Amongst all the fantastic advice you can receive throughout your efforts to lose weight, the odds are that you will receive some not-so-helpful recommendations, too. These dubious tips can be found virtually anywhere. Online, in social media or even from friends and family who have also fallen victim to them. Some of them are obviously bad advice but others can tap into little pieces of reason or science to make it seem as though there’s something to them.
To help you to stay safe from bad diet tips in 2018, have a look at these doozies so you can recognize them when you see them.
This is a tricky one. For one thing, it should be said that dietary fat and body fat are not the same thing. Therefore, the body doesn’t just consume dietary fat and layer it onto your belly. Fat is indeed high in calories and eating too much of it – like eating too many carbs or too much protein – can cause you to gain weight. That said, the right amount of certain fats can help you to lose weight. If you’re eating the fats in cookies, deep fried foods and potato chips, it will be easy to overeat that macronutrient every day and you could gain weight and place your body at risk of many diseases such as high cholesterol and heart disease. However, the fat in a proper serving of salmon, nuts and avocados can contribute to weight loss and help to protect your heart.
Snacking is actually a very healthy habit, provided you eat the right foods for your snacks. Snacking won’t cause you to gain weight. Overeating will. Therefore, if you make the right nutritional choices, snacking can actually help to keep your appetite under control so that hunger pangs don’t drive you to overeat at mealtimes. Consider smart snacks to fill you up without overdoing it. Great options include nutrient dense foods high in fiber such as fruit, nuts or Greek style yogurt.
It’s true that counting calories can be a good way to better understand the impact the foods you’re eating will have on your weight. It’s also true that by eating the right number of calories, you can better control your weight. However, all calories are not treated the same way by your body. The macronutrient (fats, carbs and protein) providing the calories affects the way your body processes and stores them. Moreover, the presence of fiber can also alter the way the caloric energy is burned or stored. Calorie counting can be helpful, but it is not the only thing to consider to lose weight and keep it off.
As is the case with eating too much fat and too much protein, too many carbs can also be harmful to your weight control. However, carbs are good for you. Carbohydrate containing foods can be packed with nutrients that are hard to get elsewhere. The key is to choose the right ones and eat the right amounts of them. Try to avoid white flour, white sugar and other processed ingredients stripped of nutrition as much as you can. Replace them with options such as whole grains.