Nutrition Myths
| February 10, 2012 | Posted by Carrie under Dietitians, Fitness Friday, food, intuitive eating |
I read this great article the other day (and shared via Facebook - do you follow me there?) and wanted to share it again here.
The article was on the Dietriffic blog. It’s a blog written by a British Registered Dietitian named Melanie Thomassian. There is tons of information on the website, the kind of stuff a nerdy nutrition student loves to read and read and read.
Anyway, the article was about Nutrition Myths. Go read the full article, but here are the bullet points.
-
Energy Drinks are healthy
-
Diet soda helps you lose weight
-
“Natural” foods are healthier for you
-
Chocolate is bad for you
-
Low fat foods are better for you
-
Eating at night leads to weight gain
-
Fasting helps clear toxins from your body
This is why I love studying nutrition. There is so much information out there and it can be overwhelming and confusing. How many of these myths have you believed at any time?
I know I used to believe at least 5 of them (the only one I never believed was that energy drinks were healthy – hello, big serving of sugar). Several of these myths can be solved by learning to read food labels. Natural foods and diet foods can be disproved by reading food labels.
The chocolate one is confusing. Yes, chocolate is good for you, but did you know that a beneficial serving size of dark chocolate is one ounce? That’s just about a one inch square of chocolate. No, it’s not a full chocolate bar.
Welcome Fitness Friday Friends!
On to my world for a moment: My ankle pain is fine. Every once in a while I have a twinge when my ankle turns in. But, I have no pain while I walk (that’s progress from earlier in the week). I’m still doing a lot of walking, it’s just something I can’t avoid. Between school and making sure I keep up our dog training which involves walks, it’s just not something that’s going to stop. Which is good, because I feel like I’ve lost my workout mojo. I can’t seem to make the effort to do any sort of exercise other than those walks. My eating is fine, water is good, attitude is good. Maybe I should just leave it all well enough alone.
I did manage to get my hair cut yesterday. I’m super cheap about my hair and have super limited time, so I went to a super cheap place, but the woman did a great job. My hair is in a ponytail half my life anyway, but at least only the healthy stuff remains.
So, what nutrition myths have you followed? Do you still question what you read about nutrition?
You shoudl see the briliant ideas my son the wrestler has. They are all about shourt term weight loss/gain, so they will eat chips (but not drink water) but not fruit (too heavy!) to make weight. Drives my *insane*
Coco recently posted..Are You This Badass?
Listening to kids (and sometimes their parents) talk about ‘making weight’ just kills me. 1- because of the hairbrained ideas – how does that help their bodies perform? And 2 – because of the message they start hearing at a young age. I saw 7 and 8 year old competitive martial arts students trying to ‘make weight’. Maddening.
I have trouble with the eating full fat, such as yogurt, cheese and milk, because that is healthier, I believe it’s true but it still weirds me out. I try not to dwell too much on the fads, just go with the real food and portion control and hope I’m doing it right. Sorry the ankle is still giving you fits, hopefully it feels better soon!
Nicole Arbelo recently posted..Three Things Thursday
Real food and portion control are an awesome plan to keep away from the fads.
There isn’t much “low fat” food I eat, because it frankly doesn’t taste that good, and the benefits are just not very great.
Your hair looks cute!
Kathy recently posted..Friday FIVE
Thanks for the hair cut compliment. I don’t know why I wait so long, I’m always so much happier after it gets cut.
Love the pic of you with your new ‘do. I always visualize you as your Pinterest picture and hadn’t realized you have such lovely curls, Carrie.
Good information here… thanks for sharing.
Elle recently posted..Garden Vegetable Soup a la Weight Watchers
Thanks! I usually wear it curly, it just happens that the picture I use for a profile picture is just a one I like. I need to get a well lit picture of me with curly hair and use that.
The ones I believed in the past were the low-fat foods, chocolate and ‘natural’ foods. I struggle with that chocolate one… I have no problem sticking to the dark, less sugar chocolate, but serving size is tricky.
Laura recently posted..Sweaty shopping and a spinning side job
Serving size is tricky for chocolate and peanut butter for me. I’m working hard to just breathe deeply and move away when I know I’ve had enough. Thanks for commenting.
I never believed any of those, but I do know it’s a balancing act, for sure. A big ditto to the “all natural” one. There’s a lot of all natural stuff I’m super allergic to.
Cute hair cut!
Irene recently posted..This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race
Thanks Irene! Great to see you. I get a kick out of reading the labels on so called ‘natural’ foods in the grocery store. There’s often not much natural going on.
I have sadly believed several of these at some point in time before too. At the end of the day, it’s all about whole foods. The more we eat, the better off we are.
I’ve lost sight of the real food philosophy several times. But am back on track now. Real food just feels better when I eat it. I feel like everything works better too.