7 Things Weight Loss is Not About Despite What You Might Think

The illusionary truth effect:

The tendency to believe what you're repeatedly exposed to.

Or as put by the Nazi, Joseph Goebbels:

"Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth"

The only reason I'm starting with this point is to allow you yourself to question why you might believe some of these fallacies.

It's not that you've been maliciously lied to, but the truth may have been skewed;

• in favour of financial profits over peoples lives.
• through scientific misinformation and misinterpretation.
• but even more so, the absolutism of people who found, heard or saw success in one intervention and not in another.

So let's begin.

1. Going to the gym

Let me make this absolutely clear - your body does not give a flying f*** whether you go to the gym to be active or not.

When it comes to weight loss all your body cares about is what's happening inside of it. It does not care about the location or tribe you go to to be active.

2. Beast workouts - no pain-no gain mentality

"I need someone to beast me" - no you don't.

Unless you're planning on getting on a stage to show off your cheese grated abs or run a marathon - you don't.

What you need is to find a routine set of activities that are flexible enough to consistently suit your lifestyle so that you can keep the energy flowing mentally and physically without feeling exhausted and fearful of the next beast'ing.

3. Eating 'clean'

Much like above, unless you're stepping on a stage in thongs and lotion sometime soon, remove 'clean eating' from your vocabulary.

This is the absolutism - all or nothing - style mentality that has people swinging on a pendulum from regular fast food takeout & beers, to ZERO takeouts or beers.

It's never that black and white. The sweet spot is in the middle.

What you need to work on is the self-discipline to enjoy food in a balanced quantity while creating repeatable dietary behaviours supportive of healthier choices 70-90% of the time.

4. Finding the right or 'best' diet

Repeat after me - there is no 'best diet'.

There is no 'right diet'.

All 'diet' really represents is the regular consumption of foods one consumes.

Detach it from is association with fat loss.

The only worthy diet best suited to your weight & health goals is the one that:

• You can routinely abide by consistently
• You don't feel over-deprived
• Works with & for your particular lifestyle challenges
• Doesn't feel like a so called 'diet'

5. Fast food is always 'bad' food

Let's lose the idea that fast food is 100% bad. And while we are at it, the idea that all microwaved food is bad.

YES - there's a lot of garbage out with extremely disproportional nutritional balances that doesn't really serve our needs.

But that doesn't mean everything associated with 'fast food' or microwaves are 'bad' just because of the label that's been given to those things.

Again, this is absolutism at it's finest.

Stop relying on label terms and use common sense to differentiate between healthier and unhealthier choices;

i.e. a 6" turkey & ham Subway with lettuce & tomato on wholemeal is going to be a more supportive option than a McDonald's burger - in any size - towards weight & health goals.

6. 'Turn fat into muscle"

Simply put - this is like turning water into steel.

It cannot be done. They are completely different tissues.

You can gain more of one while losing some of the other and vice versa.

Anything or anyone claiming otherwise is praying on your naivety and lack of knowledge as part of a marketing ploy.

7. Burn [insert body area] fat with this workout or exercise

Two points to be made here.

ONE:

Think about the previous point - fat is a separate tissue to muscle.

Which means regardless of where on the body fat deposits are located, it does not have anything to do with the muscle in that same location.

So if you work your abs really hard, the fat in that area has no correlated outcome - it will not burn extra fat around the abs just because the muscles in said location are hurting.

Again, anything that says otherwise are marketing ploys.

TWO:

Exercise is not a primary fat loss activity. If that's the only reason you think you need to workout and exercise - stop.

Look at it like this:

In 1 week you have 168 hours.

You workout 3-5x per week as most people do. For 30-60 minutes.

The average person burns between 100-300 calories depending on how vigorous and long the workout is.

So in total that's ~90 mins-5 hours of exercise per week depending how many times you go & for how long.

Now removing a generous 7 hours / day for sleep you actually have 119 hours of awake time.

Here's the killer question:

Do you really think that 90 minutes - 5 hours per week is where most calories are burned?

You'd be lucky to lose even 10% of your required calories out for fat loss.

This should make you think about what you're doing the other 90% of the time i.e. standing:sitting ratio at desks, walking, and other non-exercise related activity.

Meanwhile, stop associating exercise with purely lose fat - instead use exercise to increase energy capacity, focus levels, happiness, stress management, physical capabilities, disease control, disease prevention, and longevity.

__________________

Hopefully this clears up any confusion you had on some of these points and shifts your perspective on the reality of weight loss in an actionable way.

Until next time.

- Ryan