10 Weight Loss Myths to Waste Your Time. Weight Loss Ideas You Should Ignore

Losing weight – and most if it should be fat – is important for people
who are overweight, in terms of body mass index (BMI) and waist
circumference. It is also important for athletes, bodybuilders and
recreational body shapers who want to get rid of those last few
pounds.

With weight loss, it seems as if everyone has an angle, but most
strategies are useless or insignificant.
What works for weight loss is to burn more calories in physical
activity than you consume in food calories -- an excess of energy used
compared to energy consumed. If you doubt this in any way, consider
what happens to people on starvation diets in prison or who’ve been
lost at sea or in the wilderness for many weeks or months with
insufficient food. The body eventually uses all stored forms of
energy, including muscle, to support itself for as long as possible.
Then you die, mostly in a skeletal state.

But during weight loss (intentional or not), the body does try to
prevent this happening — and this is a survival mechanism developed
over several millions years of human evolution — by lowering its
energy-burning rate in response to low-calorie consumption. The human
body makes changes in all sorts of ways to adjust to changing
circumstances. This is called “homeostasis.”

Variations exist in how much weight individuals can lose in response
to diet and exercise, but in the end, changing energy balance is the
only major thing that matters. I make this point because trivial
approaches such as drinking green tea or eating chili peppers or
drinking coffee (caffeine) or taking some herbal supplement or other
may have a very small effect on fat loss that could easily be negated
by the body adjusting to that challenge over time by altering its
metabolism. Consistent deficits in energy intake and expenditure over
months and years is what you need to concentrate on.

Here are 10 weight loss approaches that could waste your time:
1. Eat According to Your Metabolic Type
The origin of this idea in the modern diet business can be traced to
The Metabolic Typing Diet. The general idea dates from the 1970s and
perhaps even before that.

The premise is that we all have a “metabolic type” — an individual
metabolism that can be manipulated by dietary choices. According to
this, we all fall into three metabolic types. And how do you know your
metabolic type? Usually, the practitioners of metabolic type diets ask
you a range of questions about your body shape, natural food choices,
energy levels and many other things. Some may charge for blood or
urine tests.

No doubt, you will soon be offered a genetic test that is supposed to
identify your best nutrition and training habits based on your genes,
which, presumably, create your metabolic type. Already similar
services are being promoted to health and fitness enthusiasts — for a
fee of course.

There is no evidence that metabolic types have any validity for weight
management or fitness training, including weight training. Our genes
can influence how our bodies works, but genes are not faultless
determinants of physical function — or behavior for that matter. Genes
interact with the environment, in this case, with food and physical
activity. The idea that we have a metabolic type that reacts rigidly
to diet in a certain way because of a genetic component is false, or
at least only partly true. Food and exercise are just as likely to
change the way these genes function as genes are to demand certain
foods for health, perhaps even more likely.
2. Don’t Eat Carbohydrates Because They Turn to Fat
This one still persists, even after all the debunking that has been
done. It is a persistent myth of misplaced emphasis that derives from
the low-carb diet movement. First, some carbohydrates can be converted
to fat and stored, but this is only significant if you overeat.
Fructose in corn syrup and cane sugar is more likely to do this than
glucose from starches, such as grains.

Second, even if some carbohydrate turns to fat, it is not permanently
enshrined in some fat larder on your hips, legs, belly, arms and ***
until the end of history. Mostly, you can burn it off just like you
can burn off dietary fat that is eaten and stored. What matters is the
total calories you consume and the energy calories you expend.
3. Eat Foods that Boost Metabolism or Decrease Appetite

rest of the article http://fatburner-diet.blogspot.com/2009/02/10-weight-loss-myths-to-waste-your-time.html

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The Law Of Attraction And Weight Loss: Can You Think Yourself Thin?
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