Stop Believing the Hype!
Best-selling author Gary Taubes breaks down four basic rules that will finally let you drop those extra kilos this year.
You’ve probably got tonnes of advice, tips, and Tweets, all offering up some magic formula to lose weight. But none seem to work. So throw that conventional wisdom you’ve always believed out the window, and instead, follow these simple rules.
RULE NUMBER 1
STOP COUNTING CALORIES
You’ve heard that if you balance the calories you consume with the calories you expend, you won’t gain weight. Even better, if you consume fewer calories than you expend, you can lose weight. The problem with this? There’s no way to be accurate with this formula. If the chef at the restaurant throws some extra chicken onto your salad at lunch every day, that can add up to 20 calories more per day that you don’t even realise you’re eating. Over the course of a year, that one extra bite a day can add up to four extra kilos of weight. And if you’re thinking, I can just eat a little less salad or exercise a little more, you still won’t know whether your body is storing that bite’s worth of calories every day. Your body is making the decision to store the calories or burn them, regardless of whether you consciously decide to eat less or exercise more.
RULE NUMBER 2
PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU EAT
The foods you eat have vastly different effects on how much insulin is in your system. Insulin is a hormone in our bodies, not only to regulate our blood-sugar levels but to regulate the absorption rate of various nutrients throughout our system. When insulin levels in your blood are elevated, you store calories as fat and burn carbohydrates for