What is a Diet Myth You Totally Bought Into? --

Somehow I missed this thread... so great.

I am going to take Grim's salad and take it up a notch- Salad Bar. Wasn't that the healthy meal out?...several plates of 'salad' with three lettuce leaves and so many toppings, croutons and dressing....

I refused to indulge in rice cakes...

I do remember Melba Toast. a magical food... I remember being on this one program called "The Diet center" and the only bread we could have were Grissini breadsticks- which are the really long skinny ones, and we could make fruit smoothies if we put tofu in them.

I was strict vegetarian for 5 years... I gained 100lbs. French fries do not have meat.

When my mother was on the original Weigh****chers back in the 60's you could have like 6oz of meat for dinner- so if my Mom served hot dogs I got like 5 hotdogs, no bun....

Your salad comment reminds me of when I was in high school and would work in the kitchen for field hockey camp that came to my school over the summer. Those players, omg, they were playing field hockey for something like 8 hours a day and then GORGE on salad. So much salad dressing and croutons and all the toppings. We would joke about them having some lettuce with their dressing :P

And then, in the evenings, SO MANY MILKSHAKES.

And they were still super skinny and healthy looking and strong :P

LOL three lettuce leaves. And then leave them on the plate.

When I did Weigh****chers was when we had to have liver once a week. So I would have the liver right before my weigh-in and after weigh-in I would have my Hershey's chocolate bar, the big one. It was like the worst meal and best meal day ever, all in a day.

I also loved the vegetarian phase. Mashed Potatoes have no meat. Never met a potato I did not love.

Via my Mom I lived through liver once a week. By far the worse thing and most humiliating thing she made me eat because she was on WW... was sending me to school with a tuna sandwich using cottage cheese as the mayo.

I tried so many different diets--Weigh****chers, Susan Powell, Richard Simmons little cards in the little pockets--you know what I'm talking about, Marilu Henner's diet that eliminates dairy. And all those exercise videos--I think I did them all except Jane Fonda's. My favorite video was Fabio--while you lift weights he tells you how sexy you are and how good you're going to look. Sometimes I jus****ched the video--you know, just to watch him lift weights and tell me how good I look.

I have been eternally skeptical of weight loss diets (along with miracle diet supplements like Genepro and all the various sexual enhancement potions,) so never really went into any of them - I just stayed fat until my wife and I got serious about pursuing WLS (I think we did do on semi-major effort some years before with just basic cutting back the junkier stuff.) At least we never really established any yo-yo dieting pattern (which by some accounts may be why my metabolism wasn't entirely shot.)

Some of my favorite myths that haven't been mentioned yet are:

"Fat doesn't make you fat" - nope, neither does protein or carbohydrates. However, an excess of any of them, or a combination of them, will certainly make you fat.

"You have to eat fat to burn fat" - your body will live on whatever you feed it, but if you want to get rid of that excess that you have been carrying around, you need a caloric deficit. Someone with a 1500 calorie metabolism doing a 2000 calorie ketogenic diet will still gain weight - on the order of a pound per week. OTOH, that same person doing a 1000 calorie Twinkie diet will lose weight, also on the order of a pound per week, though they may not feel all that good eating that crap.

"That's the smell of burning fat!" in reference to ketosis breath and BO. No, that's the smell of not eating your vegetables; you will burn off your fat stores just fine without smelling bad with an appropriate caloric deficit (people have been doing it for years/decades, though most successfully with WLS.)

"If I don't do the XYZ diet that everyone on the net is doing, I will never lose any weight and my WLS will be wasted." Your WLS doesn't care what style of diet you are doing. Keep your protein up around your needed body maintenance level, keep your water consumption up and your calories down and you will lose irrespective your fat or carb grams. If you have particular triggers or sensitivities, pay attention to them rather than somebody else's.

And, not specifically diet related but...."follow your doctor's instructions - unless it is contrary to my doctor's instructions, because my doctor is better than your doctor!

Juicing: the best way to become diabetic when you're fat.... ugh.

#1: Starvation mode makes me cry. I do think there's value in eating when you are actually hungry, however I also do think that the body doesn't understand calories.

#2: If you don't eat carbs you will dieeeeeee. No. You won't. You make glucose from protein.

#3: All calories are equal. Nope. Obesity is a hormonal dysregulation driven by dysfunctional behavior. For instance, 1200 calories of fat and 1200 calories of jellybeans are not the same. The fat is far healthier and you'll be full and burn it as energy rather than storing it. The jellybeans will turn into fat cells instead of energy. So no, you can't just chug butter without remorse, but neither can you make your 1000 calories a day M&Ms and expect long-term weight loss.

#4: Ketosis will kill you!! No. It won?t. In fact, you?re in ketosis when you sleep, babies are when they breastfeed, and it?s not ketoacidosis.

#5: Elevated insulin probably causes most inflammation, but people hate giving up their bagels and sugary lattes.

#6: Slim Fast (ugh ugh)