Dietitians Debunk 18 Weight Loss Myths

one of the biggest myths that i get frommy clients is that i need to skip mealsand starve in order to lose weightit's not trueso if you skip meals it's going to havesuch a negative effect on your body thatwhen you do go to sit down and eatyou'll probably over consume that'slaureen kearney one of three dietitianswe brought into our studiosmy name is ryan turner my name is nikitakapoor to debunk 18 of the most commonweight loss myths

frustrates me the most is that allcalories are created equally a calorieis not just a calorie it depends on thesource of your calories whether it'scoming from caloric dense foods ornutritional dense foods more dense foodswould be more so our cookies our cakeswe can have a cookie that's 100 calorieswe'll eat it it'll digest really fastthen it's going to spike our blood sugarlevels where when we start to crashagain we're gonna crave more sugar forthat energy pick-me-up and that can make

can have a banana which is an example ofa nutritionally dense food i get thequestion a lot do bananas make you fatbananas do not make you fat bananas area great source of potassium but forthose 100 calories you're also going toget the fiber and the nutrients thatyour body needs in that cellular levelto make sure that you are healthy andthat you're nourished and you definitelyneed to nourish your body if you'retrying to lose weight when we arerestricting calories

your body you're also restricting theenergy source of your brain and ifthat's happening then you know veryprimitive protective mechanisms start tokick into place where your body sensesthat as a physiological threat and doesstart to shift your metabolic balance toburn less because it's getting less it'skind of like a budget right so if youhave a paycheck um and you're runningout of funds you're going to conservehow much you pay till your next paycheckyour body does the same your body will

biological mechanism to reduce theamount of energy you're using which iswhy it is hard for people to maintainweight and starving yourself can alsoshrink your muscles you want to makesure that you're not eating less than 70percent of your overallcalorie needs if you do that's where notonly are you probably going to feelextremely hungry and it's going to takeyou off of any goals that you're settingbut you're probably going to startcompromising your muscle mass as well

be unhealthy but while the amount ofcalories you consume matters the timingmight nottiming of meals is always a big questioneveryone comes to me and they kind ofsmirk and they think that i'm going togive them a thumbs up when they say idon't eat after six o'clock or seveno'clock and i say oh all right you enjoythat and they say no and i say well thenmaybe eating after is okay becausetiming of day is not going to affectweight loss

weight loss or body fat loss so if youeat a bunch of additional calories andyou're in calorie surplus and those arecoming late at night then that's what'scausing something like weighting andwhat about eating first thing in themorningit depends on the body and it depends onthe person and their relationship withfood for a lot of people me included ifi don't eat a meal i usually feel likevery deprived and it's like i want tomake up for it later

add in like a lot of calories personallyi'm a huge advocate of breakfast ourbody runs on fuel and food is our fuelso if we have our breakfast then we feelwe have more sustained energy throughoutthe day and if you do choose to eatbreakfast feel free to go for that twopercent yogurtnow fat is incredibly necessary weshould not be afraid of fat we need fatin the diet fat's going to be necessaryfor things like absorbing nutrients likethe fat soluble nutrients like vitamin a

make sure that fat specificallycholesterol is what's going to helpproduce things like your hormones sothings like estrogen and testosteronegrowth hormones so we need all thosekind of things not only is fat healthybut fat-free foods are often loaded withsugar or salt so if you have a wholesomeproduct and you're removing the fat ofit it's going to taste completelydifferent you probably wouldn't evenlike it but what they're going to do isreplace that flavor with something else

sowith sugarwhen we have like a yogurt that has thefruit at the bottom they're gonna haveway more sugars than if you had like atwo percent greek yogurt and as it turnsout fat isn't the only nutrient you cankeep in your diet and still lose weightone of the biggest myths i get aboutcarbs is that you must omit them fromyour dietto lose weight or my body doesn't digestthem well and i have to omit them

restrict myselfit's not true and it's just notsustainable there's almost impossible tohave a no carb diet fruits andvegetables are known as carbohydratesand we must get those for theirnutrients why carbs have a bad nameit's because of the simple carbs thecarbs that you see pre-packaged that arethe cookies the cakes the sodas thepotato chips they're called simple carbsbecause the chemical structure of themis usually one to two glucose molecules

small glucose molecule it's easy forthem to break away but with our complexcurbs they are really long chains ofcarbon that usually about 18 carbon longand then by the time that your body goesstarts to break it down it's going totake a while and that's exactly what wewant because it helps balance our bloodsugar and also that fiber keeps us fullfor longer and then also prevents usfrom snacking so eat your carbsdefinitely eat your curves and eat yourbread bread's delicious it's like one of

for finding bread with more complexcarbs read your ingredientness withbreadit's thea lot of those mass-produced breads thatare in the bread aisle that areshelf-stable they can last a monthwithout getting mold on them and whenyou look at the ingredient list it'sprobably about 50 ingredients longthey're the ones we want to avoid whenyou're getting breadget the fresh bread that comes from the

deli counter area inside and grocerystores those will have maybe four orfive ingredients it'll mold after twodays but you can preserve it by justputting into the freezer and take it outas you need itand speaking of bread what about goinggluten-free to lose weight gluten-freefor weight loss can be a huge marketingploy so with gluten-free there are a lotof people that do have an intolerance togluten or they have celiac disease whichis where the body starts attacking

there are also people without theseconditions who are looking toblame something like the gluten withoutchecking the rest of their diet if youarehonest with yourself recording your foodchecking the ingredients and then youeat the gluten and you feel theintolerance then great but a lot ofpeople will choose to just jump in andbe like gluten is the enemy so most ofus don't need to cut out gluten or fator carbs to lose weight but there are

the diet sodas are terrible with all theadditives preservatives in them and thehidden sugars a lot of theadded sugars or the synthetic sugarsthat are supposed to be great becausethey don't release insulin which thendoesn't cause a spike in blood sugarlevels but internally if we don'tstimulate the release of insulin thosesugars the synthetic sugars go to theliver build up around the liver hinderthe functioning of the liver and thencan lead to non-alcoholic fatty disease

once in a blue moon it will be the realthing yes there's more sugar in it butit's something that i don't have on aregular basis better yet she says drinkwater jazz up your water add fruit to itadd some mint or cucumber lemon yes itwill take a little bit for your tastebuds to reset but you're getting so manynutrients from that water and your bodyrequires water for it to functionoptimallywater is one of the six nutrients thatthe body needs and when we're dehydrated

people turn to food a lot if they'redehydrated not realizing that they'renot hungry it's just your body sayinggive me some water on thursday and whatabout juiceoh juice cleansesso juice cleanses are like one of my petpeeves if you're having a juice everyonce in a while great you're stillgetting the antioxidants out of ityou're still getting the nutrients butyou're removing that fiber and fiber iskey for the body to support gut health

hella expensive and we have thisbelief that they're going to be betterfor our bodies or it's a cleansingeffect of our bodyrealistically what's happening is thatwhen you have those juice cleansesthey're mostly coming from like fruitsugars and then the vegetable sugarsit's a high high amount of fructose inthe bodywhen the body consumes excess fructoseit has a spasming effect of the gi tractthat can lend to the cleansing effect so

reaction to the high amounts of fructosein the bodypeople think it's the cleansing effectbecause the marketing employees have ledus to believe that way butit's not but you would be bettercleansing your body by actually eatingthe apple eating the spinach and eatingall the other fruits that are in thatcleanse that would be better for youbecausefiber is our natural detox what it doesis it goes through the body picks up

cleanse it out but juice cleanses aren'tthe only diet fads that don't often workintermittent fasting is probably aquestion i get all the time it's we cankind of put in that myth category now itcan restrict calories and at leasttemporarily help you lose weight ifyou're only allowed to eat food foreight hours that just gives someone alot of structure and that can be veryvery helpful you can only get so manycalories in your mouth in that timeon the flip side someone can get a lot

time as well so someone can and i'veseen many people do it they've gainedweight through intermittent fasting soit's not just going to be this quick fixthere's nothing magical to it and thesame goes for many popular dietsso one of the common diets right nowthat is gaining popularity is theketogenic diet so a lot of people whoare doing that are just eliminatingcarbohydrates which is why that's hardto sustain because your body does needcarbohydrates for a reason to be honest

saying that that is something that ishelpful there's maybe a lot of researchin mice models but that hasn't beentranscribed into human studies and whilepeople have lost weight on keto it'soften not without side effects they'reeliminating whole grains and legumescertain fruits and vegetablesand really increasing theirfat intake which although fats areimportant excess of any nutrient cancause metabolic changes in your bodythat will impact your cardiovascular

metabolic health so an example would bepatients that we're seeing in theclinical setting are following ketogenicdiets are seeing weight loss however arecoming with higher cholesterol markersthey are coming with higher ldl markersthey're coming with moreirritable bowel symptoms um they'recoming with more gastrointestinaldiscomfort the truth is there's no onetool that will make you magically loseweighti think the most prevalent

biohacking which is this idea that youcan defeat biology you can work aroundyourgenetic predispositions your metabolicparameters and that is actually not trueand the reason for that is because youcannot defeat biology you cannothack hunger you cannot hack access tohealthcare you cannot hack motivationand this idea that you know againif those results are there you're goingtobe able to feel more satisfied is also

this concept and this belief that youknow you can work your way and you knowfix your body and that prescribes to thesocial construct that it is up to you tochange that and that's also why mostdiets don't workthey're hard to sustain they're hard tomaintain so the results are verytemporary which is why we go back tosomething trying something new it'simportant to focus on behaviors ratherthan outcomeswhere you should start is record your

it's really just being honest withyourselfidentifying your foods and the hiddeningredients that could be contributingto excess of hundreds and hundreds ofcalories per day take olive oil oliveoil is great but when we cook with it weusually free pour it into a paneach tablespoon of olive oil has 128calories now if you're pouring in likesix seven eight tablespoons with yourvegetables you're getting almost like athousand calories that you don't need so

it in wait to your pot your pan is hotonce it's hot add one to two tablespoonsof olive oiland then add in your vegetables when thepan is hot enough it will disperseeasier and then you use lessalso once you put the vegetables in somewater and moisture will come from thosevegetables and will add to the liquid inthe pan so you actually don't need toadd excess in and if you are beingmindful of what you eat that whole ideaof cheating kearney isn't a fan i don't

like the word cheat i think it gives itthisit gives us this like higher power likeoh this is really bad and you know ican't believe i did this i completelyfell off the wagon no remove thatbecause then you're gonna want it moreyou're gonna feel even more guilty aboutit if you go out you're socializingyou're trying out one of new york's likebest restaurants that's filled withcream and butterenjoy it just try to get a salad to

way to cut the calories and thenhave like one of the appetizers that arenot in line with your health goals withyour table and share because sharing iscaring and there's more good newsyou can still lose weight while drinkingoccasional alcoholif you're sticking to the cleaner foodsand by omitting all the foods that youtend to enjoy in the past by emittingalcohol trying to increase your exerciseand then doing this likedetox fudge all in one go it's

failure so doing it in stages and beingmore realistic about what you can changenow and then work towards it well what iusually recommend to my clients is takecare of your food now if you understandhow your body feels when it's nourishedunderstand like how your gut health issupposed to be supported and then we'llfocus on alcohol and working in theexercise but the thing is no matter howmuch we care about it weight definitelyisn't everything i think one of thebiggest myths around weight loss and

unhealthy on normal weight equalshealthy as defined by the bmi categorybmi is a very inaccurate measure ofhealth because it is just looking atyour height and weightwithout taking into account what yourmetabolic factors and parameters arewhat is your physiological health yourphysical health your sleep your mentalhealthyour relationship to foodyou know and i think it's very importantto factor those things if you really

healthy and if we're not going to lookat it more holisticallyi think what that does is itmarginalizes people in bigger bodiesplus not everyone can lose weight evenif they're putting in the same effortthat's a very common myth that everybodyshould have should has the same abilityto lose weight and if everybody eats thesame way they're going to look the sameway which is very untrue and that'sincorrect and the reason for that is ithink it's important to understand that

different things it is socomplex all the way from your geneticpredispositions your past your familyhistory your past medical historyyouryou know relationship to food as you'regrowing up because not everybody hasaccess to food because health is aboutinclusion accessconnection joy physiological well-beingand we have to take those factors intoaccount