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Living And Eating Healthy: Myths Vs. Facts!
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Lots of people want to be healthy, but they have all kinds of negative preconceived notions about the difficulties of living a healthy lifestyle. They think it’s just too expensive, too hard and too much work to eat right, exercise or maintain a proper weight. We’re here today to respectfully argue that this is a bunch of B.S. Let’s examine each one of these myths and explain the truth so you can start living a healthy lifestyle and stop putting it off over mistaken beliefs.
Myth 1: Eating healthy is just too expensive
This is a very persistent and widely-held belief, and if you’ve ever taken a trip to Whole Foods, it’s easy to see why. Many foods sold at high-end grocery stores, especially organic ones, are indeed more expensive. But the trick here is to shop smart and make sure you’re buying the right things at the right time.
Plan your meals in advance so you can buy in bulk and get several meals out of one session of cooking. Make sure you’re looking at the price per ounce, pound or gram, and check how many servings you’re getting out of each package. Something like steel cut oats, for instance, might seem like it’s more expensive than a generic box of breakfast cereal. But check to see how many servings you’re getting out of each box: If the box of oats is $5, but you get 20 servings out of it, then the oats are a better buy than the $3 box of cereal which offers 10 servings. This principle is applicable to almost any kind of food.
Buying fruits and vegetables when they’re in season is also a great way to get better deals, and to make sure that they’re probably coming from local farms, as opposed to being shipped from a different region of the world.
Finally, there are some healthy foods that are, in absolute terms, a little more expensive than the groceries you might normally buy. But let’s consider the fact that eating healthier foods means you will be healthier. Compare the cost of paying a little more for groceries with the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs, which you’re more likely to need if you eat a mediocre diet. It’s not even close. It’s FAR cheaper to just pay a little more for good food and keep yourself healthy in the first place.
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Myth 2: I’ll have to spend hours doing cardio to lose weight. Who has time for that?
Wrong. It’s true that engaging in any form of exercise, particularly cardiovascular exercise, will burn calories and assist with losing weight. But what’s also true is that improving your diet is far, far more important for shedding unwanted pounds than any form of exercise.
Reducing the amount of sugar, high-glycemic index carbs like white rice and polyunsaturated fats like vegetable oil will be very beneficial if your goal is to lose weight. Instead, eat more healthy fats like coconut or extra virgin olive oil, as well as vegetables, fruits and high-quality proteins like grass-fed beef.
If you’re already overweight, you’ll most likely lose more weight in a shorter period of time by adopting a healthy diet without exercising than you will if you continue to eat less-healthy food while following an exercise program. Cardio helps, but putting the right fuel in your body will do far more for reducing weight than anything else.
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Myth 3: I’ll have to live in the gym if I want to be healthy
This is also a huge misconception. The correct amount of time to spend exercising will depend on what your goal is, but generally speaking, it’s probably not nearly as much time as you might think. Unless you’re a professional athlete or bodybuilder, there’s no reason to be spending hours and hours a day in the gym.
30 minutes walking, 20 minutes running outside or on the treadmill or 45 minutes lifting weights is probably all you need! Part of exercise is giving yourself enough time to recover, so you don’t want to spend too much time in the gym. Exercising should be part of a comprehensive approach to a healthy lifestyle. If you’re doing it right, it becomes a part of your day that you look forward to, rather than a chore.
READ ALSO: 10 Common Food Myths For People With Diabetes
Hopefully this changes the way you think about leading a healthy lifestyle. You don’t have to break the bank at the grocery store or spend your whole life in the gym. It’s just a matter making different choices, following proven techniques and committing to making a change.
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