Making a decision to lose weight takes commitment and perseverance. Don’t let these common weight-loss misconceptions sabotage your plans.
1. Eating after 6 p.m. leads to weight gain
While late-night eating has been linked to weight gain, putting a cut-off time on eating doesn’t ensure diet success. In reality, putting restrictions on when you cannot eat doesn’t align with modern lifestyles, as many people don’t get home from work early enough to follow time restrictions.
The problem lies in what and how much you eat. After a tough day at work, people tend to reward themselves with food or they may have not eaten well during the day and feel they have to make up for it.
The best strategy for eating at the end of the day is to plan ahead and be aware of how much you are eating in the evening. Having a healthy snack later in the day can help curb your appetite and prevent overeating at dinner, while eating small, nutrient-rich meals rather than large mixed meals before bed has been shown to be beneficial, helping with morning metabolism and satiety.
2. Fat-free and low-fat foods are better for weight loss than those that have fat
Many people look at the word fat-free on the label and think that it means fewer calories. But often fat-free foods have more calories. When you take the fat out of any processed food item, because of food science, you usually have to fill it with other ingredients, and those other ingredients are usually sugar, sugar alcohols, sugar substitutes, or sodium.
It’s important to read the labels and look for healthier choices at the supermarket. While the American Heart Association recommends limiting saturated fat intake to no more than five to six percent of total calories (that’s about 11 to 13 grams of fat per day based on a 2,000 calorie-a-day diet), cutting the fat by eating low-fat foods with high-sugar content has been shown to cause weight gain, liver damage, and brain inflammation.
You also need to be aware of foods labeled “sugar free”. Sugar-free foods are not necessarily carbohydrate free.
3. Eating too many carbs will make me fat
Eating too many carbs may cause weight gain, but the weight gain would be due to consuming too many extra calories, not from the carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are an important food source for healthy nutrition—they fuel our bodies.
The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommends that carbohydrates make up 45 to 65 percent of the calories in our daily diet.
Fruits, whole grains, brown rice, oatmeal, beans, nuts, and quinoa are all foods rich in carbohydrates, yet none of these foods will cause weight gain on their own.
4. Skipping breakfast will help me lose weight
If you are not a breakfast person, you shouldn’t force yourself to eat, but skipping meals will catch up with you later on.
Some people feel they can justify having a larger meal later on because they have skipped breakfast, but when you skip meals, it causes stress—you think more about food, you go into ‘diet mode,’ and that sets up a cascade of negative feelings.
Worse, research shows that skipping breakfast has many effects on your body and can actually lead to weight gain and elevate your cholesterol levels.
Skipping breakfast can decrease your caloric intake for the day, but in the long run, it can slow down your metabolism. You don’t want to slow down your metabolism by putting your body in starvation mode—it confuses the body.
5. No treats allowed
When you start restricting yourself from certain foods, you become more likely to binge eat on those foods that you tried to go without. It’s important to have a good relationship with foods and to practice being patient and kind to your body.
I tell my clients that it takes more than one treat or meal to make you overweight, just like it takes more than one workout to make you fit.
Green foods are the “go” foods, manufactured foods such as cheese are the yellow or “caution” foods, and treats are the red foods.
You can have one, but stop and think about it before you do rather than not have it. Consider these delicious nutritionist-recommended treats to help beat your sugar cravings.
6. A gluten-free diet will help me lose weight
If you have celiac disease or are allergic to wheat or gluten, then a gluten-free diet may be medically necessary. But I do not recommend a gluten-free diet if it is not necessary because it is restrictive.
There are health risks associated with going gluten-free including an increase in type 2 diabetes. Naturally gluten-free foods such as legumes, vegetables, and fruits are part of a healthy diet, but people often buy gluten-free cookies and muffins because they think they are healthier than traditional foods.
Gluten-free foods can have the same or more calories, and they also may contain more fat or sugar, added to make the food more palatable. Wheat products, which contain the protein gluten, can be beneficial for weight loss because they have more fiber.
This fiber digests slowly to keep us full longer, while also aiding the system as a prebiotic (carbohydrates that cannot be digested) to help keep us regular and rid the body of waste.
7. I have a slow metabolism, so I can’t lose weight
True, if you have a slower metabolism, then it will be more difficult to lose weight, but there are a variety of ways to boost your metabolism. Exercising regularly and consistently fueling your body with healthy foods are two ways to increase your metabolism.
Think of including both cardiovascular and resistance training exercise in your normal workout routine—for every pound of muscle you gain, you are able to burn 50 more calories per day.
One last thing… you should try this 2-minute “after-dinner ritual” that
burns up to 2 pounds of belly fat per day…
“All
this by a 2-minute “after-dinner ritual?” I asked.
I
met an old friend for lunch last month and I was super impressed with how good
she looked.
She
said, “It’s not so much about the “after-dinner ritual”, but more about how it
gives you a regenerative form of deep sleep that is responsible for everything
we need to dramatically increase our fat burning metabolism and improve our
health and appearance.”
Even
though I was skeptical, I’ve been struggling with my weight over the last few
years, so I gave it a shot and watched the same video she did.
Well,
it’s only a couple weeks later and you know what they say about how “you can’t
transform your body overnight”…
They’re
right – it actually took me 16 days to lose 22 pounds.
Now
it’s my girlfriends asking ME what I’M doing differently 💅
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