Episode 163 – Addressing 6 Common Myths Around Weight Loss

Key Topics Covered

Weight loss is a common goal for many people, but it’s surrounded by numerous myths and misconceptions that can make it difficult to navigate. Today we will unpack several common myths surrounding weight loss. While we don’t want to spend a lot of our time unpacking myths as we would love to spend more time discussing what actually works rather than focusing on what does not but we do see the value in unpacking these myths provided

Myth 1 – To lose fat you need to keep insulin as low as you can

Some people say insulin is the key to fat loss.
The zoomed-in mechanisms are either related to mechanisms around insulin increasing fat storage and decreasing fat breakdown OR increasing appetite.
- The first one is relevant, but sometimes people imply that it is impossible to lose fat while it is in our system.
- But that’s not true. We can lose fat with insulin in our system. It’s actually in our system most of the time.
- With the appetite thing, it’s often used from this angle. But let’s look at the other angle. It has been proposed that you could “trick” yourself into being hungrier by having some carbs before a meal. Example: 20g of carbs 30 min before eating a proper meal. This could be a hack to help people who struggle to gain weight. But unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that well.
  - In the show notes, I’ve added a bunch of studies from Kevin Hall looking at this insulin and fat loss concept. One of the clearest examples though is that in one of his studies, both groups lost a similar amount of fat, while insulin was 20% higher in one group.

Myth 2 – Carbs Cause Weight Gain

various carbohydrates scattered on a table.

Carbs don’t directly cause weight gain. A calorie surplus causes weight gain.
If there is a lot of carbohydrates coming through the diet, more carbohydrates will be stored as glycogen which is accompanied by more water.
This is not necessarily fat gain or muscle gain. It is an increase in muscle glycogen and water weight which is why your scale weight can increase.
Carbohydrates do not directly cause weight gain unless there is a calorie surplus. This can then allow carbohydrates to be stored as fat.
A famous “rice study” was conducted where participants lost an average of 63.9kg. It involved 160 people who had high starting body weights. The study also showcased improvements in fasting blood glucose levels and 2-hour post-prandial blood glucose levels. They ate a lot of rice, fruit and sugar.
This study is a clear representation that a high carbohydrate diet does not reflect weight gain.

Myth 3 – It’s Not Calories, It’s Hormones

The easiest way to unpack this is to say both matter, and both influence each other.
Our hormones can affect both our calorie intake and our calorie expenditure.
Our intake and output can affect our hormones too.

Myth 4 – Eating Breakfast Boosts Your Metabolism

bright coloured smoothie bowl with granola.

“Kickstart the metabolism” is spoken about a lot.
The most tightly controlled research looking at this topic has found no difference.
When total calorie intake comes out the same, energy expenditure over the 24 hours typically comes out similarly.

Myth 5 – Skipping Meals Slows Down Your Metabolism

Similarly to the breakfast aspect, metabolic rate does not appear to be noticeably affected by meal frequency.
Research looking at this from multiple angles including intermittent fasting through to small frequent meals has not found any consistent difference when total calories are matched.

Myth 6 – Cheat Meals Massively Ramp Up Your Metabolism

If you exclusively looked at acute data, it looks like this.
But the response from the body is too short-term.
One day of eating more just does not seem to make much difference over a week or month.
The increase in calorie intake outweighs the increased expenditure.
It wouldn’t make sense to do this from a metabolism perspective, although we see why people might have other reasons.

Summary:

If you liked this episode, feel free to check out the next episode where we unpack 5 more additional myths.

Relevant Blogs / Resources

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