10 Diet Myths Revisited - a podcast by Donna Psiaki Feldman MS RDN

I haven’t been focusing on weight loss or diets at all recently, not because obesity has magically gone away.  Rather I think the whole subject is negative and counter-productive.  Better to think about eating a more healthful overall diet.  But while cleaning old blog posts off the site, I found one titled “10 diet Myths”, from January 2014, 4-1/2 years ago.  While January has the reputation as diet month, summer also inspires weight loss efforts, whether you’re trying to fit into a wedding dress or tux, or trying to lose the 5 pounds you gained on vacation or you realized you don’t look so wonderful in your bathing suit.  All of which scenarios can lead to crash dieting rather than the life-changing diets we associate with New Year’s resolutions.  Conclusion: it’s worth revisiting those 10 diet myths.  Which of these are still floating around in the collective weight loss consciousness?  Are there any new ones to add?  Here goes:

Diet Myth #1: You must cook all your food from scratch or you can’t possibly be on a diet.

Still around.  This is still one of the most defeatist ideas in weight control, perhaps even more so now since fewer people are cooking.  But fad diet books are still plumped up with dozens (or hundreds!) of recipes.  I’ve concluded that most of those recipes are just filler, to add pages to the book and make it look valuable.   And because the book has a value sheen, you feel obligated to try to cook these complicated fussy dishes in order to stick to the diet.  If you don’t lose weight, it’s your fault because you failed to spend enough time cooking.  I personally just don’t see the point of making dieting and healthy eating into a difficult chore.  Cooking is fine, but it can be simple and still be healthy.  A burger and a salad or some grilled fish and sautéed vegetables or a stir fry with tofu.  Or take advantage of the bounty of take-out options available now, from grocery stores to restaurants to gourmet food shops.

Diet Myth #2: You must follow a “diet”.

Still around. Fad diets sure look tempting, with their promises of miraculous quick success.  If they’re so effective and miraculous, why are so many people obese?

#2A: A newer twist on this is the popular gluten-free diet.  Gluten supposedly causes weight gain, or maybe prevents weight loss.  Whatever the reason, avoiding gluten is supposed to make you lose weight.

#2B: Cleanses or diet shakes are a good weight loss strategy.  Of course, the companies selling the products want you to believe that. And these types of products come with an attractive sciency sheen, pumped up with added vitamins or herbs or amino acids.  In fact these quick-fix products make weight loss look like a temporary treatment, with no follow up.  You go back to your obesity-promoting lifestyle and the weight comes back on, at which point maybe you shell out more money for a cleanse.  It’s a great business model.

Diet Myth #3: You don’t need to exercise to lose weight.

Still around. Not merely still around, but some weight loss programs actually brag that “you don’t need to exercise” because the program is so magically effective.  Exercise helps maintain muscle mass, improves mood, makes you feel better and improves numerous health risk factors even without losing weight.  Plus exercise burns off more calories.  So why would you not exercise?  However, there’s a tendency for dieters to overestimate their exercise and to eat back calories supposedly burned.  Fitness trackers and the digital displays on exercise equipment contribute to this problem.  And truthfully, exercise by itself does little to cause significant weight loss unless you are doing a spectacular amount of activity, going from say a sedentary couch potato to hiking the entire Pacific Crest Trail or getting a job as a wildland firefighter.

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