BUSTED: 8 weight loss myths

1. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

There has been a great deal of recent research against this! The new theory is that when you have breakfast when you wake up, a) you stop the production of GH, which burns fat and b) you introduce “food expectation” early on and your body will crave more food during the day.

You can try waking up, having a coffee and water and pushing your first meal back a few hours and see how you get on. This could well help you lose more weight.

2. Starving yourself is good for weight loss

This is not a long-term solution for weight loss. You may well find that you will put more weight on as a result of doing this. When you starve yourself, your body gets low on energy and you crave high sugar and high fat foods which end up making you fatter!

3. It’s better to buy ready-made expensive foods to lose weight

This is not true. Ready-made foods will almost always have lots of sugar, fat and salt and are not good for your body. You are much better off buying fresh ingredients and cooking them yourself.

4. Low fat and reduced fat foods are a good option

This very much depends on how much fat the food had in the first place! You may find that some low fat foods still contain a large amount of saturated fat. Read labels. Ideally you should have very little saturated fats on a daily basis.

5. Carbohydrates are bad for you

This is not necessarily true. Carbohydrate consumption has to be considered as part of the overall diet. Carbohydrates give you energy and some carbohydrates such as wholemeal bread and brown rice can be eaten early in the day with no problems in terms of weight gain.

6. It’s better to replace butter with margarine

Again this is not necessarily true. Margarine may have less saturated fats but it contains more hydrogenated fats which are not good for health.

7. An intensive exercise regime is the best way to lose weight

This very much depends on the individual. For most people, regular, moderate exercise works better as they will be more likely to stick to it and do it over a long period of time. Sudden high intensity workouts may burn you out and you may lose motivation after a while.

8. The faster you move the better

This is not so. When you are doing cardiovascular exercise you need to stay in your target heart range. This is where you are not totally out of breath and you are not too relaxed either. Panting is a good sign that you are in your target heart range!