6 Myths About Weight Loss That Are False
Have you ever gone on a diet? If so, how many diets have you tried? Do you know people who always seem to be on a different diet? Have you ever wondered about the Atkins, Paleo, or Gluten Free diet? If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the different diets and different nutritional claims out there, then you’re not alone.
Top 6 Myths About Weight Loss
Today I’m counting down the top 6 myths about weight loss to help you make sense of all that conflicting diet information and to reveal the real secrets of weight loss.
1. There Is One Diet That Is Perfect For Anyone And Everyone
It’s important to realise that we all have different bodies, we live in different environments, we use different amount of energies and that’s all going to affect what particular nutritional demands each person’s body has.
Beyond just having different bodies, we also have different conditions at different times in our lives, which further influence which nutritional demands our body is going to have. So this myth that we could all eat the same thing and lose weight, or that any one single diet is gonna work for everybody is FALSE.
This is a myth because every person is gonna have a different optimal diet and different conditions are going to require different remedies.
2. You Can Keep The Weight Off After Going Off Diet
So the first of these myths about weight loss didn’t tell us very much, but it’s a great place to start because we can outline the difference between different diets. The first type of diet is the weight loss diet, the typical diet that we think of.
The weight loss diet is a diet that we go “on” and “off” of and typically being on a diet is a time of depravation, really astounding self control and near starvation. And being off the diet means that we pretty much gain all of that weight back. The statistic is something like 99% of dieters gain the weight back after they go off the diet.
So the second of the 6 myths about weight loss is that you can go on a diet, lose weight and keep the weight off even after you go off the diet, considering that you’re gonna go back to eating the same foods that you ate before. And of course, this is FALSE.
3. The Weight Loss Industry Wants You To Keep Weight Off
If there isn’t any one diet that works for everybody and we can’t go off a diet because we’ll gain the weight back, than the situation is looking pretty grim.
But I’m sure that $60 billion weight loss industry will be thrilled to hear that you are now looking for yet another diet. And now that you’ve mentioned it, the weight loss industry really relies on people gaining the weight back so that they will be rebound customers.
So number 3 of the myths about weight loss is FALSE. The weight loss industry or any of the major companies like “Weight Watchers” or “Jenny Craig” actually want you to lose weight at all. Well, maybe it’s OK if you lose some weight while you’re on the diet, but they’re really depending on you gaining the weight back as soon as you go off.
4. Weight Loss Is The Only Reason To Go On A Diet
I want to quickly go back to discussing the different type of diets, because the number 4 in the myths about weight loss list is that weight loss is the only reason that anybody would ever go on a diet or change their diet.
There were some people who asked me if the Gluten Free Diet is just another fad diet. It’s important to recognize that some people have food allergies or food sensitivities and they can’t eat certain foods. So we think at somebody who’s lactose intolerant or somebody who’s allergic to peanuts for instance. Somebody who is sensitive or allergic to gluten goes on a gluten free diet and this is a change that’s probably going to be for the rest of their life. This isn’t a diet they go on and then go off of.
Because as long as there are people with a sensitivity to gluten, or to milk, or to peanuts, or whatever, then the diet that excludes that foods will always exist. So the Gluten Free Diet is not a fad diet, and it’s not even a diet whose primary intention is weight loss.
Of course, some people might lose weight on a Gluten Free Diet, but it’s not the intended purpose the way that a “Weight Watchers” diet is intended purposes weight loss.
It’s also worth noting that diets can have a more therapeutic purpose. So somebody actually changes their diet or goes on a specific diet in order to improve their health or minimizes some illness or symptom that they have.
For example, the Anti-Inflamatory Diet developed by dr. Berry Spears, also known as the Zone Diet, has been very helpful in helping people to improve their health.
Another example is that there are studies which have shown that a Raw Food Diet can actually reverse cardiovascular disease.
5. You Need A Product To Lose Weight
This diet myth is that you need some kind of a fancy, exotic, likely expensive, miracle product in order to lose weight. And whether it is weight loss pills or drugs from the $0,5 billion pharmaceutical weight loss industry or whether it’s from a celebrity who receives several millions dollar for their endorsement, just DON’T FALL FOR IT!
In the small print of any weight loss product ad, you will see a text like this:”Results not typical, sensible diet and exercise required.”
But if the sensible diet and exercise were sold me easy to maintain in the first place, then we probably wouldn’t even need the weight loss pill. And chances are it’s not the crazy miracle product that was responsible for their weight loss, it’s the sensitive diet and exercise. So let’s take a closer look at that key secret to lose weight.
6. Food Labeled “Diet” Help You Lose Weight
The last of the myths about weight loss is that any food labeled “diet” can help you lose weight. There are a lot of different foods out there which proudly proclaim on their label diet, fat-free, sugar-free, healthy choice. But you need to recognize that these food manufacturing companies have one primary goal: to sell you their products.
Their goal is not to help you to improve your health, not to help you trim your waistline, all they want is for you to eat. And they actually make a profit the more we overeat. And they use everything from addictive food chemicals like MSG to deceptive food labeling to keep us overeating.
You’re smarter than that, you’re smarter than their marketing ploy and if you can start to recognize these processed foods despite what they may claim, that’s really going to help you take control of your weight and your health.
So it’s not so important what the food says on the front of the label, the nutritional claims that they make. What’s important is what’s on the back of the label. So when you actually turn over the label of that food and you see a really long ingredient list or you see something like monosodium glutamate, or high fructose corn syrup, you need to know that this is a processed food, this is a refined food, this is empty calories and it’s not gonna help me lose weight. And that’s even if the front of the box says “diet” on it.
This is where I’m going to ask you to do something pretty ballsy. I want you to go out on a limb and leave behind once and for all the idea of going “on” and “off” a diet. Just release yourself from the tumultuous grip of yo-yo dieting and that anticipation that one day your diet it’s gonna be over and then you’re gonna really let loose.
The solution that I propose is a new definition of the word “diet”: WHAT YOU EAT. Not for any period of time, not for any set length of time, there’s no “going on” and there’s no “going off” of it, this is just your diet, and it’s what you eat. And it’s what you’re gonna be eating for the rest of your life.
To this “lifetime diet” we’re going to make small, simple modifications. And it’s OK to just move slowly and make small improvements to our diet. Because the more extreme of a change that we make in our diet, the more we’re gonna have that anticipation of “going off” the diet and getting to go back to eating what we were eating before.
If you enjoyed this article please share it with your friends, especially with those who are addicted to dieting. Stay fit!
