In this article, I debunk the myth that eating healthy = fat loss.
It is a myth that lead me to not make progress towards my fitness related goals for years. The siren call of this myth is strong.
Why? Well, it only seems logical! If you eat healthy food, you should lose the fat you want! I mean, you put in the effort to eat healthy, shouldn’t there be a good result?
But this lacks precision!
All salads are not created equal! All healthy foods are not the same!
Look at these pictures:
Ok maybe not the ideal pictures, but the picture on the left is a salad with avocado and eggs, and the picture on the right is a salad without avocado and eggs. That is my point.
Avocado and eggs are healthy food! Or at least most people would deem it so. Yet, they can be high calorie foods. As such, if you ate high calorie salads, you might not lose the fat that you might want to lose.
The above might be disturbing to some. So avocado and eggs are bad? NO! I am not saying that these are foods that you should avoid. I’m saying that even when it comes to healthy food, count your calories!
Recall that I said this myth of eating healthy kept me from achieving my goals?
Let me share with you my story!
When I was younger, I read many fitness articles and blogs. and I did read about calorie counting and the many fitness myths out there.
Imagine, one source saying that just eating healthy foods the large majority of the time vs another source saying that you have to count your calories, which is harder to follow?
To me, it was the counting your calories. Boy! I sure didn’t want the hassle of that. I was biased against it. Further, healthy food tasted great to me! Peanut butter? Eggs? Avocado? Yoghurt? Give them to me! YUM!
Thus, I told myself, just eat healthy. You will get the results you want. And so, my breakfast for years was whole grain bread with peanut butter. Peanut butter is healthy fat right?
But peanut butter is too high in calories! And so, I never cut the fat I wanted to lose. Worst, I thought that maybe my body couldn’t lose that last bit of fat! Mind you, I was still about 17% body fat, so it was still okay for me to lose some fat.
Over the years, I finally learnt better when I got agitated enough with my lack of progress and tried new things.
I think the reason some fitness myths prevail is because it actually works for some people. For some, telling them to eat healthy might be a big improvement and their appetites would not make them eat a high calorie number.
Following the teaching of eating healthy would make them consume less than maintenance calories and they would be satisfied i.e. they would not overeat the healthy food.
So yes, it can work. But at my website, I hope to give the right information that works most often. If method A works 60% of the time, and method B works 99.99% of the time. I promote method B. Awesome huh!
For others, like myself, if calories were not counted and I was only told to eat healthy food, I would overeat in terms of calories. I would eat too much healthy food! I have a big appetite.
So what am I saying?
If you wanted a surefire way to lose fat (provided you workout properly too, else it could be muscle loss), count your calories and make sure it is under maintenance levels.
If you need a professional to guide you with this, contact me. Click on the “Contact” option at the top of the page.
Also, to be clear about this, I am supportive of eating healthy fats! Do eat your avocado and eggs. But also, do keep in mind the total calorie consumption from day-to-day.
If you enjoyed the free article and would like to return the favor to the website, do it by sharing the article with a friend, or liking and subscribing to the blog, or leaving a comment down below! Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Lean. Fit. You. 