1. You should avoid carbs.
This is a myth. Carbs are inperative to your health. Carbs are what give your body energy to do what it needs to do during the day. There are carbs that are better for you than others, but avoiding all carbs is not beneficial to your health or your weight loss. In fact, often times people who cut out all carbs will find they are binging on “bad” carbs because they just can’t take not being able to eat any of their favorite foods.
2. You should avoid fat.
The fact is: we all need fats. Fats help with nutrient absorption, nerve transmission, and maintaining cell membrane integrity. If fats are consumed in excess amount, they can contribute to weight gain, heart disease and certain types of cancer. Fats are not created equal. Some fats promote our health positively while some increase our risks of heart disease. The key is to replace bad fats with good fats in our diet. Good fats include monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. These are found in olive oils, nuts, fish oils to name a few. The bad fats are saturated and trans fats. These are found in packaged foods as well as meats and seafood.
3. Skip meals to lose weight.
While it is true that you want to decrease your overall caloric intake to lose weight, you do not want to skip meals to do it. When you skip meals your body goes into “starvation mode”. It doesn’t know when it is going to get another meal. When in starvation mode your body holds onto everything, so it has something to use later if it doesn’t get any more food. It considerably lowers your metabolism to skip meals. It is much better to watch your portions and try to eat more frequent but smaller meals.
4. Switching to low fat/fat free foods helps to lose weight.
Not necessarily. Just because the label says fat free does not mean you have free range to eat all you want. Often times these food replace fat content with sugar, making the caloric value of fat free foods much higher than their regular counterparts. If you fill your cupboards with fat free foods and eat as much as you want thinking it’s ok because they are fat free you will find yourself quickly gaining weight.
5. If I exercise a lot I don’t have to worry about my diet.
This could not be further from the truth. If you eat a delicious 500 calorie desert it will take you 2 hours of brisk walking on the treadmill to work it off, and that’s just one small indiscretion. Burning off excess calories is just too time consuming to make it a possible weight loss solution. It will be almost impossible to lose weight without a combination of eating right and exercise.
Now you know the truth about some commonly believed weight loss myths. You have the facts in hand to easily compare online diet plans and find one that will work and work well for you.
