Top 5 Diet Myths That Stop You Losing Weight

Top 5 Diet Myths That Stop You Losing Weight

1. Certain diets can help you to lose fat from specific body parts. No diet can eliminate fat from a specific area, nor can any diet pill. Think of it like this: When you put on the weight, did you get a choice in where your body stored it? Of course not! Your body 'decides' whether the fat goes to the thighs, arms, stomach etc. according to many factors, including your genetic makeup. Exactly the same is true of losing weight. You can't control which parts of your body will slim down first. All you can do is to go for overall weight loss.
2. The protein diet is the best for weight loss. Any diet which encourages a much higher intake of one ingredient over all the others can be dangerous. It disrupts your body's delicate biochemical balance and prevents your body from getting adequate amounts of the nutrients it needs. Cutting out carbohydrates can reduce serotonin levels in your brain, causing depression and even cravings for sweet sugary foods! Studies have shown that these types of diets are effective in the short term, but that is all.
3. If the scale 'sticks' you should cut your calories even more. When your weight loss halts the most likely cause is that your metabolism has slowed down a bit. If you cut down on calories even more your body will think that it is starving and will store even more of your caloric intake as fat. Much better to take steps to boost your metabolism instead.
4. It makes no difference what time you eat. Yes, it does. Your body has natural rhythms and your metabolism follows these. As the day progresses your body winds down for the night's sleep and your metabolic rate slows, both because of our natural rhythms and because we don't tend to do a great deal of physical activity in the evenings. This means that if you eat a large meal at night, all of those calories are going to go straight into your fat reserves.
5. You need to eat lots of small meals through the day. This is one of the biggest diet myths and we hear it repeated all the time. Spreading your calories out through the day might sound good, but it actually doesn't work, for one simple reason: You're probably eating more than you think! Monitoring your calories is much more difficult if you're having lots of small meals and snacks. While eating many times a day does give a tiny boost to your metabolism (and we mean tiny: climbing the stairs will do far more), it also causes your insulin levels to remain high, which increases your body's fat storage. For weight loss success you must 'fast' for a few hours every day; those gaps between meals force your body to eat into its fat reserves, burning off those unsightly calories.