Diet and Exercise Myth #1: Carbs are evil (or carbs will make you fat)

Carbohydrate gets a bad rap these days, especially on social media and in some of the trendy diets.

But weight gain is the result of the quantity and type of carbs you eat — not the carbohydrates themselves.

It’s true that some types of carbohydrate are better for you than others, but it’s not as simple as some would have you believe and there’s no one size fits all.

Carbs aren’t evil. In fact, complex carbohydrates in whole foods are generally healthy. On the other hand, most of us would do well to eat less highly refined sugar than we do.

Fruit is awesome, so don’t shy away from the carbohydrate content that comes with fruit. The fibre you get at the same time as the fructose really smooths out the post-prandial blood glucose spike (post-prandial means "after eating"). The health benefits of fruit totally outweigh any concerns about carbs and calories.

Fresh fruit is mostly made of water and fibre, so fruit is not nearly as calorie dense as most people think. In fact, the evidence suggests that fruit actively helps you lose weight when eaten as part of a balanced diet.

It’s the simple sugars in highly processed foods, snacks, and confectionary that can be a problem. Those are highly refined, and really should be minimised or avoided altogether.

Soft drinks might be the worst offenders. If you drink soft drink, the biggest bang for your buck will be replacing it with sparkling mineral water or just plain water. Drinking your calories is one of the biggest mistakes that most people make when they’re trying to lose weight.