It seems the moment you share with someone that you’re feeling inspired to drop a few pounds and improve your health, you’re tacitly giving them permission to inundate you with any and all tips they’ve heard or perhaps tried themselves to varying degrees of success.
And heaven forbid you type “Diet Tips” into the Google search bar.
Oh my!
There has never before been so many voices offering so many ideas on weight loss, fitness, and healthy living. All those voices result in the dissemination of mixed messages, poor advice, and bad or outdated information.
Look, I fully realize I’m walking a fine and nearly hypocritical line here. I mean, every couple of days this very blog publishes information relating to weight loss strategies and products – in short, we discuss diet tips.
Which, if we weren’t careful, could mean we’re just playing a role in the very problem I describe above.
That’s why we take our job so seriously.
We don’t feel like our job is to simply dole out diet tips. At Mediplan Diet Services, our job is to forge a relationship with our clients, learn about their health status, their lifestyle, and their weight loss goals in an effort to determine what “tips” can help them most effectively.
But first, let’s separate a little fact from fantasy.
Here are our top five so-called diet tips that should be called diet myths!
Eating Healthy Foods Means You Can Disregard Calorie Count
Look, eating vitamin-rich foods is a great and important thing. You should do it. Everyone should. However, to lose weight, you must be conscious of your caloric intake/output. Bottom line, if you eat way too much whole wheat pasta, fish, and brown rice, you’ll still gain weight because calories, by and large, are still calories.
Eating After 6p.m./7p.m./8p.m. Will Make You Fat.
No, it won’t. Eating a King Size Snicker bar at 3p.m. is just as bad an idea as eating one at 8p.m. It boils down to something I mentioned a moment ago, calories are calories. It doesn’t matter what time of day you consume them. If you feel like you need a bedtime snack, have one. But make it a responsible one.
Pounds Will Melt Away During the First Week or Two
While it’s possible that your rate of weight loss may be impressive near the beginning of your diet, it’s not always the case. It’s not even likely. Don’t count on it. So many new dieters put faith in this perception and then feel discouraged after having lost only a pound after a week’s worth of hard worth. Not only do they cheat themselves out of celebrating a successful week of dieting, they may instead that the week was a failure. And nothing could be further from the truth.
I Exercise, So I Can Eat All I Want
Well, I hope you’re already rolling your eyes at that one. Here’s one quick example of how this theory cannot hold water.
As I pack my kids’ lunches for school, I give into temptation and eat one serving of a national brand of chocolate chips cookies. Those three cookies equaled 160 calories.
To burn off approximately 160 calories I’d need to jog nearly 30 minutes on the treadmill.
For three cookies.
So, expand that three-cookie example out to a complete day of eating. You wouldn’t have the time or the energy to exercise enough to burn the necessary calories to lose weight.
You Can’t Eat Carbs.
This isn’t necessarily true at all. The low-carb diet fads of a few years ago made a lot of noise, got very popular – and certainly worked for some people. But you aren’t some people. The truth is, the right kind of carbs can aid in weight loss. It’s just a matter of choosing whole grains over enriched breads and pastas.
There are countless opinions online and in your circle of friends about the best ways to lose weight. How about you take a moment, disregard all that and allow us to help you design a plan that personalized to how you live your life and what you want your health goals to be.
Call us today or click the Schedule an Appointment button above to continue separating fact from fiction on your weight loss journey.