There are many myths about weight loss. Here are just a few.
Myth #1: Healthier Food is more expensive
The top of the list of weight loss myths is that food is more expensive the healthier it is. While eating from higher end organic sources may cost you more, there are many more options to eating healthy that can even be purchased at Walmart.
The idea is that you replace what you are eating with healthier alternatives. There are many healthy alternatives that cost the same and even sometimes cheaper than their unhealthy counterparts.
Yes, eating the dollar menu at McDonald’s is way cheaper than eating a healthy meal from Chipotle, but that’s an extreme. Plus, McDonald’s is a near guaranteed “heart attack in a box”.
Besides, eating out is the most expensive form of food consumption. When you eat healthier, many times you are choosing to cook meals at home. This leads to healthier eating because you can choose the ingredients you put in your food and know exactly how many calories, fat, carbs, and protein you are eating. This is also the cheaper option. That is why this is Myth #1.
Myth #2: Carbs Make You Fat
If I could write a book about this being one of the big weight loss myths, it would be this one. For one, which carbs are we talking about? Complex or simple? Second, fiber is a carb and is vitally important to our health.
Starchy fried foods are obviously detrimental to your health and can cause many health issues, like fatty liver disease, obesity, and high blood pressure. Yes starchy fried foods are loaded with carbs. However, there are other kinds of healthy and, indeed necessary carbohydrates.
Complex carbohydrates play a very important role in many of our necessary biological functions like digestion, metabolism, blood sugar regulation, hormone health, and even sleep patterns. Complex carbs also reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease when properly balanced in our diets.
The takeaway is that we need to be more specific when talking about carbohydrate intake. Eat carbs, don’t go crazy with them, and make sure they are complex.
Myth #3: Exercising like a crazy person is the only way to lose weight fast
The rule of thumb is that weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise. You can exercise like the top athlete in the world and not lose one pound of fat if your diet is not on point. Let me explain with an example…
If you go to www.calculator.net/calories-burned-calculator.html, you can find out roughly how many calories you burn per activity you do. If you eat a cheeseburger from McDonalds, you have consumed 313 calories (according to their website). To burn 313 calories, you would have to run vigorously for approximately 1 hour (depending on your weight and level of difficulty).
I don’t know about you, but I think it would be much easier to swap something for the cheeseburger than run an hour.
I actually only run 1 to 2 times a week, and no more than 2 miles on average. I run very slow when I do and I hate it. Most of my exercise comes from walking 10,000 plus steps each day. I lost and continue to lose most of my weight due to changing my eating habits. Eating healthy is the most important key to losing weight. It has the greatest effect on weight loss.
Myth #4: Sit-ups are the best exercise for losing belly fat
While sit-ups are a great exercise, no one exercise is going to target fat loss to a specific body area. When you are in a burning state, and while exercising, your body loses fat on an overall scale. Wherever your fat has accumulated the most you will see the biggest changes.
Anaerobic exercises like weight lifting and sit-ups/crunches build muscle. Muscle burns fat, and there you have it. So, sit-ups are a great addition to your exercise routine, but they do not target fat loss in your belly alone.
Myth #5: “Low Fat” or “Reduced Fat” is the healthier choice.
Fat, like carbohydrates is another important component of a healthy diet and weight loss. Consuming too little fat it not healthy for our bodies. The USDA recommends getting up to 35% of your daily calories from fat. That is somewhere around 90-100 grams.
If you are eating “low fat” or “reduced fat” foods you can have one of too scenarios. Either it is still too high in fat (funny right?!) or it contains a higher amount of sugar in the ingredients. Either way, you need to learn to read the labels on food boxes to see what you actually consuming before buying a “low fat” or “reduced fat” product.
Still, the best way to control what you eat is to cook at home. That way you know exactly what you are putting in your body each meal.