Some of us are just bigger boned than others.
True, some of us are bigger boned than others. However, that does not account for more than 5-10 pounds, at most. The whole concept of being “big boned” came from weight charts that insurance companies created decades ago. These charts were made up of the weights of a group of (white male) people who had applied for life insurance. The insurance company executives decided to divide the group by weight into thirds, and categorized the people as having small, medium, or large frames in that way. There was no science behind it. Body Mass Index (BMI) is much more accurate as a way to evaluate your body weight, regardless of gender.
Being big runs in my family. There is nothing I can do about it.
Unfortunately, with that belief, you are perfectly correct. If you believe that you can do nothing about it, then you can do nothing about it. Being open to the possibility that you can do something about it is the first and most important step in this situation.
Stop and observe a family of overweight people who are not dieting in a group or public setting. I often see that their plates are full of high fat foods, and lots of it. Even low fat foods are made into a higher calorie version i.e. fruit salad always has a dollop of whipped cream on it, burgers always have cheese. Salads have a very large amount of full calorie dressing on it. When children are fussy, a bottle or piece of food is put in their mouth.
Now, stop and observe the eating style of thinner people in the same settings. I often see a lot more whole or raw foods and a lot less food on their plates ( I can see plate showing around the food). I see them eating slower, and often seeming to lose interest and leaving part of the little bit of food they took in the first place. If the child says they are not hungry, parents simply say “OK” instead of insisting on them eating more.
Now look at you & your family. Really look and see if any of this might be true for you. Then you get to choose whether you still want to try & believe this, or if you want to begin to change.
Drinking lemon water helps lose weight.
There is nothing magic in a lemon that helps us lose weight. Drinking lemon in your water helps make the water taste better for a lot of people, which allows them to drink more. This is helpful when losing weight.
Eating grapefruit helps “burn off” more calories.
There is nothing magic in a grapefruit that helps us lose weight. Grapefruits do have a substance in them that partially blocks some metabolism in the liver, but this has more of an effect on the level of the medications we take, not on the food we eat. Grapefruits are bulky & low calorie, filling us up more, and so help us lose weight in that way.
Before going to sleep, massage the area that’s fattest & it will lose more.
This is a total wives tale. The only benefit might be to relax the underlying muscles in order to relax and sleep better.
I retain water, so I should not drink 8 glasses a day or I’ll retain even more water.
When we retain water, it is actually a salt problem, even though it looks like it is a water problem. When we drink more water, we actually dilute out the salt that has us retaining the water, and more of the salt and the water associated with it gets flushed out of our bodies. Try it yourself for one week, unless your doctor has you on a medical restriction of fluids. See if drinking 8 glasses a day of water will actually help your fluid retention.
Women look like body builders if they work out with weights.
Women would need the effects of a lot more testosterone (the “male” hormone) in our bodies to develop the kind of bulging muscles that men get, even doing the same kind of weight training routine. Women just get toned and sleeker. The bigger issue with weights is to work with a trainer or someone who knows what they are doing so that you train safely with weights.
I actually gain weight when I exercise, so I shouldn’t exercise when I want to lose weight.
Muscle is denser than fat, which means a six inch square of muscle weighs more than a six inch square of fat. Another way to look at it is that a pound of muscle is a smaller lump than a pound of fat. When we first begin exercising, we build more muscle and lose the corresponding fat. What may happen is that the scales show we’re at the same weight (for a while.) However, you are usually losing inches – don’t those clothes feel looser?
There is another benefit to gaining more muscle besides losing inches. Muscle has a higher metabolism than fat, which means we actually have to burn more calories to maintain our muscle than we do to maintain our fat. So when we are more fit with more well developed muscles, we’re are actually burning more calories, even sitting still. Part of the reason that men can lose weight easier than women is that most men have heavier (bigger) muscles than women, so they burn up more calories.
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