It's easy to get suckered into common fitness beliefs that spread quickly online: all carbs are bad, you can "detox" your body with a juice cleanse, and cardio is the only way to lose fat. The problem is, many of these so-called tenets of weight loss have no basis in fact; they're nothing more than myths [1].
As personal trainer @maxfit [2] pointed out in an Instagram post, there are six common myths people believe when it comes to losing weight:
- Running is best for losing weight.
- Juice cleansing will shed pounds fast.
- Eating at night makes you fat.
- Skipping meals puts you in starvation mode.
- Ditching carbs slims you down.
- Sweat belts melt belly fat.
"The truth is, in order for you to lose weight, you need to be in a daily caloric deficit [4]," Max wrote in his caption. You can create a calorie deficit through portion control [5], moving your body daily, and resistance training. "Ultimately for you to keep the weight off, it will be about creating lifestyle habits [6] that you can continue long term."
While running is a good workout, he said interval training (such as HIIT workouts) are more effective for burning calories [7]. Juicing is actually packed with sugar and only helps people lose weight temporarily because they are in a massive calorie deficit. Eating at night in and of itself won't make you gain weight, unless you are eating after your dinner and tacking on more calories to your daily total. And while skipping meals might not work for everyone, it is part of intermittent fasting, which has helped people lose weight [8]. You can eat carbs and still lose weight [9], and anything that makes you sweat extra, like those sweat belts, won't do anything to burn belly fat.
The bottom line: if it sounds questionable or too good to be true, be sure to dig into the research; a random "fact" that goes viral may just be a myth.