5 Nutrition Myths

The goal of healthy eating is to find a balance that works for you long term, not just for a month before your holiday or on the lead up to a specific event.

General speaking, when you try a crash diet like this you will often find you lose some weight (but possibly not fat!!) but the moment you stop the diet, that weight will return and quite often as an extra pound or two.

No one wants that - you’ve just spent 4 weeks avoiding everything you enjoy and basically being hungry to then find out that you have put on weight! Have this happened to you?

You only have to pick up any popular magazine to read various tips on how to lose weight fast or the latest trend in fat burning. However, sadly most of these are based on myths and very few are based on actual science. Here are the Top 5 Nutrition Myths that we hear the most:

  1. Carbs are bad. Not true - don’t forget that carbs also include fruit, bread, grains and starchy vegetables as well. They’re not the enemy at all - in fact carbs break down into glucose which is your bodies preferred source of fuel. However, you do need to consume good quality carbs such as vegetables! You can have as much vegetables as you wish. Then there are starchy carbs like grains, sweet potato, potatoes, beans, rice, pasta etc that effectively have had all of the goodness stripped out of them and aren't so good. You should only consume these in moderation and try to choose bran options where possible whenever choosing grains

  2. Fat makes you fat! If you eat an apple, will you turn into an apple?😀 The same is true for fat, just because you eat some fats doesn’t mean you will get fat! Fat helps you stay fuller for longer as it slows down digestion in your stomach, but it is important to remember that fat also has the most amount of calories per gram than the other macronutrients. You need fat in your diet but you need to choose the right ones.

  3. Fruit juice is good for me! Do you make your own fruit juice or smoothie at home? If so, how many pieces of fruit do you include? You could be eating far more than you imagine and it’s actually better for you to eat the whole fruit and drink water than it is to drink fruit juice. Processing a piece of fruit into juice removes some of the fibre and vitamins your body needs. Instead of drinking smoothies, try eating a piece of whole fruit with each meal. Another idea is to use more vegetables with your juice and cut down on the fruit? Add more water and less fruit basically and replace this with whole fruit instead

  4. I need to eat less and feel hungry to lose weight! Unfortunately this is a very common thought which just isn’t true. Skipping meals and under-eating will make you feel hungrier and lead to cravings which result in bad food choices. Eat little and regularly throughout the day will help to keep you feeling fuller and more alert too. Volume carbs and whole foods will keep you much fuller and stop you from snacking. One ideas when you sit down to have a meal is to start with your vegetables before moving on to the protein and then the rest of the food. Another tip is to slow down and concentrate on your meal, put your fork down in between bites and chew your food. Put down your phone and stop working through your lunch, have a chat and enjoy your meal. Remember, your belly is 15 minutes behind your brain so if you slow down, you might realise that you are full and won’t need to carry on eating

  5. I ate something tasty so now I have to exercise! You shouldn’t be punishing yourself with exercise for having a treat. This will cause you to think of exercise in a negative way and something you’ ‘have’ to do rather than something you want to do. It would be much better for you to have a small treat reasonably regularly than to avoid all treats until the last day of the month and then eat 2 entire pizzas in one sitting 😋

Nutrition is vital to weight loss and in our opinion, combining it with exercise is the key to success. You can't lose weight and maintain that weight loss with a crash diet but you can if you take small steps slowly and combine both exercise and nutrition into your new lifestyle. You don't need to go over the top and only eat cucumbers and broccoli and run 5 miles a day.

For more information about combining nutrition and exercise together and turning it into a way of life which can be sustained, check out our 3-month fitness and nutrition programme.

Pete & Owen

Get Fit Today

12 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All