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The Worst Weight Loss Myths

The weight loss industry is full of lies and myths that are designed to lead people astray and make big firms big money. Learning about these weight loss myths early on in your weight loss adventure can make the whole process a lot smoother.

Why you should learn these weight loss myths

It is important to learn these weight loss myths for one main reason - weight loss can be expensive if you are uneducated. We have all heard about friends or family who spend hundreds of dollars on weight loss pills and teas and anything else that they are told will bring them quick success. In extreme cases women will opt for cosmetic surgery.

I often wonder whether they would choose this option if they knew how easy weight loss really was. If they had all the right information and facts and the right motivation they could have lost the weight without going under the knife.

In the same way, you need to know what is fact and what is fiction so that you can avoid the fiction. In the weight loss industry you will often find that if it is expensive, it is fake or not worth it. Weight loss products (90% of the time) make their money through clever marketing, not effective products.

The worst weight loss myths

Here are some of the worst weight loss myths that I have encountered. When I say worst, I mean those that have caused people the most problems in terms of falling off track or losing hope.

1 - I have to starve myself to get thin
This is one of the oldest and most common weight loss myths that there is. I was at a dinner party recently and we were all looking at some photos of one of the women there. She looked great. After a while she said “I had to starve myself to get that thin” and I nearly fell off my chair.

I had to think about it for a moment. Why would she starve herself to get thin? It didn’t compute. I guess sometimes I forget that I write and maintain fitness websites where I am constantly reading about good healthy information.Â� Many people just don’t have that luxury and as such they don’t have the right knowledge.

The reality is - you need to eat MORE OFTEN to lose weight, not less often. By eating six or seven small meals throughout the day you keep your metabolism charged and this burns fat or at the very least stops calories from being absorbed.

2 - Only walking or slow jogging for one hour burns fat
This myth makes me so mad I want to punch every walker that I see on the street for being so ignorant! It is complete nonsense.

The idea behind losing weight is to burn more calores than you take in. But, some weight loss ‘expert’ along the way has decided that you only burn calories when you are actually exercising. This is wrong! High intensity cardio burns calories and keeps your metabolism up LONG after your cardio session has finished. This is one of the reasons it is superior to low intensity cardio.

I never do low intensity cardio for weight loss because I seem to lose too much muscle mass when I do. This is another advantage of high intensity cardio, it doesn’t burn muscle. Have you ever seen a soft, overweight football player? No.

Lastly, you can spend 20 minutes doing sprinting or some other explosive exercise to get better results than if you plodded along a boring road for over one hour. I know what I’d rather do.

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3 - Fat makes you fat
Another irratating weight loss myth that was probably brought out by some company trying to sell fat blocking tablets or something equally as sinister!

Not all fat is bad. Omega 3 fats, for example, play a vital role in our body and are very important to your cell membranes. And you need those membranes to stay alive. Think about a car. You need to get from A to B each day. If you have a Mercedez Benz then you will probably arrive at B on time. However, if you have a 1948 post war Voltzwagen that has never been serviced then you are going to be late!

This is what fats are like. You cannot say all fats are bad just like you cannot say all cars are the same quality. Some fats are very helpful and essential, some are not. Some fats will make you fat like trans fats and fats used for deep frying. You should avoid these as often as possible because it will hinder your weight loss progress.

4 - Weight training doesn’t burn many calories so I just do cardio
You fool! If you want to lose weight then you should weight train more. True, weight training does burn less calories than cardio while you are doing it, but you need to think of the post-workout effects like we did for high intensity cardio.

Weight training helps muscles grow. As your muscles grow the amount of fat in and around them will decrease. The two compounds simply do not exist well together. Likewise, as you weight train you boost your metabolism and this helps you burn fat during the day when you are not at the gym.

If you are trying to lose weight in a hurry I would opt for about one weight training session for every two cardio sessions. So, if you do cardio six days a week then you should hit the iron on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I followed this for years and it worked.

Conclusion
These are the worst weight loss myths in my opinion. If you have any others you think should be up here then post a comment and let us know.

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