Have you ever heard or read any of these statements before?
The keto diet is magic!
You can’t eat carbs and lose fat!
Intermittent fasting is king if you want to lose weight!
The alkaline diet is a legit protocol for health and wellness!
If you have, you are not alone so, what I want to do is discuss why these statements are not accurate and …
Shed a little “science” on some of these fat loss MYTHS to help clear up the confusion as well as help you to gain a better understanding of what is truly required to lose fat successfully …
And keep it off 🙌🏻
Look, I understand how easy it is to fall victim to the sexy marketing that entices you with easy, fast, and effortless weight loss. The problem is that it is all BS! And unless you are an educated dieter and have learned how to diet smart, the easier it is to fall prey to all these myths because …
At the end of the day, the more all of this is thrown in your face, the sexier, the more appealing and the more believable it becomes.
Basically, when it comes to the myth that, “you can’t eat carbs and lose fat,” I know this is just not true because …
I’ve seen firsthand with my own clients how they are able to lose body fat and keep it off while still eating carbs! Yes, and I’ll repeat that again, because I feel that it needs to be said multiple times in order to undo the impact of the messages that have been saturating the internet for years now …
You can eat carbs and continue to lose body fat! However, let me dissect this for you a little bit further …
If you have ever tracked your calories, then you already understand that it is entirely possible to eat a certain number of calories daily, and likely preserve your body weight. That may be in the 2000 calorie range for a woman, and around 3000 calories for a man, or somewhere in the ballpark of those. Now obviously, your individual health will dictate how much you can eat, while still maintaining your body weight. However …
The reality is that as long as your body is metabolizing at a rate that is greater than the calories you’re consuming, this puts you into a calorie deficit, and you will be able to oxidize body fat. So, depending on if you’re biasing carbohydrates, fats, or proteins, whatever you decide to bias, all you need to be aware of is if you are in a caloric deficit. Because if you are healthy enough to create this calorie deficit, you will oxidize body fat … I know, cool right?!
One of them is more of a flexible dieting eating approach, where you can eat carbohydrates and still lose body fat. The other one is the complete opposite and follows the principle of, “We’ll cut out all carbohydrates, go keto, do the fasting, and we’re doing all these things because that’s the only way you can lose body fat.”
Hmmmm … NOT true!
For the majority of people that do go that extreme route, what they end up finding out later is that this is really hard to stick with. Even more so when wanting to attend social gatherings, if you have kids, if you have a spouse and, if you have friends and you are inviting them out to do specific things. This mindset really can cause you to alter your lifestyle in such a way that you’re end up being willing and ready to commit to many fun things for the rest of your life. So, in order for you to maintain what I’ll call metabolic flexibility …
You can metabolize carbohydrates fine, you can continue to lose body fat, and you can actually maintain most of your weight loss as well as optimal health. However, you definitely want to keep carbohydrates in your diet for the myriad of benefits that they actually provide to
you.
So, what about a ketogenic diet? Well, I’m going to draw a line in the sand here and say that, for the most part, men will respond better to a ketogenic diet or a high fat, lower carbohydrate diet. And I’m in no way saying that I recommend this type of diet. I’m simply saying that I think men respond better to it. Why? Glad you asked …
As far as females go, it’s important to understand that the female physiology is predicated on two powerful hormones that make them women. Estrogen and progesterone is what makes the females, female. The estrogen gives women more of the emotional, feminine characteristics. That progesterone is the calming hormone that allows women to have a cycle. Carbohydrates actually serve a role in being able to help modulate stress on the system, which can up-regulate progesterone, helping women to have a normal, healthy monthly menstruation cycle.
You see, here at The Educated Dieter, we like to promote a more sustainable fat loss approach. What that means is we do not believe in totally eliminating any food sources, and advocate for more of a moderate range of each one. However, that will also depend on whether you are in a fat loss phase or a building phase.
Something else that is very important when discussing the role of carbohydrates in your overall nutrition plan is the fact that if you are not eating carbohydrates, then you’re not fueling for performance because those carbohydrates directly drive anaerobic performance in the gym. In order to be able to build and develop big full round muscles, develop a lot of strength, and optimize our anaerobic performance in the gym …
Carbohydrates are necessary, and you need to at least be eating them pre and post workout 🥯🍇🍝
So while eliminating, or drastically reducing carbs, will likely have you experiencing, what may seem like impressive weight loss at the beginning of this diet phase but, there will come a “sticking point,” which occurs once you begin to introduce some carbs back into your diet!
Look, to be perfectly honest, most people claiming to be “ketogenic” are likely on a lower carbohydrate diet, and NOT following a clinical/medical ketogenic diet protocol.
And here is, in my opinion, the perfect time to stop and remind you that coaches should not be dieting women the same as they are dieting men. For this very reason, I created the Female Fat Loss Course, specifically for nutrition coaches, to provide them with the education on how to diet women differently.
So fasting is king? Really? Well, that’s news to me! Okay, perhaps I’m being a little facetious here but man, this one really gets under my skin. So, how about I dive right into intermittent fasting since it seems to be the supreme ruler currently.
So, is intermittent fasting the king of all fat loss diets? Why does intermittent fasting seem to work so well? First of all, you must keep in mind that when doing traditional intermittent fasting, this is a 16-hour fast followed by an 8-hour feeding period. This is a total of 24 hours. Now, if you’re eating in an 8-hour feeding period, by default, in many cases, you are reducing your calories. So, keep in mind that we can revisit where I discussed the whole calorie deficit concept above …
When you fast, if you even eliminate your breakfast, you’re eliminating 500 to 700 calories out of your day. And what do you think is going to happen if you eliminate 500 to 700 calories out of your day? You got it …
You will, again by default, be in a calorie deficit. This will put you in a position where you’ll likely improve your blood sugar, because you will enter the fat oxidative environment where your blood sugar is anywhere from 75 to 90, and …
You can start to lose body fat and improve your body composition 😊. Now I think it takes a lot of determination and discipline to do keep this up, however, for some people it is their lifestyle and works well for them. But is it KING? Well …
I do think that, for some individuals, particularly those who need to be very focused, intentional, and clear in the morning, it could be a very useful tool. However, I also would not recommend cutting out carbohydrates during your 8-hour feeding time.
This is where individual and situational elements play a huge key role in how to best diet for your goals and be able to sustain them long term.
As far as the alkaline diet goes … folks that was just a fad! It hit mainstream without any accurate education about it and so it ended up with people not really knowing what this diet was, how to utilize it and what to expect. Basically, the idea behind the alkaline diet is that you’re consuming something that is alkaline, and the thought is that this will change the pH and alkalinity of your blood. But …
That CAN’T happen! This is such a tight-knit junction that is completely carried out by your body’s natural physiological processes, that if anything changes in the blood, you’re probably going to be in the hospital. Please also keep in mind that your digestive system is kind of degrading everything you consume anyway, once it gets into your stomach so, drinking alkaline water is NOT going to change the pH of your blood.
The one thing that all these diet myths have in common is that they’re all very black and white in their approach. They are also all very extreme. And the extremes are what makes each of these diet approaches very easy to comprehend for people that are not educated. However, sustainability is not going to be sexy, it’s not going to be fancy, and it’s definitely not going to be appealing to the eye.
Telling someone that they need to take time and they need to slow down with their diet approach so that it can have lasting results, is not what most people want to hear. They want to hear how they can easily lose 30 lbs in a month, with the assumption that it will stay off.
And you and I both know that this is just not the case.
The extremism, the black and white, is where there still exists an enormous number of untruths and influence in the health and fitness industry. What I’ve learned is that that the truth is in the gray area. So, if we blend the black with the white, we have gray, and this is where the truth resides.
The truth does not exist in quick-fix fad diets, it’s not in promising people they’ll lose 30 pounds in 30 days, it’s not found by buying into the BS of the industry, it’s not in the newest marketing gimmick in one secret magical food that will miraculously cure your metabolism. It’s not in any one or combination of these.
The truth is that successful, sustainable fat loss is the result of …
✅ Understanding that micronutrients are important
✅ Understanding that macronutrients and tracking them are important
✅ Learning to understand your own individual metabolism is important
✅ Working with an evidence-based coach to support and educate you
A Final Thought
If you find yourself stuck, or caught on the hamster wheel of fad diets or you are simply struggling to figure out what works for you, The Educated Dieter can help. Using evidence-based principles, we will work with you to design a plan that will allow you to achieve your goals in a way that is healthy and sustainable.
To learn hear even more details about the Fat Loss Myths in this blog, you can listen to the FULL episode right here on our podcast channel Fat Loss Myths.
God Bless and thank you for reading,
Coach William and the entire Educated Dieter Family
To keep up with The Educated Dieter Family and learn more about our elite coaching services, you can find us here …
