Lie #1: Slimmer people are healthy, overweight people aren’t.
Someone’s look is not an accurate indicator of how healthy he or she is. It’s not unusual for a slim person to be a couch potato or a chain smoker or even both. And on the other part of the weight spectrum, it’s entirely possible for someone who could be labeled as “overweight” or having a high body mass index to train consistently, consume lots of clean foods, like lean meats, fruits or vegetables and generally follow healthy lifestyle habits.
Lie #2: You have to drink at least 8 glasses of water daily.
This is simply not true, at least concerning the amount of water. Yes, you should be drinking a lot of water during the day, and you will most definitely be healthier and slimmer if you drink water instead of beverages high in processed sugar such as juice, soda, and many other sweet drinks. However, everyone has a different needs for hydration, and the 8 glasses of water isn’t a quantity that is based on any real research. The most general recommendation about being properly hydrated is this: drink enough water during the day so that the color of your urine is pale yellow to white. The general rule is the darker your urine is, the more dehydrated you are.
How Much Water a Day Should You Really Drink
Lie #3: Natural foods are healthy, while those filled with chemicals are bad.
Most of the words that we’ve grown accustomed to hearing are bad for you, are mainly buzzwords, which everyone keeps repeating without delving a bit deeper into the subject. Cyanide, for example, can be found in nature, and when you think about it water is also a chemical. So, if you are trying to eat healthy, you should focus on consuming larger amounts of fruits and vegetables, especially the ones which haven’t been treated with pesticides, as well as many other whole products. The less processed a food product, the more likely it is to be healthy since you are consuming more nutrients per calories. However, eating a processed food every now and then can be totally fine and would supplement an already balanced diet.
Lie #4: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
The actual research on this topic has been mixed. A much better mindset to have when deciding whether to have breakfast is asking yourself if you’re really hungry at that moment. If you don’t feel like eating in the morning, then don’t force yourself when you’re not feeling like it. If you do feel hunger, then by all means, eat away, and if you choose to eat something healthy, with a balanced ratio of protein, healthy fats, carbs and fiber, then all the better.
Lie #5: You can target specific body parts for fat loss, like losing fat around the stomach by doing crunches.
Many people have tried this, but alas, that’s not how our body works. Training specific muscles can make them bigger and stronger, however, doing hundreds of crunches is not going to do anything to the fat surrounding your midsection. The same goes for doing lunges and your thighs, and dips and your upper arms.
The same rule applies for many exercises. The reason for this is quite simple: muscle cannot be turned into fat: it grows in size and becomes stronger beneath whatever amount of fat you have. Plus, you can’t do exercises that target specific areas of fat on your body. It all boils down to the fact that if you’re trying to lose fat in a specific area, you will need to decrease your total body fat percentage with a strict diet and fitness regimen.
You might also like : The 5 Most Common Weight Loss Myths
Continues on next page…
