5 Health myths you need to stop falling for to see real weight loss results
Mama, things are getting real over here today. For far too long we’ve lived with so many myths about health and nutrition, and they’ve made us miserable! So I’m going to bust them.
It’s time that someone told you the truth so that you don’t have to jump from diet to diet. If you’re tired of cutting calories, only eating at certain times, or cutting out entire food groups, then this is for you, Mama!
Myth 1: Carbs make you fat
This is by far my favorite myth to bust. Carbs are good for you. Your body (and especially your brain) needs them to survive and thrive!
If you feel run down, exhausted or have brain fog, that’s your body’s way of telling you it needs more energy. And the body’s first source of energy comes from carbs.
Before I learned about macro tracking and flexible dieting, I was doing the Paleo diet. I had severely restricted my calories and had basically cut out all carbs.
When my macro coach increased my carb intake, I had the hardest time mentally being OK with that! I had told myself for so long that carbs were bad and that I shouldn’t have them! I could not believe that I was “allowed” to eat bagels again! It was such a freeing feeling!
Not only can you eat carbs, but when done correctly increasing your carbs can even help you drop weight faster! (Is this blowing your mind, yet?)
I use this tool with my clients to help them get over a hurdle in their weight loss journey. It’s called a refeed. What I typically do, is give my clients an extra 20-30 grams of carbs for one day.
When they weigh up after a refeed, they might see the scale go up a pound or two because carbs attract water which causes some temporary inflammation. But then, over the next few days, they will hit their lowest weight yet.
This works because the metabolism likes stability. Once it gets used to you eating a certain amount of calories, it slows down, but injecting some extra carbs into one day will tell it that there’s extra and it needs to burn off the excess. Which reactivates the metabolism and it starts burning again.
Hardly anyone believes me when I tell them this, but they do their refeed and then 2-3 days later they freak out when the scale drops! It’s seriously one of my favorite things!
Myth 2: Meal timing is crucial
Intermittent fasting has become incredibly popular in the last few years. The idea is that if you only eat during a shorter window (instead of all day) it gives your body more time to digest food and get rid of it.
That’s kind of true! Your body needs time to digest food, so the more time between your last meal and when you step on the scale can make it seem like you’re lighter. But what really happens, is that people consume fewer calories during the day because they aren’t eating all day.
The metabolism isn’t really worried about when you start eating or stop eating as long as it’s getting the calories it needs in a day, it will keep working.
In fact, the metabolism loves consistency! When you give it the same amount of food each day it knows what to expect and how to process it.
If you were taught that in order to “indulge” you needed to cut back somewhere else, then you might be accidentally yo-yo dieting and confusing your metabolism!
Skipping meals to indulge later, or restricting food after going over one day are prime examples of yo-yo habits.
If your body is used to yo-yoing, it never knows when it’s going to have enough food or when it’s going to have to conserve energy, so it just holds onto as much food as it can; causing you to gain weight.
When you focus on eating the same amount of nutrients consistently, your body can release the fat it’s storing for those under-eating days and you’ll lose weight!
Myth 3: Cardio is best for weight loss
For decades women have been taught to focus on cardio for weight loss. We’ve done aerobics, we’ve run miles, we’ve gone to HIIT classes, all in the name of sweating out the weight. But cardio isn’t the best way to lose weight.
Cardio is great for your heart and cardiovascular health. It will make it easier to run up a flight of stairs or chase after your toddler without losing your breath.
But it’s not best for weight loss.
If you want to burn fat, then you should do more resistance training or weight lifting.
Strength training is important because lean muscle burns more fat than non-lean muscle. Lean muscle burns 7-9 calories per pound of body weight, whereas non-lean muscle only burns 5-7 calories. The more lean muscle you have the more fat is going to be burned.
Lean muscle is built by tearing or breaking down the muscle through exercise, resting the muscle, and then eating protein to rebuild and increase the muscle.
When women stick to traditional low-calorie, high cardio programs they struggle because they’re not building muscle. It’s why they plateau even when they cut more food out and increase workouts!
What women actually need to do is eat a balanced diet that is higher in carbs (for energy to crush it in the gym) and protein (to build muscle) while progressively lifting heavier weights.
The really cool thing about strength training is that you don’t just burn fat while you’re working out like you do with cardio workouts. But you continue to burn fat when you’re at rest because it takes your body more energy to recover and build more lean muscle.
Also, please don’t worry about bulking up! If bulking up and looking extremely muscular was easy there would be a lot more buff guys out there. Bahaha! You can lift weights and keep a feminine physique!
Myth 4: Gluten/Dairy/Seed oils are stopping weight loss
Can I get a, “Yes Mama!” if every time you turn around there’s a new food out there that is slowly killing you or making you fat? First, it was dairy, then gluten intolerance became popular, and now seed oils are out to get us!
What I hate about these fads is that they don’t apply to everyone, but we act like they do. Just because one person struggles with food intolerances, it doesn’t mean they’re bad for you too!
Nutrition and health in general are incredibly individual, if you think you have food intolerances, you should work with a doctor. But keep in mind, that your body might be reacting to food in a normal way too.
For instance, did you know that bloating after eating carbs is normal?
Yup! Carbohydrate molecules attract water. For every 1g of carbs you eat, it needs 5-6g of water to break it down. So naturally, carbs attract water and cause you to bloat. So some bloating is totally normal.
If things make you feel horribly sick, or so bloated you’re extremely uncomfortable, then you should go see a doctor. But if you feel a little fluffier after a bowl of pasta, that might just be your body digesting food.
We don’t need to avoid every little thing that causes bloating, inflammation, or other “bad” side effects. You do need to investigate and analyze how it make you feel, if you feel that way consistently or if it was a one-time thing, and if it’s interrupting your lifestyle. If it is, then get rid of it and see how you feel!
I’m going to say this one more time, just so it really sticks: health is individual. Instead of falling for a new fad, determine if it’s true for you.
Myth 5: You need to feel motivated to lose weight
I’ve saved the best for last! The previous myths can be busted with science. But the idea that you need motivation to lose weight is harder to bust because it’s not science, it’s a feeling.
Motivation isn’t the special sauce that will all of a sudden make you workout or eat healthy. Motivation is just a feeling. It comes and goes like every other feeling.
The truth is that you won’t feel motivated to do hard things until you’ve taken action! Action leads to motivation!
It’s just like brushing your teeth. As a kid, you learned that you needed to brush your teeth, but you didn’t necessarily want to. You weren’t “motivated” to do it, right?
But your mom told you to brush your teeth every morning and every night until it became a habit. Now you wake up and brush your teeth without even thinking about if you “feel” like it.
If you want to eat healthy and lose weight, then you need to stop waiting for motivation and use a system to build healthy habits instead!
That’s exactly what I help busy mamas do! I teach you how to build the nutritional habits that are crucial to living a healthy life. I also give you the tools you need when big feelings pop up and try to convince you that it’s not worth it anymore.
Your thoughts are most likely the reason that dieting has always failed you (that and cutting out whole food groups made your life miserable!)
When you learn how to control your thoughts and your food, you get sustainable weight loss results. And that’s what I teach busy mamas inside of the Macros Made Easy program.
If you’ve believed these myths, but you’re ready to accept the truth and finally build a healthy life, then you need to schedule a free Healthy Mama Blueprint call. On this call, we’ll talk about your situation and past and determine if you qualify for the Macros Made Easy Program. If you do, you can get started within a week and you’ll be one step closer to the healthy life you’ve been dreaming of.
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