Myth - Eating Carbs In The Evening Will Make You Fat
This may well sound logical - kill the pasta, potatoes and bread after 5 p.m., otherwise they'll sit around in your digestive system while you're asleep and turn to fat. Or something like that.
With no carbs, most people will be drastically cutting the calorie content of their main meal of the day - the evening meal - and thus will lose weight. But…
The truth
This is just another faddy way to restrict calories, with no scientific basis, and, as such, it is not a good long-term strategy. Evenings are the ideal time to relax and enjoy food, and imposing a ban on a major part of most meals is, at best, foolish.
It is also not a good idea because carbs eaten in the evening (if they are the right carbs) can help you sleep well. Good-quality carbs in the evening are a good idea, not a bad one.
Myth: Meat Is Fattening Because It Takes So Long To Digest
I have read various rumours that red meat can 'stay in your body' for years, and because of this, it will make you fat.
The truth
Meat does take longer to digest than various other foods, such as refined carbohydrates. It is a protein food containing varying levels of fat - and both of these take longer to digest than starches. This, if you are trying to lose or maintain weight, is a good thing. It means you will be sated for longer than you would with many types of non-meat meal, your blood sugar levels will remain stable and you won't be rushing to the biscuit tin soon after a meal. (This is why so many vegetarians crave sweet foods - they need to be extra careful to replace meat with enough good-quality protein at every meal.)
That said, if you are a long-term vegetarian and then take up meat-eating again, it may take longer for your body to digest meat to begin with. According to Professor David Levitsky of Comell University, USA, the levels of enzymes that digest meat can fall over time without meat in the diet, but these levels will recover within a few days.
Also, length of digestion time has little bearing on whether a food ends up as fat on your body for people in normal health. A 200-calorie steak can't suddenly become a 300-calorie steak in your body, even if it takes a while to digest. The only way meat may make you fat is if you eat too much of it, particularly fatty cuts, or have it with things like pastry or slathered in cream. So eating less meat is not necessarily how to get rid of belly fat, in fact, there is reliable evidence to suggest that a diet high in lean protein (such as lean cuts of meat) can actually help to keep you slim.
