When it comes to weight loss, everyone seems to be an expert. However, this means that your wellbeing and your weight loss efforts could be in jeopardy as the real diet experts say that believing these myths could lead to malnourishment, wasting time on ineffective strategies, or losing weight too rapidly. All of these myths could therefore have adverse consequences for your wellness.
1) Eating less means losing more – You might think that skipping meals is a good weight loss strategy, but most of the weight you’re losing is just water and muscle tissue, which slows down your metabolism and makes your body cling to its precious fat reserves.
2) Big night-time meals mean big weight gain – You might believe in the dictum ‘no food after 6pm’, but it makes no difference whether you eat your largest meal at breakfast, lunch or dinner.
3) 6 small meals are better than 3 big ones – The truth is there are pros and cons to both methods, and neither is better than the other one. Just make sure you don’t skip meals as your metabolism will slow down, and don’t consume more energy than your body requires.
4) Carbs mean fat – Getting too many carbohydrates from protein, fat or alcohol can be fattening, but sugars and starches, which occur naturally in cereals, vegetables and fruits, are your body’s preferred source of energy, and the only source of energy for your brain.
5) Fat is bad – You need fat for various body functions, including absorbing some nutrients, and monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in nuts, olive oil and avocado are good for you. You also need essential fatty acids that your body doesn’t produce, which are found in fish, nuts and seeds.
6) Aerobic exercise is better than resistance training – Aerobic exercise, such as jogging, tends to burn more energy than weight-lifting as you’re doing it, but resistance or weight training builds your resting metabolism, which means burning calories even when you’re resting.
7) Celery is ‘minus calories’ – No food takes more energy to digest than it contains. While we’re on bogus ‘magic’ foods, green tea, chilli and caffeine have an insignificant effect on weight loss and lemons and grapefruits do not stop fat being absorbed.
8) You should cut out all treats – Depriving yourself of your favourite foods may make you start obsessing about them and crave them even more. Eating small amounts of treats has an important psychological advantage in weight control.
9) Healthy foods alone help weight loss – Replacing tasty treats with vast amounts of energy-dense healthy foods – such as muesli, dried fruit, nuts, seeds and dairy foods – may not result in weight loss. You just need to keep track of your calories.
10) You only need to exercise to lose weight – Without cutting down on food; it’s extremely difficult to lose weight with exercise. The exertion you make will leave you fatigued and more hungry so you’ll offset some of the ‘good work’ by eating or resting more than usual.
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