Diet Myths Which Stop You Losing Weight
When my grandparent were younger, they knew that to lose weight they simply had to eat less and exercise more.
These days things have changed but some people's attitudes have not. Many people, including doctors, still think that obesity is a self-inflicted problem. Restricting calories and exercising is the answer and anyone who is fat must be a lazy junk food addict. But the reality is that's just not true anymore.
We all know people who can eat anything and never put on a pound, while many people who are overweight eat a much healthier diet, restrict fatty foods to high days and holidays and do plenty of exercise. But they still cannot lose weight and keep it off. It's a source of tremendous frustration and it seems like an unsolvable problem.
Weight loss resistance can be defined as “the inability to lose weight regardless of what you eat or how much you exercise”. These days this resistance is a problem that affects a large proportion of the population.
The truth of the matter is that being overweight is not our fault. Scientists have proved it. But to understand weight loss in the 21st century and what we can do to get thinner, we have to discuss hormones.
As we'll see in the next article, hormones like Insulin and Leptin are the key factor in making our bodies hang onto their fat. There are a number of factors which cause so many of us to be in a state of hormone dis-regulation, and this is the real reason why people struggle so ineffectively to lose weight today.
But first there are a few myths about diet and weight loss which we need to scupper. This misinformation can really hold us back from making the changes we need to make to lose fat and become thinner and healthier.
Myth Number 1: You can exercise your fat away.
This is simply not true. Exercise is incredibly good for you and I recommend it wholeheartedly. It helps to prevent heart disease and some cancers as well as a host of other unpleasant problems. It makes you look and feel better, mentally sharper and improves your wellbeing. However, exercise in itself will not make you lose much fat.
That said, there are some exercises which are more beneficial for a fat loss program than others. High intensity training (HIT) or training with weights are the best types of exercise to do to while dieting. The Venus Factor system combines diet and resistance training to focus specifically on women's weight loss (click here for the review). Aerobic training such as running of cycling is simply not helpful for shedding excess pounds.
Myth Number 2: Calorie restrictive diets are the answer to weight loss.
This one is a little less clear-cut than myth 1. It is true to say we can cut calories and lose weight. Ladies can lose in the region of 10-15lb, men have it little easier and could lose 15-20lbs. But if the question is: Does it work long term? The answer is absolutely not.
So what happens when you lose the first 10 pounds? Most people lose muscle not fat which has the effect of lowering the metabolic rate. This means that you will burn fewer calories during your day.
The knock-on effect of this means that to successfully lose a couple of extra pounds you have to severely reduce your calorie intake even further to an unhealthy, starvation level. In a very short time, your body becomes desperate to break the diet simply because it wants to survive. It's your hormones which control this, not your strength of will so, in the main, you are powerless to resist the urge to binge your way out of starvation.
You could take hormones (like the HCG diet) to keep you in the weight loss phase longer than just on a straight calorie restrictive diet, but that's very dangerous and in the longer term you'll gain it all back.
Myth Number 3: Fat makes you fat.
Since the 1960s, this message has been pushed down our throats by governments and food manufacturers until we're sick of hearing about it. The problem being that it's just not true. That particular message was based on a single piece flawed research. Investigative journalist Gary Taube's book “Why we get fat and what to do about it” explores the scientific research behind this myth in great detail. It's a fascinating book, quite easy to read and very informative if you want to find out more about the science behind dieting and weight loss.
If we're honest, fat make you fat it is an incredibly plausible message and one that most of us have a hard time believing that it's not true. But it's simply wrong, and more, it's actually the opposite. Fat helps you lose weight.
That said, not all fats are created equal. From a slimming point of view, some are better for us than others. However the fats which help weight loss are, believe it or not, some of the ones we've been long been taught are unhealthy.
Most people think that saturated fat and cholesterol are the very worst of bad fats, not only making you fat but also sick as well, however that's not necessarily the case. In a future article I'll talk about how these particular fats play a really important role in losing weight.
So fat is actually a critical component in our quest to actually lose weight, and it's mainly through it's role in regulating our body's hormones. It's this lack of hormone regulation which is the real reason why people can't lose weight.
So if you're suffering from weight loss resistance, take heart, Not only is it not your fault, but there is also something you can do to help beat it. Read more about that in our next article.