Are These Common Weight Loss Myths True? Doctors Reveal Facts

What we believe about weight loss may be a myth, according to doctors and fitness trainers who are helping health-minded consumers get their facts straight. Research even points to the possibility that weight loss is more about looking good (according to popular standards) than about feeling healthy.

Myth #1: Restrictive Dieting Is the Key to Weight Loss

"As long as your weight-loss plan is based on restriction, deprivation, and forced exercise, it will fail in a spectacular blaze of late-night, sugar-rush, salt-lick insomnia-because it will lead to a life that is simply... no fun." writes Sarah Hays Coomer in XOJane. The personal trainer advises against following the latest fad diet, instead encouraging readers to focus on those approaches that align with one's enthusiasms.

The amount of food that someone eats is of far less concern than the quality of the food consumed, according to plant-based nutrition advocate Michael Greger, MD. He authored the book How Not to Die, which gathers together dozens of scientific studies on food, nutrition and health.

In his book, Dr. Greger highlights research done on telomeres, the tiny "caps" on our chromosomes whose size can indicate how long a person has to live-telomeres get shorter and shorter over time, and once they're gone, a person typically dies.

"Weight loss through calorie restriction and an even more vigorous exercise progam failed to improve telomere length, so it appears that the active ingredient is the quality, not quantity, of the food eaten," he notes.

Myth #2: Weight Loss Leads to Better Health and Longer Life

Going back to that same telomere-focused research, the study found that groups which saw the same amount of weight loss could achieve different levels of telomere protection. The comparison pitted a group of calorie-restricted dieters against plant-based consumers. The vegetarians fared better, and their telomeres did not merely stop shrinking, but actually grew.

Remember, both groups achieved the same degree of weight loss. "In other words, it wasn't the weight loss and it wasn't the exercise that reversed cell aging-it was the food," summed up Greger in his book. It appears that while weight loss can give you a better body, it doesn't necessarily offer you a healthier life.