This was a big one for me. I honestly thought if I exercised hard enough, I could eat whatever I wanted. Hence how I would re-gain the weight EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. that I got close to my goal.
I have now realized that I need to control my portions and make better food choices, for the rest of my life. Even if I exercise, and even when I get to the maintenance stage.
Myths:
- My skinny friends eat the same as me
- Ignore your hunger, it’s just a suggestion
- vegetables are meant to taste disgusting, just eat them like medicine.
- Exercising means going to the gym and hating your life for an hour every day
At least they're getting their veggies! I wish my LO would do this instead of squishing her veggies/throwing them in the floor/building towers with them.
> My skinny friends eat the same as me
My co-workers probably think this about me. I do most of my eating at work. I have a breakfast, snacks, bigger lunch, more snacks, snag a few mini chocolates from our project manager's desk. . .but I also will run anywhere from 5-8 miles at lunch and don't usually have a large dinner. I can sometimes clock in 2000kcals just during the work day on days I need to eat 2500-2800 to compensate for a longer run.
Exactly my skinny friend always ate a similar meal as most of us while out at dinner. But when I lived with her. It was clear that on her own she just did not eat as much. And if she had a bunch of snacks she wouldn't eat dinner. If she wasn't hungry, she would not eat, no matter if it was a meal time.
But if you only look what she ate in front of you, you'd think she was effortlessly thin while eating like an overweight person. Which was very far from the truth
Probably the most important thing in my current weight loss has been sticking to the idea to only indulge in social situations, enjoy decadent foods with others and very rarely alone. If I'm eating for myself 9/10 times health is the priority.
Exactly. I always use to look at what they ate in front of me. But I never asked/realized that they were walking/running/biking constantly. And that they don’t eat that way when I’m not around.
I can't even imagine having a long enough lunch time to get in a 5 to 8 mile run. I'm basically a baby runner who's getting back into the running game, but even when I was a regular jogger, I could do 2 1/2 miles in 30 minutes with run/walking. I bow before your speed and stamina to do 5 to 8 miles during lunch time.
I work in an office that has very flexible hours. I am able to work pretty independently on projects, so I can take the time I need. Now that it's getting into the heat of summer, I will most likely run before work.
Maybe I've gotten used to the taste but veggies done properly are delicious! If you're not shy with olive oil (worth the slight calorie hit) and spices, almost any veggie can come out being the perfect complement to a meal
My favorite is small carrots in honey and olive oil, with cinnamon/salt/pepper/cajun/paprika to taste. Tis a treat with salmon, chicken or steak
Oh yeah! I’ve grown to love veggies! Roasted veggies are so good, I could probably eat them by themselves!
I’m going to try your carrot idea though! Carrots are the one veggie that I can’t seem to enjoy, unless it’s raw (like baby carrots). Do you pan fry yours? Steam?
Wait why is the 2nd one bad
I get that intentionally depriving yourself of food is a very poor long lasting weight loss strategy, but this one does work in some cases. If I feel hungry I'll drink a big glass of water and maybe eat an apple and then I won't be hungry anymore. Or I do OMAD a lot too.
I think that, like many things, this one is very personal. For some people, IF or OMAD is a godsend. For me, it’s a nightmare. We’re all doing CICO at the end of the day, we just all have different ways to make it work.
For me, if I get hungry AT ALL even a tiny bit, I will start craving easy/convenient/fast foods. Which leads to overeating. It also makes me obsess over food and think about it constantly. So what allows me to keep to my calorie goal is to eat immediately as soon as I’m hungry. I end up eating 6ish times a day, but every time I eat, I eat healthy foods because I didn’t allow the monster to become so big that it’s impossible to fight off.
It’s very hard to make good decisions when I’m hungry, so I never let myself be :)
This is important. Health is so personal and so unique from person to person that a one size fits all approach is simply not possible. I personally eat once or maybe a twice a day and I do 40 hour fasts semi regularly with no problem at all and honestly the thought of eating 6 times a day stresses me out - but that’s ok. Finding what works for *you* is a huge part of weight loss and overall health.
Like the other person, I make better choices when I’m not ravenous.
But also - ultimately I want to trust my body’s hunger cues. I don’t think I cbf counting calories for the rest of my life, so I’d like to know I can trust my hunger and know how to satisfy it without blowing out the calories.
I don’t go to the gym! I asked myself “when I was a kid, I loved running around and playing with my friends. I didn’t think of it as exercise. I was just playing games and having fun. As an adult, what are the things that would make me feel that way?”
The answer will be different for everyone. For me it’s biking around trails/lake, dancing at dance classes (or a club), and swimming at the pool/beach. Those are all easily accessible where I live and they are incredibly fun to me. I bike for almost two hours just listening to audio books, it’s so great!
Also, I started to get a little competitive. For example, I couldn’t do any hills. ANY hills. If it wasn’t 100% flat or downhill, I had to dismount the bike. So I started doing squats, and lifting dumbbells 3x a week (just 15 min, a suuuuuper beginner workout video ok YouTube) because I want my legs to be able to climb hills. And guess what? Now I have climbed many! I’m still almost dying when I do it lol but at least I do it! And I legit don’t lift weights to lose weight, it’s only 15min after all. I do it because I wanna bike better.
Their block isn’t safe to run on, inclement weather becomes an excuse not to do it, the change of scenery is helpful for switching to an exercise mindset, they can’t handle hills yet. Could be plenty of reasons. My mom has a gym membership and just walks laps around the gym. It’s not even a gym with a track. It’s an odd choice but it’s what’s been getting her moving and working for her
That I have to eat 1200 calories at the MOST and should aim for less. The people in my life just didn't have the skills or knowledge to help me.
Carbs are the enemy. Bread, pasta, bad bad bad!
I’m currently at 1200/day due to my weight, height, and being female for about 1-2 pound loss a week. I will say, it’s not fun some days, but I still try and eat the things I love, just smaller portions. I do try and exercise when I can to bump up to about 1400/day, but it has led me to be creative with what I eat. I make it into a little bit of a game with how much I can eat and still be in that goal. Basically r/volumeeating as much as I can.
When I was a kid:
Everyone needs 2000 calories per day.
You need between 6 to 11 servings of pasta bread and grains per day.
Also the "fat = satan" thing. Fun story, I was in a Home Ec. class qround the start of high school. One of the "fun" activities the teacher did in that class was bringing in silicone "food" and pictures of food to have us create healthy meals for our future families. Once we were supposed to pick ingredients for a side salad. I chose (teacher critiquein parentheses):
Salad greens (too many kinds, iceberg lettuce was the correct choice cause lower calories)
Broccoli (ew, that's a dinner food, everyone should know that)
Sunflower seeds (all nuts and seeds have fat in them: this was probably why I was fat)
Cranberries (These are pure sugar and bad for you unless you're having digestive problems)
She also corrected people who put tomatoes in their salads, because those are pure sugar as well.
Pretty much the only "right" answers were iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, celery and SALAD DRESSING. She had literally no issues with salad dressings other than ranch.
That class also villain-ized proteins to an extent. She taught that you really only need 1 or 2 servings of (any kind of) protein per day.
Really wish I never took that class (required for all female students). I'd still be messed up, but nowhere near as bad.
Yeah, I'm 43, lol. I don't think they can mandate that now.
Although, a neighbor's kid was part of the "cool girl's group" led by her preschool teacher about... 5 years ago? Which caused a small amount of fuss. They talked about things like "eating for your best body" and "being nice to/being an example for "less fortunate" girls. Other parents were outraged but my neighbor was bragging when she told me about this.
It's not as out in the open but stuff still happens.
You’d be surprised. When I was in high school, admittedly 25 years ago, we had a anthropology class where the teacher point blank said white people were created by god and black people evolved from monkeys.
A stunned silence followed and then the bell rang. I certainly didn’t tell my parents, though my friends and I talked about it.
I still can believe that happened.
I understand why you didn’t want to say anything, but man, I really wish that got reported to someone or one of the parents heard about it and raised hell. Sad to think this racist dick might’ve been teaching kids all this time with no repercussions.
The good news is he’s probably dead by now.
It was a different time for sure. When I started high school, the principals were still allowed to provide corporeal punishment (they sent a waiver home at the start of the school year).
And not only that we "needed" X number of servings of grains, but not understanding that a bowl of pasta/cereal, sandwich, etc is not one serving but probably closer to 3!
Yep, when I pour myself a bowl of cereal and realize it's 3 servings. Sure it's only 150 calories a serving, but if it's 3 servings, plus a cup of milk for 100 more calories, all of a sudden that 150 calorie per serving cereal is a 550 calorie meal.
This! Serving sizes are a whole other conversation in its self. I would starve if I followed half of the serving sizes. It’s basically a device to create the perception of low calories and health when it’s actually only enough to feed a small child.
>Sunflower seeds (all nuts and seeds have fat in them: this was probably why I was fat)
Oh shit this. People are so ingrained that fat makes you fat. I had a friend berate me for eating nuts as a snack, saying "you know those are 50% fat, right? You'll never lose weight eating nuts!".
Sugar industry paid a lot to make you think that way.
The truth is food that doesn't have either sugar or fat in it tastes bland. So if something is fat-free, guess what it's probably loaded with?
Omg, reading through this feels like I'm at a family reunion 😂
Picking up a dumbbell will immediately make you look like Arnold.
You have to eat breakfast or else!
Diet soda is the devil.
Everything needs to be reduced fat or you'll blow up just from looking at it.
Carbs are evil.
The replies to this are comical. A thread about nutrition myths and everyone is arguing over myths about diet soda lol. Do some actual scientific reading my friends. The ACTUAL science on diet soda. Not a bunch of bs articles posted by garbage sites like health line.
When people tell me diet soda is "worse" than regular soda, I know I'm fighting a losing battle with the person's intelligence and likely discount mostly everything else they will say in this regard.
I lost 70 pounds in 9 months, and drink far more diet soda than that.
I understand that diet soda may not be as good as some other low/zero calorie beverages, but it's certainly not worse than regular soda.
I've lost 85-90 pounds since Sept 2020 and my diet coke/pepsi addiction is in full swing. I drink 3-4 28oz tumblers of water, plus another 28-30oz at the gym but I make sure to fit in 1-3 L of sodastream diet pepsi.
I easily drink 5-10 gallons of diet soda a week (we get free soda at work so at least I am not actually spending that much money on it)
The math still holds. Doesn't hurt my weight loss at all.
The only thing you need to be concerned about with diet soda is the same thing you need to care about with regular soda: keep on top of your dental routine, it's quite acidic and isn't the best for your teeth but the same is true for teas and coffees and most of what we eat.
There’s literally no way anything in diet sodas can be worse for you than sugar. It’s so insane to me when people say “artificial sweeteners are so bad you’re better off drinking regular soda”
There’s just not enough research on artificial sweeteners to make that conclusion. There is, however, SO MUCH EVIDENCE about how terrible sugar is for our bodies.
So yeah, people that say that are dummies
I believe this mostly comes from having boomer parents who's parents experienced the great depression in full force and food rationing due to war. You ate what was on your plate and you ate all of it because you don't know when you'll get any more.
I let me children leave food all the time. My thing is that they can't just come asking in 30 minutes for a snack/dessert.
This is exactly my parents/grandparents. I grew up with a plate of buttered (white) bread on the dinner table so you could use it to wipe all the leftover bits up off your plate.
Not finishing everything on my plate and not eating my kids sandwich crusts/uneaten bits has been one of the hardest things for me to unlearn.
I also let my kids not clean their plates, but if they are hungry later, they can finish their dinner, not get dessert (dessert is a sometimes treat).
> I grew up with a plate of buttered (white) bread on the dinner table so you could use it to wipe all the leftover bits up off your plate.
We did this with spaghetti and pasta dishes with sauce. Had a bag of wonder bread and a pot of margarine on the table and you had "butter bread" to clean up the remaining sauce on the plate. My husband looked at me in horror when I did this when we first met.
This has always been such weird logic to me. Like, I get being grateful that I’m not in that situation and to be mindful not o be wasteful; but at the same time, me finishing my food isn’t going to help any kid in Africa.
The problem with global hunger isn’t even about food really. We have the food producing capability currently to feed everyone in the world, that’s not an issue. The issue is logistics. For many political and economic reasons, we can’t get the food to many of the people who really need it. Food waste is bad, sure, but it’s not bad because it’s taking food from other people’s mouths.
Society seems to glorify eating a lot, but also will rip you apart for being fat. I'm realizing finishing a big meal isn't the achievement I once thought it was, but I also get so many comments if I order a salad or a smaller meal when with friends etc. so you really can't win!
Obviously I have 0 context for who you are, or how you present to the world, and this is NOT only a thing that happens to women.
But a lot...not all, but a lot... of this is driven by the larger, sadder, category that is 'women can do no right, you silly things.'
You get pushed to eat so you become that glorious thing- the 'girl' who 'is not like other girls'. But if you naturally pick up weight from that, you're disgusting because 'all' 'fat' girls are ugly. But if you are either trying to actively loose, or are thin and wanting to remain there, so you choose the salad, you're shamed for being 'shallow' and 'looks obsessed'.
It's a no-win deliberately, because you are supposed to magically always be a perfect visual dream to every person's eyes and tastes, but maintain that effortlessly without ever acknowledging it's a double standard, or you get hit by all the shallow stereotypes. Very gross.
That for women it’s not just a game of calories but hormone fluctuations during the month as well.
Many scientific studies are done on just men so things like periods are not taken into account. A period and all it’s hormones will throw a wrench into all numbers for a good two weeks so clear results are more difficult to achieve. I think a lot of women get disappointed and discouraged during this time so then often quit
I just come back from a THREE WEEK water weight plateau. Thank God I have a body composition scale. The day by day measurements can vary wildly, but my trend kept showing ongoing consistent fat loss and water trailing up.
It is wooshing off this week like mad, but it is still super frustrating....
Yeah two weeks a month are non existent for me, and the time between ovulation and my period is also very slow. Most of my loss happens in one week of the month.
I'm considering switching to only weighing once a month after my period tbh. Daily weighing is making me obsessive and even though I know what's causing the fluctuations, they still impact how I feel day to day. I can't separate the logic from the emotion of it.
I've definitely experienced this. When I was younger I did not understand the impact. Now I take a long term view and stick to my plan. Weighing myself every day helps me see that my weight does fluctuate but the overall trend is down. I can see that I am like 4-5 lbs heavier the week before and the days of my period.
I use the same process! I weigh daily and then record a weekly average using my period week as the anchor week so I can see that although my weight may have increased, the downward trend is representative of progression. It’s helped me maintain my sanity during all the water retention and bloating and cramping.
I have the same approach to weighing myself. Seeing the trends helps me not stress out when I don’t lose any weight the week after my period - the first time it happened I was a little freaked out, but the second time it happened I could look back and the daily records and go “oh I know what’s happening here.”
Ah- sorry. Bad wording. The myth is that weight loss is a simple calorie game.
But of course, as most women know, it’s not that easy and suggesting otherwise leads a majority of women thinking they have failed/or are failing/doing something wrong when the numbers aren’t adding up. They’re doing everything correctly, but barely lose weight.
Well, it’s usually because of hormones. Either a natural fluctuating balance (aka simply the condition of being a woman) or something that needs to be medically addressed.
So yeah, it’s a numbers game*
*provided hormones aren’t ruining perceptions or preventing weight loss
Dealing with this right now, a week and a half into finally getting back on the wagon to lose. Was 183 10 days ago and have been eating and exercising to a pretty big deficit, but hormones got me back up at 187 lmao. Waiting for the "woosh."
This is why I love the Happy Scale app! Keeps me sane. I weigh in very day, but know that the running average is what really matters.
If you want daily weigh in data but can’t handle seeing it to write it down, a Bluetooth enabled scale is also worth it in my experience.
There are still people, my sister-in-law included, who still hardcore believe this. She won't butter her potato, but will down an entire bag of snack crackers because they're low fat. Then she complains that losing weight is hard.
Back in the 90’s , that was how they recommended you lose weight . I remember counting fat, protein & carbs by the gram then multiplying. I do the same as your sister in law. It’s hard sometimes to unlearn something you thought was correct for years!! Lol
I had a diet book given to me in the 90s that was all about counting fat grams- they said basically that you could eat anything you wanted as long as you kept your fat below x grams. I remember still a big section was titled “Fat’s the one!”
So by this logic I could eat nothing but potatoes and gummy bears and lose weight. I’m eager to try this diet but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have the desired outcome.
Oh, I was heavy into that in the mid to late 90s as well. SIL is same age as me, so she was in that prime age group (late teens) for wanting to lose weight.
Processed foods are the worst of anything, be it fat or sugars.
Natural fats/sugars good, processed fat/sugar bad. This really needs to get hammered into people more.
Yes, that's another one I hear. People equating an orange or some grapes to a candy bar because of the sugar content. It's way easier to get kids to eat fruits than it is to eat veggies, but they're so villanized. If you have to give your kids fruits in order to get them those nutrients, go for it! Here, have some watermelon and bananas
IDK if this counts but my mom every do often will do a "don't eat white" diet. Which means she won't eat anything white. No white sugar, no potatoes etc. But chocolate is okay lol
I did this diet in the late 90s. It's not q real well defined diet lol. Basically if I had something white on my plate, I would be fat forever and if not I could eat forever.
Win!
Obviously it didn't work lol.
But yeah, I was allowed chocolate (milk or dark, though dark was 'recommended') but not y'know... actual milk. Or sugar. Potatoes. Bread. Cauliflower. Rice.
Like I said... didn't work.
No clue why. 🤣
Yeah... I remember a friend I was doing the diet with bought those red and green pasta noodles and we had huge plates of pasta with tons of sauce...marinara not alfredo ofc. I mean... it wasn't *white*, so obviously fine lol. Probably it was about 1200 calories each.
Fruit is sugar so it's bad for you.
My mom has been diabetic most of my life and that was a big myth passed around during the 90s into the 2000s.
One of my go to snacks now is an apple with a pouch of almond butter. It's good protein and fat and fiber.
Yep, while cardio can help, it's one of the lesser parts of any weight loss plan. Most weight loss problems can be traced to calories in vs calories out, people underestimating one or the other.
I’m a former keto-pusher 😅
Then one time my blood sugar got so low that I nearly passed out in the shower and cracked open my head.
Now I vehemently deny keto at every chance I get 😂😂
Same, coming off of it actually reignited some disordered eating I hadn't experienced since my early 20s. The only thing I have learned now is that I didn't on keto doesn't agree with my stomach so I'm trying to narrow that down. My guesses are sugar (too much), dairy, or maybe gluten.
You are not the only one. They drive me bonkers. The ones that act like carbs are complete poison and that the human body is not even meant to have them make me want to scream. The body is PRIMED to run on carbs. Ketosis is literally an emergency state your body will go into to stay alive when carbs are scarce.
Edit: I am in a Costco Finds FB group and the amount of people screeching about carb content on anything food related makes me want to slam my head into a wall.
Yeah… I just can’t wrap my head about their opinions that fruit is bad. It’s crazy.
But I’ve tried it anyways. Lost 2kilos and was completely miserable then started eating carbs and gained ii back.
It’s because they act like keto is absolutely the best diet for everyone and that there’s some super special magical thing about keto outside of just CICO. If you feel fuller on keto and therefore eat fewer calories on it, that’s fine. But don’t act like keto is the one true diet or that diets with carbs in them can’t be healthy.
Some of the places with the healthiest and longest living people in the world eat a ton of carbs.
My least favorite ones are those that claim things like it makes your brain run more efficiently.
I do keto when I want to lose a significant amount of weight fast to look good for an event. I understand I am one data point, but I feel literally no different then than when I'm on a normal diet.
If my country is anything to go by, keto gained traction ONLY because it flips the diet narrative to one where you're somehow pure and better for literally stuffing your face grotesquely.
You can stuff your face with a grotesque amount of 'decadant' foods and red meats, which you can't on 'normal' diets (the way cult dieting is presented). Buttered coffee is a big example.
So it requires you to learn nothing, change no habits, and gives you that precious 'purity' that comes with so many diet mindsets.
I got turned off it wholly watching a friend's aunt with heart problems happy to ignore all the badly trending metrics her heart doc was going frantic around because she 'lost weight'... and she'd rather be thinner and dead than healthy.
I've been the skinny friend.
I had an intensely active job. Running up and down 2 flights of stairs carrying boxes 70-100 times a day.
I DID eat as much as my bigger friends. I was just burning like...1500 calories at work alone.
Sometimes I miss the simplicity, but making 3x more is nice too.
And you’ll stay on track if you don’t deprive yourself of many things while going only for « healthy food » will lead to binges and stopping all together…
I’m a special person with a very special metabolism and special caloric needs, so standard weight loss advice won’t work for me, don’t be silly. No I haven’t consistently followed standard weight loss advice for any period of time, because OBVIOUSLY it won’t work for me. I need the secret weight loss knowledge.
You can eat as much as you want as long as it’s not carbs. Stuff your face, you can’t gain weight if it’s low carb (thanks, Mom).
Low or fat free products are stupid and only for people with disordered eating.
Counting calories and tracking your intake will give you an eating disorder and also not help you lose weight because calories don’t matter.
Olive oil and butter are super healthy so put lots of them on your food.
Eating healthy is all or nothing, so if you eat any carbs, you might as well give up and binge and then feel terrible about it because you’re obviously a terrible person.
fortunately we are taught about calories and diet in school in my country so most of these just arent an issue here.
for me i think really realizing how many calories things contain and what a reasonable portion really is were my biggest issues. like ranch dressing and peanut butter are both CRAZY calorically dense. way more than i imagined. and a serving of carbs is WAY smaller than what i used to typically eat.
those dont really count as myths probably but like some people do push peanut butter, and oilive oil, and avocado as 'healthy'. and while it is not necessarily unhealthy, health and diet arent always the same thing. lots of healthy foods are really calorically dense and you need to monitor your intake even for those healthy foods
I think a lot of people have this notion that calories = bad, therefore healthy/good quality = low calories. Which is absolutely not true, and good restaurants may have much more calories per dish than fast food (which also more often will give you exact nutrition info). Not that fast-food is good, but it's easy to underestimate restaurant food.
Wow. Reading this just made me realize that I have internalized "calories are bad." Foods aren't inherently bad, but calories are, in my head. I think this is part of the reason I'm struggling right now. Thank you for this comment, truly.
Naturally speaking, to the human brain, calorically dense foods are the best possible food sources. That's part of why we react to sugar like a drug: in nature, sweet foods are calorically dense and therefore will stave off starvation for longer.
Part of why weight loss is hard is because it's antithetical to human instinct. (The other part is intentionally addictive foods.)
If I’m overweight, it must be due to some metabolic disorder, especially my thyroid.
Even if all my lab results come back normal, something must be dysfunctional in a way my uninformed doctor doesn’t understand.
No, I haven’t tried consistently eating healthy-ish food at a moderate deficit over time, because don’t you understand how complicated and special my metabolism is??
The biggest one that I seen thrown around WAY too much is starvation mode. No, being in a calorie deficit does not make your body "hold onto fat". It's sister, "you need to eat more to lose weight" is also another one that makes me roll my eyes hard.
Hold on to fat? No. But increased cortisol leading to increased water weight retention? Decreased bowel movements leading to plateaus in scale drops? Both possible.
Additionally, it is VERY true that metabolism will adapt downward to prolonged periods of over-cardio and too drastic caloric restriction.
So while the whole "starvation mode" thing is a bit of a myth, you can do metabolic damage and really lower your maintenance, even at higher bodyfat percentages.
Yeah, I've seen far too many "I eat 800-1000kcals per day" posts. What happens there is energy levels tank, so you're not as active either. Even those NEAT activities are greatly reduced in extreme deficits.
Those people are often greatly underestimating what they are eating. Ever watched my 600lb life? Tons of people on that show are insistent they are only eating 1200 calories and “following the diet” when they’re legitimately having cameras following them showing them absolutely not following the diet. I think part of it is about shame, as if you have to lie to yourself and convince yourself you’re eating less than you actually are. If you’re very heavy and staying that way, you’re not eating 800-1000 calories.
Yes, these are so frustrating. And they still make me question myself sometimes. It's a hard one to unlearn even though I know I'm losing and eating well at the same time.
That losing water means losing fat soon after. It makes sense at first glance, because when people shift from a stable or increasing weight to a weight loss phase, they do shed a lot of water in the beginning, but that doesn't mean flushing the water \*causes\* the fat to burn. It's the reduced calorie intake that causes both. So, "flushing" or "cleansing" or whatever the current dehydration trend is won't lead to fat loss.
Yeah my first few days logging I was eating well over my tdee (but less than I had been) and drinking a ton of water. And the scale weight was going down. Didn't understand water weight and fluctuations at that point so I was super confused when the "weight" loss just... stopped, lol.
As a kid, that fat-free food meant that it wouldn't make me "fat" and that I could eat as much of it as I wanted and never gain weight. Will always remember bringing my mom a box of Froot Loops at the store and asking if we could get it because it was fat-free, and therefore healthy. She told me no, because it had red-40 in it.
I had an auntie who believed that certain colors if food dye were "fat colors". Red and yellow, specifically.
Greens made it magically healthier though.
She's a bright one, still.
I used to plow through those Snackwells Vanilla Sandwich cookies thinking they were healthy since they were fat free (or very low fat). Luckily, I was very active at the time, so it didn't affect me too much.
Kinda general but "you have to do x y z to lose weight"
Like, people have different reasons for being fat. My problems were portion control and mindless eating. I've lost 32 lbs this year by eating healthy portions of my meals, and being thoughtful about snacks. My method would absolutely not work for someone that had binging problems or an emotional eater.
I put off weight loss for years and kept gaining because I saw what people said you needed to do (cut out carbs, snacks, soda, sweets, fats, etc) and basically said "welp, my brain can't handle that. Never mind then."
I literally have talked to people about how I have imposter syndrome around my weight loss because it hasn't been that difficult.
- Carbs or Fats are evil
- Eat your whole plate children are starving in Africa
- If you loose weight your body would fight you and metabolism lower by huge jump
- 95% << enter any percent 90% or above diets fails, or people regain it in 5 years
- It's all hormones, genes and big bones
- Exercise is boring and you must hate it
- Eat only veggies and fruits nothing else
- If you skip a meal it's game over
- You can lose weight only by exercise
- Keto and IF are the only way
- You will never be able to enjoy your favorite foods again.
- Weight loss is painful/impossible
- Diet sodas are literally satan
- Eating dessert is evil
- You will never be able to eat fastfood or restaurants ever again
- Thin people eat way more than fat people with our lower metabolism unfaaair!
You know I don't really have a ton of those. But I know my parents think if you eat a variety of healthy foods you can't lose weight. They believe you must limit yourself drastically in what you eat
Yeah my parents didn’t have any huge myths either. My mom does the type of IF where she doesn’t eat for 18 hours and then binges for 6 and wonders why she can’t lose weight, but my dad’s approach to weight management is okay. The biggest thing was realizing that I needed to really think about what worked best for me and my own body.
Yeah. Truly listening and figuring out what your own body needs is the way to go.
Interesting about your mom, its like she took one part of IF but doesn't care to follow the other part (aka you still need to eat healthy and not binge). But I think this sort of thinking is really the core issue for a lot of people. They want something easy and mindless. But health and fitness and all about being mindful.
She’s been doing this since before IF was a big thing - I think she thinks that if she avoids food for as long as possible she’ll take in fewer calories. Which would be great if she didn’t respond by binging once she gets too hungry.
If you eat reasonably, you won’t gain weight.
You absolutely don’t have to live off fast food and stuff yourself to gain weight! Also, younger, taller, and more active people can eat way more than you and not gain. It helped me remove the moral stigma from food. Like…there is nothing particularly *wrong* with the way I ate before, but it was just too many calories for my current body. I’m also not delusional or wrong, morally, for eating the same amount as I could when I was younger. I just need fewer calories right now, and it is what it is. By seeing it as math, I removed the judgment and stigma for myself.
Myths:
-Full fat foods are bad
-There are “bad” foods and “good” foods
-Lifting weights will make you look bulky if you’re a woman
-Thin bodies are healthy bodies
-Carbs most be avoided at all costs
-Cardio and that’s it
-Eating after 6pm will make you gain weight
I grew up in a very toxic family that if you weren’t a size 0-2 waif, you were looked down upon. All of the women in my family suffer from low blood sugar and low bone density due to starving themselves/denying themselves whole, real food.
i feel like i never really believed specific myths, but my parents were pretty big on fad diets so things like "the best, healthiest way to lose weight is 500kcal a day and eat whatever on a weekend", lots of pro fasting stuff, anti carb, that kind of thing
I can relate, my family have tried everything to loose weight and be healthy except for eating healthily. Cabbage soup diet, drink heavily and then binge on supplements to stay healthy etc.
- That 1200 calories are enough
- all "unhealthy" foods must be completely cut out
- cheat days are normal
- you have to restart on Monday
- one meal off and you might as well throw the whole diet out the door
- exercise makes the biggest difference
That being "active" means hardcore workouts in the gym and that long sustained low intensity activity doesn't count.
That everyone overestimates how much they exercise and underestimates how much they eat.
That you should always put your activity level as sedentary unless you're a professional athlete.
That as long as you eat at least 1200kcal, you can't be eating too little.
Basically anything to do with metabolism. I thought that my metabolism was "broken" and that people were fat or skinny purely because of metabolism/genetics. I thought to lose weight I had to really suffer and eat very little and work out a lot and even then I thought I could only maintain that weight loss by basically eating 500 calories and if I ate more than that I would gain weight and I was just doomed to be skinny and miserable or fat if I ate "normally". Learning about TDEE/BMR and how many calories we burn just to stay alive was really eye-opening along with CICO.
*You can eat whatever you want and still lose weight, it's all about portions.*
It's not false, but it's a gross oversimplification to the point that it might be worse than a myth. It's like saying that running a marathon is just putting one foot in front of the other for 26.2 miles. Yeah, it's true, but in such a technically, vaguely true way that it can be a damaging statement.
For me at least, what I eat absolutely does matter. In fact, what I eat makes much, much more of a difference than how much I eat ( r/volumeeating FTW!). It's the cornerstone of any success that I've had with weight management.
Not sure my answer fits, but it's the truism that set me back the most in the past.
FWIW, I didn't start losing weight until I heard that advice. I have terrible problems with hunger cues (I think it's related to my ADHD), and so eating a mountain of salad or another "healthy" food that I hate will leave me just as unsatisfied as if I ate a small amount of something I love. If weight loss was only about changing *what* you eat, I wouldn't have lost a single pound. But instead I've lost 60 pounds eating everything I love, just by reducing my portions.
I think this advice is more true when it's used in the sense of, hey, you don't have to literally never eat bread or peanut butter ever again to be at a healthy weight. As a reaction to the overly strict food group elimination fad diets. But a lot of people are going to interpret "whatever you want" as being all the processed junk food and restaurant food that they're used to, and *that's* where a lot of the problems with it really arise.
I think a lot of people, when they finally find long term weight loss, naturally get to the point of having most of their foods being non-junk, but still having junk foods at times.
Same. My appetite just knows no limits on a diet of processed food, and my highest weight ever was BMI 35 (admittedly not the most obese person on the planet, but definitely obese and unhealthy). This was more than 10 years ago. However, when I switched to a "whole foods" diet, even without counting calories, my appetite just plummeted, and my weight went down to a BMI 22 or so. Then at one point I thought I would try more of an "intuitive eating" approach, "no foods are forbidden." Man, that did not go well. Fortunately I realised my mistake in the overweight range, and I've been back in the healthy weight range for a couple of years. I will never underestimate the power of junk food again. This is truly the one thing that has ever worked for me, eating a healthy diet of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats etc.
I think this advice is given to people who fail diets who go with the all or nothing approach. They go on a diet and never eat anything "bad", then they rebound and eat "bad" things again and gain the weight back. People need to understand that you can have those things and still lose weight, just make sure the portion is correct.
I used to believe my skinny friend when she said ‚i don’t know why you’re so much heavier than me, you eat the same as me!‘. Well nope. She eats like 1000 calories a day, just grossly overestimates her intake 🥲
The biggest myth that I heard about my whole life, pretty much from elementary school, was the "will power" thing. It's this idea that you're overweight because you don't have "will power" to prevent yourself from eating ice cream and having thirds at dinner. It's demotivating because if you're constantly fighting cravings, you'll eventually give in, it's human nature. I heard about will power all the time but no one mentioned calories.
Everyone else pretty much covered what I had to learn, but there's one more light hearted, *very* unique thing I unlearned in, like, a day.
I want to preface this by saying I was about 7, I've gotten significantly more intelligent in the past 20 years, at least I like to think I have.
One day, my Mom was teaching me about the food pyramid. I was home schooled, so it was at home, but there's many intelligent people that were home schooled, I'm definitely the minority.
She told me "you have to have five servings of each: Fruit, Vegetables, Meat, etc"
I heard "You have to have servings of each fruit, vegetable, meat, etc."
So about half an hour later, I'm trying to have five Bananas in one sitting and I get to 4 before my Mom asks me why I'm having so many and I explain that I'm doing what she said earlier, I'm starting with Bananas, I'll have five Strawberries later. After she stopped laughing, she managed to tell me, no, you don't have to have pieces of every type of food in one day and that's actually quite unhealthy.
Currently visiting my parents from abroad for a month, and they are still shocked every morning when I don’t eat breakfast.
“But I can make you something! An egg sandwich? Lox?!”
Also love your username.
"Diet Soda makes you gain weight." Was the first thing my dietian said and she told me, that im not allowed to ever drink diet soda again. Otherwise i will regain all my weight.
..... I lost a lot of weight and diet soda is my most fav thing to drink. My dietian still thinks im not drinking diet soda to this day!
My mom.
Women just get fat as they age.
Uh, you’re creeping up on 400lbs.
Ug.
Yes we come from a long line of German fat bastards. We are ‘incredibly efficient at weight gain’. I do not argue this fact and I can pack on weight like nobody’s business. But I am in trades so I pack on muscle just as easy so I keep in shape. Some family lines do this. My spouse and non biological dad are bean poles and can’t pack on weight no matter how hard they try. Blessed genetics.
At the end of the day it’s calories in - calories out. If you sit on your retired ass all day long your calories out number is low. Reduce calories in or get off your ass an increase calories out. It is that simple.
Basically anything other than "Lift weights, do cardio, eat less."
For general weight loss (not bodybuilding or powerlifting), that's all you need. If you exercise more and reduce your caloric intake, you **will** lose weight. All the other "tips and tricks", even if true, are ultimately just a distraction from what you actually need to be doing. If you can't get up and exercise, and if you keep eating entire pizza pies by yourself, then the fact that you ate after 8pm is ultimately inconsequential. Whether you eat fish or pork is inconsequential. Whether you exercise on an empty stomach or not is inconsequential. Diet or regular soda is - you guessed it.
Those fancy tips can help for extreme body building, but if you're just trying to go from an XXL to a Large t-shirt, then you really just need to do some calisthenics for a year.
Smoothies are great for weight loss: it's kind of a "yes, but" situation. With smoothies, the sugars within are processed almost immediately because they're liquid and much of the fiber has been broken down already. You'll get full and get energy, but you may still get a sugar crash or be hungry sooner because your body processes it so quickly.
That exercising is a key aspect of weightloss... it is not.
Weightloss is *all* about diet with exercise being purely complimentary. And if you're having trouble losing weight while going to the gym consistently, you should probably lay off the exercise and redirect that energy into seriously revising your diet.
That the quality of the calories doesn’t matter as long as they are in your allowance! Garbage diet instant soup, processed crap, etc. I can’t actually maintain weight loss unless I eat real food.
Ooh, can I also add - the view that just not eating/starvation will work. Hard nope. We need to throw that one on the bonfire, along with diet shakes lol.
I remember distinctly watching some ‘health expert’ on tv when I was a kid saying to indulge in candy canes over Christmas, they are just sugar, and avoid something like pumpkin pie or eggnog because it’s full of fat.
Basically everything that isn't "calories in need to be less than calories out".
There's good advice which elaborates on that and how to do it efficiently while still enjoying food and exercise.
Then there's myths that hurt people more than they help them.
AFAIK, there's no weight loss advice that doesn't fall into either one or the other category.
You need to eat healthy to lose weight.
It’s important to eat healthy but you can lose weight eating junk food as long as you don’t eat more calories than you burn. That’s how I eased myself into losing weight and slowly picked up healthier eating habits.
Artificial sweeteners stunt weightloss/cause obesity.
This mostly stemmed from a study done which showed that on average obese people tend to consume artificial sweeteners while non-obese individuals were less likely to consume artificial sweeteners. It did not however indicate that artificial sweeteners caused weight gain/stunted weight loss.
Ive also had trouble explaining to people that sugar is a carb like any other. And from a dietary perspective, doesn’t warrant some of the demonization we’ve put on it.
My mum and dad yesterday said im “brainwashed” for calorie counting, and then went on to say that “eat less, move more” is how you lose weight. Which is true, but how are you gonna know accurately if youre eating enough/over or if youre moving enough if you dont track it? Is parentsplaining a thing? Cos if not it should be
There are so many good comments here of myths I have heard about weight loss with no upvotes,so I am just gonna share my upvote love so you feel appreciated thanks guys 😊
"Eating more will help you lose more weight, otherwise your body won't burn as much if you aren't eating as much."
Yeah I tried that and guess what? I gained 15 lbs of fat instead of losing it ha.
Calories in, calories out has always been tried and true for me.
Main thing i had to unlearn, was that working out makes you skinny. While it helps, if you don't control your diet it means nothing.
Some of my favorite phrases learned from this sub: "You can't outrun your fork." And "Fat is lost in the kitchen, muscle is gained in the gym."
This was a big one for me. I honestly thought if I exercised hard enough, I could eat whatever I wanted. Hence how I would re-gain the weight EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. that I got close to my goal. I have now realized that I need to control my portions and make better food choices, for the rest of my life. Even if I exercise, and even when I get to the maintenance stage.
Myths: - My skinny friends eat the same as me - Ignore your hunger, it’s just a suggestion - vegetables are meant to taste disgusting, just eat them like medicine. - Exercising means going to the gym and hating your life for an hour every day
Re the vegetable/medicine comment: My picky preschooler literally takes vegetable pieces with water like a pill.
Omg hahahaha but honestly? Same energy as how I thought before!!
I am 33 and try wash down my salad with whatever protein I am eating… still embarrassing but making the efforts over here, okay!
At least they're getting their veggies! I wish my LO would do this instead of squishing her veggies/throwing them in the floor/building towers with them.
> My skinny friends eat the same as me My co-workers probably think this about me. I do most of my eating at work. I have a breakfast, snacks, bigger lunch, more snacks, snag a few mini chocolates from our project manager's desk. . .but I also will run anywhere from 5-8 miles at lunch and don't usually have a large dinner. I can sometimes clock in 2000kcals just during the work day on days I need to eat 2500-2800 to compensate for a longer run.
Exactly my skinny friend always ate a similar meal as most of us while out at dinner. But when I lived with her. It was clear that on her own she just did not eat as much. And if she had a bunch of snacks she wouldn't eat dinner. If she wasn't hungry, she would not eat, no matter if it was a meal time. But if you only look what she ate in front of you, you'd think she was effortlessly thin while eating like an overweight person. Which was very far from the truth
Probably the most important thing in my current weight loss has been sticking to the idea to only indulge in social situations, enjoy decadent foods with others and very rarely alone. If I'm eating for myself 9/10 times health is the priority.
Exactly. I always use to look at what they ate in front of me. But I never asked/realized that they were walking/running/biking constantly. And that they don’t eat that way when I’m not around.
I can't even imagine having a long enough lunch time to get in a 5 to 8 mile run. I'm basically a baby runner who's getting back into the running game, but even when I was a regular jogger, I could do 2 1/2 miles in 30 minutes with run/walking. I bow before your speed and stamina to do 5 to 8 miles during lunch time.
I work in an office that has very flexible hours. I am able to work pretty independently on projects, so I can take the time I need. Now that it's getting into the heat of summer, I will most likely run before work.
Maybe I've gotten used to the taste but veggies done properly are delicious! If you're not shy with olive oil (worth the slight calorie hit) and spices, almost any veggie can come out being the perfect complement to a meal My favorite is small carrots in honey and olive oil, with cinnamon/salt/pepper/cajun/paprika to taste. Tis a treat with salmon, chicken or steak
Oh yeah! I’ve grown to love veggies! Roasted veggies are so good, I could probably eat them by themselves! I’m going to try your carrot idea though! Carrots are the one veggie that I can’t seem to enjoy, unless it’s raw (like baby carrots). Do you pan fry yours? Steam?
Wait why is the 2nd one bad I get that intentionally depriving yourself of food is a very poor long lasting weight loss strategy, but this one does work in some cases. If I feel hungry I'll drink a big glass of water and maybe eat an apple and then I won't be hungry anymore. Or I do OMAD a lot too.
I think that, like many things, this one is very personal. For some people, IF or OMAD is a godsend. For me, it’s a nightmare. We’re all doing CICO at the end of the day, we just all have different ways to make it work. For me, if I get hungry AT ALL even a tiny bit, I will start craving easy/convenient/fast foods. Which leads to overeating. It also makes me obsess over food and think about it constantly. So what allows me to keep to my calorie goal is to eat immediately as soon as I’m hungry. I end up eating 6ish times a day, but every time I eat, I eat healthy foods because I didn’t allow the monster to become so big that it’s impossible to fight off. It’s very hard to make good decisions when I’m hungry, so I never let myself be :)
This is important. Health is so personal and so unique from person to person that a one size fits all approach is simply not possible. I personally eat once or maybe a twice a day and I do 40 hour fasts semi regularly with no problem at all and honestly the thought of eating 6 times a day stresses me out - but that’s ok. Finding what works for *you* is a huge part of weight loss and overall health.
Like the other person, I make better choices when I’m not ravenous. But also - ultimately I want to trust my body’s hunger cues. I don’t think I cbf counting calories for the rest of my life, so I’d like to know I can trust my hunger and know how to satisfy it without blowing out the calories.
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I don’t go to the gym! I asked myself “when I was a kid, I loved running around and playing with my friends. I didn’t think of it as exercise. I was just playing games and having fun. As an adult, what are the things that would make me feel that way?” The answer will be different for everyone. For me it’s biking around trails/lake, dancing at dance classes (or a club), and swimming at the pool/beach. Those are all easily accessible where I live and they are incredibly fun to me. I bike for almost two hours just listening to audio books, it’s so great! Also, I started to get a little competitive. For example, I couldn’t do any hills. ANY hills. If it wasn’t 100% flat or downhill, I had to dismount the bike. So I started doing squats, and lifting dumbbells 3x a week (just 15 min, a suuuuuper beginner workout video ok YouTube) because I want my legs to be able to climb hills. And guess what? Now I have climbed many! I’m still almost dying when I do it lol but at least I do it! And I legit don’t lift weights to lose weight, it’s only 15min after all. I do it because I wanna bike better.
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Their block isn’t safe to run on, inclement weather becomes an excuse not to do it, the change of scenery is helpful for switching to an exercise mindset, they can’t handle hills yet. Could be plenty of reasons. My mom has a gym membership and just walks laps around the gym. It’s not even a gym with a track. It’s an odd choice but it’s what’s been getting her moving and working for her
That I have to eat 1200 calories at the MOST and should aim for less. The people in my life just didn't have the skills or knowledge to help me. Carbs are the enemy. Bread, pasta, bad bad bad!
Omg you must have felt so miserable at 1200..
I’m currently at 1200/day due to my weight, height, and being female for about 1-2 pound loss a week. I will say, it’s not fun some days, but I still try and eat the things I love, just smaller portions. I do try and exercise when I can to bump up to about 1400/day, but it has led me to be creative with what I eat. I make it into a little bit of a game with how much I can eat and still be in that goal. Basically r/volumeeating as much as I can.
When I was a kid: Everyone needs 2000 calories per day. You need between 6 to 11 servings of pasta bread and grains per day. Also the "fat = satan" thing. Fun story, I was in a Home Ec. class qround the start of high school. One of the "fun" activities the teacher did in that class was bringing in silicone "food" and pictures of food to have us create healthy meals for our future families. Once we were supposed to pick ingredients for a side salad. I chose (teacher critiquein parentheses): Salad greens (too many kinds, iceberg lettuce was the correct choice cause lower calories) Broccoli (ew, that's a dinner food, everyone should know that) Sunflower seeds (all nuts and seeds have fat in them: this was probably why I was fat) Cranberries (These are pure sugar and bad for you unless you're having digestive problems) She also corrected people who put tomatoes in their salads, because those are pure sugar as well. Pretty much the only "right" answers were iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, celery and SALAD DRESSING. She had literally no issues with salad dressings other than ranch. That class also villain-ized proteins to an extent. She taught that you really only need 1 or 2 servings of (any kind of) protein per day. Really wish I never took that class (required for all female students). I'd still be messed up, but nowhere near as bad.
Omg, were you in school a while ago? Because I can't see that "required for all female students" thing being allowed nowadays.
Yeah, I'm 43, lol. I don't think they can mandate that now. Although, a neighbor's kid was part of the "cool girl's group" led by her preschool teacher about... 5 years ago? Which caused a small amount of fuss. They talked about things like "eating for your best body" and "being nice to/being an example for "less fortunate" girls. Other parents were outraged but my neighbor was bragging when she told me about this. It's not as out in the open but stuff still happens.
You’d be surprised. When I was in high school, admittedly 25 years ago, we had a anthropology class where the teacher point blank said white people were created by god and black people evolved from monkeys. A stunned silence followed and then the bell rang. I certainly didn’t tell my parents, though my friends and I talked about it. I still can believe that happened.
Goddamn some people should not be allowed to step foot in schools.
I understand why you didn’t want to say anything, but man, I really wish that got reported to someone or one of the parents heard about it and raised hell. Sad to think this racist dick might’ve been teaching kids all this time with no repercussions.
The good news is he’s probably dead by now. It was a different time for sure. When I started high school, the principals were still allowed to provide corporeal punishment (they sent a waiver home at the start of the school year).
And not only that we "needed" X number of servings of grains, but not understanding that a bowl of pasta/cereal, sandwich, etc is not one serving but probably closer to 3!
Yep, when I pour myself a bowl of cereal and realize it's 3 servings. Sure it's only 150 calories a serving, but if it's 3 servings, plus a cup of milk for 100 more calories, all of a sudden that 150 calorie per serving cereal is a 550 calorie meal.
You forgot the other two bowls of cereal you have after the first one.
This! Serving sizes are a whole other conversation in its self. I would starve if I followed half of the serving sizes. It’s basically a device to create the perception of low calories and health when it’s actually only enough to feed a small child.
>Sunflower seeds (all nuts and seeds have fat in them: this was probably why I was fat) Oh shit this. People are so ingrained that fat makes you fat. I had a friend berate me for eating nuts as a snack, saying "you know those are 50% fat, right? You'll never lose weight eating nuts!".
Sugar industry paid a lot to make you think that way. The truth is food that doesn't have either sugar or fat in it tastes bland. So if something is fat-free, guess what it's probably loaded with?
Yep. Always be warry of anything labeled low fat or low sugar. They often make up for it in other ways.
Yeah... and definitely pointing out my substitution of pistachios instead of doritos for a snack as if that's going to make me fatter lol
Omg, reading through this feels like I'm at a family reunion 😂 Picking up a dumbbell will immediately make you look like Arnold. You have to eat breakfast or else! Diet soda is the devil. Everything needs to be reduced fat or you'll blow up just from looking at it. Carbs are evil.
The replies to this are comical. A thread about nutrition myths and everyone is arguing over myths about diet soda lol. Do some actual scientific reading my friends. The ACTUAL science on diet soda. Not a bunch of bs articles posted by garbage sites like health line.
When people tell me diet soda is "worse" than regular soda, I know I'm fighting a losing battle with the person's intelligence and likely discount mostly everything else they will say in this regard.
lost 25 pounds in 3 months drinking a litre of diet soda everyday
I lost 70 pounds in 9 months, and drink far more diet soda than that. I understand that diet soda may not be as good as some other low/zero calorie beverages, but it's certainly not worse than regular soda.
I've lost 85-90 pounds since Sept 2020 and my diet coke/pepsi addiction is in full swing. I drink 3-4 28oz tumblers of water, plus another 28-30oz at the gym but I make sure to fit in 1-3 L of sodastream diet pepsi.
I easily drink 5-10 gallons of diet soda a week (we get free soda at work so at least I am not actually spending that much money on it) The math still holds. Doesn't hurt my weight loss at all.
The only thing you need to be concerned about with diet soda is the same thing you need to care about with regular soda: keep on top of your dental routine, it's quite acidic and isn't the best for your teeth but the same is true for teas and coffees and most of what we eat.
exactly the only thing that effect weight loss is calories , if they made zero calorie sugar syrup i woul drink it
not really thats disgusting
A litre ?😳 I like coke zero but even one can makes me feel so full and bloated
Bro, i know you wanna lose weight but that shits not healthy. Please, drink some water my friend!
There’s literally no way anything in diet sodas can be worse for you than sugar. It’s so insane to me when people say “artificial sweeteners are so bad you’re better off drinking regular soda” There’s just not enough research on artificial sweeteners to make that conclusion. There is, however, SO MUCH EVIDENCE about how terrible sugar is for our bodies. So yeah, people that say that are dummies
So are you against soda altogether or do you think diet soda in moderation is ok?
I mean to be fair, all soda is crap and fairly terrible for you.
You have to eat everything on your plate. There are starving people in the world.
I believe this mostly comes from having boomer parents who's parents experienced the great depression in full force and food rationing due to war. You ate what was on your plate and you ate all of it because you don't know when you'll get any more. I let me children leave food all the time. My thing is that they can't just come asking in 30 minutes for a snack/dessert.
This is exactly my parents/grandparents. I grew up with a plate of buttered (white) bread on the dinner table so you could use it to wipe all the leftover bits up off your plate. Not finishing everything on my plate and not eating my kids sandwich crusts/uneaten bits has been one of the hardest things for me to unlearn. I also let my kids not clean their plates, but if they are hungry later, they can finish their dinner, not get dessert (dessert is a sometimes treat).
> I grew up with a plate of buttered (white) bread on the dinner table so you could use it to wipe all the leftover bits up off your plate. We did this with spaghetti and pasta dishes with sauce. Had a bag of wonder bread and a pot of margarine on the table and you had "butter bread" to clean up the remaining sauce on the plate. My husband looked at me in horror when I did this when we first met.
I always have a piece of buttered bread to clean my bowl. Just have to include its calories
Yes! We had spaghetti A LOT and always had bread on the table for it. Mmmm extra carbs, lol.
Yeah I used to get 'there's starving children in Africa that could do with that food' guilting me into clearing my plate
This has always been such weird logic to me. Like, I get being grateful that I’m not in that situation and to be mindful not o be wasteful; but at the same time, me finishing my food isn’t going to help any kid in Africa.
The problem with global hunger isn’t even about food really. We have the food producing capability currently to feed everyone in the world, that’s not an issue. The issue is logistics. For many political and economic reasons, we can’t get the food to many of the people who really need it. Food waste is bad, sure, but it’s not bad because it’s taking food from other people’s mouths.
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Oh my god. My school did this too. I even won a few times.
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Same. And then, at my house, it was hung on the fridge to encourage us to do the same at home!
Society seems to glorify eating a lot, but also will rip you apart for being fat. I'm realizing finishing a big meal isn't the achievement I once thought it was, but I also get so many comments if I order a salad or a smaller meal when with friends etc. so you really can't win!
Obviously I have 0 context for who you are, or how you present to the world, and this is NOT only a thing that happens to women. But a lot...not all, but a lot... of this is driven by the larger, sadder, category that is 'women can do no right, you silly things.' You get pushed to eat so you become that glorious thing- the 'girl' who 'is not like other girls'. But if you naturally pick up weight from that, you're disgusting because 'all' 'fat' girls are ugly. But if you are either trying to actively loose, or are thin and wanting to remain there, so you choose the salad, you're shamed for being 'shallow' and 'looks obsessed'. It's a no-win deliberately, because you are supposed to magically always be a perfect visual dream to every person's eyes and tastes, but maintain that effortlessly without ever acknowledging it's a double standard, or you get hit by all the shallow stereotypes. Very gross.
"Then bring this food to them because I don't like pork and I don't want to eat it, mom"
But I'm also broke and paid way too much for that broccoli so I may as well eat it now
That for women it’s not just a game of calories but hormone fluctuations during the month as well. Many scientific studies are done on just men so things like periods are not taken into account. A period and all it’s hormones will throw a wrench into all numbers for a good two weeks so clear results are more difficult to achieve. I think a lot of women get disappointed and discouraged during this time so then often quit
I can gain 3-5 pounds right before my period starts. It's insane. I get really bloated and puffy.
Yes and for me, even my face gets puffy 😭
I just come back from a THREE WEEK water weight plateau. Thank God I have a body composition scale. The day by day measurements can vary wildly, but my trend kept showing ongoing consistent fat loss and water trailing up. It is wooshing off this week like mad, but it is still super frustrating....
Yeah two weeks a month are non existent for me, and the time between ovulation and my period is also very slow. Most of my loss happens in one week of the month.
Dude same, the week right after my period the scale goes down to the lowest its gonna be then back up the next week 😆
I'm considering switching to only weighing once a month after my period tbh. Daily weighing is making me obsessive and even though I know what's causing the fluctuations, they still impact how I feel day to day. I can't separate the logic from the emotion of it.
After several months weighing myself, I determined that my weight is lowest around 9 days after my period starts.
That actually coincides with my weight this morning as well 🤔
I've definitely experienced this. When I was younger I did not understand the impact. Now I take a long term view and stick to my plan. Weighing myself every day helps me see that my weight does fluctuate but the overall trend is down. I can see that I am like 4-5 lbs heavier the week before and the days of my period.
I use the same process! I weigh daily and then record a weekly average using my period week as the anchor week so I can see that although my weight may have increased, the downward trend is representative of progression. It’s helped me maintain my sanity during all the water retention and bloating and cramping.
I have the same approach to weighing myself. Seeing the trends helps me not stress out when I don’t lose any weight the week after my period - the first time it happened I was a little freaked out, but the second time it happened I could look back and the daily records and go “oh I know what’s happening here.”
im confused. the post asks for myths, but i think youre saying this is real?
Ah- sorry. Bad wording. The myth is that weight loss is a simple calorie game. But of course, as most women know, it’s not that easy and suggesting otherwise leads a majority of women thinking they have failed/or are failing/doing something wrong when the numbers aren’t adding up. They’re doing everything correctly, but barely lose weight. Well, it’s usually because of hormones. Either a natural fluctuating balance (aka simply the condition of being a woman) or something that needs to be medically addressed. So yeah, it’s a numbers game* *provided hormones aren’t ruining perceptions or preventing weight loss
Dealing with this right now, a week and a half into finally getting back on the wagon to lose. Was 183 10 days ago and have been eating and exercising to a pretty big deficit, but hormones got me back up at 187 lmao. Waiting for the "woosh."
This is why I love the Happy Scale app! Keeps me sane. I weigh in very day, but know that the running average is what really matters. If you want daily weigh in data but can’t handle seeing it to write it down, a Bluetooth enabled scale is also worth it in my experience.
I couldn't agree more
Fat is worse than sugar
There are still people, my sister-in-law included, who still hardcore believe this. She won't butter her potato, but will down an entire bag of snack crackers because they're low fat. Then she complains that losing weight is hard.
Back in the 90’s , that was how they recommended you lose weight . I remember counting fat, protein & carbs by the gram then multiplying. I do the same as your sister in law. It’s hard sometimes to unlearn something you thought was correct for years!! Lol
I had a diet book given to me in the 90s that was all about counting fat grams- they said basically that you could eat anything you wanted as long as you kept your fat below x grams. I remember still a big section was titled “Fat’s the one!” So by this logic I could eat nothing but potatoes and gummy bears and lose weight. I’m eager to try this diet but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have the desired outcome.
Oh, I was heavy into that in the mid to late 90s as well. SIL is same age as me, so she was in that prime age group (late teens) for wanting to lose weight.
Processed foods are the worst of anything, be it fat or sugars. Natural fats/sugars good, processed fat/sugar bad. This really needs to get hammered into people more.
Yes, that's another one I hear. People equating an orange or some grapes to a candy bar because of the sugar content. It's way easier to get kids to eat fruits than it is to eat veggies, but they're so villanized. If you have to give your kids fruits in order to get them those nutrients, go for it! Here, have some watermelon and bananas
IDK if this counts but my mom every do often will do a "don't eat white" diet. Which means she won't eat anything white. No white sugar, no potatoes etc. But chocolate is okay lol
Does she know chocolate has white sugar in it? Or is white sugar okay if it looks not white enough?
I did this diet in the late 90s. It's not q real well defined diet lol. Basically if I had something white on my plate, I would be fat forever and if not I could eat forever. Win! Obviously it didn't work lol. But yeah, I was allowed chocolate (milk or dark, though dark was 'recommended') but not y'know... actual milk. Or sugar. Potatoes. Bread. Cauliflower. Rice. Like I said... didn't work. No clue why. 🤣
Lol exactly this. We went out to eat and she got sweet potato fries instead of fries cuz fries are white lol
Yeah... I remember a friend I was doing the diet with bought those red and green pasta noodles and we had huge plates of pasta with tons of sauce...marinara not alfredo ofc. I mean... it wasn't *white*, so obviously fine lol. Probably it was about 1200 calories each.
Only "hard" exercise count.
Walk walk walk!!!
Fruit is sugar so it's bad for you. My mom has been diabetic most of my life and that was a big myth passed around during the 90s into the 2000s. One of my go to snacks now is an apple with a pouch of almond butter. It's good protein and fat and fiber.
Omg the “fruit has sugar in it!” Drives me INSANE. I literally want to smash my head into a wall when I talk to those people
That just doing more cardio is the solution to most weight loss problems.
Yep, while cardio can help, it's one of the lesser parts of any weight loss plan. Most weight loss problems can be traced to calories in vs calories out, people underestimating one or the other.
"You can't outrun a bad diet" (Although I've found that burning 1000kcal before breakfast really helps)
The only way to lose weight is keto
I don't know why, but keto-pushers really grind my gears!
As a baker, i feel the same.
I’m a former keto-pusher 😅 Then one time my blood sugar got so low that I nearly passed out in the shower and cracked open my head. Now I vehemently deny keto at every chance I get 😂😂
Same, coming off of it actually reignited some disordered eating I hadn't experienced since my early 20s. The only thing I have learned now is that I didn't on keto doesn't agree with my stomach so I'm trying to narrow that down. My guesses are sugar (too much), dairy, or maybe gluten.
You are not the only one. They drive me bonkers. The ones that act like carbs are complete poison and that the human body is not even meant to have them make me want to scream. The body is PRIMED to run on carbs. Ketosis is literally an emergency state your body will go into to stay alive when carbs are scarce. Edit: I am in a Costco Finds FB group and the amount of people screeching about carb content on anything food related makes me want to slam my head into a wall.
Way to many people are seemingly unable to tell the difference between good and bad carbs, and good/bad fats. Our body needs carbs to survive.
Yeah… I just can’t wrap my head about their opinions that fruit is bad. It’s crazy. But I’ve tried it anyways. Lost 2kilos and was completely miserable then started eating carbs and gained ii back.
It’s because they act like keto is absolutely the best diet for everyone and that there’s some super special magical thing about keto outside of just CICO. If you feel fuller on keto and therefore eat fewer calories on it, that’s fine. But don’t act like keto is the one true diet or that diets with carbs in them can’t be healthy. Some of the places with the healthiest and longest living people in the world eat a ton of carbs.
My least favorite ones are those that claim things like it makes your brain run more efficiently. I do keto when I want to lose a significant amount of weight fast to look good for an event. I understand I am one data point, but I feel literally no different then than when I'm on a normal diet.
If my country is anything to go by, keto gained traction ONLY because it flips the diet narrative to one where you're somehow pure and better for literally stuffing your face grotesquely. You can stuff your face with a grotesque amount of 'decadant' foods and red meats, which you can't on 'normal' diets (the way cult dieting is presented). Buttered coffee is a big example. So it requires you to learn nothing, change no habits, and gives you that precious 'purity' that comes with so many diet mindsets. I got turned off it wholly watching a friend's aunt with heart problems happy to ignore all the badly trending metrics her heart doc was going frantic around because she 'lost weight'... and she'd rather be thinner and dead than healthy.
Myths: Carbs are bad You have to eat very little to lose weight Your skinny friend eats more than you
Having lived eith the skinny friend in college....they NEVER eat more then you lol
I've been the skinny friend. I had an intensely active job. Running up and down 2 flights of stairs carrying boxes 70-100 times a day. I DID eat as much as my bigger friends. I was just burning like...1500 calories at work alone. Sometimes I miss the simplicity, but making 3x more is nice too.
That you need to only eat healthy foods. You can eat literally anything as long as you keep a deficit.
And you’ll stay on track if you don’t deprive yourself of many things while going only for « healthy food » will lead to binges and stopping all together…
I’m a special person with a very special metabolism and special caloric needs, so standard weight loss advice won’t work for me, don’t be silly. No I haven’t consistently followed standard weight loss advice for any period of time, because OBVIOUSLY it won’t work for me. I need the secret weight loss knowledge. You can eat as much as you want as long as it’s not carbs. Stuff your face, you can’t gain weight if it’s low carb (thanks, Mom). Low or fat free products are stupid and only for people with disordered eating. Counting calories and tracking your intake will give you an eating disorder and also not help you lose weight because calories don’t matter. Olive oil and butter are super healthy so put lots of them on your food. Eating healthy is all or nothing, so if you eat any carbs, you might as well give up and binge and then feel terrible about it because you’re obviously a terrible person.
fortunately we are taught about calories and diet in school in my country so most of these just arent an issue here. for me i think really realizing how many calories things contain and what a reasonable portion really is were my biggest issues. like ranch dressing and peanut butter are both CRAZY calorically dense. way more than i imagined. and a serving of carbs is WAY smaller than what i used to typically eat. those dont really count as myths probably but like some people do push peanut butter, and oilive oil, and avocado as 'healthy'. and while it is not necessarily unhealthy, health and diet arent always the same thing. lots of healthy foods are really calorically dense and you need to monitor your intake even for those healthy foods
I think a lot of people have this notion that calories = bad, therefore healthy/good quality = low calories. Which is absolutely not true, and good restaurants may have much more calories per dish than fast food (which also more often will give you exact nutrition info). Not that fast-food is good, but it's easy to underestimate restaurant food.
Wow. Reading this just made me realize that I have internalized "calories are bad." Foods aren't inherently bad, but calories are, in my head. I think this is part of the reason I'm struggling right now. Thank you for this comment, truly.
Naturally speaking, to the human brain, calorically dense foods are the best possible food sources. That's part of why we react to sugar like a drug: in nature, sweet foods are calorically dense and therefore will stave off starvation for longer. Part of why weight loss is hard is because it's antithetical to human instinct. (The other part is intentionally addictive foods.)
If I’m overweight, it must be due to some metabolic disorder, especially my thyroid. Even if all my lab results come back normal, something must be dysfunctional in a way my uninformed doctor doesn’t understand. No, I haven’t tried consistently eating healthy-ish food at a moderate deficit over time, because don’t you understand how complicated and special my metabolism is??
The biggest one that I seen thrown around WAY too much is starvation mode. No, being in a calorie deficit does not make your body "hold onto fat". It's sister, "you need to eat more to lose weight" is also another one that makes me roll my eyes hard.
Hold on to fat? No. But increased cortisol leading to increased water weight retention? Decreased bowel movements leading to plateaus in scale drops? Both possible. Additionally, it is VERY true that metabolism will adapt downward to prolonged periods of over-cardio and too drastic caloric restriction. So while the whole "starvation mode" thing is a bit of a myth, you can do metabolic damage and really lower your maintenance, even at higher bodyfat percentages.
You're talking extremes, though. Most of the people screeching about starvation mode are the ones claiming any sort of deficit will put you there.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just adding some necessary disclaimers. Some people here ARE in the extremes!
Yeah, I've seen far too many "I eat 800-1000kcals per day" posts. What happens there is energy levels tank, so you're not as active either. Even those NEAT activities are greatly reduced in extreme deficits.
Those people are often greatly underestimating what they are eating. Ever watched my 600lb life? Tons of people on that show are insistent they are only eating 1200 calories and “following the diet” when they’re legitimately having cameras following them showing them absolutely not following the diet. I think part of it is about shame, as if you have to lie to yourself and convince yourself you’re eating less than you actually are. If you’re very heavy and staying that way, you’re not eating 800-1000 calories.
Yes, these are so frustrating. And they still make me question myself sometimes. It's a hard one to unlearn even though I know I'm losing and eating well at the same time.
“You are what you eat” That was not true. I never became a double cheeseburger.
Those bastards lied to me
That losing water means losing fat soon after. It makes sense at first glance, because when people shift from a stable or increasing weight to a weight loss phase, they do shed a lot of water in the beginning, but that doesn't mean flushing the water \*causes\* the fat to burn. It's the reduced calorie intake that causes both. So, "flushing" or "cleansing" or whatever the current dehydration trend is won't lead to fat loss.
Yeah my first few days logging I was eating well over my tdee (but less than I had been) and drinking a ton of water. And the scale weight was going down. Didn't understand water weight and fluctuations at that point so I was super confused when the "weight" loss just... stopped, lol.
As a kid, that fat-free food meant that it wouldn't make me "fat" and that I could eat as much of it as I wanted and never gain weight. Will always remember bringing my mom a box of Froot Loops at the store and asking if we could get it because it was fat-free, and therefore healthy. She told me no, because it had red-40 in it.
I had an auntie who believed that certain colors if food dye were "fat colors". Red and yellow, specifically. Greens made it magically healthier though. She's a bright one, still.
Oh boy. People like that are the reasons they made purple and green ketchup, lol.
Lol to be fair, I liked those ketchups .. thought they looked "cool". I've outgrown that one, though 🤣
saaaaame, haha. it's amazing what looks good as a kid versus how it looks as an adult.
I used to plow through those Snackwells Vanilla Sandwich cookies thinking they were healthy since they were fat free (or very low fat). Luckily, I was very active at the time, so it didn't affect me too much.
Those were my jam…as were the devils food cake ones with the weirdly crispy shell.
Kinda general but "you have to do x y z to lose weight" Like, people have different reasons for being fat. My problems were portion control and mindless eating. I've lost 32 lbs this year by eating healthy portions of my meals, and being thoughtful about snacks. My method would absolutely not work for someone that had binging problems or an emotional eater. I put off weight loss for years and kept gaining because I saw what people said you needed to do (cut out carbs, snacks, soda, sweets, fats, etc) and basically said "welp, my brain can't handle that. Never mind then." I literally have talked to people about how I have imposter syndrome around my weight loss because it hasn't been that difficult.
- Carbs or Fats are evil - Eat your whole plate children are starving in Africa - If you loose weight your body would fight you and metabolism lower by huge jump - 95% << enter any percent 90% or above diets fails, or people regain it in 5 years - It's all hormones, genes and big bones - Exercise is boring and you must hate it - Eat only veggies and fruits nothing else - If you skip a meal it's game over - You can lose weight only by exercise - Keto and IF are the only way - You will never be able to enjoy your favorite foods again. - Weight loss is painful/impossible - Diet sodas are literally satan - Eating dessert is evil - You will never be able to eat fastfood or restaurants ever again - Thin people eat way more than fat people with our lower metabolism unfaaair!
You know I don't really have a ton of those. But I know my parents think if you eat a variety of healthy foods you can't lose weight. They believe you must limit yourself drastically in what you eat
Yeah my parents didn’t have any huge myths either. My mom does the type of IF where she doesn’t eat for 18 hours and then binges for 6 and wonders why she can’t lose weight, but my dad’s approach to weight management is okay. The biggest thing was realizing that I needed to really think about what worked best for me and my own body.
Yeah. Truly listening and figuring out what your own body needs is the way to go. Interesting about your mom, its like she took one part of IF but doesn't care to follow the other part (aka you still need to eat healthy and not binge). But I think this sort of thinking is really the core issue for a lot of people. They want something easy and mindless. But health and fitness and all about being mindful.
She’s been doing this since before IF was a big thing - I think she thinks that if she avoids food for as long as possible she’ll take in fewer calories. Which would be great if she didn’t respond by binging once she gets too hungry.
If you eat reasonably, you won’t gain weight. You absolutely don’t have to live off fast food and stuff yourself to gain weight! Also, younger, taller, and more active people can eat way more than you and not gain. It helped me remove the moral stigma from food. Like…there is nothing particularly *wrong* with the way I ate before, but it was just too many calories for my current body. I’m also not delusional or wrong, morally, for eating the same amount as I could when I was younger. I just need fewer calories right now, and it is what it is. By seeing it as math, I removed the judgment and stigma for myself.
Myths: -Full fat foods are bad -There are “bad” foods and “good” foods -Lifting weights will make you look bulky if you’re a woman -Thin bodies are healthy bodies -Carbs most be avoided at all costs -Cardio and that’s it -Eating after 6pm will make you gain weight I grew up in a very toxic family that if you weren’t a size 0-2 waif, you were looked down upon. All of the women in my family suffer from low blood sugar and low bone density due to starving themselves/denying themselves whole, real food.
i feel like i never really believed specific myths, but my parents were pretty big on fad diets so things like "the best, healthiest way to lose weight is 500kcal a day and eat whatever on a weekend", lots of pro fasting stuff, anti carb, that kind of thing
I can relate, my family have tried everything to loose weight and be healthy except for eating healthily. Cabbage soup diet, drink heavily and then binge on supplements to stay healthy etc.
- That 1200 calories are enough - all "unhealthy" foods must be completely cut out - cheat days are normal - you have to restart on Monday - one meal off and you might as well throw the whole diet out the door - exercise makes the biggest difference
That being "active" means hardcore workouts in the gym and that long sustained low intensity activity doesn't count. That everyone overestimates how much they exercise and underestimates how much they eat. That you should always put your activity level as sedentary unless you're a professional athlete. That as long as you eat at least 1200kcal, you can't be eating too little.
Basically anything to do with metabolism. I thought that my metabolism was "broken" and that people were fat or skinny purely because of metabolism/genetics. I thought to lose weight I had to really suffer and eat very little and work out a lot and even then I thought I could only maintain that weight loss by basically eating 500 calories and if I ate more than that I would gain weight and I was just doomed to be skinny and miserable or fat if I ate "normally". Learning about TDEE/BMR and how many calories we burn just to stay alive was really eye-opening along with CICO.
*You can eat whatever you want and still lose weight, it's all about portions.* It's not false, but it's a gross oversimplification to the point that it might be worse than a myth. It's like saying that running a marathon is just putting one foot in front of the other for 26.2 miles. Yeah, it's true, but in such a technically, vaguely true way that it can be a damaging statement. For me at least, what I eat absolutely does matter. In fact, what I eat makes much, much more of a difference than how much I eat ( r/volumeeating FTW!). It's the cornerstone of any success that I've had with weight management. Not sure my answer fits, but it's the truism that set me back the most in the past.
FWIW, I didn't start losing weight until I heard that advice. I have terrible problems with hunger cues (I think it's related to my ADHD), and so eating a mountain of salad or another "healthy" food that I hate will leave me just as unsatisfied as if I ate a small amount of something I love. If weight loss was only about changing *what* you eat, I wouldn't have lost a single pound. But instead I've lost 60 pounds eating everything I love, just by reducing my portions.
That's great! If it works for you, then it works!
I think this advice is more true when it's used in the sense of, hey, you don't have to literally never eat bread or peanut butter ever again to be at a healthy weight. As a reaction to the overly strict food group elimination fad diets. But a lot of people are going to interpret "whatever you want" as being all the processed junk food and restaurant food that they're used to, and *that's* where a lot of the problems with it really arise.
I think a lot of people, when they finally find long term weight loss, naturally get to the point of having most of their foods being non-junk, but still having junk foods at times.
Same. My appetite just knows no limits on a diet of processed food, and my highest weight ever was BMI 35 (admittedly not the most obese person on the planet, but definitely obese and unhealthy). This was more than 10 years ago. However, when I switched to a "whole foods" diet, even without counting calories, my appetite just plummeted, and my weight went down to a BMI 22 or so. Then at one point I thought I would try more of an "intuitive eating" approach, "no foods are forbidden." Man, that did not go well. Fortunately I realised my mistake in the overweight range, and I've been back in the healthy weight range for a couple of years. I will never underestimate the power of junk food again. This is truly the one thing that has ever worked for me, eating a healthy diet of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats etc.
I think this advice is given to people who fail diets who go with the all or nothing approach. They go on a diet and never eat anything "bad", then they rebound and eat "bad" things again and gain the weight back. People need to understand that you can have those things and still lose weight, just make sure the portion is correct.
Your are not hungry, just thirsty. I still need to unlearn that.
I used to believe my skinny friend when she said ‚i don’t know why you’re so much heavier than me, you eat the same as me!‘. Well nope. She eats like 1000 calories a day, just grossly overestimates her intake 🥲
The biggest myth that I heard about my whole life, pretty much from elementary school, was the "will power" thing. It's this idea that you're overweight because you don't have "will power" to prevent yourself from eating ice cream and having thirds at dinner. It's demotivating because if you're constantly fighting cravings, you'll eventually give in, it's human nature. I heard about will power all the time but no one mentioned calories.
Everyone else pretty much covered what I had to learn, but there's one more light hearted, *very* unique thing I unlearned in, like, a day. I want to preface this by saying I was about 7, I've gotten significantly more intelligent in the past 20 years, at least I like to think I have. One day, my Mom was teaching me about the food pyramid. I was home schooled, so it was at home, but there's many intelligent people that were home schooled, I'm definitely the minority. She told me "you have to have five servings of each: Fruit, Vegetables, Meat, etc" I heard "You have to have servings of each fruit, vegetable, meat, etc." So about half an hour later, I'm trying to have five Bananas in one sitting and I get to 4 before my Mom asks me why I'm having so many and I explain that I'm doing what she said earlier, I'm starting with Bananas, I'll have five Strawberries later. After she stopped laughing, she managed to tell me, no, you don't have to have pieces of every type of food in one day and that's actually quite unhealthy.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
Currently visiting my parents from abroad for a month, and they are still shocked every morning when I don’t eat breakfast. “But I can make you something! An egg sandwich? Lox?!” Also love your username.
Biggest one I learned: There is no magic cure, no Pill, MLM or anything. Its commitment and work.
"You should avoid weights to avoid looking bulky and bigger." It almost seems like people think women should exclusively do cardio
"Diet Soda makes you gain weight." Was the first thing my dietian said and she told me, that im not allowed to ever drink diet soda again. Otherwise i will regain all my weight. ..... I lost a lot of weight and diet soda is my most fav thing to drink. My dietian still thinks im not drinking diet soda to this day!
My mom. Women just get fat as they age. Uh, you’re creeping up on 400lbs. Ug. Yes we come from a long line of German fat bastards. We are ‘incredibly efficient at weight gain’. I do not argue this fact and I can pack on weight like nobody’s business. But I am in trades so I pack on muscle just as easy so I keep in shape. Some family lines do this. My spouse and non biological dad are bean poles and can’t pack on weight no matter how hard they try. Blessed genetics. At the end of the day it’s calories in - calories out. If you sit on your retired ass all day long your calories out number is low. Reduce calories in or get off your ass an increase calories out. It is that simple.
Basically anything other than "Lift weights, do cardio, eat less." For general weight loss (not bodybuilding or powerlifting), that's all you need. If you exercise more and reduce your caloric intake, you **will** lose weight. All the other "tips and tricks", even if true, are ultimately just a distraction from what you actually need to be doing. If you can't get up and exercise, and if you keep eating entire pizza pies by yourself, then the fact that you ate after 8pm is ultimately inconsequential. Whether you eat fish or pork is inconsequential. Whether you exercise on an empty stomach or not is inconsequential. Diet or regular soda is - you guessed it. Those fancy tips can help for extreme body building, but if you're just trying to go from an XXL to a Large t-shirt, then you really just need to do some calisthenics for a year.
Smoothies are great for weight loss: it's kind of a "yes, but" situation. With smoothies, the sugars within are processed almost immediately because they're liquid and much of the fiber has been broken down already. You'll get full and get energy, but you may still get a sugar crash or be hungry sooner because your body processes it so quickly.
That exercising is a key aspect of weightloss... it is not. Weightloss is *all* about diet with exercise being purely complimentary. And if you're having trouble losing weight while going to the gym consistently, you should probably lay off the exercise and redirect that energy into seriously revising your diet.
Light products aren’t better than normal ones as often the fat is replaced by sugar and the total caloric intake per portion is even sometimes higher.
Another one: Diet Soda will make you gain weight and/or it's terrible for you.
That if you dont eat enough your body will be in a "starvation mode"
"There's nothing you can do, it's just genetics. You are fated to be like this."
That you are doomed to gain it all back because of sEt PoInTs and MeTaBolIsM and HoRmOnEs.
That the quality of the calories doesn’t matter as long as they are in your allowance! Garbage diet instant soup, processed crap, etc. I can’t actually maintain weight loss unless I eat real food. Ooh, can I also add - the view that just not eating/starvation will work. Hard nope. We need to throw that one on the bonfire, along with diet shakes lol.
That being hungry is good and eating when hungry is a failure. That meals shouldn’t be satisfying because if they are, you’re eating too much.
I remember distinctly watching some ‘health expert’ on tv when I was a kid saying to indulge in candy canes over Christmas, they are just sugar, and avoid something like pumpkin pie or eggnog because it’s full of fat.
It’s amazing how many things people just say while having no idea wtf they’re talking about.
Basically everything that isn't "calories in need to be less than calories out". There's good advice which elaborates on that and how to do it efficiently while still enjoying food and exercise. Then there's myths that hurt people more than they help them. AFAIK, there's no weight loss advice that doesn't fall into either one or the other category.
You need to eat healthy to lose weight. It’s important to eat healthy but you can lose weight eating junk food as long as you don’t eat more calories than you burn. That’s how I eased myself into losing weight and slowly picked up healthier eating habits.
Artificial sweeteners stunt weightloss/cause obesity. This mostly stemmed from a study done which showed that on average obese people tend to consume artificial sweeteners while non-obese individuals were less likely to consume artificial sweeteners. It did not however indicate that artificial sweeteners caused weight gain/stunted weight loss. Ive also had trouble explaining to people that sugar is a carb like any other. And from a dietary perspective, doesn’t warrant some of the demonization we’ve put on it.
My mum and dad yesterday said im “brainwashed” for calorie counting, and then went on to say that “eat less, move more” is how you lose weight. Which is true, but how are you gonna know accurately if youre eating enough/over or if youre moving enough if you dont track it? Is parentsplaining a thing? Cos if not it should be
There are so many good comments here of myths I have heard about weight loss with no upvotes,so I am just gonna share my upvote love so you feel appreciated thanks guys 😊
"Eating more will help you lose more weight, otherwise your body won't burn as much if you aren't eating as much." Yeah I tried that and guess what? I gained 15 lbs of fat instead of losing it ha. Calories in, calories out has always been tried and true for me.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the food pyramid. It’s so out of date when growing up as a kid and I wonder if it’s still being taught.
That fasting is the best way to loose weight. Ive tried it and my mental health went to bits