Are You Truly Healthy? 3 Health Myths That May Surprise You.
There is a lot of misinformation out there about what is truly healthy and good for us. And it can be hard to navigate what is healthy if you are not a healthcare provider or study health for a living. Check out these three health myths.
Gluten Free is Good for Everyone: It is true that lowering our intake of foods that contain processed wheat flour is good for all of us. Gluten is the protein found in wheat flour. However, switching our diet from abstaining from wheat flour and substituting it with other types of flour such as rice, tapioca, and other starchy binders is not always healthy for us all. If you are diagnosed with Celiac Disease (an autoimmune disease that causes an allergic reaction to the gluten protein in wheat flour) then abstaining from wheat flour is a must. But if you are not allergic to this ingredient, it may not be best to substitute for it at all. Instead, we should just avoid eating too much processed wheat flour and rather focus on eating more whole fruits and vegetables. Having a diet that is filled with "gluten-free" items is not healthy.
Increasing Cardio Will Decrease Weight: It is true that we need to get active and get our heart rate up to burn calories. However, doing all cardio to lose weight will be much harder than if you mix in weight and resistance training into your program. By adding resistance training to your weight loss program, you can build muscle and change your body composition. When our bodies have more muscle mass, it requires more energy to move Therefore when we have more muscles, we burn more calories when we do cardio. Additionally, our bodies will work more efficiently with more muscle mass. This is in part due to the requirement that muscles also need a good amount of oxygen to function. So doing cardio with more muscle mass can increases our lung capacity as well.
Eating Lots of Fruit is Good for You: It is true that fruit can be a healthier option in our diets, as compared to some desserts and sweets. And fruit also offers many antioxidants that are helpful in healthy living. However in some cases, eating too much fruit, especially fruits with higher sugar content (like bananas, oranges, and peaches) can lead to glucose spikes in our blood stream. This can be particularly bad for someone with diabetes or glucose intolerance. Sticking with more vegetables than fruits is the best option for us all.
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