10 Fad Diet Myths

We know all about celebrities who shun carbs, thin friends “too busy to eat” and miracle weight loss pills that promise a bikini bod in two weeks. Sometimes we justify the trade-off: We’ll be a little unhealthy if it means we’ll lose weight. But do fad diets and weight loss trends even work? Read on to see why not, along with healthy weight loss tips that really do get you in shape...

What’s the best way to lose weight? Pick up any magazine, turn on the TV, read a billboard and you’ll find plenty of answers. But most of them are big, fat lies.

“I’ve seen thousands of diets come and go in the past 25 years and we’re fatter than ever,” says Elizabeth Somer, M.A., R.D., a Salem, Oregon-based nutritionist and author of Eat Your Way to Happiness (Harlequin).

“Whether it’s a fad diet that limits you to grapefruit and water, or a diet that banishes all carbs, it’s true that you may lose weight at first. But if it’s not a healthy diet you can stick to, the weight won’t stay off for long and you’ll end up fatter than ever,” she says.

A 2007 University of California – Los Angeles study on dieting found that most women regain lost weight and more within four years. The study concluded that it was healthier not to diet at all than to lose and regain pounds, which may increase the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes, and impair the immune system.

“Most people who go on fad diets lose muscle, not fat. When they go off the diet, they regain fat, not muscle. Even if you end up back at the same weight, you’re fatter than before the fad diet,” Somer says.

Read on to learn about 10 big fat lies that may be sabotaging your efforts to lose weight and get healthy.

Fad Diet Myth #1: To be healthy, you need to be model-thin.
Fashion models are eight inches taller and 40 pounds lighter than the average American woman, according to Deidra Price, Ph.D., a San Diego-based psychologist and author of Feast or Famine:The Etiology and Treatment of Eating Disorders, an online continuing education course for mental health professionals.

Images of those skinny models lower our self-esteem and endanger women’s health, regardless of our weight, according to a 2007 conducted at the University of Missouri. In the study, women who were thin, average weight and overweight were shown photos of models in advertisements. All of the women, including the thin ones, reported the photos made them feel less good about their bodies.

That’s why trying to look like a size 0 model when you’re really a size 12 may increase your risk of developing an eating disorder, according to the Eating Disorders Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to finding a cure for eating disorders.
Real Weight Loss Tip: Airbrushing and photo-editing software can remove 30 pounds in a flash, widen the space between eyes and even lengthen a face. So that rail-thin model you’re trying to emulate may not even exist in real-life.

Aim for a healthy weight and forget about trying to achieve a fantasy, says Amy Lee, M.D., an internist who specializes in clinical nutrition and weight management at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles.

Fad Diet Myth #2: Skipping breakfast saves calories.
Like starving or fasting, skipping meals lowers your metabolism, so when you finally do eat, those calories are stored as fat, says David Edelson, M.D., a New York-based internist and bariatric surgeon, founder and medical director of HealthBridge, a weight loss and preventive health facility, and assistant clinical professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

“It also leads to food cravings and bingeing. By the time you get around to eating, you’re so famished that you eat even more food,” Somer says.

A 2011 study at the University of Missouri found that eating a high-protein breakfast reduced hunger throughout the day and promoted weight loss.

Real Weight Loss Tip: Eat a protein-rich breakfast like an egg-white omelet with veggies to anchor your morning and you’ll be less likely to hit up the vending machine later in the day, Somer says.

Fad Diet Myth #3: To weigh less, starve more
“When you starve, your body slows down its metabolism. The less you eat, the less you need to eat,” Edelson says.

When you try to eat normally, your body stores the “excess” calories as fat, which makes you even fatter.

Forget about fasting and detoxing, which are pointless and potentially dangerous. Your body naturally detoxifies itself through the kidneys, liver and skin, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Real Weight Loss Tip: Avoid ultra-low calorie regimes (those that call for fewer than 1,800 calories a day), and eat a healthy diet that revolves around lean protein, complex carbs, fruits and vegetables, and healthy fats like omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in flaxseed oil, nuts and seeds and fatty fish, Somer says.

Fad Diet Myth #4: Exercise? Who needs it?
Cutting calories alone won’t get you into skinny jeans.

Keeping those lost pounds off for good requires exercise, especially weight training, according to a 2010 study at the University of Missouri. Weight training builds lean muscle. People who combined weight training with a healthy weight loss diet burned more calories and lost more weight than people who relied solely on diet to lose weight.
Exercise helps keep weight off in two ways: It reduces appetite, and it burns fat first and carbs later, which keeps you feeling full longer, according to a 2010 study conducted at the University of Colorado on obesity-prone rats. One group of rats exercised while the other group did not. The group that exercised regained less weight and had less desire to overeat.

Still carrying around baby fat and your baby just turned 2?

Women who combined exercise and diet lost more baby weight than women who just dieted, according to a 2007 study conducted at Cochrane University in Chicago.

Real Weight Loss Tip: To build lean muscle, which acts as the body’s fat-burning furnace, exercise for 30 minutes at least five days a week, using a combination of cardio, resistance training and interval training, says Scott Danberg, M.S., director of fitness at Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa in Florida.

Interval training, which means alternating intense exercise with low-intensity exercise or rest, will boost the burn. A study conducted at the University of New South Wales found that women who did interval training lost more weight than women who did cardio, even though the cardio workouts were twice as long.

Interval training also suppresses the appetite hormone ghrelin, so you naturally want to eat less, according to a 2010 study at Loughborough University in London.

Don’t underestimate the power of baby steps, Somer says. “If you walk 10,000 steps a day, you’ll burn 200-300 calories, which is enough to offset a 3-pound weight gain over a month.”

Fad Diet Myth #5: Workaholics lose weight.
Think working through meals will also burn fat? Fat chance!

Plus, sleep deprivation packs on the pounds by altering the levels of two appetite hormones, leptin and ghrelin, says Meeta Singh, M.D., a sleep researcher at Henry Ford Hospital’s Sleep Disorders and Research Center in Detroit.

Sleep deprivation lowers leptin, a protein that regulates appetite, and increases ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates appetite – a double whammy that leads to weight gain.

Not getting enough sleep also makes you crave fats and feel too tired to exercise, Edelson says.

A 7-year study on 7,300 middle-aged women conducted at the University of Helsinki found that women with sleep problems were more likely to gain weight than women who slept at least seven hours.

Real Weight Loss Tip: To prevent weight gain, try to get eight hours of sleep a night, advises the National Sleep Foundation. A 2009 study conducted at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland on nearly 70,000 women enrolled in a nurses’ health study found that women who slept five hours or less per night gained more weight than women who slept seven hours or more.
Fad Diet Myth #6: Carbs are the culprit.
Thanks (or no thanks) to Atkins, carbs have gotten a bad rap.

It’s true that refined carbs, especially those made with corn fructose, can pack on pounds, especially belly fat, says Edelson.

But complex carbs (whole grains, fruits and veggies) are your friends, according to a 2009 study conducted at Second University of Naples in Naples, Italy.

The study found that women following the Mediterranean diet lost more weight, improved cholesterol levels, and lowered their blood pressure better than women on low-fat diets.

Whole grains also reduce visceral fat – the dangerous kind of fat that wraps around your organs and promotes insulin storage, which in turn increases cravings, weight gain and your risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, breast and colon cancers and type 2 diabetes, Edelson says.

Real Weight Loss Tip: To blast fat, stick to a fat-burning diet that contains 30% protein, 40% carbohydrates, and 30% fat, or what you’ll find in a Mediterranean diet, he says.

Fad Diet Myth #7: Fake sugar zaps calories.
Think fake sugar will make you thinner?

“Artificial sweeteners have been shown to increase inflammation and insulin resistance and trigger more storage of belly fat,” Edelson says.

A 2008 study at Purdue University found that rats eating food sweetened with saccharin took in more calories and gained more weight than rats fed sugar-sweetened food.

“The human brain responds to sweetness with signals to, at first, eat more and then to slow down and stop eating,” states Harvard’s Nutrition Source.

“By providing a sweet taste without any calories, artificial sweeteners could confuse these intricate feedback loops that involve the brain, stomach, nerves and hormones and throw off the body's ability to accurately gauge how many calories are being taken in.”

Real Weight Loss Tip: “Keep artificially sweetened foods out of the house so you won’t be tempted to indulge,” Moskovitz says.

Fad Diet Myth #8: Fat makes you fat.
Fat can be a double-edged sword when it comes to your diet.

Without healthy fats like omega-3 fatty acids found in fish, nuts, olive oil and flaxseed oil, we get fatter.

But if you eat too much unhealthy fat, including saturated fats found in red meat, full-fat dairy and butter and trans fats found in processed foods, you also get fatter.

The solution? Stick to small amounts of healthy fats, which increase thermogenesis, the internal body heat system that accelerates calorie-burning, says Paul Langevin, a cardiologist and weight loss expert at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia.

Healthy fats also slow fat storage by inhibiting the production of enzymes required for fat production, he adds.

Real Weight Loss Tip: Avoid saturated fats and trans fats. Instead, opt for a Mediterranean diet, high in healthy fats, such as omega-3 fatty acids. It helps you lose weight faster than a low-fat diet by turning off inflammation, which promotes insulin resistance and visceral fat, Edelson says.
Fad Diet Myth #8: Popping pills works in a pinch.
Looking for a diet pill to get skinny in a hurry?

You’d have better luck winning the lottery.

Many stimulant drugs increase metabolic rate and decrease appetite, says Edelson. But this route to weight loss could result in serious illness or even death

Avoid bogus or potentially dangerous over-the-counter diet pills, stimulants, energy boosters and diuretics that promise to promote fast and healthy weight loss.

Real Weight Loss Tip: “A quick fix will make you lose muscle and regain fat, leaving you fatter than before you started,” Somer says.

With a healthy diet, you’ll lose about a pound a week until you reach your ideal weight.

Fad Diet Myth #9: Natural or “herbal” weight loss supplements drop pounds safely.
In many cases, so-called “herbal weight loss aids” can end up doing more harm than good.

Ephedra (ma huang), which the FDA banned from dietary supplements in 2004, can increase blood pressure and heart rate, cause heart palpitations and seizures, stroke and even death. Ephedra is also the main ingredient in herbal fen-phen, a dangerous diet drug that has been associated with heart irregularities.

Other dangerous herbal remedies include St. Johns’ wort, the other ingredient in herbal fen-phen. St. John’s wort may interact with foods that contain tyramine, a substance found in cheese, wine and smoked meats.

Herbal laxatives containing cascara, senna, buckthorn, aloe and rhubarb root may deplete potassium and sodium levels and cause dehydration and/or electrolyte imbalance, as well as cramping and diarrhea. Herbal laxatives may damage your bowels so they no longer function on their own, according to the FDA.

Guar gum and Yerba Mate, which some believe aid weight loss by slowing the digestion of food and lowering the absorption of sugar, may cause serious blockages of the esophagus. Aloe — purportedly a natural laxative — may cause severe stomach cramping, diarrhea and digestive problems.

Guarana, nature’s “speed,” may raise blood pressure and cause dizziness and anxiety, and 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) may affect the liver.

Also don’t waste your money on herbs that have not been shown to reduce weight, including Chitosan, Chromium, Pyruvate and Garcinia.

A 2010 study conducted by the Toxicology Reference Laboratory at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Hong Kong found 66 cases in which people were seriously injured and six people died after using “natural” weight loss drugs, including herbal diet remedies and unlicensed forms of prescription thyroid hormones.

Real Weight Loss Tip: Just because something is marketed as “natural” doesn’t mean it’s good for you … or that it will work as promised.
Fad Diet Myth #10: When all else fails, suck the fat out.
When it comes to weight loss surgery, think twice before getting liposuction.

The fat comes back within a year and settles with a vengeance in your upper abs, according to a 2011 study conducted at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Real Weight Loss Tip: Quickie weight loss fixes like fad diets and liposuction may seem easy and glamorous. But they don’t work over the long haul and can sabotage your health.

“To lose weight and keep it off, eat a healthy diet that revolves around normal foods you enjoy eating,” Somer says. “You’ll initially lose weight on a fad grapefruit diet, but it’s not a diet you can stay on for more than a few weeks. Once you go off the diet, the pounds will pile back on.”

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