People are forever looking for shortcuts to lose weight. Pills, drinks, weight loss tea, Atkins diet, meal replacements, South Beach, protein drinks, juicers, on and on. The problem in giving a one size fits all approach to weight loss is that we are all different. Some are recently overweight, some have been fighting weight problems for years. Some are genetically disposed to be thin, others genetically heavy. Some are men, others women. Because so many are searching for the answer to weight loss, I want to address some common myths.
Myth: Carbs are fattening.
Truth: Excess calories are fattening. Calories come from carbs, fat, and protein. Carbs and protein each have 4 calories per gram, and fat has 9 calories per gram. Another source I haven't mentioned before is alcohol (7 calories per gram). The main dietary demon is fat. Butter, margarine, oil, mayonnaise, and grease are obvious sources of fat. But there is also, cheese, nuts, peanut butter, and hidden fat in meat. Remember that although some fats are healthier than others, they all are equally fattening. Dietary fat is easily stored as excess body fat; carbs are easily stored as muscle fuel.
Myth: High protein, low carb diets are the best way to lose weight.
Truth: Your best bet is to eat smaller portions and create a calorie deficiency for the day. The type of calories are less important than the number of calories eaten. All calories count. My biggest personal hang up about this type of diet is that it doesn't provide the energy you need to be active. To be your healthiest, you need to control what you eat as well as participate in exercise. Carbs give you the energy you need to exercise. I also don't believe in starting any diet that you can't maintain the rest of your life, and if you plan on living an active lifestyle, this just won't work.
Myth: Food eaten after 8:00 pm turns into fat.
Truth: If you have calories left in your calorie budget, and you are hungry, it's okay to eat late. Better to honor your hunger than end up binge eating.
The verdict is still out if eating late is inherently fattening in itself. The real problem might be what we eat. Binging on ice cream, buttery popcorn, or fudge brownies before bed adds a lot of calories to your calorie total for the day. Be sure you are eating plenty of your calories during the day and not skipping breakfast. This will help you not to binge at night.
Myth: The more you exercise, the more weight you'll lose.
Truth: The more you exercise, the hungrier you will be and the more you will eat. You can spend an hour exercising and burn 500 calories. Reward yourself with a bag of chips and eat 600 calories in 10 minutes. Your body has natural urges to protect itself from wasting away. This is why it is harder for women to lose weight than men. Nature wants men to be lean hunters, and women to be able to reproduce. No offense ladies, I'm not trying to destroy all the efforts of the bra burners in the 70s. The "ideal" man has 4% body fat, and the "ideal" woman has 12% essential body fat. This difference allows women to nourish a baby if she becomes pregnant. Try to get below these levels and nature is going to fight you. Again, you have to create a calorie deficiency through a combination of diet and exercise.
Myth: Train for a marathon, Ironman, Tough Mudder, etc. and the body fat will melt off.
Truth: Wishful thinking. Training for triathlon I burn 5000-7500 calories a week above my basal metabolic rate. If I ate a normal diet of 1800-2000 calories a day, I should be losing about 2 pounds of fat a week. But I've weighed between 149-151 pounds for months. One thing about training that hard is that you tend to be more sedentary the rest of the day. I can tell you that I have gotten much better at napping on the couch over the last several months. Also, I'm not trying to achieve a calorie deficiency, so I tend to eat larger meals and more snacks.
Myth: Exercise kills your appetite
Truth: It does for a short time, but after you cool off and recover, your hunger will catch up with you. Body temperature does show some effect on appetite. So being hot after a gym workout can slow your appetite, but being cool after a pool workout can actually make you hungrier. Try to fill the hunger with a low calorie, nutrition dense snack or meal full of colorful vegetables.
Myth: By exercising you can turn your fat into muscle.
Truth: Fat and muscle are two separate entities and are not interchangeable. Fat does not turn into muscle. The reverse is also true. If you have been exercising and stop for some reason, your muscle is not going to turn into fat. Ever buy an untrimmed brisket and see how there is a layer of fat on the meat? You have a layer of fat over your muscle just like that. Create a calorie deficiency and you body will convert the layer of fat into energy it can use and the fat layer will shrink. Eat more calories than you burn and your body will store the excess calories for later and the layer of fat will grow. Work your muscles and the muscle fibers grow and expand. Stop working the muscles and the muscle fibers will actually shrink.
If there is one common theme in all this it is that if you want to lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficiency, either by consuming less, burning more, or a combination of the two. Personally, I feel that if you do it all through diet alone, you are cheating yourself out of the health benefits of exercise. If you try to do it all through exercise, it will be a long, slow road, and if you continue to ignore a diet low in saturated and trans fats, you will not realize all the health benefits you should.
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