3 Misconceptions About Nutrition to Rethink Today

For the first time in history, people are eating food not just to stay alive but to improve their health. This is instead of consuming whatever agricultural goods they have on hand, like accumulating or reducing body fat, building muscle or otherwise affecting how they look and feel. 

Unfortunately, because eating for nutrition is a new phenomenon, research focusing on nutrition is in its early stages too. As a result, information about nutrition can be sparse — and in this dearth, many untrue myths have emerged. 

If you are building your eating habits around outdated nutritional guidance , you could be causing short- and long-term challenges for your body. Here are a few of the most pernicious misconceptions about nutrition — and some truths that are better for guiding your food choices.

1. Calories in, Calories out

If you know anything about nutrition science, you know that when someone says, “If you eat fewer calories than your body burns, you will lose weight”, it doesn’t make logical sense. Here are two major reasons you shouldn’t believe this:

Not all calories are created equally. There is a difference between 2000 calories of ice cream and 2000 calories of whole foods like veggies, fruits and grains. The latter meal takes longer to digest, includes a variety of macro- and micro-nutrients and otherwise boosts health and wellness in a variety of ways, while the former meal can only be used as fast energy or fat storage. Ultimately, it is impossible to lose weight and be healthy if all your calories are bad calories, even if you keep your calorie intake low.

Weight gain or loss is affected by dozens of factors. Some people naturally find it more difficult to gain or lose weight for reasons completely unrelated to their calorie intake. Hormone balances, health conditions, certain medications and simple genetics can make it all but challenging for you to change your weight with calories alone. Most people need a more complex weight gain/loss strategy than calories in, calories out.

2. The Evils of Fat

For much of the 20th century, the food and fitness industries pushed the idea that fat in foods put fat in and on your body. Low-fat food options came on the market, and various organizations developed low- and no-fat diet plans with the intention of helping the population obtain a greater degree of health.

The problem is that fat in food is not bad — in fact, most dietary fat is incredibly beneficial to the body. Fats from whole food sources, like the fats you find in fish, avocados, dairy and nuts, are essential for a variety of bodily processes, like regulating the metabolism, which can impact how efficiently your brain and body functions. Though there are some less-than-great fats, particularly saturated and trans fats which appear most frequently in highly processed foods, you shouldn’t feel bad about consuming these every once in a while.

Even cholesterol isn’t as bad as you might suspect. Just because certain foods have cholesterol in them doesn’t mean you should stay away. Instead, you should look into what type of cholesterol they contain: “healthy” HDL cholesterol or “lousy” LDL cholesterol. The former helps keep you healthy, while the latter can contribute to conditions like heart disease. Even so, small amounts of LDL cholesterol won’t kill you, so you shouldn’t assume foods containing this compound are outright unhealthy.

3. The Dangers of Eating Late

Many believe that the metabolism operates on a strict schedule, and that eating outside of this schedule will lead to unnecessary weight gain and ill-health. Wrapped up in this belief is the idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that eating a meal at night, especially just before bed or in between sleep periods, is a dangerous practice.

However, the truth is that different bodies follow different schedules. While some people might see a benefit to their health by eating first-thing in the morning and skipping late-night snacks, others might need an hour or two to wake up before having breakfast and thrive with a big meal in the evening. You should consider experimenting with your eating schedule to find what makes you happiest and healthiest. Any diet plan that has a strict meal schedule for every participant isn’t worth following.

Typically, myths about nutrition are much more convenient than truths. After all, if you only needed to count calories, avoid fats and eat breakfast to be slim and strong, you could probably achieve your ideal fitness level in a matter of weeks. Unfortunately, nutrition is just a bit more complex, and studying the real rules of nutrition will give you more knowledge and skill to achieve health and wellness.