Top 25 Weight Loss Myths and Facts

What's a myth about weight loss? It's a false belief to lose weight. Myths evolve around a real concept, a principle. The more time passes, the more the initial concept undergoes changes and transformations to reach the myth. Although the change can only be slight, it can affect your results. Here are the 25 most common myths about weight loss that you should not follow if you want to lose a few pounds.

Myth 25: Losing weight is good for your health.

The term "weight loss" has dominated the food industry. The result of any weight loss program is a reduction in body weight. In United Estates more than 40% of the population is overweight and these people are supposed to lose weight to improve their health. But, is losing weight really what overweight people need?

In fact: Losing weight is not necessarily healthy. Losing fat is good for your health. Weight loss can be the result of water loss or muscle loss, so losing weight is unhealthy. Muscle must be preserved at all costs when dieting. Effective diets (Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, etc.) are designed to preserve muscle and burn fat. Fashionable diets, fast diets or very low calorie diets reduce your muscle capital. Following a diet means losing fat and fat only.

Myth 24: Some foods help you burn calories because they provide negative calories.

Some fruits and vegetables, such as celery, lettuce, broccoli and grapefruit are known as "fat burners". That's because you're supposed to provide less energy than you need to digest them. You are supposed to eat as many of these "calorie negative" foods as you want without gaining an ounce of weight. They might even help you burn fat because they probably burn more calories than they provide.

In fact, no food is known to provide negative calories. Some foods such as chilies, tea and coffee may increase your resting metabolism (your body continues to burn energy at rest) but there is no evidence that any food can be "calorically negative". The thermal effect of all known foods is 10-20% of the calories they provide. This means that when you eat a 20 calorie stalk of celery, your body uses 4 calories to process it (thermal effect) and stores the remaining 16 calories. Of course, these 16 calories will not cause you to gain a measurable amount of weight, which explains the notion of "calorie-free" or "negative calorie" that appeared at the time.

Myth 23: Natural supplements are safe for weight loss.

Natural supplements (such as certain herbs or medicinal plants) have always been popular because they are supposedly free of harmful substances (preservatives, artificial additives, etc.) and side effects associated with conventional drugs. When you read the label "natural", you tend to think that the supplement must be the side effect.

Free, safe and effective?

In reality, so-called natural supplements do not require FDA (Food and Drugs Association) approval. Therefore, they are not subject to the same scientific reviews as drugs. Some herbal supplements contain bioactive substances that have important effects in the body, especially when taken in combination with prescribed medications.

For example, ephedrine, an herbal substance that has been used for years in dietary supplements, has been banned by the FDA due to growing safety concerns that even include the risk of death. As a result, a weight loss product marketed as "natural" is neither necessarily effective nor safe. Often the term "natural" is a "boat" term.

Myth 22: To lose weight you will have to avoid all your favourite foods.

No chocolate, no fast food, no white bread, no sweet sodas and the list goes on. You are supposed to avoid foods you like in order to lose weight.

In reality, losing weight is all about calories and calories expended. If you burn more calories than you consume, it doesn't matter where the calories come from. You will lose weight by eating all kinds of food. Avoiding processed foods and bad fats is good for your health. Eliminating these foods from your diet will not help you lose weight faster. Depriving yourself of your favourite foods is not fun and will not last. When you diet, allow yourself to eat what you want from time to time.

Myth 21: Eat low-fat or fat-free foods to avoid calories

Low-fat or fat-free foods are plentiful on grocery store shelves. Fat is known to be the most calorie-dense macronutrient. One gram of fat provides 9 calories compared to 4 calories contained in one gram of protein or carbohydrate.  So eating only fat-free foods does not mean avoiding calories. What matters is the total number of calories in your meal, not the amount of fat.

If the number of calories in your meal is high, the fact that it contains no fat makes no difference. There are so many low-fat products that contain a ton of sugar. Peaks in blood sugar are regularly associated with fat deposits, the worst form of fat in the body. So when the label says "fat free", check the sugar and carbohydrate content.

Fat should not be completely eliminated for other reasons. Studies show that fat makes you feel full. Fats delay digestion and make you feel full longer.

Myth 20: Avoiding fast food helps you lose weight.

Eating fast food increases the risk of gaining weight because fast food is usually loaded with sugar, fat and all sorts of bad calories. However, not everyone who regularly eats fast food is overweight.

In fact, to lose weight, all you need to do is eat fewer calories than you burn. Based on this principle, you can eat whatever you want, including fast food, and not gain an ounce.

Myth 19: Skipping meals is a great way to lose weight.

People who want to lose weight often say that reducing the number of meals in a day is a good thing. They mistakenly assume that if they skip a meal, they will eat less throughout the day. Is this correct? No.

In fact, eating less than 3 meals a day has been shown to increase hunger. Studies show that skipping one meal, especially breakfast, will make you eat more at subsequent meals. Not only will you eat more, but you will also show a preference for high-fat foods. As a result, you will consume more calories than if you ate several small meals over the course of the day. Research concludes that people who eat less per day tend to be overweight.

Myth 18: Eating at night is fattening

According to this misconception, the food you eat before you go to bed is stored as fat, because while you sleep you burn very little energy. In reality, studies have shown that the time of day you eat is related to your total daily intake. So if you eat most of your food at the beginning of the day, you will feel full throughout the day and eat less food afterwards.

On the other hand, if you eat the majority of your food during the day, the satiety effect will be weaker and you will eat more calories during the day. However, while eating your meals relatively early in the day will help you consume fewer calories, eating at night will not in itself help you gain weight. You will only gain weight if you eat more calories than you burn. So, 

You can eat only one meal a day, at midnight, and lose weight simply because you are in negative caloric balance.

Myth 17: Don't eat walnuts because they are high in calories.

Nuts are high in calories. A cup (100 g) of almonds, for example, contains more than 550 calories, the equivalent of 8 slices of whole wheat bread. So, eating nuts is very high in calories, isn't it?

In fact, studies have shown that nuts don't make you fat. People who eat nuts do not gain weight. In fact, they tend to lose some weight for the following three reasons: (1) Nuts are not completely absorbed by the human body. A significant amount of calories are expelled through the stool. (2) Nuts are filling. This means that you will eat less food at subsequent meals and offset the calories you have taken in by eating nuts. (3) Nuts increase your energy expenditure at rest by 11%. Collectively, these mechanisms prevent you from gaining weight when you eat nuts. That's why weight loss programs such as Atkins, Medifast, and Weight Watchers encourage nut consumption.

Myth 16: Calories aren't important, portion control is.

Some people find it boring to count the calories they consume. After all, how do you know the calorie content of every food you eat? They think that by eating less food (i.e. a smaller piece of cake) they will lose weight. And, from time to time, they may lose weight.

Fact: You will never lose weight if you don't eat less than you burn. This is called "caloric deficit". In order to establish a caloric deficit, you need to know your daily energy expenditure and the amount of calories you eat each day. You can certainly reduce the portions you eat and hope that at the end of the day you have burned more calories than you consumed. Effective weight loss, however, is not the result of guesswork. Counting calories is necessary for weight loss, and it can be very easy using online calorie calculators.

Myth 15: Bread and other carbohydrates make you fatter

Bread and other starchy foods, such as potatoes and rice, contain carbohydrates. Some people argue that you should avoid carbohydrates when you want to lose weight.

In fact, a balanced diet requires carbohydrates. None of the three macronutrients (carbohydrates, fat, protein) are fattening. Only excess calories can make you gain weight. You can eat as many carbohydrates as you want. If your total daily caloric intake is less than the calories you burn, you will not gain weight.

Myth 14: Don't eat dessert

Biscuits and cakes are generally not included in diets. Desserts contain sugar and fat so they make you fat. Is this correct? Not really.

In fact: Research has shown that eating a dessert, especially in the morning, decreases cravings throughout the day. People who included dessert in their diet not only lost more weight than those who avoided it, but they did not gain weight back for longer. A diet that completely eliminates candy increases the desire for these foods to the point of creating a long-term dependency. So don't deprive yourself of candy.

Myth 13: Exercise is enough, dieting is not necessary.

How many times have you heard a person say right before eating a meal: "I'll burn it with exercise"

In fact: Although exercise is a great way to burn calories, most of the time it is not enough to create the caloric deficit required for weight loss. Dieting is the key. Think about it: To lose 500 grams per week, you need to burn 500 more calories per day than you eat. If you rely on exercise alone to achieve this 500-calorie deficit, you should swim for one hour every day, or walk briskly for two hours, or clean your house for three hours. It's hard to do these activities every day in this amount of time. A snack such as two cans of Coca-Cola or two large lattes contains 500 calories. What do you prefer? Walk for 2 hours or cut out the calorie-laden snacks? Exercise alone won't help you lose weight quickly. Calorie restriction is much more effective.

Myth 12: Fad diets are good for weight loss

Lose 7 kilos in 7 days! "Lose inches around your waist by wearing the belt that tones your muscles!" Have you noticed that every year there is a new diet or training craze that will help you get in better shape? People get excited about a new method of losing weight without losing because it makes bold promises and seems to work better than its predecessors. First there was the cabbage soup diet, the lemon-red diet, pepper juice, then came the African cacti, the Hoodia pills, and the list goes on and on.

In reality, fashionable diets are temporary. They will help you lose a few pounds, but they require you to strictly limit your calories, eliminate many foods from your diet or take an appetite suppressant pill. You will soon realize that this approach is not sustainable. It is difficult to follow. Popular diets are usually not balanced. That's why they come and go. Their results are short-lived and so is their fame. Here's an example: The Ab Circle Pro merchants promised that you would lose 10 kilos in 2 weeks, if you exercised on their abdominal exercise machine for 3 minutes a day. They are now being billed by the Federal Trade Commission to pay $25 million in reimbursement because of their false allegations. Fashion can be deceptive. Be aware of that.

Myth 11: Become a vegetarian to lose weight and stay healthy.

According to this misconception, fruits and vegetables are low in calories and contain vitamins and minerals and should therefore help you lose weight and contribute to good health.

In fact, a vegetarian diet, if not properly planned, can make you gain weight and cause a nutritional deficit. Like all other diets, a vegetarian diet requires careful planning to lose weight and improve health. No matter what diet you follow, you will always gain weight if you eat more than you burn.

Although vegetarian foods are generally not calorie dense, there are many calorie choices available such as vegetable oils (e.g. olive oil), fruits (such as avocados), starchy foods (potatoes) that can cause rapid weight gain in vegetarians. In addition, research has shown that vegetarians tend to be deficient in iron, vitamin D, calcium, vitamin B12, zinc and protein, leading to reduced bone density, a risk factor for fractures and increased vulnerability to cardiovascular disease when compared to their non-vegetarian counterparts. Becoming vegetarian does not mean being healthier if careful planning is not associated with it.

Myth 10: The scales are your enemy when you're dieting

A ship can't reach its destination without GPS? A business cannot grow without knowing whether net profits are up or down on the balance sheet? Yet some people believe that you can actually reach your weight loss goal without knowing how much you weigh over the course of it.

In fact: The scale is necessary. When you diet to lose weight, your body weight does not follow a straight downward line. It varies from top to bottom with a general downward trend. If you get on the scale every day, you become aware of these periodic "highs", and this can discourage you or even sabotage your initial enthusiasm. Therefore, weighing yourself every day can sabotage your weight loss efforts. Weighing yourself in longer intervals (once a week) is absolutely necessary to lose weight effectively.

Myth 9: Starving yourself is the best way to lose weight

How many times have we heard someone say, "I'm not going to eat because I want to lose weight. " They obviously think that by drastically reducing calories, they will lose weight. You can humorously tell them, "Lock yourself in a room. A friend will throw stale bread at you once a day, and in a little while you'll come out thinner.

Fact: Starvation is never good for weight loss. Restricting your calories is necessary for weight loss. However, you need to be aware of two things. First, there is a limit to caloric restriction. Usually, going below 1000 calories per day over a long period of time is unhealthy. Hunger lowers your metabolism and the amount of energy you burn. You will surely lose weight after such a diet, but when you start eating again, you will gain weight much more easily because you will not burn calories as quickly as you did before you started the diet. Second, severe calorie restriction opens the door to nutritional imbalance. It is almost impossible to follow such a diet and make sure you take in the necessary nutrients at the same time. Caloric restriction must be moderate and carefully planned to safeguard nutritional balance.

Myth 8: Use diet pills for lasting weight loss

These kinds of pills work by either cutting off your hunger, increasing your metabolism, or blocking the absorption of fat. Will you end up losing weight anyway? What about the reality? You can't use these kinds of pills indefinitely. Medications have side effects and herbal supplements are just a help that can't save you from bad food choices and lack of physical activity. Eventually, you will have to learn to eat properly again and exercise.

Myth 7: Healthy eating is more expensive

We often hear: "It's good for your health, so it's expensive". Not necessarily.

In fact, organic food is more expensive than regular food. Healthy food doesn't have to be organic, however, and as a result, it can be more expensive. You can buy cookies saturated with sugar and fat or buy healthy ingredients (oats, brown sugar, eggs) to make healthier cookies cheaper.

Myth 6: Avoid snacking between meals

I once asked a friend why he gained so much weight. He said, "I nibbled a lot." If it's true that snacking makes you gain weight, the reality is different: Snacking is good. The question is, what do you eat for snacking? It's 4 p.m. and the vending machine calls you? Instead of reaching for 440 calories of pie, take 180 calories from a plain oatmeal and honey or protein bar or a Smoothie you brought from home.

Myth 5: Drinking water makes you lose weight

Water melts fat, some people say. Many people consider this statement to be true.

In reality, drinking water does not speed up the metabolism. It is true, however, that you feel full, especially when drunk before a meal. Sometimes hunger and thirst can be confused. You feel hungry, but as soon as you have swallowed a glass of water or juice, the sensation will have disappeared. And your body has just registered to store the next 200 calories from the cookies in its reserves.

Myth 4: You'll never gain weight back if you maintain a stable diet and regular physical activity.

You have managed to maintain an ideal weight for the past two years by working one hour a day and eating 1600 calories. And you wrongly think that you won't gain weight if you continue like this.

In fact, as you age, your metabolism decreases. That's because your constitution is changing. At 70, a man has less muscle and more fat than a 20-year-old man of the same weight. Therefore, with your metabolism declining year after year, you will need to decrease your daily caloric intake and/or increase your physical activity in order to maintain your weight.

Myth 3: Your diet won't work if you cheat

You have to follow your goals to the letter if you want it to work, is a mantra we often hear. People then think that cheating is wrong. But is it true?

Actually, cheating once in a while is a good thing. In fact, many diets are adopting the "weekend" technique. Cheating has a lot to do with successful weight loss.

That's because you take a day or two of mental break from enjoying the foods you love. In addition, by increasing calories on the days you take a break, you're applying the principle of calorie transfer that helps speed up your metabolism.

Myth 2: Yo-yo diets disrupt your metabolism

Low-calorie diets abound. Yet none of them work in the long run. In a desperate effort to lose weight, some people adhere to a very low-calorie diet. They lose weight and are delighted. Unfortunately, they lose muscle, too. As a result, their metabolism drops and weight loss stops abruptly. They soon realize that it is impossible to keep this low-calorie diet going any longer and stop it. They return to their normal eating habits until they decide to try another low-calorie diet. This pattern is typical of the Yo-Yo diet and is haunted by the myth that it permanently lowers your metabolism.

In fact, the change in metabolism caused by the Yo-Yo is reversible. What you need to do to get your metabolism back to the desired speed is to exercise and eat a healthy diet that promotes muscle building. Strength training is the remedy for a weak metabolism.

Myth 1: Cardio is better than fitness or weight training for fat loss.

The most common exercise prescribed for overweight people is walking or jogging. This is because cardio exercises are easier to do than anaerobic strength training (weightlifting). Most people can walk for an hour a day, but they find that it is tedious to do resistance exercises day after day. In addition, there is this misconception that cardio is more effective for weight loss than strength training. Is this true?

In fact: In the long run, strength training and fitness burn more calories than aerobic activities. There are two reasons for this. First, aerobic activities only burn energy during the time they are performed. Once you get off the treadmill you stop burning fat. On the other hand, strength training keeps your metabolism high even 24-48 hours after the activity has been performed. You can lift weights for 30 minutes today, but you will continue to lose fat, even in your sleep or when you watch TV a day later. Secondly, the results of strength training lead to an increase in muscle mass. Muscle tissue is metabolically active and burns calories, even when you sleep.