How can you lose weight? How do you keep it off? Before you adjust your diet and exercise, you need to adjust your expectations. Examine the following fallacies about weight loss to see if you are sabotaging your own efforts to be healthier.
Myth #1: You Can Make a Temporary Change and Have Permanent Results
If you are overweight, you are probably also insulin resistant to some degree. This means that your body has a predisposition to pack on excess weight, and the things that caused you to gain weight (what you eat, how you exercise) will always cause you to gain weight. Therefore, you must change your lifestyle to make a sustainable change in your weight and health.
Myth # 2: There Is a “Magic Solution”
Many people look for quick fixes. Why not just pop a diet pill, fat blockers or carb blocker? Unfortunately, they will not make a permanent change in how your body uses fuel. Unless you are prepared to swallow the pills (and the cost!) indefinitely, you’ll be right back where you started. And then there are the uncomfortable side effects, such as bloating, cramps and flatulence.
How about surgery? Procedures like liposuction, gastric bypass and stomach stapling get a lot of press. However, there are significant risks, as with any surgery. Also, the lifestyle changes required for people who elect gastric operations are not trivial. If you have the discipline to make those changes, there are safer approaches.
Myth #3: You Need to Eat Carbohydrates for Energy
This is not true. Dietary protein and fat also supply the body with energy. Carbohydrates actually rob you of energy, because eating them causes the level of insulin in your bloodstream to rise. Insulin is the hormone that stores fat; it does this by rapidly converting excess blood glucose into triglyceride. Eating carbohydrates tricks your body into eating more than it actually needs to fuel its activities.
Myth #4: Fat Is Bad
It might seem obvious that eating fat inevitably makes you fat, but that isn’t the case. Fat has been demonized for years in spite of the absence of sound science to warrant it. Eating fat actually suppresses the stimulation of appetite in the brain. Fat performs vital functions in the body. When eaten with only limited amounts of carbohydrate, fat is healthy. Even the “bad” kind (saturated fat) is needed by the body.
Myth #5: You Need to Be Hungry
If you consume protein and fat as energy sources and limit carbohydrates, your metabolism will adjust and you will be hungry when you need to eat rather than all of the time (see myths #4 and #5). So replace carbohydrate-loaded foods with ones rich in fat and protein that won’t raise your blood sugar. Your appetite will then adjust to your body’s needs.
Myth #6: You Could Lose the Weight if You Only Exercised More
Yes and no. Elevated levels of insulin in the bloodstream interfere with lipolysis (fat burning). If you want to make your workouts count, you need to do two things. First, normalize your blood sugar by reducing the amount of carbohydrate in your diet. Second, include anaerobic exercise like lifting weights or resistance training to burn glucose faster.
Disclaimer: This information is for educational purposes only and should not be considered to be medical advice. It is not meant to replace the advice of the physician who cares for you. All medical advice and information should be considered to be incomplete without a physical exam, which is not possible without a visit to your doctor.
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