What’s the Best Method of Approaching a Nutrition Myth?
There are tons of nutrition myths out there.
These myths are promoted in many ways by all sorts of people. Some are looking to make a quick buck, others are well-meaning people trying to help.
Sometimes success in weight loss can cause an overconfidence in the methods used. Often times these practices are correlated incorrectly and the misinformation is widely distributed. The internet seems to make this worse.
Unfortunately, this is not a black and white issue. There is a great deal of nuance in how weight loss works. To make things even more difficult, a great deal of misinformation contains some truth.
The question is, how do you discern what is fact and what is fiction?
This short blog post with help you get better at piecing together the truth that is out there, and become more resistant to falsehood concerning nutrition and weight loss.
Let’s get to work!
What’s a Nutrition Myth?
This is a difficult question to answer.
It seems best to give you some examples. This may help you better define what a nutrition myth is as well as remind you of some you may have stumbled across in your past.
- Eating before bed makes you fat
- If you eat past 6pm (7pm, 8pm) you’ll get fat
- Sugar puts you into ‘fat storage mode’
- ‘Fat storage mode’
- Artificial sweetener affects insulin exactly like eating pure sugar
- Bread slows your metabolism
How well is the picture forming in your head?
*Side note: if you believe some of the above myths, that’s ok. You’ll soon realize that the reason why you do is because there are shreds of truth in them. In order to be more discerning, developing a better understanding for how food affects you body in a common sense way by reading the Cornerstone Weight Loss Blog will help.
From here, we are going to dissect a few nutrition myth examples. After seeing how to look at these myths, you’ll be able to take the same approach to the others you are sure to stumble across during your weight loss journey. Additionally, you’ll be better able to extract truth from all the piles of information being thrown at you.
Can You Reverse Years of Bad Eating?
Wait a minute, how is a question a myth?
That’s a great observation!
The myth here is the background misinformation that led to asking this question.
What does bad eating mean? What knowledge are you drawing from that leads you to suppose that you can reverse out of what you have already eaten?
Bad Eating
Thinking that some food is bad and other food is good is one dimensional thinking. Furthermore, this good and bad paradox is going to be hammered throughout this blog post.
Is water good or bad?
Staying hydrated is necessary for life, however drowning in a pool of water is a bad thing.
Try taking the same approach to food.
There are many of you reading this that have been led to fear food by some Yo-yo Diet Profiteer(s). If this is you please consider reading this for help.
Eliminating the need to label certain foods as good or bad is a crucial step in discerning what is myth and what is truth in nutrition and weight loss.
What exactly are trying to reverse?
If you gathered that losing body fat as what is to be reversed, this makes sense.
On the other hand, if you understood this as healing some sort of internal damage due to eating too many french fries, you may be falling into a trap.
For example, the macronutrient carbohydrate has a whole section of the weight loss industry up in arms.
There’s talk about metabolic damage and problems with insulin that swarm around the carbohydrate.
Correlation does not always imply causation.
*Side note: check out this quick read on low-carbohydrate diets.
Try looking at it this way:
Under normal circumstances, if you over-consume calories you’re going to put on excess body fat, regardless if those calories came from carbohydrate sources or not. Excess body fat, especially when nearing obesity, can be extremely harmful to your health.
Check this article out to see how detrimental obesity can be for your overall health.
Reversing out of bad eating ought to be redefined as losing the excess body fat that comes from the overconsumption of calories.
You Can’t Exercise Out a Bad Diet
You can’t out exercise a bad diet.
You’ve probably heard this statement a great deal of times.
You may have even read something close to it in this Cornerstone Weight Loss blog post.
In that blog post there is a heading that reads:
The Greatest Workout Plan Won’t Outrun Poor Food Choices
The difference between the two is one demonizes food and the other doesn’t.
Calling your diet bad does nothing to help your understanding of how food affects your body. Labeling your diet bad takes the responsibility you ought to have for your food choices and places it on things outside your control. Additionally, diets vary per individual. Food choices that are useful for an olympic swimmer may not be useful for you who is trying to achieve ten pounds of weight loss.
The proper way to turn this myth into a statement that reflects real life is this:
You can’t out exercise a caloric surplus.
Weight Loss is Not Linear
Anyone who has started and finished a weight loss program whose weight trended down over the entire process has had linear weight loss.
This one is a duh myth about nutrition.
Cute sayings like this ought not be said in the weight loss world. Clients like you place a great deal of time, money, and trust in weight loss professionals and you deserve accurate statements.
Catch-all phrases just don’t seem to work anymore. The fitness and weight loss industries have had a reputation for charlatans for a long time and people like you are waking up. You are looking for thorough professionals who use precise speech.
Though much of the time weight loss is not linear, that is not always the case and therefore should not be described as such.
How to Use this Information for Your Life and Weight Loss Journey
You’re seeing how many nutrition myths contain lies wrapped in a little truth. Unfortunately this is a common occurrence in the fitness and weight loss industries.
What you ought to take away from this blog post are three important points:
- There is little truth in vague words such as bad and good. Definite and quantifiable words ought to be your guiding light for truth in nutrition and weight loss.
- Correlation does not always imply causation. Are you sure the object in question is the cause for the result you’re seeing, or could it be something else?
- Catch-all phrases are usually a sign of laziness. A weight loss professional who chooses to use them over detailed explanations is someone you may want to consider shying away from.
At Cornerstone Weight Loss we help you better understand how food affects your body in a common sense way that will put you in control of how you look. In order to get in touch with a professional who can help tailor your weight loss plan to you, click below, fill out the information, and a member of the Cornerstone Weight Loss team will reach out to you to get the results in weight loss you deserve.