Common Misconceptions and Correct Understanding of Dietary Weight Loss

1. Excessive nutrition leads to obesity.

Saying goodbye to fish, meat, eggs, and dairy products to lose weight is a misunderstanding.

Some people are obese not because of a single nutrient accumulation, but because their diet lacks nutrients that can convert fat into energy.

Foods containing these nutrients are often things that people who want to lose weight would rather avoid, such as dairy products, peanuts, eggs, and animal liver and meat.

2. Drinking water can make you fat.

The idea that you should drink less water while trying to lose weight is completely wrong.

Insufficient water intake causes the body to continuously retain water as compensation, and makes it easier for fat to accumulate in the body. Insufficient water intake may also cause metabolic disorders, resulting in the body absorbing more energy and releasing less.

Women who are trying to lose weight should never forget that water is the source of life, and the human body is 70% water.

3. Eating spicy food can help you lose weight.

Some people believe that eating spicy food can help them lose weight, so they eat spicy sauce and chili oil with every meal.

Upon closer examination, it turns out that countries like Thailand and India rarely have obese people, leading to the conclusion that this is related to their daily preference for spicy food.

Indeed, eating spicy food makes you sweat easily, and even a little bit of spice can make you feel full, which reinforces people's belief that eating spicy food can help you lose weight.

However, have the ladies considered that eating spicy food for a long time can affect stomach function, and may even cause stomach pain or stomach bleeding?

Furthermore, eating too much spicy food can make the skin rough, and some people even develop acne all over their face as a result. A beautiful voice can also become hoarse, which is a bit of a loss.

4. The lighter the diet, the better.

This is a popular saying that people should eat "simple food" all day long, and the lighter the diet, the better, thinking that doing so can reduce the burden on the stomach and intestines, make it easier to digest, and prevent heart disease.

However, the latest view suggests that an excessively bland diet can weaken the body, making it more susceptible to disease.

Even elderly people with heart disease do not need to force themselves to eat a bland diet.

So, what should a truly suitable diet be?

According to multiple sources abroad, the vitamins, proteins, sugars, and trace elements in this type of food must be present in a complementary manner, exhibiting characteristics of complex nutrition.

A balanced diet of meat and vegetables can enhance metabolism, delay aging, and promote the integrity of tissue cell structure, thereby improving disease resistance.

Rice, flour, or whole grains can be the staple food, and the main dishes are lean meat and various vegetables.

Drink soy milk or milk daily. Fresh fish, shrimp, kelp, and other foods can be selected according to personal taste to make a variety of delicious dishes to accompany rice.

5. The more fiber a food contains, the better.

Some doctors recommend that people eat more fiber-rich foods, believing that the more fiber in food, the better.

Actually, this is wrong.

Because cellulose not only absorbs harmful substances in the large intestine, but also absorbs large amounts of beneficial elements such as calcium, iron, magnesium, and zinc.

These elements are involved in many physiological activities in the human body and are very important minerals. A lack of them can have serious consequences, such as impaired bone, heart, and muscle contraction and relaxation, as well as reduced body resistance.

Therefore, excessive fiber intake is also detrimental to health.

Nutritionists recommend that healthy adults consume 25 to 35 grams of fiber per day.

6. Eating rice porridge helps with digestion.

In some parts of southern China, people like to eat rice porridge, especially for breakfast, believing that it helps with digestion.

From the appearance, rice porridge does look softer than cooked rice. However, eating rice porridge can affect the normal digestion process and hinder the digestion of food.

Because once rice porridge enters the mouth, it often slips into the stomach before it can be chewed and forms a bolus of chyme.

Food that has not been properly chewed and digested can increase the burden on the stomach.

At the same time, the soup and water in the rice porridge dilute the gastric juices, affecting the normal function of the stomach.

Therefore, eating rice porridge not only does not help with food digestion, but is also harmful to the digestive function of the gastrointestinal tract.

7. A cup of tea after a meal can aid digestion.

Some people like to have a cigarette after a meal, which is certainly not good, but the idea that a cup of tea after a meal can cleanse the mouth and aid digestion is also nonsense.

Scientific research shows that tea contains a large amount of tannic acid. Drinking tea immediately after a meal causes this tannic acid to enter the stomach and intestines, which in turn causes the protein in the food to turn into a coagulated substance that is difficult to digest.

Furthermore, tea can inhibit the absorption of iron. For example, drinking tea made from 15 grams of dried tea leaves after a meal can reduce the absorption of iron from food by at least 50%.

Therefore, it is not advisable to drink tea immediately after a meal; it is best to wait half an hour after eating before drinking tea.

8. Cream cakes are made with cream, so eating them will make you fat.

As the name suggests, many people think that cream cakes must be made of cream, but that's not the case.

Among the cakes we usually see, besides the true cream cake made with buttercream flowers (this pure cream cake will make you fat), there are two other "quasi" cream cakes that are less likely to make you fat.

One type is made by piping milk flowers onto the cake using margarine (usually made from vegetable oil) or a mixture of butter and margarine. This type of cake has a slightly weaker milk flavor.

There is another type that should more accurately be called a cream cake, where the so-called "cream" is made by whipping egg whites into foam and adding sugar.

This type of cake lacks a milky flavor, making it less likely to feel cloying, and is a popular Western-style pastry.

9. The more fruit you eat, the better.

Fruits are rich in vitamins, various minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, iron, iodine, and a variety of amino acids, making them an indispensable source of nutrition in people's daily lives.

However, it's not true that the more fruit you eat, the better, as we might think.

For example, plums, apricots, prunes, and strawberries contain cinchona acid, benzoic acid, and oxalic acid. These acids are not easily oxidized and decomposed in the human body. As a result, the products formed after metabolism are still acidic substances, which can cause the acid-base balance in the human body to be disrupted. Eating too much of these can also lead to poisoning.

Therefore, it is not advisable to eat too much unripe fruit or overly sour fruits such as plums, apricots, and apricots.

There is a condition called "fruit urine" which is caused by excessive consumption of fruit. As a result, the large amount of sugar in the fruit cannot be fully absorbed and utilized by the body, but is instead excreted through the kidneys, causing changes in urine.

If this situation continues for a long time, it may cause pathological changes in the kidneys.

In addition, some fruits are not suitable to be eaten in large quantities due to their inherent properties.

Eating too many lychees can lead to "lychee disease," causing symptoms such as cold limbs, weakness, and abdominal pain; pears are cold in nature, and eating too many can damage the spleen and stomach.

10. Eating fatty meat can lead to high blood pressure.

Many people worry that eating fatty meat will lead to high blood cholesterol, causing arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, obesity, and other health problems.

Therefore, people abstain from fatty meat, to the point of being "averse to the mention of fat."

Actually, there's no need to worry. Experts have proven through experiments that fatty meat has many benefits for the human body.

Fatty meat contains animal fat, which produces more calories than protein and carbohydrates.

my country's dietary structure is based on grains, supplemented by animal products.

Since this dietary structure does not provide high calories, consuming some fatty meat can meet the body's need for calories during activities.

Some studies abroad have shown that the human body must ingest a certain amount of cholesterol in order to enhance the anti-cancer and cancer-killing function of "phagocytic white blood cells" in the blood.

Fatty meat provides essential components for human cells-phospholipids and cholesterol.

The "lipoprotein" in animal fat has anti-arteriosclerosis function.

To prevent vascular diseases, the intake of fatty meat should not be too high.

For most adults, a daily intake of around 50 grams is considered safe.

Experts suggest that a diet consisting of 10 parts vegetable oil and 7 parts animal oil can maintain good health and promote longevity.

11. Lean pork is a low-fat animal product.

Nowadays, people prefer to eat lean pork rather than fatty pork because fatty pork contains too much animal fat and is high in cholesterol.

Patients with cardiovascular diseases such as coronary heart disease, hypertension, and arteriosclerosis should especially avoid eating fatty pork.

In fact, considering lean pork as a low-fat food is a misconception.

Lean pork is not a low-fat food.

Although lean pork does have less fat than fatty pork, it still contains as much as 28.8 grams of fat per 100 grams. In contrast, lean meat from other animals contains far less fat.

Calculated per 100 grams, the fat content is as follows: 13.6 grams for lean lamb, 6.2 grams for lean beef, and only 0.4 grams for rabbit meat.

Therefore, to eat high-protein, low-fat foods, you should choose foods such as fish, beef, rabbit, chicken, duck, and beans, while lean pork should only be included in small amounts.

12. Diet control for adolescent girls

Nowadays, some girls are afraid of gaining weight and want to be slim, so they diet by not eating or eating less of foods rich in protein and fat, and even controlling their food intake at each meal.

Over time, she lost weight, but "side effects" also appeared.

① Protein deficiency.

Dieting can lead to protein deficiency, which can hinder brain development and cause memory decline.

If protein deficiency is severe, it can lead to fatigue, weakness, and degeneration of various physiological functions, resulting in muscle weakness, loose skin, and even edema due to decreased plasma concentration.

②Anemia.

Due to insufficient protein and iron intake caused by dieting, iron-deficiency anemia is easily contracted.

Symptoms include pale skin, weakness, blurred vision, tinnitus, and dizziness.

③ Iodine deficiency.

Dieting can affect iodine intake, making one more susceptible to goiter, also known as "big neck."

Girls need more iodine during puberty, and iodine deficiency can easily lead to symptoms such as shortness of breath, cough, and difficulty swallowing.

④ It can cause menstrual irregularities.

Dieting can affect menarche and the normal menstrual cycle, and in severe cases it may cause amenorrhea and may lead to maldevelopment of reproductive organs.

Medically, it is believed that a girl's body should have at least 17% fat when she menstruates, and 22% fat to maintain a normal and stable menstrual cycle.

The menstrual disorders in female athletes are caused by excessive fat consumption during exercise, resulting in insufficient body fat.

In fact, during a girl's puberty, her appetite should increase significantly due to the need for growth.

Statistics show that girls aged 12 to 18 gain about 8.7 kilograms in weight and about 10 centimeters in height. In addition, girls of this age are active and have higher energy requirements than adults.

Clearly, excessively restricting one's diet is not advisable.

In addition to providing girls with sufficient nutrition during puberty, including plenty of protein and fat to maintain adequate calories, a rich diet of carbohydrates and vitamins is also essential for maintaining normal metabolism.

Therefore, we must not develop the bad habit of picky eating, and our diet should be diversified.