Weight Loss Myths

MERIDIAN KEEP CANADA SLIM – The Magic Secret for Weight Loss
By Lee Fairbanks
President, Keep Canada Slim
 
Mention weight loss at any social gathering and everyone has an opinion to offer and a ready audience to listen. With 61% of Canadians overweight, people are always looking for the magic secret – the one thing that will instantly give them a solution to their lifetime of weight control challenges.
 
In truth, successful weight control starts by understanding why your efforts have failed so often in the past and then choosing a different approach. Chances are very high (90 per cent according to the Canadian Obesity Network) that you have lost weight in the past but gained it back – and usually more than you lost. Many people have done this several times. It’s called Yo-Yo Dieting. Most people simply try the same approach every year, and get fatter and fatter because of it. Many people today understand that success comes from a ‘lifestyle’ approach, but then turn around and choose a diet as their ‘lifestyle’, proving that they don’t really understand the difference at all.
 
To have long-term success and keep the weight off, you must avoid following the Four Myths of Dieting.
 
How many of these do you believe?
 
Myth # 1: You must eat less to lose weight. Eat less than what? Ninety-seven percent of people trying to lose weight are already currently under-eating. If you eat less than your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) requirements you will undermine your metabolism as you lose weight, then rebound once you are off the diet. Your BMR requirements are the minimum calorie level for basic metabolic function, i.e. if you are sleeping 24 hours per day. This is generally about 10 calories per day for each pound of your goal weight. Eating less than this causes the body to switch to ‘Starvation Metabolism’ and metabolize muscle while storing fat. Most people diet on between 800 and 1200 calories per day. This means their goal weight would be between 80 and 120 pounds. I think you can see why this equation doesn’t work.
 
Myth # 2: You must exercise more to lose weight. Exercise is an add-on, not a foundation of weight loss. If you make exercise the foundation of your weight control program sooner or later it will fail. Injuries, family situations, illness, lack of motivation, there are many reasons why people inevitably cut back on exercise. You must understand food to have permanent control. You must also understand food to have a successful exercise program. You need to eat more food on days that you are exercising to avoid yo-yo diet metabolism. Most people don’t do that. If you have tried exercise you have probably already experienced some of these drawbacks and therefore know that this is true.
 
Myth # 3: Faster weight loss is always better. Your body can only lose weight safely and permanently at a certain rate, usually 1-2 pounds per week. Faster weight loss can only be achieved through starvation (low-calorie) dieting or artificial stimulants. Both undermine your health and metabolism and make this weight loss temporary.
 
Myth # 4: Measuring pounds lost is the true measure of success. Your body is made up of six kinds of weight. These are fat, muscle, organs, bone, water and fecal matter. If you are only measuring pounds, you could be losing healthy weight as well as fat. Anorexics are often clinically obese when they die, and can die of heart failure because they have lost so much heart muscle tissue through starvation dieting. You’ve been doing much the same thing on diets. Post-menopausal women can lose up to 3% of their bone density in six months on a low-calorie diet. The weight you want to lose is body fat, so start measuring that. Healthy men should be between 11-19% and women between 17-25%. High-performance male athletes may be lower.
 
Meridian Keep Canada Slim is a comprehensive weight control program.