Losing weight is not easy.
Statistics tell us that more than two-thirds (68.8 percent) of adults are overweight or obese.
The #1 reason for this obesity epidemic is that there is an unprecedented abundance of food available to us.
Calories available per person have gone up 1000 calories a day within just 45 years.
This obesity epidemic has led to a US$586.3 billion weight loss industry.
People want to lose weight and they spend billions and billions of dollars with the hopes of losing weight and getting fit.
You would expect that spending billions of dollars could help some people but that’s not the case.
People are getting fatter and fatter.
Finding weight loss advice that actually works is like finding a needle in a haystack.
99% of the weight loss advice is bullshit.
I compiled and grouped the 7 most common bullshit weight loss advice.
Let’s start:
1. Drink Green Tea
This is the most popular bullshit I keep seeing around.
According to a study published at Cochrane Library, green tea doesn’t help you to lose weight.
Green tea preparations appear to induce a small, statistically non-significant weight loss in overweight or obese adults. Because the amount of weight loss is small, it is not likely to be clinically important.
There are hordes of people guzzling down cups after cups of green tea and surprised they are still fat.
If you like drinking green tea, by all means, drink it. But don’t think that you are going to lose weight.
2. Eat Six Small Meals A Day
The idea behind this bullshit is when you don’t eat frequently, your metabolism will tank and you will stop losing weight. So, they say, you have to eat 6 meals a day to keep your metabolism running on Godspeed because of the thermic effect of food.
This is false.
Meal frequency has little to no effect on TEF; assuming total calorie intake for the days are equivalent.
Humans didn’t make it to the top of the food chain by grazing six times a day.
I eat 2 or 3 meals a day and I’m just fine. There’s no need to lose time by preparing and eating six meals a day.
3. Don’t Skip Breakfast
This is the same reasoning above. They say that if you skip breakfast your metabolism will tank so your body will stop burning fat.
Apparently, your metabolism is so fragile that it tries to find reasons to tank.
The reality is, you are not that weak.
Humans survived countless famines. Skipping breakfast will not harm your weight loss attempts.
Actually, it will help you lose weight.
See Martin Berkhan’s article about breakfast.
I know a lot of people who don’t feel hungry at breakfast time but force themselves to eat breakfast because of this bullshit advice.
If you don’t feel like it, just skip breakfast.
There is countless other bullshit advice about speeding up your metabolism like:
- Add spice to your dinner
- Start your day with grapefruit
- Drink lemon water
- Drink cold water
Just to name a few.
I can tell you with 99% accuracy that the reason you are overweight is not that your metabolism is slow.
Besides, if by tiny little chance that it’s your slow metabolism that’s making you fat, you should not be farting around the internet. You should go see a doctor.
4. Eat More Banana, Watermelon, etc.
The idea behind this kind of bullshit advice is that there is some substance in some foods that will boost fat burning.
There is nothing in bananas or watermelons that will boost weight loss.
Eating more carbs will not make you lose weight.
If you are eating a banana, watermelon, etc. with the hopes of losing weight, just stop.
If you want to eat them, go ahead and eat. But don’t think that you are going to lose weight by doing one of the easiest things on earth like eating a banana or watermelon or any other fruit or vegetable.
5. Eat More Nuts
This is the new fad I can’t stand seeing around.
I think the idea emerged from the previous decades’ fear of fat.
In the 1990s, eating fat was discouraged by weight loss gurus. Like any other guru diet advice, it was bullshit. People ate less fat and kept getting fatter and fatter.
Since eating less fat didn’t work, the new fad is eating more fat.
“Eat more nuts to lose weight” advice has been running amok around televisions, newspapers, and the internet.
Like any other fad, it’s all bullshit.
Look around and you will see weight loss advice like:
- Eat almonds
- Snack on pistachios
- Eat more avocados
- Stock up on walnuts
- Go nuts for macadamias
- Keep peanut butter in your diet
All these nuts are too high in calories. They are too easy to overeat and they don’t work at all for losing weight.
It’s true that you have to eat some fat to stay healthy. But this doesn’t mean that you have to eat truckloads of fat either. And it doesn’t mean that you should be eating nuts.
Nuts are delicious but if you are eating them with the hopes of losing weight, stop now!
They will not help you lose weight at all.
6. Skip The Elevator
Small tricks like skipping the elevator and taking the stairs will not burn any significant calories and will cost you precious time.
Moving more and being active is good for your health but if you are doing these small things with the hopes of losing weight, your time is better spent with more efficient activities like high-intensity training or lifting weights.
7. Serve Unhealthy Food On Red Plates
I saved the best for last.
This kind of bullshit advice concentrates on some psychological bullshit.
There is a “use a blue dinner plate” version too.
If you put your food on a blue plate you will eat less because of some magical psychological mumbo-jumbo they say.
You will go to another guru and he will say that if you put your food on a red plate you will eat less.
Note that this kind of advice always contradicts each other.
Which is it? Blue or red?
Conclusion
Do you notice a pattern with all these bullshit tips?
All these are incredibly easy things to do.
If losing weight was this easy, there would be no fat people around.
Losing weight is about eating fewer calories than you burn.
Of course, eating fewer calories than you burn is tough, so people are looking for easy shortcuts.
If you want to lose weight, it’s best to skip this bullshit altogether and take serious measures about it.
Being overweight lowers the quality of your life.
Don’t waste your time with this bullshit and look for strategies that actually work.