7. "Good fats" are less fattening than bad fats
Poly-saturated fats are associated with arterial plaque and cholesterol buildup, and are implicated in coronary heart disease as well as higher incidences of many forms of cancer. Poly-unsaturated fats are indeed more healthful in many respects. On the other hand, saturated and unsaturated fats are absolutely indistinguishable when it comes to weight loss or management, and physique development. Dietary fat is higher in calories compared to similar amounts of proteins and carbohydrates, and calories from fat more readily stored as body fat than the same number of dietary calories from non-fat sources. In terms of health and wellness concerns, you should eliminate saturated fats by replacing them with unsaturated fats whenever possible; in terms of esthetic concerns like body-shaping or weight loss, fat is fat, and you need to reduce your consumption as much as possible to achieve significant results.
8. Calories are calories, so it doesn't matter what types of food sources they come from
Calories from fat are more fattening than the same number of calories from carbohydrates or proteins. When you eat too many calories in the form of carbohydrates, the excess is converted to and stored as body-fat. The same is true when you eat too many calories in the form of fat. The reason excess calories from fat sources are more fattening than excess calories from non-fat sources is that a higher percentage of excess fat calories are stored as fat than the percentage stored from non-fat excess calorie sources. Your body expends energy (measured in calories burned) even in the process of digesting foods and storing body fat.
Approximately one-quarter of excess calories from carbohydrates are burned in the process of converting them to body-fat. By contrast, only about five percent of excess calories from fat sources are burned in the same process; fat calories are stored much more efficiently because they require less molecular conversion. This means if you consume 200 calories too many mostly from dietary fat, approximately 190 are stored as body-fat, as opposed to about 150 from 200 excess calories from non-fat sources. Over a period of one year this represents a very substantial difference in weight loss between someone who makes an effort to reduce calories partly by eliminating dietary fat and someone who reduces his or her calorie intake by the same exact percentage, but without specifically trying to eliminate sources of dietary fat as well.
9. Aerobic Exercises like running are effective for weight loss
Aerobic exercises burn calories and speed up your metabolism for a few hours afterwards. They can also significantly improve your fitness level, cardiovascular efficiency and overall health. In fact, studies show that the biggest difference between elderly people who remain relatively vibrant and healthy and those who suffer continually from health problems is that those who remain relatively healthy are more physically active. On the other hand, the biggest difference between people who lose weight successfully and those whose attempts to do so fail is that those who manage to lose weight focus primarily on eliminating dietary fat and cutting calories, while those who do not manage to lose weight focus primarily on exercising while maintaining the same diet that accounted for their being overweight in the first place.
Aerobic exercise is a wonderful adjunct to a weight loss program, but virtually useless without an appropriate emphasis on diet. By contrast, even a completely sedentary person can lose a significant amount of weight simply by adopting better eating habits, without a bit of exercise. At the simplest level, even a vigorous aerobic workout burns at most a couple of hundred calories an hour, and only on the days one actually works out. Generally, people who are overweight (and/or over-fat) consume at least four or five thousand excess calories a week. In order to burn that many excess calories, one would have to run or swim or treadmill at least two hours a day, seven days a week. On another level, psychologically speaking, people who focus on burning calories to lose weight constantly make little deals or "promise" themselves to go to the gym to burn off calories they are about to overeat throughout the day.
But as often as not, by the end of the day, they don't have the energy to workout.
Even people who do stick to an exercise program take time off, go on vacations, and get injured or sick. Once you learn how to control your weight through your diet though, you don't have to do anything extra every day to keep it up, because it just becomes part of your life's routine. Adding an aerobic exercise program can definitely improve your fitness level, cardiovascular system and health, and play a significant role in personal health, but a weight loss program that ignores diet is virtually doomed to fail.
