Costly Weight Loss Myths you don’t know

Hey there… hope you’re doing awesome… all’s great here… this post blows out of the water has some of the biggest weight loss myths that you hear all the time.

Sadly, there are so many unproven weight loss myths being promoted as the “answer” to an ever expanding dilema. Every day you are being scammed out of your hard earned money, precious time and valued energy as you get bombarded with tabloid magazines or misleading weight loss informercial TV programs.

It almost brings you to the point where you’re not sure what to believe.  Here are six myths that must be dismissed!

Weight Loss Myth #1

Going on a diet and not exercising will help you lose weight.

Most people would like to believe this, but unfortunately, it could be nothing further from the truth.

Stepping on a scale to see how much you weigh against gravity tells you absolutely nothing about how much fat or muscle your body has.

In order to increase your lean muscle mass and help your body burn calories, it’s very important that you beging an exercise program.

It takes 3,500 calories to store one pound of body fat.  To lose one pound of fat weight, you must burn off those 3,500 calories. In order to lose more than one pound of fat weight you must increase your activity level (exercising).  In other words, if you are taking in 2,500 calories and you are only using 2,500 calories, (this is your basil metabolic rate or BMR) you will not lose any weight.

So, if your BMR is 2,500 calories and you are now only eating 2,000 calories and NOT increasing your activity level, you will only lose one pound in a week.  To make it more understandable, multiply the 500 calories you are not taking in by seven days and you will see that you have burned one pound. (500 calories X 7 days = 3,500 calories or 1 pound.)

In order to lose more weight, try increasing your activity levels while lowering your caloric intake.  (500 calories + an additional 500 calories from activity X 7 days = 7,000 calories or 2 pounds.)

Weight Loss Myth #2

Run until you can’t run no more.

Long, slow, steady state cardiovascular training is a great activity to help you improve your endurance, your stamina and strength of your heart and lungs.  But it is a very poor and inefficient way to lose weight.

If you’re looking to lose fat and keep it off permanently, you must be able to burn off more calories than you are taking in and make an effort to speed up your metabolism throughout the entire day.  Spending that forty-five minutes to one hour training session jogging on a treadmill will only take you so far and it might actually burn more muscle than fat.

Increasing your metabolism and building new lean muscle tissue (the stuff that helps burn fat off your frame), means including resistance training along with your aerobic activity.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Strength training is the key to adding muscle size, improving your strength levels and increasing your lean muscle mass.  But it also allows youto eat more food thanks to your muscle cells needing more nutrients.

So for every pound of new muscle your body gains, you can eat an additonal 50 calories per day.  If you add 10 pounds of muscle, lose 10 pounds of fat, you might still weigh the same, but you will be able to eat 500 more calories per day without adding more fat on to your body.

Weight Loss Myth #3

If it says “Fat Free” on the label, then there’s no chance I’ll get fat.

That statement is so wrong in so many ways. Common sense would make you think that if it says “Fat Free” on the label, then it would mean that the contents are…fat free. Truthfully, in the business of food labeling, those words don’t mean what they say.

If you don’t believe me read the label on any can of Fat- Free Non-stick cooking spray. This is one of the most blant examples of outright deception.  If you look closely you will see that is says something like “for calorie-free fat-free cooking.”  The nutrition label says zero calories and zero grams of fat. Compare that to a bottle of cooking oil that has about 120 calories per serving and 120 calories from fat.

This is where this government loophole comes into play.

 The FDA labeling law says that if there is less than ½ gram of fat in a serving, a food can be labeled as “Fat Free”.  The big problem arises when you start to realize that no one has regulated what a “serving size” really is. The spray can reads that a serving size is .2 grams.   That would be less than ½ of a second of spray. It’s doubtful that many people would ever use that small of an amount.

But it’s still labeled as “Fat Free!”  Buyer beware.

Weight Loss Myth #4

Skipping meals is an excellent way to lose weight.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  If you put into your head that you’ve decided to skip meals, more than likely, your brain won’t be sending that signal to the rest of the body.

That’s going to cause tragic problems because your body is still going to need energy to function.  So if you don’t feed it, it will canabalize itself to get that energy and strip your body of much needed muscle tissue.

So what?  Now you are a few pounds lighter when you step on the scale.

 Sure, but your body didn’t rid itself of any of its body fat and now you’ve put yourself in a bigger hole to get out of.

Also, there have been studies showing that people who are not eating breakfast and skipping a few meals during the day, are usually heavier than people who eat a balanced diet of four to five meals a day.

Best case scenario, eat smaller meals throughout the day and space them 3 – 3 ½ hours apart.  And Don’t Skip Breakfast!

Weight Loss Myth #5

You must put down your knife and fork the minute the clock strikes 8 p.m. because eating after that time causes weight gain.

What a bunch of crap!

The time on the clock doesn’t determine whether or not you will gain weight.  It all centers on the amount of physical activity you have done during that day and what you have put into your mouth.

If your intention is not to put on the pounds…get off your butt, step away from the computer and do something that requires you to move more that a few fingers on a keyboard.

Weight Loss Myth #6

This myth kills me…

Ever since I can remember, I’ve seen high school football and wrestling coaches having their athletes putting on those rubber/plastic sweat suits in hopes of having them lose weight quickly. 

This idiotic practice has lead many adults to try it themselves.  Then if they are smart, they finally realize that they only lost water weigth and quite possibly, have put their health in tremmendous jepoardy.

Unfortunately, there are some people who will say that this works great!

Here are the facts.  You’ll lose weight in the form of sweat, which is water and electrolytes.  Then you will just gain it back as soon as you eat or drink again.

Sweating excessively is similar to an overheated car.  Once a car’s radiator blows, all its fluids are lost.  It can no longer function optimally as it once did.  If someone persisted in trying, they would only destroy the engine.

When a person starts to really sweat, its core body temperature is rising to an extreme level.  In order to cool it off, it produces sweat. If you continue to work or exercise at such an extreme pace, you will be boiling your body from the inside out.

All the internal organs will be damaged, there’s the possiblity of heat stroke, cardiovascular related emergencies, kidney damage and possibly death.
Always keep yourself hydrated by consuming water before, during and after you exercise.

For those of you who were still “on the fence” when you first read this, ask yourself again if you really think a plastic bag strapped to your body is such a good way to lose weight?

If you still say yes, you’ve probably destroyed some of your brain cells…see you in the emergency room!

Let’s face it…according to the dictionary, a myth is a traditional story accepted as history and serves to explain the world view of a people. I was always taught to believe that just because someone says something, doesn’t mean it’s correct.  Think before you act.

When it comes time to determine how much food is too much, consider if you’ve exercised today.  Ask yourself if stuffing your pie hole with one more chip, one more cookie, one more unhealthy snack  is going to benefit you towards reaching your goals.

If you want to look good in a swimsuit, not be embarrassed when you take off your clothes the first time with a new date, or just make head turns…fill your body with healthy foods, start an exercise program,  join a boot camp, or just find a fitness professional willing to give you some guidance.

 © 2009 BCFitness, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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