50 Weight Loss Facts You Need To Know
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Here are 50 weight loss facts you need to keep in mind when trying to lose weight. Knowing them will make your road to success much easier.
50 Weight Loss Facts
1. You can lose weight with any diet.
2. But it will only work on the one you can keep up.
3. Obesity is the second most common cause of death after smoking.
4. You can’t spot-reduce fat.
5. The scale won’t tell you how much muscle and how much fat you have.
6. Which also means that being skinny doesn’t necessarily mean you are healthy.
7. Late-night eating won’t make you fat, overeating does.
8. There are no foods that burn more calories than they contain.
9. One pound of muscle only burns about 3 kcal more than 1 lb of fat.
10. Diet supplements do very little or nothing at all.
11. Most popular diets have no scientific backing.
12. You can gain muscle while losing weight.
13. You can also lose weight eating fast food.
14. The more you see of food high in calories, the more likely you are to eat it.
15. 0 g of fat in a food doesn’t mean it’s low in calories.
16. The same also goes for low-carb foods.
17. Eating healthy doesn’t have to be expensive.
18. The fat burning zone makes you burn more calories from fat, but fewer in total.
19. To lose 1 lb of body weight, you need to create a deficit of 3,500 kcal.
20. Most people who lost weight fast gain it back as they learned nothing about nutrition.
21. Your daily weight can fluctuate by as much as 4 lbs, without you having gained any fat.
22. Drinking a glass of water before a meal can make you eat less.
23. Herbal weight loss pills often aren’t herbal at all.
24. Bite-size candies can make you eat more.
25. Your body has no biologically pre-determined weight.
26. Sweating doesn’t mean you are losing fat, sweat is your body’s cooling system.
27. Your diet isn’t for nothing because you had a bad day.
28. You can gain weight even though you exercise.
29. 2/3 of the US population are overweight or obese.
30. Serving sizes on packagings have very little to do with how much you’ll really eat.
31. Most people underestimate the number of calories they consume.
32. Food advertising works on anyone, including you.
33. The Body Mass Index isn’t perfect, but it will give you a good idea.
34. You can get fat from organic food.
35. You can’t lose weight from yoga.
36. Muscle doesn’t turn to fat.
37. To keep lost weight off, you need to keep controlling it.
38. There is no starvation mode.
39. If you don’t sleep enough, you are likely to eat more.
40. Seeing food can make you hungry.
41. Even losing just a little weight is better than not losing any weight.
42. The pets of overweight people tend to be overweight too.
43. Only in 1% of people is obesity genetic.
44. The afterburn effect is very small.
45. If you are an adult, you can’t lose fat cells, you can only shrink them.
46. Muscle doesn’t weigh more than fat, it just has a higher density.
47. You can get a beer belly without drinking beer.
48. Just like you can get a muffin top without ever having eaten a muffin.
49. Snacks aren’t bad if they help you control calories.
50. To get toned, you need to decrease body fat and increase muscle mass.
Picture courtesy of “lululemon“.
8 Comments
I don’t think people will ever stop believing muscle burns so many more calories than fat at rest and the starvation mode!
All we can do is tell them the truth!
Nice enjoyable list to read!
Thank you, J! 🙂
That entire misconception about how many calories burns probably started because some “fitness expert” thought fat-free mass = muscle mass.
If every pound of muscle burned 50 kcal, then Ronnie Coleman probably would have to eat 24/7 🙂
I just heard Robin Roberts on GMA say that “muscle weighs more than fat.” 🙁
Oh the wisdom spread on breakfast television!
Just my two cents…
30. Serving sizes have very little to do with how much you’ll really eat.
Deeply disagree. There are tons of psycological studies that say that size maters a lot. Let me just mention the famous pop-corn experiment.
31. Most people underestimate the number of calories they consume.
You think people are bad at that game. No, they are even worse.
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0076632&representation=PDF
The “calories in” reported by participants and the “calories out,” don’t add up and it would be impossible to survive on most of the reported energy intakes. This misreporting of energy was greatest in obese men and women who underreported their intake by an average 25 percent and 41 percent (i.e., 716 and 856 Calories per-day respectively).
38. There is no starvation mode.
Well, sory, but there’s a well documented starvation mode. Of course we are no taking about the scapegoat starvation mode people that “can’t lose weight” mention in the same sentence with big bones, genetics and GMO/HFCS/milk/bread turning directly into fat. Well, starvation mode is all about starvation. During the Minessota starvation experiment (http://jn.nutrition.org/content/135/6/1347.full.pdf) they found out that metabolism slowed down between 20 and 25%(pondered by weight and muscle loss) when people bacialy starved for a couple of months. I guess that caould be applied to anorexics…
Band, you never fail to provide really great comments!
You are right about the starvation mode: there is a “starvation response,” but, as you said, it has nothing to do with the popular idea that the body will actually conserve fat mass. In reality it uses it all up to virtually the last gram.
The popcorn experiment you are referring to, is it the one with moviegoers and stale popcorn in large bags? If yes, I think I didn’t express clearly enough what I meant: the serving sizes stated on packagings have little to do with how much people really eat.
Serving sizes stated on packagings have little to do with how much people really eat.
Jep, apparently we have a classic case of “lost in translation”. Could’t agree with the statement above more than I do, though.
P.S.: Forgot to mention. Awesome list overall.