When it comes to weight loss there’s a wealth of magazines, books, blogs and TV programmes that can offer advice. Unfortunately, weight loss is also an area that’s fraught with misconceptions and myths—here we debunk some of the most important ones.
Extreme diets are the key to weight loss
From the cabbage soup to the maple syrup diet, highly restrictive regimes receive a great deal of coverage in the media. In reality, they’re very hard to maintain and can sometimes lead to weight gain, as they cause the body to be low on energy and crave foods high in fat and sugar. Many extreme diets are unbalanced and lack essential nutrients.
You need to do excessive amounts of exercise
Any successful weight loss plan will require exercise, as to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume. For successful weight loss you’ll need to craft a plan that you can stick to for a long time—this usually means small, incremental changes rather than radical ones.
See also: The Diet Dilemma
Carbohydrates are the enemy
As with everything, moderation is key when it comes to a healthy diet. While low carbohydrate diets are effective when trying to lose weight, wholegrain carbohydrates such as brown rice are very healthy, and should form part of a balanced regime.
Fat will make you fat
As stated above, it’s a matter of moderation and balance. Context is everything and eating a high fat diet made up mostly of refined, processed junk foods will of course lead to weight gain. On the other hand, eating a controlled amount of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats such as nuts, seeds, avocadoes and oily fish is part of a healthy diet.
Certain foods will speed up your metabolism
Metabolism describes the chemical processes in your body that keep you alive, such as breathing, repairing cells and digesting food. These processes burn energy, the amount of which is determined by body size, genes, gender and age. Many claims have been made that some foods will speed up your metabolism—and therefore burn more calories—but according to the NHS, there is little scientific evidence to support such claims.
All calories are the same
While all calories have the same energy content, where they come from is very important and will have different effects on your body. Calories from whole foods, for example, tend to be more filling than calories from refined foods such as sweets.
See also: Weight Loss Choices
Weight loss is easy. All you have to do is try hard enough
It’s a common assumption that weight loss is just a matter of willpower, when in reality there are many different variables that can hinder or help your weight loss: from genetic and hereditary factors to certain medical conditions like hypothyroidism, behavioural conditioning and habits. Weight loss will be easier for some and harder for others.
Diet and low fat foods are healthy
Many items marked as low fat aren’t necessarily healthier—as often the fat will be replaced by sugar. Also, for a product to be labelled as low fat it only has to contain less fat than the original version, which may not make it healthy if the original was high in fat to begin with.
Skipping meals will help you to lose weight
Skipping meals may seem like an easy way to reduce the amount of calories you eat, but missing a meal can result in tiredness and lead you to crave unhealthy snacks, or overcompensate during the next meal.
Read more on Celebrity Angels about the role and importance of nutrition in weight loss.
