Gary Dawkins sorts some fitness facts from fiction.

Fact: Losing just 5-10% of your body weight can significantly improve your health.

Even modest weight loss can lower blood pressure, improve blood sugar control, reduce joint stress and decrease the risk of chronic disease.

Fiction: You need to exercise every day to get fit.

Most adults can achieve excellent health and fitness benefits with 3-5 well-planned exercise sessions each week, combined with regular daily movement and adequate recovery.

Fiction: Carbohydrates make you fat.

Carbohydrates are your body’s preferred source of energy. Consuming more calories than you burn - not carbohydrates themselves - leads to weight gain.

Fiction: You have to sweat heavily for a workout to be effective.

Sweating is simply your body’s way of cooling itself and isn’t a measure of how many calories you’ve burned or how beneficial the workout was.

Fiction: Eating after 8pm automatically causes weight gain.

Weight gain is determined by your total calorie intake over time, not the time of day you eat.

Fact: Protein helps increase fullness and supports muscle repair and growth after exercise.

Including adequate protein in your diet can help control appetite while supporting recovery and muscle maintenance.

Fact: Walking regularly can significantly improve cardiovascular health, blood sugar control and mental wellbeing.

Even moderate daily walking provides substantial health benefits and is one of the most sustainable forms of exercise.

Fiction: No pain, no gain.

While exercise should challenge you, pain is your body’s way of signalling that something may be wrong. Progress comes from consistent, appropriate training - not pushing through pain.