*I am not a trained nutritionist, dietician, or physician of any sorts. Before you make any big lifestyle changes, you may want to first speak with your doctor.*
Let’s talk about diet, and focus on weight loss. When I refer to your diet, I’m talking about the way you eat, as a lifestyle, a habit, and a long-term thing. I don’t mean going on a diet. I have no interest in quick fixes like the Beyonce diet, the cabbage soup diet, or any of that short-term, I-want-results-now fads that only reduces your water weight (yes, you weigh less because there is less water in your body, not because you’ve lost fat). It’s not sustainable, it doesn’t work, and no one wants to live like that.
Another important clarification – weight loss is affected by your diet more than it is by how much you exercise. To put things in perspective: in order to burn off the calories in one single M&M, you need to walk the length of a football field. It is damn near impossible to out-exercise a bad diet. However, a combination of proper diet and exercise will be extremely beneficial to your weight-loss goals.
But even if you talk about diet as a long-term lifestyle change, there’s tons of differing opinions about what’s the best. There’s people telling you to eat 6 small meals a day, or avoid all carbs, or don’t eat after 8pm. In one way or another, most of this advice and these diets are myth-based, so let’s start out by squashing some of them.
Myth # 1: Fat makes you fat/unhealthy
This kills me. Even just typing it is painful. First off, there are fats that are good for you, and fats that are bad for you. The good ones are monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, and saturated fat*. Think fish, meats, nuts, seeds, avocados, olive oil, coconut oil, sesame oil. The bad one is trans fat – fried foods, margarine, shortening, and candy bars. Fat is an essential part of your diet – it carries fat-soluble nutrient, forms cell membrane walls, is a vital source of energy, and helps keep you full.
Now, what will make you gain weight is calories, not fat. High-fat foods may be higher in calories, but it is not the fat content that will cause you to put on pounds. Also, foods that are advertised as reduced fat or fat-free are typically less healthy than their fuller fat version – companies add in sugar and other additives in order to make the product taste more like “the real thing,” and you’re ultimately getting a product that isn’t better for you, and tastes worse. As an example: if you want sour cream on your taco salad, use regular sour cream, but measure it out. Or use Greek yogurt instead – it’ll give you more protein.
*There’s debate on whether saturated fat is good or bad for you. From what I’ve read, it is generally good for you, and the politics of food has played a big part in the demonization of saturated fat. I will try to find studies that support this, and if I’m unable to, I may alter my stance. I would also like to add that oils such as vegetable oil, canola oil, and corn oil are not as good for you as olive oil and coconut oil – I will expand on this when I find the supporting studies.
Myth # 2: You must eat small, frequent meals to keep your metabolism up
If this were true, the people who do intermittent fasting, or IF, would never lose weight. With IF, you have a set window where your can eat your daily calories, with fewer calories on rest days and more on workout days. Some have as few as 4-5 hours where they can eat, others have 8, and everything in between. Some of people eat two huge meals, and others are able to fit in three slightly smaller meals. Either way, they simply don’t have enough time to fit in 6 small meals, and despite this, tons of people have had great weight loss results with IF.
Food frequency has little effect on your metabolism – muscle will be a greater factor in your metabolism, which I will address in a future post.
Myth #3: Going on a quick diet will help you lose weight
Okay, technically it can help you lose weight. But it’s all water. You may have dropped 5 pounds over the last 3 days, and shrunk a bit after drinking that cayenne pepper, lemon juice, maple syrup water, but that is all water weight and it will be gained back within a few days of stopping.
Myth # 4: You need to drastically cut calories if you want to lose weight
If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. The higher your net burn, the more weight you will lose. It is typically not a good idea to eat fewer than 1,200 calories, as your body does still need the energy to function properly, especially if you’re active. However 1,200 calories is a baseline “don’t go below this,” not a hard set number. If you’re around 5 feet tall, that may be a very good daily calorie allotment to allow you to lose weight.
Myth # 5: Starvation mode
Starvation mode: where your metabolic rate declines during caloric restriction or weight loss so drastically that further weight loss becomes impossible or you begin to gain weight. I’ve seen many accounts of people worrying about their body going into starvation mode, and because of this they are afraid to cut calories from their diets.
Now, starvation mode does happen, but it happens when you’re literally starving. Not when you say “oh, it’s 2pm and I haven’t eaten all day!”, or “I’ve been eating way less than usual the past three days!”. Here’s what the reddit.com/r/fitness FAQ (a great fitness forum and community) has to say about starvation mode:
Starvation mode is a myth that was popularized due to the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in which subjects were given 50% of their daily calorie intake for months. The result? Well, they lost weight until they had almost no weight left to lose and their bodies simply could not get the calories ANYWHERE. Concisely put: starvation mode happens when you are, quite literally, wasting away. Not when you have a simple caloric deficit. Your body will make up for it with fat stores. That’s what they’re for. Do not worry about starvation mode.
Myth #6: the food pyramid
You know the one. This sucker up there^^ that we learned in grade school. It has no basis in science or nutrition, but in what companies were paying the government the most money at the time (hello, wheat!). You should not be eating more bread, pasta and rice than you are vegetables and fruits. These foods are nutrient-sparse, and serve as calorie-filled vehicles for better food. The only food that I think you should try to get x number of servings of is vegetables – shoot for 5-8 servings daily. Everything else should be gram and macronutrient-based: x grams of protein a day, y grams of fats, and z grams of carbohydrates.
Myth # 7: Fruits
I wasn’t entirely sure how to word that title. But there seems to be a misconception, especially in the female community that fruits are some end-all to weight loss. I’ve seen titles from “What’s more healthy than a big bowl of fruit?”, to “MIRACLE FRUIT”. If there is any “miracle food,” it would be vegetables – the majority of them are low-calorie and filling, and incredibly nutrient-dense. Fruits tend to have fewer nutrients than vegetables, more calories, and are much higher in sugar. But don’t get me wrong, fruit can be wonderful. A couple of cold slices of watermelon on a hot day are amazing, and eating a peach or apple instead of ice cream for dessert is always going to be a better choice.
Myth # 8: This food/drink will make you burn fat!
A calorie deficit will burn fat, not any specific food or drink. Foods and drinks cannot burn fat. Some stimulants, such as coffee, will give you an insignificant and temporary increase in metabolism, but there’s no fat burn unless you burn more calories than you consume.
I am sure that this list will grow over time, as I remember more and more myths that people consider to be fact. I will also add sources as I find them to support these claims.
Lifts Like a Lady 