Myth #1: cutting calories will make you drop weight
In the long run cutting calories doesn’t work because your body has a built-in intelligence. For example, if you drop your calories too low and grow hungry, your body reacts as if it’s starving and does everything it can to preserve fat. And whether you eat 500 calories or 5,000 calories a day, you’ll gain weight if you don’t eat the right kinds of calories.
For example, a starchy carb calorie is not the same as a protein calorie or a fat calorie. Your body ‘counts’ them in different ways. Take a French fry, for example. That’s almost the same as eating table sugar. And the excess sugar of starches and carbs is what spikes your blood sugar and eventually gets stored as fat.
A burger, on the other hand, is filled with protein – an essential form of fuel. So when you eat protein your body uses this energy source to function at its best – and actually melt fat. That’s why it’s not about eating fewer calories, it’s about eating the right stuff.
Example: two patients of dr. Al Sears tried to lose weight. One ate from 4,500-5,000 calories a day of mainly high-protein foods. He dropped six pounds. Another cut more than 600 calories a day from her diet, exercised five days a week, and still ended up gaining four pounds.
Myth #2: cutting back on fat will make you drop weight
Eating fat doesn’t make you fat. But eating the wrong kinds of fat will. Our bodies need fat to absorb vitamins. In fact, vitamins A, D, E, K and CoQ10 can’t even be absorbed without fat. And when you deprive yourself of fat, you eat more carbs. And that’s what really makes you fat.
One study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that people who ate low-fat diets showed no improvement in body composition, blood sugar, insulin levels, or blood pressure (1)
The key to fat loss is NOT to deprive yourself of the fatty foods you were born to eat. You just need to make sure you eat the right kinds of fats in the right ratios.
Myth #3: long cardio workouts lead to fat loss
The exercise industry tells you that spending long hours pounding away at the treadmill at the gym is what you need to do to melt fat. Unfortunately, melting fat while you exercise tells your body to make more fat to melt the next time you exercise. After a while, your body gets very good at doing just that. Before you know it, you’ve hit a plateau. No matter how many hours you spend at the gym or how grueling your workouts are, you still might not be able to drop a pound. Smart exercising (like moderate power training and to fit in your day to day life lots of moments that you move around) is the key, not heavy exercising.
(Source: newsletter Al Sears, MD)
1 Knopp, R. H., et al, “Long Term Cholesterol Lowering Effects of 4 fat-restricted diets in hypercholesteroemic and combined hyperlipidemic men,” The Diet Alternatives Study, Journal of the American Medical Association. Nov. 12, 1997; 278(18): 1509-1515
