How’s your 2021 going?
How are those “New Year’s Resolutions” coming along? (If you had one.)
In addition to committing to a healthy lifestyle—shunning cigarettes, limiting social media—many also resolve to, at least, shed the holiday weight they’ve been lounging around since December.
By this time, people have realized that dieting and losing weight is a serious proposition. There will be good days when things are so easy, and then there are those nights when the calls from inside the ref are like seductive sirens luring any passerby.
In this post, we look at some of the most dangerous myths about dieting and weight loss. When the brouhaha of welcoming 2021 has died down and the rubber meets the road, what reality does the expectant dieter face?
We hack away at the most dangerous myths concerning diets and look to science for much-needed guidance.
Here are 5 of the most deleterious myths about weight loss.
1) Being Overweight Is Simply About Diet And Exercise
When we see grossly overweight people walking about, slabs of fat hanging everywhere, we often see someone with no self-control, no portion control, and no will and determination to get into the gym.
We become critical and think, “If he can just stop eating and start exercising, he wouldn’t look like that.”
As if that’s all it takes.
The thing is, when it comes to health and weight, things are not so black and white.
While they are certainly important, diet and exercise are not the only factors at play here.
Things like genetics also come into play. I’m sure you know of someone who can eat a ton and not gain a single pound. S/he has genes that make his or her body unlikely to put on weight.
On the other hand, there are people whose genetic make-up makes them susceptible to obesity and weight gain. For example, Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is a genetic condition characterized by insatiable appetite and chronic eating—where the person can’t feel full because of a dysfunction in the hypothalamus. This condition leads not only to obesity but also type 2 diabetes.
PWS is said to occur in 1 out of 15,000 births.
Many more factors are active behind the scenes. Believe it or not, even things like poverty, “time-of-the-month,” and sleeping habits affect our eating patterns and therefore our weight.
When we really take a closer look, weight is not just a function of diet and exercise. It is a complex subject with a multitude of issues lurking in the background.
This is not to excuse people from being healthy, but to give us a more realistic and holistic picture of what health and weight are all about.
2) Calories Are Just Calories
“Watch out for those calories!”
Dieters have been cautioned against caloric intake and encouraged to count the calories that go into the body.
This makes it seem that all calories are the same, and to become healthy, we merely need to lessen their number.
Yes, calories are all the same in that they each have 4,184 joules worth of energy, but calories are different in that they there are processed differently in the body. For example, calories from jelly beans and the calories from a tomato have different impacts on us.
So beyond the number of calories, it’s also about the type of food we eat. Glucose and fructose may be both sugars, but they are acted on by the body in different ways. Glucose is metabolized in the different tissues while fructose is metabolized in the liver.
Fructose is known to cause more insulin resistance and be less effective in signaling the brain’s satiety centers than glucose. Fructose is also linked to conditions like type 2 diabetes.
Calories from protein and calories from carbohydrates also affect the body in different ways. Protein calories are more “filling,” which results in less food intake. Unlike calories from carbs and fat, calories from protein require more energy to metabolize. This means the body works more and expends more energy in absorbing the nutrients, ultimately helping you keep the pounds off.
(By the way, this is also one of the many reasons why “nutrient-dense” whole foods, are better than “calorie empty” processed foods. Whole foods require more energy to metabolize.)
3) Spot Reduction Is Possible
“Spot reduction” is the idea that you can target fatty areas of the body by doing a specific routine or exercise. For example, if you have a “spare tire”—an abundance of fat in your abdominal area—you can melt the fat in that region of the body by doing sit-ups or crunches.
This is a myth. You cannot target fat.
A study from the University of Connecticut had 104 participants undergo 12 weeks of resistance training for their non-dominant hands. After 3 months, the efficacy of the training was assessed. MRI tests showed no significant localized fat alterations in the area targeted. When fat loss occurred, it happened to the body as a whole.
You may “feel the burn” in that specific part of the body, but that’s not fat melting. That’s your muscles getting the workout.
The “spot reduction” myth conflates the idea that you can actually target muscles. Yes, you can tone specific muscles in the body by performing certain exercises. Again, in another study, abdominal exercises had no significant effects on abdominal fat. (The exercises, however, affected muscular endurance.)
The abdominal muscles for example can be toned by doing crunches. But if those muscles rest under layers of fat, they won’t show. Besides, genetics play a role in this. People who can easily have six-pack abs are genetically predisposed to have more evenly distributed fat. Many others, meanwhile, are genetically predisposed to have more fat in the middle.
Losing fat is a whole-body thing. This means that regardless of your regimen, you lose a little fat all over your body each week. Losing your “spare tire” around your mid-section, also means you’re losing a little of those from your buttocks.
The best approach is whole-body fitness where you actively perform a variety of moves that develop different areas of your body. With an active lifestyle, you can naturally keep the pounds off and melt the fat away.
4) Eat Fat And You Get Fat
The wise saying goes, “You are what you eat.” So eating fat will make you fat, right?
It’s a little more complicated than that.
Just like calories, not all fats are created equal. Being healthy, as it is turning out, depends on the kind of fat that we have in our diet.
Fat is not always bad. Our bodies need fat to function properly. It helps absorb vitamins and minerals. It helps maintain the integrity of cell membranes—that protective shield that houses individual cells. Fat also features in blood clotting and the normal functioning of muscles.
Generally, fat can either be unsaturated (Monounsaturated and Polyunsaturated), saturated and trans.
Trans fat, often found in processed food and fast food, is the most harmful and should be avoided. Pizza, burgers, french fries, fried chicken, and baked goods like cakes, cookies, and pies will not be good for weight loss.
Unsaturated fats, on the other side of the spectrum, come from vegetables, nuts, and fish. Avocados, olive oil, salmon, and mackerel are rich in unsaturated fats. This food group contains omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids known to help prevent heart disease and stroke. Get your share of these in your diet.
Saturated fat is somewhere between the “bad” trans fat and the “good” unsaturated fats. This is where you find your red meats, dairy, and cheese. Studies have shown that saturated fats are not the malevolent food group they have been portrayed in the past several decades.
While you do need to control your cholesterol level, you can have saturated fats in your diet and still be not be prone to heart disease, stroke, or type 2 diabetes.
5) Diets Work
And finally, one of the biggest and most counterproductive weight loss myths is the idea of diets.
I’m referring here to diets and consumption practices that are limited in time and restrictive of specific food groups (eg. no carbs). We hear of women “crash dieting” for an important event—a wedding or a photoshoot—starving themselves ‘til they reach their target weight. They indeed shed the pounds in the weeks and days they are restricting calories, only to gain their weight back and add even more.
The flaws of the “dieting” approach are complex and problematic. First, it assumes that weight is all there is to health. While one’s weight is a major marker for health and fitness, it is not the only one. For example, the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys showed that among women, 35.4% of obese individuals (based on their body mass index), were considered metabolically healthy. On the other hand, 21.1% with normal BMI were considered unhealthy.
So yes, you can be considered “fat” (BMI-wise) and still be “fit.”
Another problem with the dieting approach is that it puts you in an adversarial stance with food. Instead of seeing food as nourishment for the body and seeking out healthy options, it emphasizes food avoidance. They can be overly restrictive, lead to “taste fatigue” and take the enjoyment out of eating.
A study comparing 14 different popular diets or regimens has found that, at best, diets only have modest effects, and after a year or so, their positive impact on weight have already disappeared.
Instead of following the latest diet fad, a lifestyle change is required. It is a slower and more long-term view of weight loss and health. If you eat all the different food groups in moderation and mix in an active lifestyle of sports and exercises, you will naturally keep those pounds away.
So those are some of the most dangerous and pervasive misconceptions in the area of weight loss. Keep these myths in check and you will have a more pleasant and realistic journey towards fitness and health.
Bloodworks is your fitness partner in 2021. We offer a “Well-being Package” that looks into health markers like cholesterol, FBS, lipid profile, and CBC. Knowing these will help you determine your lifestyle goals this year.
We are your one-stop-shop for your blood test needs.
In addition, Bloodworks Lab is also proud to be the first laboratory in the Philippines to offer the Anti Acetylcholine Receptor (lgG) Antibody Test and the Anti N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor (Anti NMDA Receptor) Antibody Test.
Our branches are in Alabang, Katipunan, and Cebu.