Debunking The Most Common Myths About Weight Loss

The world today is obsessed with weight loss. Achieving a thin waist, losing the flab and avoiding calories is all people can focus on right now. But, while there is no harm in trying to reach a healthy weight, it’s important to do it in the right way. People often forget to question the authenticity of advice and everything they read online. They are ready to do anything that claims to make them a size smaller.

If you belong to this lot of people, it’s time to cut the strings. Weight loss should not only be about getting smaller. It should be about getting healthy. So as a means to get healthy, your first step should be to connect with an online weight loss doctor who can guide you through the right ways of losing weight. In addition to this, you need to steer clear from becoming a victim of misinformation and myths that are disguised as facts. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Eat less, Lose Weight

When it comes to weight loss, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is ‘not eating’. I have had friends who stopped eating just because they wanted to lose a few pounds. Well, let me tell you the hard truth, it doesn’t work and it’s very unhealthy too.

For starters, when you stop eating, you will end up binging at some point where you will intake more calories than you avoided eating. When you stop eating, your body doesn’t get the right amount of energy to function. As a result, you may feel irritated, have mood swings and even experience dizziness or headaches. Your body enters a starvation mode where it compensates for the lack of nutrients by lowering your metabolism and reducing muscle to get energy.

The only good way to lose weight is proper meals and physical exercise.

Avoid Fat at All Costs

The word ‘fat’ today has acquired a lot of wrong connotations most of which are in the negative light. So people try to run away from fats in their journey to lose weight. Well, it doesn’t work like that.

Fat is both good and bad. While you need to avoid the latter, your body needs the former. For example, saturated fats that are found in meat and dairy is the reason for a lot of heart problems as it clogs the arteries. On the other hand, we have poly and monounsaturated fats, found in plant products that help maintain and improve your cholesterol profile.

Thin is Healthy

Being thin doesn’t mean healthy. Always remember that. Just because someone is thin, doesn’t mean that they do not need to adopt a healthy lifestyle. A lot of health problems are internal and don’t show up as weight gain.

If you wish to know how much weight you need to lose, the best option is to contact a medical professional. That’s because weight is not just related to food intake. There can be other factors at play that may be contributing to your gain. It can be your lazy lifestyle or a health issue too. Consulting with a doctor is the best way to identify these factors and find out how much you need to lose. They can also guide you to reach the goal in a healthy and safe way that’s best for your condition. Just aiming to be thin is not the right way to become healthy or happy.

Diet Foods Aren’t Fattening

I used to fill up my shopping crate with all the food that had ‘diet’, ‘healthy’ or ‘low fat’ written on it. Well, believe me, it’s not always what it claims to be. There are a lot of such supposedly healthy products that are actually bad for your health. Here’s how.

One, you think it’s healthy and eat more than you should. That defeats the purpose of losing weight. Second, many low-fat foods may be less in fat but their sugar content is increased to maintain the taste. The case is the opposite in the case of low sugar items. According to a meta-analysis by Susan Swithers, a scientist at Purdue University, having sugar substitutes is harmful to your body. That’s because you trick the body by eating something sweet with zero calories. But the body prepares to metabolize those calories only to find nothing to burn down. With regular intake of artificial sweeteners, the body adjusts to the trickery and stops metabolizing sugar from other foods too.

So, instead of self-treating your weight gain and following rules and diet plans from your online research, see an online weight loss doctor to get the right treatment and avoid falling into the trap of misinformation.