10 Myths About Weight Loss That You Need to Stop Believing

There is a great deal of weight loss advice available on the internet. Some of it, unfortunately, is unscientific. If you like to get your weight loss advice online, it’s important that you know how to tell myth from fact. What follows are 12 of the most common myths and misconceptions around to do with weight loss and the real facts about them.

The idea that all calories are the same

A calorie is a unit used to measure energy. Every calorie that you consume has the same energy content, but that doesn’t mean they all have the same effect on your weight. Calories come from three main macronutrients that give us energy, these are protein, carbs, and fats. Protein and carbs both contain around 4 calories per gram, whereas fat provides 9 calories per gram. Alcohol has 7 calories per gram. Different foods are absorbed in your body in different ways and can have different effects on your body weight. A calorie obtained from protein does not act the same as a calorie obtained from fats, for example.

When you take some of the fats and carbs out of your diet and replace them with protein, for example, it can help speed up your metabolism, make you less hungry, and help you lose weight. Calories from fruit can fill you much more quickly than calories from candy, making you less likely to overeat. For this reason, you need to pay attention not just to the calories that you consume, but to what you get them from, as well.

The idea that weight-loss happens in a predictable way

Most people expect their weight to rise or fall in a predictable, linear way. If they lose one pound in a week with a certain diet and a certain amount of exercise, they expect the following week to be the same if they don’t change anything. The body doesn’t respond in a predictable way to exercise or food, however.

The body can become more efficient at performing workouts, for instance. A workout that burns 1,000 calories in the first week may only burn half as many in the second week. The body can also lose much water weight when you first go on a weight-loss diet. There may not be much water weight to lose, following the first week or so.

It’s important to keep at your weight-loss program, and not be discouraged by how responsive your body is from one week to the next.

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The idea that weight loss pills are a good way to lose weight

Diet pills that promise to help you lose weight usually do not work. When they do, their effects tend to be modest. Various studies of weight loss pills such as Garcinia Cambogia extract, Orlistat and raspberry ketones, have found that they offer mild benefits. It’s important not to pin your hopes on weight loss pills.

The idea that excessive weight is about poor willpower

From hormonal health to mental health, many factors determine what you weigh. Willpower is not one of those factors. For example, while the hormone leptin is supposed to tell the brain when the body has enough fat stored for its energy reserves, some people tend to be resistant to the effects of leptin. When the hormone doesn’t signal to your brain when you should stop eating, you can be hungry all the time. It can be hard to fight a basic instinct.

It’s important to understand that a healthy weight level is simply much harder for some people to achieve than others.

The idea that you only need to eat less and get more exercise

The body stores its surplus calories as fat. If you eat fewer calories than you expend moving about each day, you lose your fat.

The idea that you only need to create a calorie deficit to attain a healthy weight level does make sense, but only for people who are modestly overweight. When you have a serious weight problem, there are usually physiological and biochemical complications involved. Telling such a person that they simply need to eat less and move more, isn’t all that different from telling someone with depression that they simply need to snap out of it. Obesity is a bona fide disorder. Being obese isn’t anyone’s fault.

The idea that carbs make you fat

Certainly, low-carb diets can help you lose weight. It’s important to make rules about carb restrictions in context, however. While people have been eating carbs for millennia, the obesity epidemic only started around the year 1975. It’s important to understand that it’s processed carbs like sugar and refined flour that contribute to obesity. Whole foods that are rich in carbs are healthy.

The idea that eating fats makes you gain weight

Fats are calorie-dense. While carbs and proteins only contain four calories for every gram that you eat, fats contain more than twice as many calories. There’s nothing about fats, per se, that makes you fat. It’s just that fats make it easier for you to effortlessly consume a large number of calories. The body does need healthy fats from whole foods to function in a normal way. It’s the fats in processed foods that you need to watch out for.

The idea that breakfast is essential to any weight-loss program

A study called Skipping breakfast and the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the Asian and Pacific regions, recently proved that people who skip breakfast tend to be heavier than those who are regular with their breakfast. While the correlation may owe to the possibility that people who tend to skip breakfast make unhealthy life choices overall, it’s still an important idea to keep in mind. In a strict sense, whether you have breakfast or not, it doesn’t directly add to your weight. It can be risky to skip breakfast, however, because you can be hungry enough, that you turn to easily available junk food to deal with it.

The idea that weight-loss diets help you lose weight

Weight-loss diets can be strange in the way they affect your weight. Some people who try them do lose many pounds. Unfortunately, the weight loss that comes from diets tends to be short-lived. One study called Long‐term efficacy of dietary treatment of obesity, for instance, shows that when people go on weight-loss diets, they eventually end up gaining weight. If you want to lose weight and keep the weight off, as well, it won’t happen unless you follow a healthy lifestyle, overall.

It’s important to gain perspective

Certainly, obesity puts you at higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer. Many people who are thin, suffer from these same health conditions, however. It’s important to understand that while obesity does place you at higher risk of poor health, it doesn’t automatically translate to poor health. As long as you make healthy lifestyle choices such as to choose a diet of whole foods, and to get enough exercise, you shouldn’t be too worried about your exact weight.