7 Cold, Hard Weight Loss Truths

By Brie Cadman
Originally published at DivineCaroline.com

Even if you’re not trying to lose weight, chances are you’ve seen plenty of ideas on how to do so: 

“Eat what you want and still lose weight!”
“Lose thirty pounds in thirty days!”
“Lose one jeans size every week!”
“Top three fat burners revealed!”
“Ten minutes to a tighter tummy!” 

But anyone who’s tried to lose five, ten or one hundred pounds knows these claims are just empty promises. Losing weight ain’t that easy. It’s not in a pill, it doesn’t (usually) happen in thirty days, and judging from the myriad plans out there, there is no one diet that works for everyone.

The diet industry’s outrageous claims can be alluring (they’re certainly attention-getting!), but taking a more realistic approach—and coming to terms with some cold, hard truths—may give you better, healthier, longer-lasting results.

1. You may need to rethink “thin.”
Recent research challenges the idea that being overweight is bad. A study in the Journal of American Medical Association found that being twenty-five pounds overweight did not increase the risk of heart disease and cancer, and may even help stave off infections.

People can be fit and healthy and not necessarily thin, just as it’s true that thin people are not necessarily healthy. Good health, rather than weight, should be our focus; too often, it’s not. Striving for an unhealthy level of thinness may be detrimental to our health, but understanding the health repercussions of obesity is also critical.

2. There’s no quick fix.
The diet industry would have us all think that we can lose weight fast, and that’s that. But most people who maintain a healthy weight understand that eating and exercising are not temporary conditions, to be dumped once a pair of jeans fit. They are lifestyle choices, and they need to be made for the long haul.

3. You have to exercise more than you think.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends getting at least thirty minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week; this includes things like raking leaves or pushing a lawn mower. But while this is great for improving heart health and staying active, research indicates that those looking to lose weight or maintain weight loss have to do more—about twice as much.

A study published in the July 28, 2008 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine supports this observational finding. The researchers enrolled 200 overweight and obese women on a diet and exercise regimen and followed them for two years. Compared with those that gained some of their weight back, the women who were able to sustain a weight loss of 10 percent of their initial weight for two years exercised consistently and regularly—for about fifty-five minutes at least five days a week.

All this indicates that things like taking the stairs, walking to the store and gardening are great ways to boost activity level, but losing serious weight means exercising regularly for an hour or so. This doesn’t mean you have to start running or kickboxing—walking can be highly effective too.

4. A half-hour walk doesn’t equal a brownie.
I remember going out to eat with some friends after a bike ride. Someone commented on how we deserved dessert because we had just spent the day exercising; in fact, we had taken a leisurely twenty-minute ride through the park. This probably burned the calories in a slice of our French bread, but definitely not those in the caramel fudge brownie dessert. Bummer.

And while it’s easy to underestimate how many calories something has, it’s also easy to overestimate how many calories we burn while exercising. Double bummer.

Even if you exercise a fair amount, it’s not carte blanche to eat whatever you want. (Unless you exercise a ton, have the metabolism of a sixteen-year-old boy, and really can eat whatever you want). A report published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association concludes that for overweight persons to lose weight, they need to both increase exercise and cut calories.

5. You have time to exercise.
If you have time to check email, watch a sitcom or two, surf the internet, have drinks/coffee/dinner with friends, go clothes shopping, and on and on, then you have time to exercise. Yes, sometimes you have to sacrifice sleep, TV or leisure time to fit it in. Yes, sometimes you have to prioritize your exercise time over other things. But your health and the feeling you get after working out is well worth it.

6. Eating more of something won’t help you lose weight.
The food industry is keen to latch onto weight loss research and spin it for their sales purposes. A prime example is the widespread claim that eating more dairy products will help you lose weight. However, a recent review of forty-nine clinical trials from 1966 to 2007 showed that “neither dairy nor calcium supplements helped people lose weight.”

This idea—that eating more of a certain type of product will help you lose weight—is constantly touted on supermarket shelves (think low-fat cake, low-carb crackers, high in whole grain cookies or trans fat-free chips), but it is in direct opposition to the basic idea behind weight loss—we have to eat less, not more.

7. Calories in = calories out?
There is a fair amount of controversy over the basic question of how people gain weight. Is it simply a matter of energy intake versus energy expenditure? Or is there more to it? Do the types of calories we eat matter? And which types should we avoid? The low-fat, low-carb and glycemic index advocates can’t seem to agree on the answer to that, but most can agree that drinking 500 calories of soda is not equal to eating 500 calories of chicken and broccoli.

Simply put, “empty” calories provide no real nutritional benefit and don’t do much to combat hunger. Whether you ascribe to the simple idea of trying to burn more calories than you take in or focus on avoiding certain types of calories, one point is clear: you want to minimize your intake of empty calories, and maximize nutrition.

Brie Cadman has a Master’s in Public Health from UC Berkeley and writes about nutrition, fitness, and disease prevention at DivineCaroline.com. When she’s not at her computer, she can be found running, swimming, and biking in Oakland, CA.