Diet myths I'm sick of hearing passed as legit
Hey guys, about 2 years ago I went through some serious life crises and decided that my entire life needed an overhaul. One of my ongoing projects has been weight loss. Over the last 2 years, I went from 275lbs to 190 lbs, then back up to 210 with muscle gain. Before I undertook this task, I asked around for hints and tips, and I did a lot of legitimate research before I planned my diet and workout regime.
You'd be surprised how much of the information and diet plans out there that have become mainstream fact are completely baseless and are usually just marketing ploys for you to buy their crap. Seeing as a lot of weekend warrior dieters (failing miserably themselves) have no problem dispensing the same bad advice they received I figured I'd share the fruits of my hard work in one convenient thread. I did read a lot of studies, and I'm not sure about the linking policies here, but if you PM me, I'd be more than happy to provide you with the study I found that supports what I'm saying. I also want you all to know I'm no professional, I'm just a dude who did it right the first time.
The myths:
Cutting carbs results in weight loss, therefore if i lower the number of carbs, i'll lose weight. This is a myth originating from the atkins diet. Carbs have nothing to do with fat gain. There are 4 types of calories carbohydrates, proteins, fats, alcohol. One gram of each of these does not produce the same amount of calories, therefore a meal based entirely on proteins will not yield the same amount of calories as a meal based on fats. Carbohydrates in particular come in different varieties. Simple and complex. All you really need to know is that simple carbs like sugar/soda are easy to break down, and your body doesn't have to work as hard to get at the calories as it does for complex carbs like cheerios.
Cutting simple carbohydrates from your diets and replacing them with complex carbs will get you more food with less calories. Your stomach will stay full longer, and you'll poop better. Proteins are even harder for your body to break down, so swapping a carbs for proteins is even better. Just cutting carbs is a pointless venture. It's what you replace them with that counts. And not all carbs are bad carbs.
The older you get, the more difficult to lose weight it is. Your age has nothing to do with your ability to lose weight. What is important is how set in your ways you are. The more driven into your routine you are the more difficult it will be to change it. That's all. Your age isn't some magic force that makes your body hang onto fat. Diet and exercise works for middle aged people as well as it does for young people.
Eating after x o'clock will cause you to store fat more Let's say you go to bed at 11 O'clock. Right before bed you eat all of your food, a full 2000 calorie meal. You ate nothing else earlier in the day. Your body will store that because you're going right to bed and not burning it off right? Where do you suppose the calories your body burned earlier in the day came from? They came from somewhere, and since you burned them before you ate them, your body didn't just shut down until you ate. Calories in/Calories out. The time of day has next to no relevance at all, this is just more horse crap people spout out without thinking.
I'm a woman, it's more difficult for me to lose weight I will concede that losing one pound exercising is more difficult for a woman than a man. Calories in/Calories out. Cutting 500 calories a day will result in 1lb of fat loss per week, man or woman. Exercising is a little different, men have more mass, so a 200lb man burns more calories running for an hour than a 150lb woman. However, the obesity is a different percentage. A woman that loses 1lb has lost .75% of her body weight. A man that loses 1lb has lost 1lb has lost .5% of his body weight in that example. Therefore less fat has been burned, however the BMI percentage is different, so a man might be able to lose 20lb total, whereas a woman that is just as out of shape only has to lose 15 lbs.
Diet pills work They don't result in weight loss. Appetite suppressants suppress your appetite. If you only ate when you were hungry, and only ate enough to fill you up. You wouldn't be overweight, So these aren't the drug for you. Pills that prevent your ability to digest and store fat only do that. You won't be able to digest fat, as the necessary enzymes will be blocked, you'll poop crazy and be gassy and it'll be for nothing. They do what they're supposed to do, but not that much of your caloric intake comes from fat calories. Research shows in the average user that amount to about 3 to 4 lbs of fat loss a year.
My (insert joint) hurts, i can't exercise. Chances are it's your knee or ankle. Chances are your knee/ankle/hip hurts because you're overweight. No, you shouldn't do high impact exercise. Yes, you should exercise in a low impact fashion.
My buddy's buddy steve tried this diet and he lose 20 lbs in a week. No he didn't. If he lose 20 lbs in one week he'd be in cardiac arrest. I suppose it's possible if he was morbidly obese, but even then, it all came back the next week. Any diets boasting weight loss of anything more than around 3/4lbs a week are unhealthy and temporary. I can shed 20 lbs in one day, it will all be water weight, and my health will be at great risk, AND it will all come back when I start drinking water again, fighters do this before competitions to have misleadingly low weights.
If i do a million crunches, i'll lose extra weight and have abs! You can't stimulate fat burning in a specific area. Your body will burn fat in reverse order from the way it stored it. It'll tap into all your fat stores evenly. Don't get me wrong, if you have a low body fat percentage, targeting certain areas will result in better definition, but if you're obese, you should pursue an all around diet and exercise plan, not just attack one area.
I'll add more as they piss me off. Feel free to ask questions, I'll gladly pitch in for a sexier america.