Health professionals are those who give advice to patients and clients as regards their health status and how they can improve it. These patients believe the advice given to them hook, line and sinker without a rethink. In my few years of writing nutrition articles, I have seen many write ups by certified health professionals especially Nutritionist and Dieticians who have erroneously misled their readers on some issues.
In view of this, I have come up with four of the most common statements made by them. See below to check them out.
To Get Energy, You Need Carbs:
Completely wrong! To get energy, you will need to consume all the three macro nutrients; Carbohydrates, Protein and Fat. In fact a gram of fat provides more than twice the kcal of energy as available in carbohydrates which provides 4 kcal/gram, protein; 4 kcal/gram but fat; 9 kcal/gram.
To Lose Weight; A No Fat Or Only Fruit Diet Is The Way:
This is gradually becoming the common trend even among diet professionals. The truth is that, losing weight via this method is not healthy and your chances of gaining the pounds of fat back are high. Removing fat does not help; in fact, it slows down your ability to lose fat.
It is advisable to include healthy fat like those high in omega 3 and Omega 6 at calculated amount which have been found to be helpful. Also, fruits are healthy and good for nutrition, however, in your quest to lose weight, it will be counterproductive to subscribe to an only fruit diet as the body system also needs other nutrients to metabolise fat.
Skipping Meals Is A Healthy Way To Lose Calories:
Each time I hear or read this, I cannot but start laughing. When you skip meals there is a tendency you will bounce back to eat more. Eventually, you will not be able to reduce your calorie intake. Asides that, skipping meals make you feel weak and tire as no energy and nutrients to get your system running.
You might want to speak to a practicing nutritionist who will help you make healthy calculated diet plan with appropriate portion control throughout your meal times. It is completely a NO NO! to skip breakfast.
To Stay Hydrated, You Must Drink 8 Glasses or 2 litres of water:
One piece of information I have always passed to my clients when they come for consultation is that in nutrition science or therapy, no shoe fits all and so, it will be out of place to make a generalised statement on issues like this until research says so. Till date, there hasn’t been any scientific finding that says one must drink 2 litres or 8 glasses of water.
It is important to communicate to readers that; while this information might not be untrue, it is not a fast rule. To hydrate your body, you have to respond to the water need of your body. Some might need up to 3 litres per day while other would be fine with about 1.5 Litres.
