is the main contributing factor to overall weight, while a weekly routine balancing appropriate nutrition with aerobic exercise and body-strengthening activities is the best way to go for overall health.
A 2023 systematic review of existing research on this topic, published in the Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research and Reviews, concludes: “The most efficient regimen for obesity management in adults is the combination of strength plus endurance exercise for a minimum of 175 minutes per week, and a customised hypocaloric [calorie deficit] diet based on patient-specific metabolic needs and overall health status.”
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‘Exercise for health, exercise for the functional benefits, exercise for the physical benefits, exercise for the appearance side of things, but trying to force fat loss purely through exercise is probably a bad idea,’ says Dr Milo Wolf (Getty/iStock)
Myth two: Gaining muscle while losing fat and losing fat in a calorie surplus
The widely accepted framework for weight change is the idea of calorie balance – if you burn more calories than you consume (a calorie deficit), you will lose weight, while the inverse (a calorie surplus) will lead to weight gain. This is a solid general rule to follow for most people, says Wolf.
By this logic, many believe you cannot build muscle in a calorie deficit or burn fat in a calorie surplus. But there are many more variables to consider before settling on this conclusion, Wolf says, such as training experience and genetics.
“Calories in, calories out, is a simple heuristic,” says Wolf. “But when it comes to what actually happens inside your body, you can definitely gain muscle while losing fat.
“[In our research] we measure people all the time – we measure their muscle growth and fat loss, and so we see this happen in real time.”
He adds that, on rare occasions, it is even possible to lose fat in a calorie surplus, and explains the mechanisms behind this.
“Your body draws energy from a variety of sources,” says Wolf. “The biggest one in terms of how many calories your body stores is going to be your adipose tissue, or your fat tissue. The second biggest would be your carbohydrate stores, which are in your muscles and your liver.
“The first thing to recognise is that the size of the calorie surplus matters. Let’s say you’re in a 2,000-calorie surplus and you’re gaining 2kg per week. At that point, it does become less likely that you’re going to be losing fat.
“But if you’re in a relatively modest surplus, let’s say 100 calories, and you’re a beginner in the gym with great genetics, your body might need several hundred calories to build muscle tissue [after your strength training workouts]. So it may use your 100-calorie surplus and draw energy from your fat stores in order to grow this muscle tissue.”
He concludes: “As a very simple rule of thumb, calories in, calories out, does well at predicting whether, overall, you gain weight or you lose weight. But to determine whether you’re re-comping [shortform for the process of changing your body composition, or the ratio of muscle to fat] at the same time? The body is something of a black box, and that question falls somewhere inside.”
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You do not need to reduce your body fat before you start strength training – this exercise method offers a huge variety of health benefits independent of body composition (Getty/iStock)
Myth three: Cutting fat before building muscle
Weight loss is one of, if not the, most common fitness goals. When people start exercising, they often take the approach that losing weight should be priority number one, which can see them spurn strength training in favour of more intensive calorie-burning activities such as running. But Wolf wants to change this.
“The final myth I want to bust is the idea that you need to be lean to gain muscle, and the idea that you should cut [fat] first,” he says.
“At one of the places I work, we did an analysis of all the research that had measured participants’ body fat percentages, then also measured how much muscle they gained through a given study where they had participants doing strength training.
“We found there’s basically no correlation between someone’s initial body fat percentage and how much muscle they tended to gain. For men, that applied to those with anywhere from 10 to 40 per cent body fat. So just because you’re initially overweight, that doesn’t mean you’re limiting your muscle gain.”
In fact, Wolf says, the widespread benefits of strength training – from “increasing bone mineral density” to “lowering your risk of nearly every conceivable disease” – have something to offer all-comers, regardless of their existing physique.
“[Knowing that you can gain muscle regardless of your body fat percentage] lowers the barrier to entry for strength training,” he says. “Then if you start at a higher body fat percentage and you eat at maintenance and lift weights, over time you may gradually re-comp without needing to cut first, because that may not necessarily be the best course of action in many circumstances.”
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