Posted Jan 30, 2012
Ask any health expert to rattle off some of the bogus reasons they’ve heard as to why people can’t lose weight, and you’re likely to have enough excuses to fill a “Stuff Dieters Say” YouTube video. But there’s nothing funny – or pretty – about the little diet and fitness lies you persuade yourself to believe. Buying into incorrect information, such as the idea that skipping breakfast will save you calories in the long run or that your doctor will pull you aside if your weight is really a problem, will leave your scale stuck and could put your health at risk in the long-term.
The following ideas might seem like reasonable assumptions, but the research and experts suggest otherwise. Here, eight little fibs that might be making you fat.
1. Taking the stairs takes too long
Sorry folks, but taking the elevator at work isn’t just lazy, it’s inefficient, too. A small Canadian study calculated that when you factor in the time you spend waiting for an elevator to arrive, taking the stairs actually can save you about 15 minutes each workday. Researchers timed hospital workers making trips between one and six floors, and found that it took 2.8 times longer per floor to travel by elevator car than by stairwell. So the next time you catch yourself complaining about being too busy to work out, remember it’s possible to add minutes to your day and burn more calories.
2. Losing 10 pounds is good enough
Losing 10 pounds is nothing to sneeze at, but if you’re obese, a small dip in the scale should be the starting point – not the finish line – of a healthier lifestyle. While short-term studies have concluded that obese people can see significant improvements in their heart health after a 5 percent weight loss, a new 10-year Swedish study found that you most likely need to lose twice as much to yield meaningful results. Obese people who lost 4 percent of their body weight – or 11 pounds – showed no significant improvements in terms of major risk factors, including blood pressure and cholesterol levels. They needed to lose at least 22 pounds before systolic blood pressure, pulse pressure and insulin levels improved, and had to drop 33 pounds before significant benefits were seen in HDL and glucose levels.
3. My doctor will tell me if there’s a weight problem
If you’re waiting for your doctor to alert you that your weight is putting your health at risk, you’re better off facing your mirror for a true assessment. A study in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that less than half of those who were overweight and two-thirds of those who were obese were told in the past year by their doctor that they were heavy.
A similar pattern crops up for children, as well. A 2011 study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that 22 percent of parents of overweight children recalled that their doctor voiced concern about their kid’s size and 58 percent of parents of obese children said that a physician told them their child is fat.
Weight is a touchy subject, especially for women, which might partially explain why female physicians are less likely to bring up weight with patients of either sex and why female patients are less likely to hear about it from their doctors. Plus, doctors sometimes figure that their patients have the resources to address weight issues on their own because there’s so much diet and fitness information available to the public, says Christine Gerbstadt, MD, spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and author of “Doctor’s Detox Diet.”
4. I know what calories are
You probably know a thing or two about calories – like you need to eat less of them and burn more if you want to see the number on the scale go down – but chances are you understand less than you think.
A study in the American Journal of Public Health found that when teens read a sign that said it takes 50 minutes of jogging to burn off one soda, sales fell 50 percent compared with those who read signs listing the calories, suggesting that people have a false sense about how many calories they consume and use up. “People say all the time that they know about calories, but they don’t know how hard it is to burn them off,” says Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, and author of “The Flexitarian Diet.”
5. I’m in control of what I’m eating
Sure, you have no one to blame for eating that extra cookie but yourself, but no matter how strong your willpower, you could be tucking in more food without even knowing it. A number of studies show that there are sneaky, subliminal factors that affect how much we serve ourselves. Not only do people dish out and eat larger portions when using bigger spoons, plates and bowls, they also tend to eat more when their food is a similar color to their plate, say researchers from Cornell University. Mindless-eating expert Brian Wansink found that people were more likely to dish out a big helping of pasta Alfredo on a white plate than a red one.
6. It’s too expensive to be healthy
Times may be lean, but eating healthfully doesn’t have to be a luxury. To be fair, a 2011 study in Health Affairs calculated that following the USDA’s MyPlate guidelines could cost Americans an extra $380 a year in food groceries, or $1.04 a day. However, findings from George Washington University researchers show that obese women earned $5,826 less per year than their thinner counterparts in 2008 – so maybe eating right is worth the investment.
Still, not everyone agrees that a balanced meal translates to extra dollars and cents. “You can cook frozen vegetables to save money,” notes Gerbstadt. “Eating healthy doesn’t have to be exotic or gourmet.” To see just how much it would cost to shape up your eating habits, Blatner suggests tallying a week’s worth of food and meal receipts – everything from your $10 lunch to your $4 cappuccino – and compare it with 7-day’s worth of good-for-you groceries. “It can be daunting to see a $100 to $200 grocery bill, but it’s usually less expensive compared with how much you’re spending dining out and eating on the run,” says Blatner.
7. A little snack won’t hurt
Well, that depends on your perception of what qualifies as a snack and how often you’re noshing between meals. After all, weight loss boils down to calories in, calories out. Investigating the snacking habits of dieters over the course of a year, researchers found that midmorning snackers lost 7 percent of their body weight compared with those who snacked later in the day, who lost 11 percent of their body weight. Why? Midmorning snackers usually didn’t stop at just one snack and tended to eat another later in the day, as opposed to afternoon and evening snackers.
“The problem with snacking is that people don’t know what a snack is,” says Blatner. “A snack is nutritious and filling; it bridges meals and is about 200 calories. Snack packs, cookies and candies aren’t snacks – they’re treats. You need to know the difference and know that there is a limit.” Blatner says that when you keep to these guidelines, you can snack up to twice a day and maintain a healthy weight.
8. I’ll eat less if I skip breakfast
Drill it into your heads: Skipping breakfast won’t save you calories in the long run. “People have this notion that if they don’t eat breakfast they’ll save calories or can cheat eat later in the day, but it really doesn’t work that way,” says Gerbstadt. “Your body needs food in small increments throughout the day to stay powered, and research shows that people who eat 400 to 600 calories at breakfast are less likely to be overweight.” Starting your day with a morning meal can help jump-start your metabolism by 10 percent and prevents you from overindulging on snacks and large meals later in the day because you are ravenous.
If you typically don’t feel hungry in the morning, Blatner recommends skipping dinner – just once – to reset your appetite clock. “A lot of times people say they’re not hungry when they wake up because they’d eaten too much for dinner. This way, you’ll wake up naturally hungry.”
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