Making the decision to lose weight is hard. Knowing where to start is even harder. Let us help you navigate some of the most common weight loss myths, so you can get started and feel your best.
Myth 1: You need medication to lose weight.
While some people have a hard time losing weight without medication due to health conditions like metabolic disease, hormone imbalances and diabetes, others can lose weight without medication. To lose weight without medication, you will need to change your diet and move your body more than you are right now.
This can be difficult, especially if you don’t know where to start. Luckily, Parker Mason Wellness’s expert nurse practitioners can break it down for you.
- You want to eat at least 3 meals a day, prioritizing protein and limiting fats and simple carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates like oats, whole wheat breads, quinoa, brown rice, and beans are slower to digest and break down. This helps you feel full longer. Proteins are a little harder to break down into energy after you eat them. This means your body uses more energy to make energy from protein compared to carbohydrates.
- Movement burns more calories than sitting or laying down, and any movement is good movement. We recommend at least 30 minutes of movement, 4 times per week. This may seem impossible if you’re not exercising right now. The good news is, you can start at just 10 minutes of movement – any movement – daily. Over time, work on increasing how long you move your body to get up to 30 minutes daily, 4 times per week. While this exercise can be as simple as a brisk walk, ideally it would include some weight training. The reasoning behind adding in weight training is to preserve your muscles when you lose weight. Muscles also burn more calories than other tissues.
- Weight loss medications can be excellent tools in helping you reach your goal weight. A number of weight loss medications like semaglutide and tirzepatide also help lower your risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and kidney disease.
The key to any weight loss, with or without medication is consistency. You don’t have to follow your diet and exercise plan perfectly, you just have to start and try your best every day.
Myth 2: If you take medication for weight loss, you have to stay on that medication or you’ll regain the weight.
Yes, if you take medication for weight loss and do not adjust your eating habits, diet and do not exercise, you will regain the weight when you stop the weight loss medications.
This is why Parker Mason Wellness includes personalized nutrition and exercise coaching with every weight loss package. We believe these medications are tools, to help you reach your goal weight and improve your health. In our weight loss program, you will learn how to change your lifestyle to make your weight loss not only achievable, but sustainable.
Myth 3: Weight gain is related to eating too much and not exercising, hormones and stress don’t play a role.
For some people, weight loss is related to eating too many calories and not moving your body enough. For many people, weight loss is related to hormonal imbalances.
When women start to experience perimenopause and menopause, the change in estrogen, progesterone and testosterone can lead to weight gain, and make losing weight harder.
For men, when they reach midlife and testosterone levels start to decline, it makes losing weight and gaining muscle more difficult.
Finally, if you’re in a constant state of stress – be it from work, caring for aging parents, caring for your children, financial strain, chronic health conditions, or stress from day to day life – your body increases the stress hormone cortisol. Elevated cortisol makes losing weight very difficult, because of its effect on appetite and energy. Cortisol can cause cravings for sweets, which are usually high calorie and low nutritional value. It can also make you feel more tired, making exercise and daily movement harder to accomplish.
Managing hormonal changes throughout life’s twists and turns can seem daunting. Parker Mason Wellness can help you navigate these changes to help you feel your best and meet your goals.
