Hosea 4:6 My People are ruined because they don’t know what’s right or true. (MSG)
There is so much information out there, information that I’ve gotten from friends, family, the internet, solicited and unsolicited, that at times my head is spinning and I need some chocolate to get me centered. (Just kidding!)
In this post I’ve shared what I thought was right or true about dieting and weight loss, but through my own research and experience learned otherwise.
If I’m eating salad, I’m eating healthy.
Salad in and of itself is generally healthy; however, the problem comes with the salad dressing. I was so proud of myself eating salads with lots of leafy greens and other veggies, no carbs, I was like…yea look at me the picture of healthy eating! I knew ranch wasn’t good so my healthy salad dressing choice was honey mustard….yum. I was entering my salad into my food tracker and when I looked up the calories for the Quiznos honey mustard salad that had become my go-to salad, my jaw dropped. A small honey mustard salad with lettuce, tomato, cheddar cheese is 110 calories; with 2 TBS OF HONEY MUSTARD DRESSING: 290 CALORIES FOR THE DRESSING ALONE, a total of 400 calories! That was a huge eye opener! From that point on I started making sure I read the label and know how many calories the salad dressing has. I’ve discovered several light salad dressings and vinaigrettes that are 40-65 calories for two tablespoons. My favorites are:
Ken’s Light Sweet Vidalia Onion; Newman’s Own Light Balsamic Vinaigrette; Kraft Light Honey Mustard and Brianna’s Strawberry Vinaigrette.
The numbers on the scale determine my weight loss success or failure.
This was a big one. When I first started on this lifestyle change I was determined not to get on the scale every day. Once I started losing weight I found myself on the scale more and more, and pretty soon I was getting on the scale every day, and whether that number was up or down would affect my mood or attitude. The bottom line is this, there are always all sorts of things going on with your body that affect your weight (some of which we have no control), and even if you weigh yourself butt-naked, at the same time every morning after you’ve pooped and peed that number will fluctuate. If you know that you’ve been sticking to exercising and eating healthy don’t let the scale ruin your day. I’ve said it before, the clothes don’t lie. Often times I noticed my clothes getting loser before I noticed a big change on the scale. When I stick to only weighing myself once I week, I find that I am much less aggravated by the scale. If you just cannot keep yourself off that scale every day, then take an average of your weight after 7 days, and that will be a more realistic number of your weight.
“ Remember: the scale will tell you how much you weigh, but you have to tell yourself how you're doing. And when you're trying to figure out how you're doing, instead of looking to an LCD readout, look to what you're actually doing to affect your weight or your health.” Tamara Duker-Frueman, MS, RD, CDN, a NYC-based registered dietitian whose clinical practice specializes in digestive disorders, Celiac Disease, and food intolerances
I can lose weight by exercise alone.
Nope, you can’t. Again, we’re busitin’ myths here and myths get busted by trying the myth and seeing what happens. In all of my previous attempts at losing weight when I did exercise alone, I didn’t lose very much weight. However, when I went on an Atkins-type diet, I lost like 7-10 lbs in 14 days, with no exercise at all. Fact is, it was the combination of changing my eating habits and exercising that got me the best results. And here it is: 75% to 85% of weight loss is what you eat and 15%-25% is exercise. Boom….moving on to next myth.
My weight loss goal is a number.
False! I’ve learned that my weight loss goal should be a behavior, not a number. When I first started off my goal was to lose 1-2 pounds a week; but there are some things were out of my control, and there I would be on that scale every day, wanting to throw it out the window when I didn’t lose 5 lbs overnight! What helped me was to make my goal to be more focused on what I could control, like eating an apple instead of a piece of cake, or eating two servings of vegetables for dinner instead of mashed potatoes; or sticking to my goal of exercising 5 times a week for at least an hour. Once I began to focus on what I could control, what I ate in a day and how much I moved around, the weight came off, I felt much better, and found that I didn’t have to get on the scale to validate my success.
Brown sugar is healthier than white sugar.
I sure thought this was true. Got this one from Tamar Duker-Frueman a registered dietician out of New York and thought I’d throw it in:
“While brown (whole-wheat) bread is indeed healthier than white bread, and brown rice is more nutritious than white rice, this parallel does not hold true when comparing brown sugar (a.k.a. "Sugar in the Raw," or raw turbinado sugar) to white sugar. While marketing would lead you to believe that this sugar is somehow "more natural," it is most certainly no healthier. Raw sugar has just as many calories per teaspoon as more refined white sugar, and your body certainly can't tell the difference when it comes to metabolism. Defenders might argue that brown sugar has more vitamins and minerals than the white stuff, to which my response is: If you're eating enough raw sugar that it's serving as a measurable source of vitamins or minerals in your diet, you should make an appointment to come see me.”
I can lose weight by going a really restrictive diet.
Several years ago I went on a diet with my hubby that was basically a liquid diet for the first 14 days, where you drank specific shakes and drinks then replaced 1 to 2 shakes a day with a small meal. Yes, I lost weight as long as I struck to drinking the shakes. But once I starting eating solid food, not matter how healthy, I gained weight! By the time I got through the 14 days, those shakes were so nasty to me I had to choke them down! So doing that long term wasn’t going to work, even with one shake a day. I came across this article that summed it up best:
Food is Not Just Fuel, and That Matters for Your Diet, Why blindly restrictive dieting never works
By Yoni Freedhoff April 17, 2013
The past 60 years of dieting, both for health and for weight management, have certainly seen a great many different approaches and options. But the one shared commonality is that, for the vast majority of dieters, diets are short-lived, white-knuckled affairs that, regardless of their actual dietary edicts, can be fairly described as planned suffering. And therein lies the rub.
We're not particularly good as a species at perpetual and unnecessary suffering. And just as we have been celebrating and comforting with food since time immemorial, so too have we tended to avoid unnecessary suffering. Ultimately, when life inevitably throws a blindly restrictive dieter a curve ball, dietary suffering tends to fall by the wayside; and when life lets up, the tendency for most is not to pick it up again.
I sometimes think of blindly restrictive dieting like an icy cold lake on an unseasonably hot day. You work up the nerve to dive in and, after the initial shock wears off and numbness sets in, you splash around happily for a while. But once you climb out, the memory of that initial frigidity is enough to keep you warmly on dry land— diving back in is almost never an option.
So instead of adopting a blindly restrictive, icy-cold lake diet, my advice is for you to practice thoughtful reduction. It's not about whether or not a food or an indulgence is allowed; it's whether or not you feel it's worth it to you, where worth isn't determined solely by calories or content, but also by circumstance, desire and the human condition.
Sometimes it's worth comforting or celebrating with the most nutritionally terrifying of foods. Just make sure, if you've decided it's worth it, to also ask yourself what's the smallest amount of that delicious awfulness that you need to like your life. A small bit of here-and-there awful, and maybe you'll actually stick to your new and improved dietary intake. But deny yourself that chance, and I'd bet, eventually, you'll find yourself right back at your all-you-can eat, unhappy square one.
I’m sure there are lots of other myths out there that you’ve busted….feel free to share your story of discovery during your quest to a healthy lifestyle.
Remember…Don’t weight to be healthy! Live a healthy life now!
