This is one of the most common fitness myths I have heard, when I was first starting out, the most common piece of advice I received was to eat a lot of junk food to increase the amount of fat I had, then start lifting weights and turn that fat into muscle. The other thing people would say was if you stopped lifting weights that muscle would turn into fat.

Fat and Muscle are two different types of tissue, one cannot transform into the other, muscle can grow or shrink, and the same with the amount of fat tissue you have.

This is the one about trying to lose fat from a specific area of your body, by exercising that specific body part.

For example, somebody trying to lose belly fat by doing lots of sit ups or ab crunches, unfortunately it doesn't work like that, you can't pick and choose an area of your body to lose fat, that is decided by our genetics.

If somebody wanted to lose fat from their belly the best way to do this is to lower their overall body fat percentage, by exercise and good eating habits.

Some people have the idea that they need to exercise 5 times a week for at least an hour to get any results, and if they can't commit that much time, they might as well not bother.

This is not the case, you can have a very productive workout in less than 30 minutes, a little exercise is better than none at all, just going for a short walk is beneficial.

Some think the best way to get a six pack is to do loads of sit-ups and ab crunches, this will strengthen and tone your abdominals, but if you have a few layers of fat on your stomach, your abs will be hidden.

Doing something that burns more calories, like jogging or even walking would be a better first step in getting that six pack.

One of my favorite fitness myths, I hear this a lot, sometimes I advise people who want to lose fat to do some weight training, because if they build up some extra muscle it will help them burn off fat and calories. Sometimes they reply with, "I don't want to do weight training because I will get too big".

What they don't understand is that it's not easy to put on large amounts of muscle, it's not in everybody’s genetic makeup to look like a bodybuilder.

If you increased your muscle mass across your whole body by only 1% you wouldn’t even notice the difference but it would improve your fat burning potential.