Tips on weight loss are easy to find these days. Pick up any health magazine and you will be sure to see an article on the latest way to lose weight. While many of these tips can help, in too many other cases they don’t. And sometimes, they can be downright harmful with misleading or outdated information. The tips that actually will help you lose weight always seem to come back to diet and exercise as the core principles. The weight loss industry is a big business and the pressure to come up with new ways to lose weight can lead to the birth of myths and contradictory information.
Here’s a list of 4 of the most common myths around weight loss:
1. You can do exercises to target one area for weight loss. This is false and it would be hard to find a doctor who would disagree with this. The idea that you can do sit-ups to lose weight around your middle is an appealing one but also wrong. Any exercise you do will help you burn calories faster but it’s a net loss of body fat and can’t be targeted at one area first. If you only do crunches in the hope of getting rid of those love handles you may doing harm by neglecting your overall fitness and only targeting one area. Follow a healthy diet and do an overall workout that will speed up your metabolism.
2. Cut calories back drastically to jump start your diet. This diet approach actually does more harm to your diet. After your fast is over, your body will stockpile fat in an effort to make up for the loss. This is one of our bodies survival strategies to get through periods of little or no food. Your metabolic rate slows down in order to conserve and muscle is burned instead of fat to keep reserves for energy.
3. You have to do cardio exercises to lose weight. Cardio is a great way to lose weight but not the only way. Aerobics is a great way to burn calories and studies have indicated that there isn’t much difference in the calories burned in aerobics vs. cardio. If you add weight lifting in to your workout you are getting the added benefit of adding muscle to your body which burns calories at a faster rate than other tissue. That means that your burning more calories even while you’re asleep.
4. Myth #4: Sweating it out helps you lose weight. It’s true that if you do an intense workout and build up a good sweat you can step on the scale and see an immediate weight loss. Problem is, it’s just water weight. The practice of wearing a sweat suit or sitting in a sauna to lose weight can lead to dehydration and the loss of important electrolytes. Sweating excessively to lose weight has no place in a healthy weight loss plan.
When it comes to losing weight, the only thing that you can really count on is that there will be a new ground breaking weight loss scheme coming along all the time. Stay informed and check with your doctor before starting any new weight loss program and you can protect yourself against bogus weight loss advice.
Learn more about weight loss and health. Visit HealthyLiving411.com where you can find reviews to choose the best diet for you.