Things You Thought Were Good for You

Appetizer
Conventional wisdom isn’t always so wise.

Main Course

Fruit Juice
Go to your refrigerator and look at the sugar content on your orange juice. I’m guessing it's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty to thirty grams in a single glass, the equivalent to downing about four tablespoons of pure sugar. And as you already know, sugar encourages your body to store fat. There’s nothing wrong with eating whole fruit, which has a lot more nutrients and fiber and a lot less sugar, but you lose a lot of nutritional value when it’s turned into a juice.

Wheat Bread
Actually, wheat bread is better for you than white bread so long as it is actual, genuine wheat bread and not “enriched” wheat bread. “Enriched” basically means they processed and bleached the wheat until it doesn’t have any of the original nutritional benefits, and added vitamins back in. Believe it or not, some brands even add high fructose corn syrup to the bread. Always make the first ingredient on the list is “whole wheat” when purchasing wheat bread.

Foods marketed as “Low Fat”
There are tons of “low fat” foods that are also high in starchy carbs and sugar. After all, there’s more to good nutrition than lowering your fat intake, right?

Sharply Cutting Calories
If you eat too few calories, perhaps under 1200 a day or so for the average person, your metabolism may slow to a standstill, and you could wind up storing fat and losing muscle. The only healthy way to lose weight is gradually.

Find Smart Ways to Cut Calories

Dessert
If you ever discover you’ve been doing something very wrong in your diet or fitness plan (like you may have just done while reading this blog post), don’t beat yourself up about it. I sometimes encounter people who have been doing exercises in the least efficient and most joint-damaging ways possible for years before being shown there was a better way. The people with the most success are the ones who take new knowledge, apply it, and don’t worry about what they used to do.