3 Diet Myths That Make You Fat
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- by Redbook, on Mon Aug 3, 2009 3:36pm PDT
Nancy Snyderman, M.D., chief medical editor of NBC News and author
of the new book
Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat weighs in
on the
diet myths it's time to ditch — and the surprising
truths that will help you get and
stay slim.
- THE MYTH: You gain more weight in
winter.
When the temperature drops, it makes sense that our bodies would
inevitably pack on fat for insulation. Except that's not what
happens. In fact, our
metabolism revs up to keep us warm in colder
temperatures, which means we actually burn more calories every day,
Snyderman says. So if you're gaining in winter, a change in
habits — like exercising less frequently and indulging in comfort
foods — is likely to blame. To maintain your weight,
try to stick to a balanced diet (even if carbs are all you
crave) and your usual
exercise routine. Swap indoor activities for your
usual outdoor ones — or do some of your workouts out in the cold to
boost calorie burn.
- THE MYTH: Weight gain is inevitable as you get
older.
"This myth stems from the fact that belly fat begins to creep
on as we get older, but a bulge
is avoidable,"
Snyderman says. Most of that fat isn't gained — it's weight
that's shifted due to hormone changes,
childbirth, or weakening bones. And you can slow the
shift with strength training, according to a study from the
National Institutes of Health: Overweight and obese women who
lifted weights just twice a week saw a smaller increase in
intra-abdominal fat (7 percent over two years) than those who
didn't exercise (their intra-abdominal fat went up 21 percent
in two years). The sooner you
start pumping iron, the easier it is to
keep that belly trim down the road.
- THE MYTH: Yo-yo dieting wrecks your
metabolism.
It's become common wisdom that depriving yourself of food —
a.k.a. dieting — puts you into "starvation mode," in
which you burn fewer calories because your body needs to hold on to
what little nutrition it's
getting; over time, the
theory goes, your metabolism slows down for good. But "while
extreme low-calorie diets do temporarily lower your metabolism, the
effects don't last," Snyderman says. Researchers in Canada
compared the resting metabolic rates of women who'd yo-yo
dieted for an average of 18 years with
what their metabolism should be for their height, weight, and
age — and found no difference in 92 percent of the
subjects. "Yo-yo diets don't hurt you, but they do
frustrate you because they mean you haven't found the right way
to keep the weight off," says Snyderman.
Could the other 4 diet myths on our list be keeping you fat? See
the rest of the
DIET MYTHS THAT MAKE YOU FAT here.
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Reprinted with Permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.
