Ignore These 8 Common Diet and Nutrition Promises
After reviewing countless nutrition articles and studies and diet plans and supplements and whatever else is out there, Iโm not only a more bitter person (lol I jestโฆsort of), Iโve also come to realize that thereโs a lot of fake nutrition-related promises out there. I swear Iโve become an expert in eye-rolling because thatโs what happens when I read yet again that a particular supplement promotes โfat burningโ or that the โproprietary blendโ of โspecially approved herbsโ in a diet product can โdetox your liverโ. Oh my god. Even writing about it, Iโm laughing to myself because the concept is so absurd. Yet thousands of people fall for these promises, year after year.
I thought it would be fun and informative to list the diet and nutrition promises I see most often – especially online – and then debunk them for you, one by one.ย
And listen: I swear to you that if any weight-loss miracle supplement or product comes on the market, Iโll be the first to let you know.ย
Here they are:
Makes you into a fat burning machine
I swear, if I had a dollar for every time I saw this one, Iโd be at Saks buying shoes right now.ย
Letโs get one thing straight: Your body does burn fat, but it does so in response to activity and certain diets (low calorie, ketogenic). There is no pill, no powder, no shake, nothing – that independently creates this โfat burningโ situation in your body.
Some of you will write me and tell me that chili peppers (capsaicin), which is the active ingredient in most of these โfat burnersโ, has been proven by science to burn fat.ย
Well, yes and no.
This is what the science actually showed:ย
People who ate several grams of chili flakes in their meals had a resulting elevation in metabolic rate.
Raising metabolic rate does burn more calories.
However, studies showed that this elevated metabolic rate didnโt last for very long.
The studies also showed that the total extra calories burned were very few – maybe less than 20 a day, and thatโs after consuming an amount of chili that will burn the crap out of your mouth. So, no thanks. I can burn the same number of calories trying clothes on at Nordstrom, which is a hell of a lot more fun.ย
Some fat burners also contain chromium, which hasnโt been proven to burn anythingโฆexcept your money when you waste it on shitty supplements.ย
Resets your metabolism
I wrote in detail about metabolism here.
But if you want the short version, here it is: metabolism isnโt like your faulty iPhone that you can easily reset to factory settings. It doesnโt work that way!ย
If youโre unhappy with your metabolic rate, really the only way to change it for the long-term is by adding more muscle mass to the equation. That means you need to lift some weights, and not believe crazy claims that some diet can reset your body. In fact, diets that restrict food can potentially mess your metabolism up more, and just as bad, your emotional health.ย
Balances your hormones
Oh boy, hormones.ย
Like claims about metabolism, I find that hormone claims are thrown around on diet sites because many people are afraid of the science behind them. I guess โdiet gurusโ count on you not being able to interpret the physiology behind their claims in order to $ell product. They didnโt count on me being around though to interpret everything for you! HAH!
Hormones balance is indeed a thing, and itโs extremely important. Imbalanced hormones – like cortisol, leptin, thyroid hormones, estrogen, and insulin, can make you feel terrible and most definitely can have a negative impact on your health. Hormone imbalance can result from poor diet, lack of sleep, excessive stress, and disease, among other things. Sound familiar to any of you?
While some supplements – like adaptogens – have purported benefits for hormone balancing, Iโve included this claim because I think we have to be skeptical about who is selling what, for what reason. Diets like โThe Hormone Reset Dietโ, which I wrote about here, have a ton of half-truths, twisted science, and a whole lot of shitty products that the author insists are necessary for success and is conveniently $elling – for her own per$onal gain. Thatโs called โconflict of interestโ, and itโs always a red flag for me.
While not all supplements with hormonal effects lack efficacy, a lot of these products are sold as โproprietary blendsโ, which donโt reveal how much of which ingredients are actually in the product. If youโre interested in balancing your hormones with supplements, I would highly recommend getting help from a credible individual – like an RD who specializes in these sorts of things (ie: not me) –ย who can tell you which supplements to take and in what exact amounts.ย
If you want to take the first step in hormone balancing, the best thing to do would be to make sure youโre getting adequate sleep, that youโre not under too much stress (easy for me to say, I know), and that your diet is balanced and adequate in calories and nutrients.ย
Detoxes your body
Iโm not sure why people are STIIIIIILLLLLL falling for the detox bullshit, but here we are.ย
Nothing you consume detoxes your body, your blood, your liver, or anything else. Your body isnโt a sewer pipe that needs to be unclogged and flushed out.ย
Charcoal, milk thistle, green juice, the Master Cleanse, apple cider vinegar, and all those other things that people like Gwyneth Paltrow and her team want you to believe are so mandatory for making your body squeaky clean and perfectly pure, donโt work in that way. Your lungs, liver, and kidneys detox your body. Thereโs not (and yes, I totally just read this on some girlโs Instagram, no word of a lie) 5-10 pounds of โtoxic sludgeโ in your body thatโs just hanging around. OMG!! Can you imagine? Please donโt be the person who believes such nonsense.
Rests your adrenals
Just like your lungs donโt poop out after a hard workout, and your heart beats 24/7 without stopping hopefully until youโre very old, your adrenals donโt need a rest. Do adrenals get worked harder at times of intense stress? Sometimes, but donโt worry: theyโre made to take it.ย
A lot of โadrenal fatigueโ sites (Google the term, you donโt have to go far to find the avalanche of garbage that results – another red flag that no legit sites are talking about it) use some serious scare tactics like telling you that your adrenal glands are going to take their last gasp and stop working because of your terrible lifestyle (which, of course, can be remedied by taking their supplements and following their diet).ย
Please donโt fall for this nonsense.ย
If youโre overly stressed in your life, itโs safe to say that it will benefit you in many ways to try and change that.
I wrote about adrenal fatigue here. And as an aside, hereโs a review of studies about adrenal fatigue, with pretty much the best title ever.
Lose X pounds in X time
Thereโs a great reason why I never give clients a specific weight goal: Because we never know how theyโll react to any nutrition plan we give them.ย
Iโm sorry, but unless someone can see into the future, you should never believe any weight goals they set for you. And anyways, letโs stop focusing on the NUMBERS, okay? Seriously. I donโt even weigh 99% of my clients, for good reason: Itโs not about the scale anymore, itโs about making lasting changes to your diet and lifestyle to be happy, content, and as healthy as you can be without stressing yourself out and being miserable. Doesnโt that sound so much better? And yes, it works.
I truly donโt believe that killing yourself with some diet to lose those โlast 5 poundsโ youโve been fighting for 10 years is really all that worth it.ย
No need to change your diet! Take X supplement and youโll lose weight
Thereโs really nothing to say about this claim, tossed around mostly by idiotic weight loss programs like SlimRoast (and here). Iโve had clients say that protein powder, or apple cider vinegar, cause weight loss without any effort whatsoever (although taking shots of ACV is incredibly disgusting and corrosive to your teeth and esophagus). Iโve learned to be very moderate when breaking the following news to them:ย
Just like the โfat burnersโ we talked about above, nothing that you can eat or take will help you lose weight on its own. You need to do the work to get results. Sorry!
โCelebrity nutritionistโ; โHarvard educatedโ; โMDโ; โDoctorโ
I guess this is a sort of ‘claim’, in that you’d expect someone who appears to be well-educated to provide you with the best possible information.
For some reason, far too many people start salivating like Pavlovโs dog when they read that a โHarvard educated doctorโ has written a new diet book. Itโs as though every medical professional, especially those who have been Ivy-League educated, can do no wrong where diets are concerned. Itโs a completely false assumption of course; Iโve read and worked with plenty of well-educated doctors – including my own father – whose heads were up their behinds when it came to nutrition.ย
Iโd also like to remind you that Dr. Gundry, Dr. Oz, Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Atkins, Dr. Travis Stork (The Bachelor, as well as The Doctors..not sure which one is more credible), and many others have been educated at Ivy League colleges and made idiots of themselves with their crazy TV shows and/or their thoroughly debunked (some on this very blog) theories about nutrition.ย
A shoutout goes to all those nutrition-expert โdoctorsโ who arenโt actually Medical Doctors but use the โdoctorโ designation to sell books and supplements – Iโm talking about the โdoctors of chiropractic medicineโ or โdoctors of naturopathic medicineโ. They still seem to elicit the same misguided excitement due to their โdoctorโ titles. Nicely played, you all.
And if thereโs a hierarchy of sorts for crappy nutrition credentials, โcelebrity nutritionistโ would be the base of that, since that means absolutely nothing in terms of training. JJ Smith of Dr. Oz fame (what a shocker), with her lovely green smoothie detoxes; and JJ Virgin, with her holistic nutrition specialty and โclean eatingโ crap, both fall into this category.ย
Nutrition can be a minefield of false promises and untruths, so do the work to make sure youโre getting the best information from the right people. Keep in mind that there are no miracles where nutrition is concerned; in general, you get out what you put in, and thatโs pretty much it. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and beware also of people who have something to sell – especially when itโs their own product.ย