5 Myths about Weight Loss: Why it’s not your fault these diets don’t work
The diet industry is a billion dollar industry that makes its money on people striving to lose weight. We all know this. We are bombarded daily with TV and social media ads offering us the quick and easy solution to lose weight. I can’t remember a time in my life when there wasn’t beautiful people displayed on these ads telling us how easy it was to lose weight if we just followed this diet or that fad. Well decades later, American’s are not thinner and our overweight and obesity population has increased significantly. Something’s not working.
Myth 1: You need to exercise more and burn off those extra calories
This might make sense at first. Burn more calories than you eat and you will lose weight. Most of us have heard this growing up in the 1980’s and 90’s. So we filled the aerobic classes, joined local walking/running groups in our communities and became obsessed with doing extra physical activity with the mindset of needing to move more and eat less to get the extra unwanted weight off. But the potential 400 extra calories burned for a 150 lb woman running 3 miles daily left us hungrier, grumpy and another thing to fit into our already busy day with work, school, raising families etc.
Myth 2: You need to cut calories and starve yourself to lose weight
How many have heard this one? Have you been one of those that gave up some of your favorite foods only to find yourself cranky, irritable, and miserable? When we’re hungry, it’s very difficult to make good decisions with our stomachs grumbling. You may find it hard to concentrate on everyday tasks and get a good night sleep with a when you’re hungry. Our bodies are telling us it needs food and it needs it now. Unfortunately during this time, we tend to crave high calorie junk food. Because let’s face it. I don’t know anyone that craves an apple when they’re “starving”. The longer our hunger is present the more we want food. This primal instinct to satisfy our hunger intensifies and we often make poor food choices to satisfy it.
Have you ever rummaged through the pantry to find the easiest food item to satisfy your hunger versus cooking a healthy meal? Of course you have. Nearly everyone has. However, we often feel guilty about it afterwards and may not feel so good if we ate too much of a particular junk food item. (I love you peanut M & Ms but just can’t say no and walk away after a handful).
Your body is not broken. This is a common signal our bodies give us to survive when it senses we are not getting enough calories to function. Severely cutting calories may put us in a fight or flight response thus intensifying this effect further. My husband is always amazed when I can go from a little hungry to famished in what seems like 60 seconds flat. He has seen me go through the pantry and refrigerator like it’s the Daytona 500 trying to find something to stuff my face with to satisfy my raging hunger.
If we limit calories, we may slow down our metabolism. It is also possible for our bodies to stay in this slow metabolism when we go off a calorie restricted diet. If we don’t eat enough calories, we risk losing muscle mass since muscles burn more calories than fat including when we’re sitting around. This can lead to a domino effect of losing strength, balance, flexibility, declining bone health and other consequences.
Another problem with cutting calories is you may be missing out on key nutrients your body needs. Caloric intake is not as important as the quality of the food you eat. It’s important to have protein, healthy fats, quality carbs, grains, minerals and vitamins that support the body systems for optimal health.
If you are successful and achieve your “goal weight”, you may think your body will adapt and maintain that weight if you go back to your old way of eating. This rarely happens. It’s all too common that people regain the weight back and sometimes more weight than when they started. We then get upset and beat ourselves up for not having the “will power” to maintain our weight. Thus begins the”yo-yo” cycle of dieting and looking for the next fad diet to lose weight again. It never seems to end.
Myth 3: You need to cut out Fat to lose fat
Remember this one from the 80s. It’s when all those low-fat products started coming on the market flooding our grocery store shelves and blasting ads on TV. Although it’s less promoted today than 30 years ago, there are still low fat products on the shelves and so-called weight loss coaches touting its benefits despite research dispelling this myth long ago.
Eating fat does not make you fat. There are healthy fats and non-healthy fats like Trans fat. Our bodies’ process fats differently and may store some fat for times of famine. We need fats to store fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E and K. Healthy fats make you feel full and satiated so intake of carb cravings are kept in check. They help balance your blood sugar. Fats are important for brain health, hormones, skin and more. Read The Skinny on Fat from the National Institutes on Health newsletter for more information on fats.
How do you take fat out of butter or ice cream? These are foods that are made out of fat. You do this by breaking the food down and reassembling the food making it a more processed food. And honestly, some of these low fat foods taste like crap. The taste of these foods has improved over the years. But if you look at the labels, they have increased sugar, salt and other additives that no longer make it a healthier option. So I’d recommend when considering low fat vs full fat foods, read the labels and see which one is really the healthier version.
Myth 4: Jump on a fad diet if you want to lose weight
There have been so many fad diets the last 40 years. Too many to list here. Many of these diets are not sustainable and may not even be healthy for some people. Some diets do have validity to them. However, they are not required for weight loss. What happens when you’re done with the diet? How do you maintain the weight loss over time? Many people cannot and tend to gain the weight back. This again can negatively impact your metabolism. If you go back to eating the way you did before the diet, you’ll likely gain the weight back, along with a feeling of failure and frustration. With so many diets and choices, it’s hard to decide how best to safely lose weight. Check out this article Fad Diets Explained from the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology that helps explain fad diets further.
The diet industry is a billion-dollar industry and as such we are bombarded daily on tv, social media and social groups in person and online that we need to participate in a diet in order to lose weight. Being on a diet is not the answer to long term sustainable weight loss.
Myth 5: It takes more will power to lose weight
Ever heard of any of these sayings or maybe you told yourself “You must not be working hard enough’, “You must not be exercising enough or not cutting out enough calories to lose weight” or my personal favorite “If you eat that cookie, you’ll lose all your progress in weight loss”. WRONG! Don’t you think that if all we needed was to try harder, eat less, work out more that more people would be successful at it? Instead, there are more Americans than ever that are overweight and obese. No amount of will-power will make you successful in weight loss if you eat poor nutrition.
Health Considerations
Although we are all human with the same physiology, we do not share the same health status nor do we respond to the same to diets, medications and physical activity. Some people have health conditions like Hypothyroidism that make it more challenging to maintain or lose weight. Others take medications like steroids and other meds that have known side effects of weight gain. Middle age and increased family and work responsibilities also make it challenging to adhere to healthy eating habits and consistent physical activity. Many women going through perimenopause or menopause, find it extremely challenging to maintain and not gain weight.
It also has not helped that the food industry has added more sugar, salt and preservatives in our foods the last 40 + years. The restaurant and food industry have also increased serving sizes. Remember when a 22 oz drink was the large and today it’s a small.
Food labels many years ago did not give us the needed information to make good choices but today the FDA has worked to make labels make sense to the consumer. We also need to be more cognizant of what a serving size is vs a portion size. A portion size is the amount of food you choose to eat whereas a serving size is a measured amount of food. Many packaged foods that come as a single portion actually contain multiple servings making it very important to read nutrition labels.
This is not an exhaustive list of myths only a handful to consider when looking to lose weight. Whether you got the “look” from the Doctor that you didn’t try hard enough to lose weight, feeling uncomfortable in your own body or have weight related health issues, keep in mind that losing weight is a lifestyle change that takes time. You need to give yourself grace and not criticize yourself so much if you struggle or have setbacks. Speak with a Doctor (one that will listen to you) or a Registered Dietician/Nutritionist for guidance tailored to your health needs that will contribute to your long term success.
