YOUR HEALTH: 5 Health lies you still believe!
These days, there’s no scarcity of health and fitness advice; from friends to colleagues; to the teller at the bank, even your church minister – everyone has some opinion about what you should adopt. Some of it is meaningful, some of it is really quite harmless, and some is pointless. Then there is the rest – hell-on-wheels dangers in the shape of health and wellbeing advice. How can you tell fact from fiction in all the madness? Some myths are even perpetuated by health authorities. My advice is research—what does science tell you? What do recent studies tell you? What does your doctor/nutritionist/coach tell you? Most importantly, what does your body tell you? No one size fits all.
Here are 5 lies we have heard over and over again. Look out!
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day
Breakfast is important, but your body will tell you when you need it. I train in the mornings and tend not to eat late at night. This means that most of the time, I am quite hungry early in the morning. This may not be the case for you so don’t force-feed yourself quinoa porridge and berries at 7am because someone else said so. In fact studies have shown that fat loss, metabolic risk markers, insulin resistance and even brain function can be improved by intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is technically what happens when the morning madness makes you forget to eat. It is an eating pattern where you cycle between periods of eating and fasting. To get these benefits, you can’t think that because you haven’t eaten for hours, you can go ahead and chow down bounty and crisps. The trick is when you do need to eat, make a good, nutritious and balanced meal.
Fat makes you fat
Another lie! Sometime in the mid-50s, a misguided hypothesis that low (and even no) fat diets are the best way to stay slim and avoid heart disease emerged. This hypothesis lingers to this day and I still meet people who follow this approach and are risking their health gravely. According to Dr. Joseph Mercola, osteopathic physician, alternative medicine proponent and wellness webpreneur, most people benefit from a diet where up to 85% percent of their daily calories (as a measure of energy, not to be obsessed over) come from protein and healthful fats. Very few, if any, starchy or processed carbohydrates are needed for optimal health.
On first thought, that seems like a lot of fat, but fat is very calorie dense and will still be the smallest amount on your plate. To tell you the truth, fats from natural sources like plants and animals provide the building blocks for your cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormone-like substances, without which, metabolism and optimum health is compromised. You can’t absorb many vitamins and minerals without fat and if your body doesn’t function properly, it will be a breeding ground for inflammation and disease and guess what else—fat. Grass-fed meats, avocados, coconut, coconut oils, nuts and seed are great sources of healthful fats.
Vegetable oil is healthy
Why; because it says ‘vegetable’? Highly processed fats like margarine and vegetable oils (Please banish these from your kitchen African women!) are some of the most health destroying foods out there. I don’t know how we got brain washed into thinking these were even better than natural oils we are blessed with like coconut and even proper native palm oil (not the processed kind). They mess up your Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratios majorly and put you at risk of heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and many other illnesses. The two main factors that should determine the best oils to cook with are smoking point—the temperature at which the oil begins to smoke, and oxidization—when oil gets degraded and rancid with heat. What oils should you cook with? According to research, ghee and avocado oil are best for high heat cooking and join coconut oil, butter and palm oil for medium heat cooking. Olive oil is ok for salad dressings and cold dips, as it has a high smoking point, but is resistant to oxidization. As for corn oil, vegetable oil, and most seed oils, delete them from you shopping list.
Sugar swaps are always healthy options and help you lose fat
I’m trying to lose fat so I’ll have a diet coke, right? Not quite. Diabetics and dieters use artificial sweeteners to cut sugar intake. Ironically, studies have shown that artificial sweeteners cause more weight gain than their caloric counterparts. A recent international weekly journal of science study even showed that artificial sweeteners may raise your risk of diabetes by disrupting your intestinal microflora and can alter certain metabolic pathways associated with metabolic disease, and that it can induce gut dysbiosis (which is microbial imbalance) and glucose intolerance.
In addition, a study published in Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine showed a correlation between increased usage of artificial sweeteners in food and drinks, and the corresponding rise in obesity.
The list of health risks associated with artificial sweeteners, particularly aspartame and saccharin, continues to expand. If you must use a sweetener, opt for stevia. It is a natural sweetener and a little goes a very long way and it even has some health benefits.
Smaller more frequent meals will make you slim
This is quite tricky. It is not exactly true, and neither is it false. Are you confused yet? It depends on what you are eating. A recent study showed that people who eat smaller meals with starchy carbohydrate often, burn less fat than those who ate 3 larger meals with little or no starch. If you are constantly grazing, particularly on sugar, your body will treat food as its energy source all day and it won’t get a chance to burn fat for energy. This is not to say that eating small frequent meals is out. It is helpful for people who are really active, people making lifestyle change or people who just like eating and snacking often. You have to do what you love, right? ☺ If fat loss is your goal, just make sure at least two of your five or six meals are really low in calories, but high quality fibre from vegetables to give your body a chance to draw on its fat stores for energy.
