Last month we looked at popular dieting myths. This month we’ll look at food and exercise myths that can also make weight management and healthy eating harder than they need to be.

Myth: Nuts are fattening and you should not eat them if you want to lose weight.

Fact: Nuts should be part of a healthy weight-loss programme. Nuts are high in calories and fat. However, nuts contain healthy fats that do not clog arteries. Nuts are also good sources of protein, dietary fibre, and minerals including magnesium and copper.

Tip: Enjoy up to 30g of nuts and seeds a day; that’s about a small handful. They are good for you.

 

Myth: “Going vegetarian” means you are sure to lose weight and be healthier.

Fact: Choosing a vegetarian eating plan may be helpful for weight loss. Research shows that people who follow a vegetarian eating plan, on average, eat fewer calories and less fat than non vegetarians. They also tend to have lower body weights relative to their heights than non vegetarians. But vegetarians—like non vegetarians—can make food choices that contribute to weight gain, like eating large amounts of high-sugar, high-calorie foods or foods with little or no nutritional value. Vegetarian diets should be as carefully planned as non vegetarian diets to make sure they are balanced. Nutrients that non vegetarians normally get from animal products, but that are not always found in a vegetarian eating plan, are iron, calcium, vitamin D, vitamin B12 and zinc.  (See Ask Marilyn for more specific advice on going vegetarian.)

 

Myth: Low fat diet foods help you lose weight.

Fact: They do the opposite and may be doing you more harm than good. Pre-packaged diet foods can have a lot of sugar and trans fat. It is the quality of the fat, not the amount that makes the difference. Monounsaturated fats (found in olive oil) and the polyunsaturated variety (in nuts, soya and sunflower oils) help your cardiovascular system, improve weight loss, and are crucial for absorbing beta carotene from vegetables like carrots. Trans fats and saturated fats, on the other hand, have been linked with heart disease and even cancer.

 

In addition, many processed low-fat or fat-free foods have just as many calories as the full-fat version of the same food—or even more calories. They may contain added sugar, flour, or starch thickeners to improve flavour and texture after fat is removed. These ingredients add calories and inches to your waist line.

 

Myth: Cutting calories is the best and only way to lose weight.

Fact: Cut your calories too far—below 1,200 a day—and you’ll end up with a double whammy that quickly decreases your metabolism and muscle mass. To get the most out of the calories you do eat, choose whole foods such as produce, fresh fish and eggs, and whole grains that are as close to their natural state as possible. They have a higher nutrient density than refined foods, because they pack more vitamins and minerals into fewer calories.

 

Myth: Brown equals healthy.

Fact: There are a lot of unhealthy ‘brown’ foods out there. Just because a product is brown in colour does not mean it is whole grain. Look for labels where whole-wheat or whole-grain top the list. It’s worth the extra effort. More and more research is finding that whole grains reduce your risk of many chronic diseases, from obesity and diabetes to cardiovascular disease. The extra fibre in whole grains is the key: It makes you feel full, which means you eat less. It also helps level out the roller coaster of insulin that a meal produces.

 

Myth: The more you sweat during exercise, the more weight you lose.

False: While its true exercise helps you lose weight by burning more calories, in order to lose one pound of real fat weight during your workout, you’d need to burn 3,500 calories. Thus, heavy sweating only indicates how much temporary water weight you have lost. The fluid will quickly be replaced as you drink water to rehydrate your muscles and body.

 

Myth: Lifting weights is not good to do if you want to lose weight, because it will make you bulk up.

Fact: Lifting weights or doing strengthening activities like push-ups and crunches on a regular basis can actually help you maintain or lose weight. These activities can help you build muscle, and muscle burns more calories than body fat. So if you have more muscle, you burn more calories—even sitting still. Doing strengthening activities 2 or 3 days a week will not bulk you up. Only intense strength training can build very large muscles.

Tip: In addition to doing at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, like brisk walking for 30 minutes, on most days of the week, try to do strengthening activities 2 to 3 days a week. You can lift weights, use large rubber bands (resistance bands), do push-ups or sit-ups, or do household or garden tasks that make you lift or dig.

To feel healthy and lose weight it’s helpful to have some clear instructions to get you going. Here, in no particular order, are my 20 golden rules for getting and staying slim.

1) Eat some protein with every meal
Research shows different foods and nutrients affect how full and satisfied people feel after a meal and a number of studies indicate that calories-for-calorie, protein makes a person feel fuller than carbohydrates or fats. This is because protein has a steadying effect on your blood sugar, preventing the highs and lows which can trigger food cravings. So to help control your hunger and food intake eat some quality protein with each meal.

Excellent sources of protein to include with every meal are nuts, fish, nuts, seeds and eggs. Other great sources include soya, peas, kidney beans, lima beans, blackeyed peas, lentils, black beans and quinoa.

2) Eat more fibre 

Make sure your diet is rich in fibre. Fibre makes us feel full sooner and stays in our stomach longer, slowing down our rate of digestion and keeping us feeling full longer. Fibre also moves fat through our digestive system faster so that less of it is absorbed.

Refined grains like white rice and those used to make white bread and sugary breakfast cereals have had most of their fibre and nutrients stripped away. They turn into blood sugar (glucose) so fast that, like sugar itself, they can cause a spike in our insulin level. This tells our body that plenty of energy is readily available and that it should stop burning fat and start storing it. To make sure you are getting enough fibre eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day and go for fibre rich whole foods such as whole grains cereals and breads, legumes, salads and nut seeds.

3) Eat frequently

Never skip a meal, and eat healthy snacks between meals. Eating frequently prevents hunger pangs, provides consistent energy, and maintains metabolism efficiency. Our bodies were designed with the survival mechanism of hoarding fat to protect us from famine. When we skip a meal or go on a crash diet, our bodies think they are starving and slow down our metabolism to conserve energy. What are conserved are our fat stores; our weight loss comes mostly from water and muscle.

So eat several small meals (say 5 or 6) a day rather than three big ones. This keeps your blood sugar stable, and your metabolism (rate at which your body turns food into energy) high.

4) Eat slowly

Eating slowly gives our bodies time to tell us they are full before we eat more than we need. An observation of people who are battling weight problems is that they eat too fast. It takes about 20 minutes for your brain to register you are full.  If you eat too fast you may have gotten full long before the 20 minutes. So slow down and savour the flavours, chewing food well

5) Never skip breakfast!

Have breakfast. This will reduce your hunger, boost your metabolism and give you energy to get through the first part of the day. Don’t eat a large meal in the evening when you’ll have little opportunity for exercise afterwards. It’s best to eat more at the times when you are going to be the most active. Eat a hearty breakfast, a substantial lunch, and a light dinner.

6) Eat more, not less

It’s worth remembering that nutrients found in food are essential for health and weight loss. Your body needs nutrients to burn fat. Their presence or absence can also change the rate at which energy is produced or calories burned. When foods cannot be metabolised properly because they lack the necessary minerals and vitamins, their energy becomes unavailable to our body and is stored as fat until we get the necessary minerals and vitamins at some later time. In the meantime we feel hungry and eat more. This too turns into fat unless minerals and vitamins are also provided.

 

The answer is to choose more nutrient dense foods. So make sure you are getting enough vitamins and minerals in your diet from nutrient-dense foods like fruits, vegetables, oily fish, oats, beans, nuts and seeds, and avoid empty-calorie-foods (which contain calories but no nutrition), like soft drinks, refined foods, alcohol, sweets and cakes..

 

7) Sit at the table

Avoid eating in front of the TV or on the go. Sitting at a table improves your digestion. Once you sit down in front of the TV with your meal you usually end up eating a lot more than you intended to. Most people do their overeating in front of the telly, so keep food, snacks and television separate. Many mothers I see in the clinic eat their breakfast standing up, it is not good for digestion.

 

8) Drink eight glasses of water a day

A study from Germany found that people increased their metabolic rate (the rate at which calories are burned) by 30 per cent after drinking approximately 17 ounces of water. Drinking water also keeps you from mistaking thirst for hunger.

 

Water improves your liver function. If your liver runs more efficiently, it will break down fat more effectively. Water is also a natural appetite suppressant

 

9) Cut down on alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fried food

Alcohol stimulates your appetite and weakens your liver (your body’s fat burning powerhouse) and is full of sugar. The odd glass of wine here or there won’t hurt but if weight loss is your goal best to cut down. Caffeine is a stimulant that upsets your blood sugar balance and depletes your body of nutrients. Again best to cut down or avoid and replace with healthier alternatives of herbal tea, juices and water.

Foods loaded with sugar can trigger weight gain because any sugar that isn’t immediately used for energy is stored as fat. Fried foods, especially deep fried contain a great deal of fat which isn’t good news either for your health or your waist line.

 

10) Don’t banish certain foods completely

Don’t tell yourself you’ll never” again eat your absolutely favourite chocolate ice cream or a bag of crisps. Making these foods forbidden is sure to make you want them even more. The key to long-term success is making healthy choices most, say 80 per cent, of the time. If you want a piece of cake at a party, go for it!  But munch on the carrots rather than the crisps to balance it out later in the evening.

 

11) Look for meat alternatives

Meat is a dense source of calories and saturated fat which is bad news for your heart and your waist line so try other high protein alternatives such as fish, seafood, tofu and legumes. These protein alternatives are usually low in saturated fat – legumes are high in fibre, soya is loaded with beneficial protein and fish contains omega 3 fatty acids – they all are much more heart-health friendly.

12) Get a good night’s sleep

Try to get between 6 to 8 hours of quality sleep every night. Sleep regulates the hormones leptin and ghrelin which affect how hungry you feel. Leptin helps boost your energy and suppress your appetite and ghrelin stimulates your appetite.  If you’re aren’t sleeping well leptin levels drop and ghrelin levels rise making you feel hungry all the time. Roughly 8 hours of sleep a night seems to work best for most people; no more than that though as studies also show that too much sleep can have a negative effect on your health.

13) Eat the right fats

Lots of us have spent years thinking low fat but low fat is a no no if you want to lose weight. Saturated fats found in red meat and dairy products increase your risk of heart disease and weight gain so they need to be avoided or minimised. You also need to avoid hydrogenated fats as they can also increase your risk of heart disease. These are found in the form of fried or transfats in processed foods, margarines and fast food snacks such as pastries.

Unsaturated fats, found in olive oil and essential fats like omega 3 and 6 found in oily fish, nuts and seeds have a protective effect on your heart and also help weight loss because they help keep your blood sugar levels stable. So boost your weight loss by eating the right fats.

14) Don’t bottle up your emotions

A lot of my patients admit that they often make unhealthy food choices when they are bored, tired, lonely, angry or anxious. Once you unlock the reasons behind your eating habits, you can change them and lose weight. Try keeping a food diary or try meditation, relaxation or yoga. If none of these help consider hynotherapy. All these techniques will help you unlock your emotions so that you don’t have to resort to comfort eating.

15) Walk it off

Even if you eat the healthiest diet in the world if you aren’t combining that with regular exercise you are going to have problems shifting weight. Muscles burn calories even when you are not excising so building more muscles means more weight loss. So get into a routine of doing weight training and walking which will be good for both weight loss and your general health.

16) Don’t shop when you are hungry

If you do, you’ll end up buying all the wrong foods. Instead have a light snack while you write down a shopping list. This will help you concentrate on the task in hand.

17) Get your five a day

Study after study after study shows that people who eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day are not only healthier but slimmer than people who don’t eat enough metabolism boosting fruit and vegetables. It’s really easy to eat five portions a day so start your day by adding some fruit to your muesli or porridge and have a portion of fruit for your mid morning and mid afternoon snack. Have a bowl of vegetable soup for lunch and add an extra portion of vegetables to your dinner.

18) Take a daily multivitamin and mineral

The way that food today is farmed and produced it’s virtually impossible to avoid nutrient loss before it ends up on your plate. That’s why I advise all my patients, especially those trying to lose weight, to take a good quality multivitamin and mineral every day. Although a supplement can never replace a healthy diet think of it as your insurance policy (choose one that is appropriate for your age, if you are over 45 then MenoPlus is a good one, see the Resources page).

19) Don’t overload at dinner time

Eating a really large dinner isn’t good news if you want to lose weight because the calories have little chance of being used up before bedtime. Your body needs to be resting rather than digesting at night so aim to eat a solid breakfast, make lunch your main meal and have a lighter dinner – and don’t forget to fit in a mid morning and mid afternoon snack to keep your blood sugar stable. Stable blood sugar levels, remember, are the key to weight loss.

20) Stress reduction

And finally, don’t underestimate the impact of stress on your weight. Research shows that when you are stressed you pump cortisol into your blood stream and high levels of cortisol means an increased risk of weight gain, especially around the middle. (see my Fat around the Middle book for more information on this, see the Resources Page).  To keep your stress levels down try not to burn the midnight oil, pace yourself during the day, eat little and often and take regular time out to stop and smell the flowers.

 

If you’re trying to lose weight or keep your weight stable, you’ve probably formed a close relationship with your scale. This numbers game is an integral part of most weight-loss programmes. However, a growing number of experts, myself included, question whether the scales are really the best way to monitor your progress.

Scales give you an instant answer to whether or not you are gaining or losing weight but all in all they are not very reliable. This is because weight gain is highly unpredictable. There are a number of factors that affect your weight, such as fluid retention, hormonal fluctuations and muscle mass, so it’s best to take the results you get from the scales with a pinch of salt. For example, 14 or so days prior to a woman’s period her weight can fluctuate by as much as 10 pounds due to fluid retention and hormonal shifts. You need to find what works best for you but the best way to lose weight is to focus less on weight and more on making healthy food choices each to day to boost your fat burning.

Also by focusing just on your weight the scale can lull you into a false sense of progress. Just counting pounds doesn’t tell you whether you’re losing water, muscle or fat. On the other hand the number of the scale can also be extremely demoralising if you are doing the right thing but don’t see any progress.

The BMI or body mass index isn’t that helpful either because it is affected by how much muscle you have. For instance, if you have more muscle your weight may be higher than what is considered healthy on the BMI chart, even though you have a healthy body fat percentage.

Instead of being a slave to the scale or the BMI, the best way to monitor your weight loss is to shift the focus on your health. Use a variety of measures that can give you a more complete picture of what’s actually happening to your body.

Here are some alternative ways to make sure your weight-control program is working:

• The simplest measure is a tape measure. Changes can show up quickly in the places where you store excess weight.  Health benefits can be seen with as little as a one-inch reduction in waist size.

• Another measure is your body composition. Muscle mass keeps you fit and strong while it stokes your fat-burning capability. Healthful weight control aims to reduce fat while preserving or increasing muscle mass. Body composition is hard to measure and in the clinic when a woman comes in to lose weight we measure body fat percentage so that as she changes shape we can monitor how much fat she has lost. 

With recent research showing that up to 60 per cent of home scales are completely inaccurate and can’t differentiate between fat and muscle, isn’t it time to ditch the diet mentality when your happiness each day is determined by the number you read on the scales for good?