There are many myths about weight loss and how to do it right. There are studies, hundreds of weight loss programs, and a myriad of diet plans. The truth about weight loss, however, lies in your body type, activity levels and eating practices. You have heard all the hype and discussions about weight loss, but the best way is the way that works for you.
Some of the Myths of Weight Loss
If you want to lose weight, determine a daily calorie intake limit and keep that limit. Watch the weight fall off. Not really. There is not one special number of calories that will work for you. Your friend could eat exactly the same foods with the same caloric amount as you, and you might not lose a pound. Calories consumed need to take into current weight, height, activity level and exercise regimens. The number of calories you eat need to change as you drop the pounds. Look at a calorie calculator that takes all these factors into consideration. You may also want to talk to a doctor to find out what you need to do to lose the weight.
Getting plenty of sleep will help you lose weight. This may seem like an oxymoron; you need to be active to lose weight. This is a truism, however. We you are sleep deprived you have no energy. Your body is sluggish and there is less energy for burning calories. Recently a study that tested sleep patterns, calories and weight discovered that sleeping more than nine hours a night might just suppress genetic influences on weight and favorably affect your body mass index. However if you get less than seven hours of deep sleep you will find your genetic influences for weight gain take over your body.
Myth number three is eating after 6:00 p.m. is a bad idea. There is no magic time of the day that if you continue to eat you will turn into the blimp. You might want to give yourself a cut-off time to take in fewer calories. However if you eat everything in sight just before your time boundary, this will not help at all. Pay attention to your total caloric intake and the time of day you eat. If you find that you are eating excess calories late at night, set a time limit, but do monitor you overall calorie intake during the day.
Skipping breakfast will help you cut down on calories. It sure will, but it will also cause you to be super-hungry later in the morning. You will definitely make bad food decisions. If you skip breakfast you will end up consuming more calories than if you had eaten a morning meal. Studies have found that people who eat breakfast every day are less likely to become obese. If you eat three good meals a day you will develop healthy eating habits. Do watch what you eat for breakfast, too. Make sure you eat right ” “ proteins and carbs plus dairy or fruit. Coke and sugary cashews at 10:00 a.m. is a very bad breakfast.
Exercise your Way to Weight Loss
You keep counting calories in and calories out. Nothing is happening. Maybe you need to add exercise to the equation. Dr. Robert Kushner clinical director of the Northwest Comprehensive Center on Obesity hears patients state, “I have been working out three days a week for 30 minutes for the past three months, and I have lost 2 pounds. There is something wrong with my metabolism” (https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/exercise-and-weight-loss-five-truths).
Exercise is good for fitness, but eating right is the first step to losing weight. As you lose weight with diet you begin to exercise more. You want to live a physically active life.
- You must exercise consistently or you cannot maintain a healthy weight. Those who simply focus on diet are not successful in the long run without some type of physical activity.
- Exercise may provide a bit of weight loss success, but if you splurge on foods, you will gain back what you have lost. Most people overestimate their exercise regimens and activity levels by almost 30 present. These same people underestimate their food intake by that same 30 percent. Don’t think that thirty to sixty minutes at the gym takes away those three bowls of ice cream. Look at your food portions and cut down whenever you can.
- Treadmills and elliptical machines have monitors that estimate how many calories you are burning as you exercise. These numbers are great and very invigorating, but they are off. Exercise machines are set to the average. If you not average you will not fit into these parameters.
- One very sad statistic is that one daily workout may not be good enough. Work out intensely for 30 minutes, but don’t just go home and lie on the floor and take a nap. Keep active. Move all the time and make it fun. Exercise, come home and clean, take the dog for a walk, and play with kids in the park. They key is movement and activity.
Calories in and calories out matter, but you also need to take stress out of your life. Sleep at least seven hours a night and look at your lifestyle. Your lifestyle determines weight almost as much as eating and exercising. Weight is multifactorial and how you live determines how much weight you will ultimately lose.
What is the Real Truth about Weight Loss?
Don’t watch weigh loss television shows. “In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless,” says Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University and a prominent exercise researcher (https://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1914974,00.html). You may be thinking, “Yea! That gets me out of the gym.” The real truth is exercise does burn calories and you must burn those calories to lose the weight, but exercise can also stimulate hunger. After exercising you are almost compelled to eat and this in turn may negate the weight loss benefits from exercising.
Study after study proves that on the days you exercise, you eat more. The foods we crave are those sugary calories in yummy cooking and sports drinks. A standard 20 oz. bottle of a popular sport drinks contains 130 calories. If you are sweaty and hot after a workout you guzzle that thirst quenching bottle of salty, sugary sports drink and you have now canceled your work out.
Don’t give up your exercise plans and programs since there are those who say exercise is useless. Even though it is proven that after going to the gym you reward yourself with doughnuts, you still need that thirty minutes a day to strengthen muscles, tissues and bones. Go to the gym, work out hard, sweat as much as you can and then drink water and eat a carrot.
