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Weight loss secrets, successes, shortcuts, and personal insights abound. Sadly, many of them are pure foolishness, which may seem extraordinarily obvious to those who aren't hinging their dreams of slimming down on one of these fantasies. Even if you're wise to ill-founded information, the more you know about the diet tricks that never work, the better your chances of sticking with the solid nutritional regimens that do.
Calories don't count
Oh, yes, they do. Calories are the energy on which your body runs. For weight control, the magic number is 3,500, the number of calories it takes to add (or subtract) one pound of body fat. If you reduce your intake by 500 calories a day, even without stepping up your work (read: activity and/or exercise), you'll be one pound lighter one week later. On the other hand, if you increase your intake by 500 calories a day without increasing your work (activity and/or exercise, again), one week later you'll be one pound heavier.
Eating just one or two foods guarantees weight loss
New versions of this form of weight loss program pop up every five years or so. The Grapefruit Diet. The Cabbage Soup Diet. The Ice Cream Diet. The Who-Knows-What's-Next-On-The List Diet. If this kind of restrictive eating works, the real reason is fewer calories and more boredom. After all, how many grapefruits or cabbages or ice cream scoops or who-knows-what can a human being eat without going gaga?
You can jump-start your daily weight loss by skipping breakfast
When you miss a meal, your body moves into low gear to make up for lost energy by conserving what you've already given it. Your metabolism slows; you digest food more slowly; you get hungrier than usual; and you tend to pig out when you finally do get to the table. Study after study has shown that the best way to control your appetite is to keep yourself from getting so hungry that you eat everything in sight. Nutrition researchers usually agree that you can accomplish this most easily by grazing, a term for eating several small meals throughout the day:
Cutting back on fluids helps you lose weight
 | Absolutely — right up to the minute you fall flat on your face from the effects of dehydration. The average adult body needs about 2,500 milliliters a day (30 milliliters = 1 ounce; 2,500 milliliters = 83 ounces). When you cut back on fluids, your body goes right along eliminating water as urine or sweat or perspiration or breath. Eventually, without taking in sufficient new water, you lose water weight. (You don't need to drink all this water; much comes from your foods. For example, fruit and vegetables may be 90 percent water.) |
But your body doesn't care that you want to lose weight. Its only concern is to stay alive, so when you stop drinking enough water, your body starts pulling liquid out of its own tissues. Your blood thickens. You lack the fluid needed to conduct electrical signals between cells, which means your movement and your thinking slow down.
 | A subsidiary myth, that taking water pills — diuretic drugs — can help you lose weight faster is potentially dangerous. Diuretics make you urinate more copiously and may increase your risk of dehydration. Besides, as soon as you stop the pills and get your normal amount of water, back come the pounds. |
Eating two kinds of food at one time makes you gain weight
The theory here is that because your body must secrete different kinds of enzymes to digest proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, tossing in two kinds of food — say, a salmon steak (protein) plus a potato (carbohydrate) — makes the process less efficient and you absorb more (or is it less) food, which means you gain weight. Huh? If you had a hard time figuring out that last sentence, you are not alone. Serious nutritionists consider it pure twaddle.
 | You were truly designed to be an omnivore. Nature made your digestive enzymes and your stomach acid strong enough to chew through virtually anything short of wood, glass, or nails (the metal kind, not your fingernails). Besides, some food combinations are more nutritious than either food alone. A good example is a peanut butter sandwich. Ordinarily, the proteins in peanuts and the proteins in bread are labeled "limited" or "incomplete" because they contain less than optimal amounts of some amino acids (the building blocks of proteins). But put them together, and they complement each other to produce "complete" proteins. |
 | To lose weight, don't lose the foods, cut the portions. Or here's a thought: Choose smaller dishes and create the illusion of a full plate or meal. |
Carbs are more fattening than proteins
If you're watching calories, you should know that carbohydrates and proteins both have 4 calories per gram. However, because animal protein foods, like meat, come with naturally occurring fat (9 calories per gram), a serving of plain meat, even the lean kind, almost always has more calories than a similar serving of naked bread or pasta.
| According to USDA statistics, 3.5 ounces (100 grams) lean broiled sirloin with all the visible fat cut off has 212 calories, while 3.5 ounces (100 grams) al dente, naked linguini has 141. |
As for the second part of the equation, by cutting back on carbs to lose weight, you're eliminating not only bread and pasta, but also fruit and veggies, which are also high-carb foods. Who's kidding whom?
The only exercise that takes off weight is exercise that works up a sweat
No. Non. Nyet. Any time you increase your body's "work," you use up more calories. True, you won't use as many calories on a brisk walk through town as you do on a treadmill, but studies have shown that even minimal effort, every other day can pay off. For example, in university studies, a 150-pound person who walks at a pace of four miles an hour for 45 minutes every other day (!) uses up enough calories to get rid of nearly 20 pounds in one year without changing his or her diet.
Eating foods high in sugar makes you hungry
The idea is that eating sugars stimulates your body to release insulin, a hormone required to digest carbs, and that insulin increases your appetite. Yes to the first (you need insulin to digest sugars). No to the second. In fact, eating a small amount of something sweet about a half hour before meal time may actually decrease your appetite.
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