Alex’s Heresies – embracing a physical reality

Obesity is one of the greatest challenges societies face over the coming years. Australia as well as other developed countries around the world have ever-increasing numbers of overweight children. Is there a magic silver bullet to reducing your weight? Despite promises from television and glossy magazine advertising the unfortunate answer is no. Shannon Wills, who writes on health at Physical Therapy Assistant Schools , has kindly offered to highlight five common myths about diet and weight loss. I can speak from personal experience that these should be taken seriously. She welcomes your comments at her email id : shannonwills23@gmail.com.

Alex McCullie

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5 Myths about Diet and Weight Loss                                                    Copyright © 2010 Shannon Wills

They do the rounds every now and then, and because people tend to believe all that they hear if it’s repeated often enough, fiction becomes fact and myths become reality. There’s a lot of misinformation relating to diet and weight loss, and if you’re not really aware of what’s right and what’s not, you could end up jeopardizing your weight loss program. If you want to lose weight the right way and keep it off, you must be aware of the following myths:

• It’s ok to starve because I need to reduce my calorie count: Yes, you do need to eat fewer calories than you burn if you want to lose weight, but that does not mean you must starve yourself. Some people think that eating a piece of cake for lunch and then skipping dinner is the right way to lose weight because as far as they’re concerned, they’ve hit their calorie count ceiling with the cake and are not supposed to eat anything else for the day. If you starve or if your meal times are very irregular, you risk increasing the production of gastric acid in your stomach, and this may cause ulcers. So eat balanced meals instead of binging on one and starving for the other.
• Diets restricted to one food group help you lose weight permanently: Diets like the Atkins method where you are allowed to eat any kind of protein while totally omitting carbohydrates your food touched the peak of popularity before they crashed down to earth. Although it may seem like you’re losing weight initially on a protein-only or carb-only diet, your body is deprived of essential nutrients when you neglect certain food groups. The best way to lose weight and keep it off is to eat sensibly, in smaller portions and only when you’re hungry.  
• You can lose weight without exercising: Some people think that dieting is enough to help them lose weight because it’s the calorie count that matters. When you lose weight because you’re not eating enough, you start to look haggard and your skin hangs on to your bones when the fat disappears. Your immune system becomes fragile, your bones and muscles become weak and brittle, and you’re prone to injury and illness. Besides, if you don’t eat enough, your body goes into starvation mode and starts to conserve the fat that you do have in preparation for the lean times to come. If you want to lose weight in a healthy way, you must exercise regularly besides following a diet. You don’t have to sweat it out every day and struggle to exercise, even an hour of walking every day or four days a week is enough exercise for the average human being. You need to exercise smart, not take the no-pain, no-gain route.
• Once you lose weight, you won’t gain it back: Don’t assume that any weight loss you’ve achieved is permanent. If you stop exercising and revert back to your old eating habits, you could very easily gain all those pounds that you worked so hard to lose. Weight loss must be a way of life, not something that you adopt for a few months and then give up because you’ve achieved your goal.
• It’s all genetic, so it’s ok to blame my genes if I’m fat: Yes, our genes do decide where and how we put on weight, but that’s no reason to avoid exercise. If your genetic makeup is predisposed against you, you must work even harder to reduce weight. Once you get used to exercise and a healthy diet as a way of life, you look and feel much better because your health improves, you look great, and you lose weight.

By-line:

This article is written by Shannon Wills, who writes on the topic of Physical Therapy Assistant Schools . She welcomes your comments at her email id : shannonwills23@gmail.com .

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