Food producing corporations will say anything just to sell their products. Why do we believe them? Because misinformation and myths are much more seductive than the truth. Here are some of the biggest myths of mainstream and fitness nutrition :
1. High protein diets are bad for your health
Among ordinary people and even in fitness and bodybuilding circles there is a myth circling, that a high protein diet can cause kidney disease, forming of kidney stones and osteoporosis. Recent studies, however, have shown that in the long term, a high protein diet has almost the opposite effect on healthy people.
In the long term, protein has a strong association with improved bone health and a lower risk of osteoporosis (1,2). Also, high protein doesn’t seem to be associated with kidney stones and kidney diseases in otherwise healthy people (3,4).
Two of the main factors for kidney disease are high blood pressure and diabetes. Eating high protein helps in improving both of these conditions. (5).
2. You should get 50-60% of your calories from carbohydrates
A general belief is that people’s diet should consist of 50-60% carbohydrates. Most of those calories would come from grains and sugars. While this type of diet may work well for the naturally lean and skinny people as well as endurance athletes like marathoners, cyclists and swimmers, it is very likely that it would not work for regular Joe and obese people.
In fact for obese people or people with diabetes, this amount of carbs on a daily level is downright dangerous.
Studies show that high protein and fat diets are a far better solution when it comes to weight loss, insulin resistance and blood sugar control.
3. Low-Fat Foods Are Good For You
Extract the fats from a certain food – you have also taken out its taste. Yes, food without fat doesn’t have any taste. To compensate for the lack of fats, food manufacturers add things like sugar, corn syrup or artificial sweeteners like aspartame. You probably know that consuming higher quantities of sugar is unhealthy, but what you didn’t know is that artificial sweeteners are even more hazardous to your health.
Sweeteners like aspartame are known to be connected to health issues like: headaches, depression, cancers, metabolic syndrome, diabetes etc. Artificial sweeteners also tend to increase hunger. This means you should avoid artificial sweeteners at all costs.
4. Eating Fat Will Make You Fat
The mainstream belief is that eating fat makes you fat, because of the simple fact that fat has more than double the calories that protein or carbs have (9 calories per gram).
This is just not true! In fact, diets that are high in fat and protein, but low in carbohydrates cause much greater fat loss than diets that are low in fat.
Even though fat has more calories than carbs, a modest amount of fat may help you feel fuller with smaller quantities of food. Fat also helps with the absorption of certain vitamins and phytonutrients, as well as the production of vital hormones in the body.
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