Weight Loss Advice You Should Completely Ignore

Give up on sugar, avoid snacks and dairy products, focus on protein, don’t eat fat, eggs are bad for you, go vegan… how many times have you heard these things? Unfortunately, these are a few pieces of weight loss advice you might have encountered. But are they even relevant? Should you follow them?

With so much weight loss advice being given and floating around on the internet today, it becomes challenging to identify which pieces of advice you need to adopt and which ones you need to dismiss and ignore.

Just because you hear certain weight loss tips again and again, like a broken record, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to follow them. Here are a few misleading and irrelevant pieces of weight loss advice that you should completely ignore.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to treat or diagnose any condition. It is recommended that you speak with your doctor before starting any exercise program, changing your daily nutrition, or adding any supplements to your regimen.

Weight Loss Advice You Should Ignore
Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

Creating a weight loss plan is the easiest thing to do, but following it is the most difficult.

Weight Loss Advice You Should Ignore

Let’s dive into seven of the worst things you’ve probably heard out there that you may believe to be true but aren’t when it comes to shrinking your waist.

1. Eating Fat Will Make You Fat

One of the most common pieces of weight loss advice that you might have heard is to minimize the consumption of food that is high in fat. But you will be surprised to hear that no scientific claim supports this highly popular tip.

Related Article: Eat This Fat to Improve Your Health

Fat is an important nutrient that helps your body absorb nutrients, regulate hormones, and feed your brain. Also, consuming healthy fats in your diet contains more calories when compared to carbohydrates and protein, which can help you feel satiated throughout the day, so you don’t feel hungry. In fact, a few food items like avocados and nuts can actually help improve your weight loss results.

So, eliminating “fat” from your diet will not necessarily help you in the long run. All you need to do is ensure that the fat you consume comes from a good source and that your nutrition plan is properly balanced. Don’t shy away from healthy fat, your body needs it.

2. Eliminate Sugar from Your Diet

Want to lose weight? Cut down on sugar, simple! Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Before eliminating sugar, you need to understand the difference between natural and added sugar. Natural sugar is present in items like fruits, milk, etc., and is not truly something you should be concerned with. It is the added sugar present in items like soda, cookies, etc., that affects your health and can cause you to gain weight.

Again, it comes down to the fact that you need to choose the items you eat carefully. It’s not sugar but the type of sugar that you need to focus on. Not all sugar is bad for you.

3. Focus on Doing Cardio

Do cardio if you want to lose weight! How many times have you heard this piece of weight loss advice? Far too many people are a slave to the treadmill, and all they’re doing is burning muscle and slowing down their metabolism — two things you want to avoid.

The goal of weight loss is to ensure you can effectively target body fat without tapping into your lean muscle tissue. Sure, cardio is a good thing, and everyone should be doing it for heart health benefits, but don’t make it the focus.

Cardio can certainly help with weight loss, but despite the weight loss advice you may have heard, you can lose weight by merely changing your nutrition — no cardio needed. Unless you enjoy cardio, doing upwards of an hour of cardio a day is enough to make even the strongest-willed person throw in the towel. So, don’t do it! Do you really think you’ll stick with the process if you hate it? Probably not.

You want to lose weight while maintaining muscle mass. In order to accomplish this, you need to combine weight training into the fold. Your lean muscle tissue constantly needs energy, which causes you to burn calories. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you’ll burn. Breaking down muscle by skipping your resistance training will cause the opposite effect of what you’re looking to accomplish.

4. You Need to Consume Caffeine to Lose Weight

You might have heard common weight loss advice that caffeine helps to boost the metabolism and helps to lose weight. That may be somewhat true, but this boost is only for a short period. So, if you think a cup of coffee can help you lose weight, you must rethink the strategy.

Caffeine can boost your energy levels and help you get through your workouts, but many people struggle with the side effects associated with high caffeine consumption. Sure, that jolt of energy you feel initially is amazing, but when you crash, it feels like you hit a brick wall doing 100mph is no joke. What you’re left with is an unproductive rest of your day.

Use caffeine when needed to increase your energy levels when you’re dragging but remember that supplements are truly only there to supplement an already solid nutrition and workout program. Don’t rely on them as a “quick fix,” as it would be poor weight loss advice.

If you rely on caffeine to help you lose weight, what happens when you’ve hit your goal and stopped using caffeine? You may find you’re less active and gain the weight back. Therefore, you want to focus on creating healthy and active habits that promote weight loss and help burn calories.

5. Make Sure You Eat Breakfast

Breakfast may be considered one of the most important meals of the day, but research has shown that when you “break your fast,” it really doesn’t play a role or correlate when it comes to overall weight loss. This entire piece of weight loss advice is a myth.

While having breakfast can help to boost metabolism and replenish the lost nutrients from when you were sleeping, it doesn’t matter if you eat at 7 a.m. or 12 p.m. Whether you eat breakfast in the morning or not, it does not affect your weight, and your overall calories consumed throughout the day play a more significant role.

If you are hungry when you wake up, by all means, eat breakfast before you go to work or school. The one thing you want to focus on is having a protein-rich breakfast. Whether in the morning and you choose to have eggs or break your fast later in the day with something like chicken breast, make sure you have protein in your meals.

6. Eliminate Snacking Throughout the Day

Snacking has a bad reputation for some reason. This is probably due to the poor weight loss advice given by people who don’t understand how snacking can be beneficial to their weight loss success.

Related Article: 6 Snacking Mistakes That Hinder Your Weight Loss

Of course, mindless snacking can prove to be an obstacle in your diet plan. But well-balanced or healthy snacks can help you to meet your daily nutritional requirements. It can make you feel full throughout the day and prevent overeating, which can help you in your weight loss journey.

Most people think of snacks as chips, pretzels, candy, and other unhealthy items. Make your snacks healthy. This can be something like a cup of Greek yogurt with a handful of nuts. Or even something like an apple and natural peanut butter. You can even toss in something like a protein shake or bar if in a pinch.

7. Eliminate or Lower Your Carbohydrate Intake

You may have heard a piece of weight loss advice that if you want to reduce your caloric intake, you need to focus on the type of food you consume. Not all calories are created equal, and not all carbs are either. Certain carbohydrates can help suppress your appetite and control your hunger level by increasing leptin (a satiation hormone) and decreasing ghrelin (a hunger hormone).

Related Article: Carbs 101 — The Many Benefits of Carbohydrates

The quality of your carb source should play a key role versus demonizing all carbohydrates. There’s a massive difference between consuming pretzels and consuming vegetables. Clearly, the best weight loss advice out there would be to ensure you are consuming green, leafy vegetables in your diet while eliminating unhealthy sources that don’t align with your weight loss goal.

Studies show that both low-carb and high-carb lovers can equally lose weight. So, a low-carb diet isn’t the only or “best” way to lose weight. You need to focus on having a nutrition-rich diet.

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

Hopefully, this article opened your eyes to some of the poor weight loss advice that is commonly assumed to be true. The best thing that I can recommend to everyone is to do your own homework and research. Just because someone tells you something doesn’t mean it’s true or the best way to accomplish your weight loss goals. Most importantly, what works for someone else may not work for you, and even the best weight loss advice you’re given may not get you the results you desire. You should put your focus into trial and error. Test something out and see if it works for you. If not, try something else. Don’t feel defeated when a weight loss plan works for your friend or family member and not for you. Everyone is different and unique, and there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach when it comes to weight loss and weight loss advice.

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