Diet Myths, Facts and Tips
WLR’s dietitian Juliette Kellow sets the record straight on some
popular diet myths, gives the diet facts and her tips for a
healthy weight loss diet.
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Dieting Myths… Uncovered
By WLR Dietitian
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Our Diet Myths & Tips include "healthy eating" ranges, dairy products,
red meat, vegetarian diets,
margarine, carbohydrates,
organic food, honey, nuts,
salads, low-fat food,
frozen or canned fruit & vegetables,
cereal bars, diets don't work,
inherited weight, calories &
weight, wheat intolerance,
eating late.
Diet Myth
"Potatoes, bread, pasta and rice are fattening"
Diet Facts
Foods high in
carbohydrates have had a rough
time in the past few years thanks to the success of low-carb
diets such as the Atkins diet. But there’s
actually no proof that carb-rich foods are more likely to make us gain weight than
any other food.
Ultimately, it’s an excess of calories that
makes us pile on the pounds – and it really doesn’t matter
where those extra calories come from.
In fact, more often than
not, it’s the fat we add to carbs that boosts the calorie
content, such as butter on toast, creamy sauces with pasta and
frying potatoes to make chips.
Diet Tips
Go for high-fibre carbs such as brown rice,
wholemeal bread, jacket potatoes and wholewheat pasta. They
contain more fibre than the ‘white’ varieties and so will help
to fill you up. Don’t add too much extra fat to them though,
for example, serve pasta with a tomato-based sauce and top
jacket spuds with cottage cheese.
Diet Myth
"Food eaten late at night stops you losing weight"
Diet Facts
Many people believe that eating in the evening
makes the body store more fat because it is not burned off
with activity. In reality though, it’s not eating in the
evening that stops you losing weight.
In fact, it’s consuming
too many calories throughout the day that will be your dieting
downfall! Providing you eat less calories than you burn each
day
you’ll lose weight, regardless of when you consume those
calories.
Diet Tips
Get into the habit of planning ahead and always make sure
you have enough calories left for dinner and any snacks you
want during the evening. The only thing that will stop you
losing weight is if the calories in your evening meal added to
the calories you've eaten during the day equal more than the
calories you've burned during the day.
Diet Myth
"People inherit being overweight"
Diet Facts
Scientists have been working hard to identify
genes that have the potential to make us fat. And it does seem
there may be a genetic link – but only in a small number of
people.
As a result, most experts agree that while genes may
have a part to play, they still don’t explain the recent rapid
increase in obesity that’s been seen in the Western world.
They believe that while we might inherit ‘fat’ genes from our
parents, we also inherit their bad habits such as a poor diet
and lack of exercise – and it’s these poor lifestyle habits
that have a more important part to play in weight gain.
Diet Tips
Making lifestyle changes such as exercising more
and eating a healthy diet will help everyone in the family
shift those pounds – so get everyone involved rather than
going it alone.
Diet Myth
"Diets don’t work"
Diet Facts
Ultimately, if you take in fewer calories than
you need, your body starts to use up its fat stores to get the
extra calories it needs to keep functioning properly. Over
time, this will result in weight loss.
The key is to follow a
moderately restricted diet rather than an extreme diet that
bans favourite foods, only allows a limited number of foods or
is so low in calories it leaves you feeling hungry.
You’ll be
far more likely to ‘give up’ if you follow a diet that has too
many restrictions and end up telling yourself that the ‘diet
didn’t work’.
Diet Tips
Make sure you follow a well-balanced diet plan that
enables you to include your favourite foods, and never try to
lose more than 1-2lb a week. To lose 1lb of fat, you need to
burn 3,500 calories more than you consume – it’s easy to shift 1lb in a week simply
by reducing your calorie intake by 500 calories a day.
Diet Myth
"Dairy products are fattening and unhealthy"
Diet Facts
Dairy products like milk, cheese and yoghurt
are actually packed
with essential nutrients that help to keep us healthy. As well
as being good sources of protein, zinc and some B vitamins,
dairy products are packed with calcium, a mineral that helps
to build strong, healthy bones – and the stronger bones are,
the less likely you’ll be to suffer from the bone-thinning
disease, osteoporosis, in later life.
Dairy products don’t
have to be ‘fattening’ either – there are loads of low-fat
products available such as skimmed or semi-skimmed milk,
low-fat yoghurts and reduced-fat cheeses.
Switching to low-fat dairy products doesn’t mean you’ll get
less calcium either. In fact, skimmed and semi-skimmed milks
actually contain slightly more calcium than full-fat milk.
But
best of all, research shows that low-fat
dairy products
can help us to lose weight thanks to the calcium they
contain.
Diet Tips
If you want to lose weight, choose low-fat dairy
products – aim for three servings each day such as a glass of
skimmed milk, 1 small pot of low-fat yoghurt and a
matchbox-sized piece of reduced-fat cheese.
Diet Myth
"Weight problems are often the result of an intolerance to wheat"
Diet Facts
With so much written about wheat-free diets,
it’s easy to think an intolerance to wheat is to blame for
those excess pounds. However, experts suggest that less than
0.1 percent of the population suffer from this condition.
Support for the idea that weight gain – or difficulty in
losing weight – is caused by a wheat intolerance stems mainly
from people who’ve followed a wheat-free diet and found
they’ve lost weight as a result.
Unsurprisingly though, most
experts believe any weight loss that occurs is due to a
reduction in calories and fat, thanks to cutting out not just
bread, pasta and many cereals, but also biscuits, cakes,
pastries, pizza, puddings and processed foods such as battered
fish or breaded chicken. In other words, if you stop eating
wheat, you also de-junk your diet and fill up on healthier and
lower-calorie alternatives such as fruit, veg, lean meat, fish
and low-fat dairy products.
Diet Tips
Don’t just cut out wheat on a whim. If you really
believe you are intolerant to wheat, keep a food and symptoms
diary to see if there’s any connection with what you eat and
the symptoms you suffer with – then see your GP for a proper
diagnosis.
In the meantime, cutting down on high-fat,
processed wheat products will certainly help you lose weight.
Instead, choose high-fibre wheat products such as wholegrain
breakfast cereals, Granary bread and wholewheat pasta.
Diet Myth
"Frozen or canned fruits and vegetables contain
less vitamins than fresh ones"
Diet Facts
Frozen or canned fruits and vegetables can be
just as nutritious as fresh ones, if not more so. Frozen or
canned fruit and veg are often packaged within hours of being
picked so they don’t lose many nutrients.
On the other hand,
fresh fruit and veg can sometimes lose many of their vitamins
if they’ve travelled long distances and are stored for days on
end before reaching the supermarket shelves.
Diet Tips
Regardless of whether you buy fresh, frozen or
canned fruit and veg, aim for five different servings each day
– they all count! But look for canned veg that are in
unsalted, unsweetened water, and fruit that’s in juice rather
than syrup.
Diet Myth
"Margarine is healthier and lower in fat than
butter"
Diet Facts
Often hailed as a healthy alternative to butter,
margarines aren’t always a better choice. To start with,
ordinary margarines contain just as much fat and as many
calories as butter and so offer no real slimming benefits.
Worse still, they may also contain hydrogenated vegetable
oils, which create trans fats – and these are thought to be as
harmful to our heart health as saturates.
Ironically, it’s the
processing of pure vegetable oils – a good source of
heart-friendly polyunsaturates – that creates these trans
fats! In the meantime, low-fat or reduced-fat spreads contain
less fat and fewer calories than butter or ordinary
margarines, making them a better choice if you’re counting
calories – but they may still contain hydrogenated fats.
Diet Tips
If you like the taste of butter there’s no reason
why you can’t include it in your diet, providing you count the
calories.
Leave it out of the fridge so you can spread it
thinly and use it on just one slice of bread when you make a
sandwich so you get all the taste but half the calories.
If you’re worried about the trans fat content of
margarines and low-fat spreads, you’ll need to scour the
ingredients list for hydrogenated fats or hydrogenated
vegetable oils. If a product contains either, it will almost
certainly contain trans fat. Bottom line: if you’re trying to
lose weight, whether you choose butter, margarine or low-fat
spread, you should use them sparingly as they’re all high in
total fat.
Diet Myth
"Red
meat is bad for your health because it’s high in fat"
Diet Facts
Thanks to modern breeding programmes and new
trimming techniques, red meat is now leaner than it’s ever
been. For example, pork has dropped from being 30% fat in the
1950s to just 4% in 2005. Meanwhile, lean beef is now as low
as 5% fat and lamb, 8% fat.
Better still, while most of us
think that red meat is packed with artery-clogging saturates,
around half the fat in red meat is actually heart-healthy monounsaturates. In particular, red meat contains oleic acid,
the same type of fat that’s found in olive oil.
Added to this,
red meat is packed with a wide range of vitamins and minerals,
especially iron. Around 40% of women aged between 19 and 34
have such low intakes of this nutrient that they’re at risk of
suffering from anaemia, a condition that causes extreme
tiredness, lack of energy and shortness of breath when
exercising.
Diet Tips
Choose lean cuts of meat, trim off any visible fat
before cooking and opt for cooking methods that don’t require
extra fat to be added, such as grilling, griddling or dry
roasting. This will help to keep fat intakes really low, while
ensuring you benefit from all the nutrients in red meat.
Diet Myth
"Cereal bars are lower in fat and sugar" than
chocolate or sweets
Diet Facts
Cereal bars might sound like a healthy
alternative to chocolate but check the ingredients and you’ll
often find more than just oats, cereals, nuts and dried fruit.
It’s true they’re usually lower in fat than most bars of
chocolate (unless they’re packed with nuts and seeds) but they
often contain just as much sugar, which might appear in the
ingredients list as rice syrup, maltodextrin, glucose-fructose
syrup, raw cane sugar, fructose, honey, or a mixture of these.
Diet Tips
For a sweet snack, you’d be better off choosing fresh
fruit. But if you fancy a sweet treat, check out the nutrition
information first before spending your calories on a cereal
bar. You might find smaller chocolate bars such as a Ripple, a
Flake, a Crème egg or a tube of Smarties actually contain fewer calories than that
healthy-sounding cereal bar!
Diet Myth
"Vegetarian diets will help you lose weight more
easily"
Diet Facts
As is the case with diets that include meat,
some vegetarian diets may contain fewer calories, less fat and
more fibre. But if they’re not properly planned, more often
than not, they’re equally high in fat and calories as a
meat-eaters diet.
It’s just
as easy for vegetarian diets to include fatty and sugary foods
such as chips, crisps, cakes, sweets, chocolate, biscuits and
fried foods!
Diet Tips
Whether you eat meat or follow a
vegetarian diet,
it’s important to stick to your daily calorie allowance and
follow healthy eating guidelines: base meals on
high-fibre, starchy foods; fill up on five fruit and veg each
day; choose low-fat dairy products; include low-fat sources of
protein in your diet such as beans, eggs (if you eat them) and
soya; and keep fatty and sugary foods to a minimum.
Diet Myth
"Low-fat foods always help you lose weight"
Diet Facts
Foods that are described as ‘low-fat' or
'fat-free' aren’t automatically low in calories or
calorie-free. In fact, some low-fat products may actually be
higher in calories than standard products, thanks to them
containing extra sugars and thickeners to boost the flavour
and texture.
Some people also mistakenly believe they can eat
more if they’re choosing low-fat products. But this is rarely
the case. In reality, two low-fat biscuits, for example, will
probably contain more calories than one standard biccie!
Diet Tips
Always check the calorie content of low-fat foods,
especially for things like cakes, biscuits, crisps, ice creams
and ready meals. You might be surprised to find that there’s
little difference in the calorie content when compared to the
standard product.
Don’t be fooled by foods that claim to be a
certain percentage fat-free either. If a product says it’s 90%
fat free, this means it still contains 10% fat or 10g fat per
100g – and that’s a fair amount!
Diet Myth
"Honey is
less fattening than sugar"
Diet Facts
Honey contains around 75% simple sugars and 25% water. It’s actually higher in calories than sugar
making it a less appealing option for slimmers – 1tsp of honey
contains 25 calories, compared with 16 calories in 1tsp of
sugar! Plus it’s just as likely to cause tooth decay.
Nevertheless, the darker varieties contain good amounts of
naturally-occurring plant chemicals called flavonoids, which
act as antioxidants and may help to lower the risk of heart
disease.
Diet Tips
If you like honey, use it in small amounts.
Opting for runny honey means you’ll be able to spread it more
thinly on toast and therefore keep calories down.
Diet Myth
"Salad is the best meal to go for when eating out"
Diet Facts
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that
all salads are healthy, but if they contain lots of high-fat
ingredients they may well contain more calories than a steak
and fries!
Croutons, crispy bacon, mayonnaise and oily
dressings are usually the worst offenders. They considerably
boost the calorie, fat and salt content of salads, but add few
vitamins and minerals, making them a poor choice for slimmers.
And while cheese and nuts contain more nutrients, they can
still add a lot of calories to a salad!
Diet Tips
Always read the menu carefully. To keep calories
down, look for salads made with beans, grilled chicken, tuna,
prawns or egg and ask for the dressing to come on the side so
that you can choose how much – or how little – you want to
add. And if all the salads look packed with high-calorie
ingredients, you might be better off opting for the steak and
fries after all!
Diet Myth
"Products that belong to ‘healthy eating’ ranges
are best if you’re trying to lose weight"
Diet Facts
This might be the case for some products, but not
all. Many ‘healthy eating’ products focus mainly on cutting
the fat content – and pay little attention to the calorie,
sugar or salt content. In fact, some products in healthy
eating ranges contain the same amount of calories, if not
more, than the standard versions.
Meanwhile, some products
simply cut calories and fat by providing a small serving size
with the result that hunger kicks in soon after you’ve eaten,
leaving you reaching for a calorie-packed snack.
Diet Tips
Fortunately, many of the bigger brands are starting to
control the calorie, sugar and salt content in their ‘healthy
eating’ ranges, as well as the fat content. But always check
the nutrition information carefully, especially the calorie
content, before parting with your cash – you might find it
helpful to compare the calorie information with the standard
product.
Diet Myth
"Organic food is healthier than non-organic food"
Diet Facts
It’s easy to think a diet based on organic foods
is healthy, but this isn’t automatically the case. The term
‘organic’ refers to the farming methods used to produce a
food, not its nutrient content. So while organic foods might
be better for the environment, eating more of them doesn’t
necessarily mean you’ll have a lower-calorie diet. For
example, organic biscuits, chocolate and cakes normally contain
just as much fat, sugar and salt as their non-organic
counterparts – and it’s often harder to find ‘healthier’
alternatives.
Diet Tips
If you prefer to buy organic, you still need to
remember the basic rules of healthy eating and, if you want to
lose weight, stick to your
daily calorie allowance. That means checking labels for
calories, fat, sugar and
salt.
Diet Myth
"Nuts are fattening and should be avoided if you
want to lose weight"
Diet Facts
Although nuts are high in calories and fat, most
contain heart-healthy monounsaturates rather than saturates
and have a low glycaemic index. This means they help keep
blood sugar levels steady and leave you fuller for longer
after eating them.
Nuts also contain protein,
fibre and many
other vitamins and minerals and so can contribute to a healthy
diet. Better still, research has shown that a diet containing
a moderate amount of fat – which includes peanuts and peanut
butter – can actually help you lose weight and lower the risk
of heart disease!
Diet Tips
There’s no reason why you can’t eat nuts when
you’re trying to lose weight. Just have small amounts,
remember to count the calories and choose those that are
unsalted to keep salt levels down.
Diet Myth
"The heavier you are, the fewer calories you need
to lose weight"
Diet Facts
In fact, the reverse is true – the heavier you
are, the more calories you can have to lose weight. This is
because your body has to work harder to move more weight
around and so burns off more calories as a result. It really
is that simple!
Diet Tips
As you lose weight, your calorie needs will
also drop slightly as you’ll have less weight to carry around.
If you’re aware of this, you can adapt your
calorie allowance
accordingly,
Bonus Tip
Find out the facts about your diet by keeping a food diary
for a few days. You can use the online food diary in WLR free,
for 24 hours.
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