Straight Facts: Biggest Fat Loss Misconceptions & Mistakes

Jerry Brainum gives the straight facts on the biggest myths in fat loss and how to avoid making these frustrating fat burning mistakes.

For many people across the world, weight loss is a nightmare. There is an entire industry and culture behind weight loss. Companies that attempt to sell you the next big trick to lose weight without the stress. Many are scams. Some are based in truth but oversold and oversimplified. But the mere existence of the fat loss industry showcases one painful truth – it is hard to lose weight for many individuals across the world. In our latest episode of Straight Facts, Jerry Brainum debunks the biggest fat loss myths and shares tips on how to avoid these big fat burning mistakes.

If you are someone who has either struggled to lose weight or focused on some sort of weight loss diet – you’ve likely heard all sorts of advice before. To simply it, there seem to be two schools of thought. One is the many complicated sciences and tricks into losing weight. These include fat loss products, nuanced diet trends, and sold nutrition programs like the Atkins diet or Weight Watchers.

The other school of thought boils it down to the simple basics. These people often say dieting is easy. Just eat less calories than your resting metabolic rate and you’ll drop fat. Easy, right? All you need is the will power to make it happen. It shouldn’t be complicated.

But the reality falls somewhere between these two extremes. The hard part is weeding through the crap to find out real helpful advice. That’s why we turned to Jerry Brainum to help debunk the biggest fat loss misconceptions and share tips using studies and facts on how to lose weight. Let’s jump into it with this overview of the biggest fat loss misconceptions.

1. Not all calories are created equal

One of the most basic strategies regarding weight loss is to consume less calories. While this is true in general, it’s also misleading. Different calorie sources go down different metabolic pathways.

Jerry Brainum explains that studies have long concluded that dietary fat contains more calories per gram than other nutrient sources. This has long lead to the believe that you should cut dietary fat for weight loss. But this is misleading.

In basic terms, Jerry Brainum uses the keto diet as an example. This diet asks you to cut carbs and replace with large amounts of dietary fat. The diet works (when done correctly). But based on pure calories alone this should not be the case due to the hight amount of calories per gram in dietary fat. This is just an anecdotal example of how not all calories are created equal.

In the video above, Jerry Brainum goes into more detail using studies that showcase the science behind this concept and why weight loss attached to calorie counting is more complicated than it seems.

2. Weight loss is not linear

There is also a generalized blanket statement made about fat loss. That if you cut 500 calories per day you’ll lose a pound per week and expand upon this linearly (1000 calories will lose you 2 pounds etc). This is not always true.

Jerry Brainum explains the concept of diet plateaus. This often happens after a few weeks of dieting successfully. A diet plateau happens often when your body realizes that your consuming less calories. Often times, cutting calories leads to bringing your daily caloric levels below what your body needs to function.

This is when your body goes into “starvation mode.” It begins pulling energy from other sources in your body, your metabolism slows down, and suddenly you stop losing weight.

3. Fat burner supplements will not directly burn fat

Fat burner supplements often advertise as miracle products that will help you lose fat without having to do anything else. This is not true. Studies have shown that fat burners don’t directly burn or oxidize fat. They help mobilize fat. So you often need to have a consistent exercise routine to make these products effective.

Related: Check out our review guide for the best Fat Burner supplements of 2022

4. Willpower is not the only factor in fat loss

There are those who believe that an overweight person simply has no willpower to eat healthy. This is not always true. Jerry Brainum explains that there are people with genetic disorders that will make it much more challenging to lose weight. For example, if you have low thyroid (hyperthyroidism) – you burn calories much slower than the average person. Even depression can lead to biological changes that slow down fat loss.

5. Exercise alone is not a good fat loss strategy

There are those who will jump on a bike or run for hours on end in the hopes of burning off the fat they ate for the day. This is not an effective strategy to lose weight. Jerry Brainum explains that over-exercising with cardio or aerobics will eventually lead to cannibalizing your muscles rather than burning fat.

On top of this, exercise is a much less effective way to burn fat than simply having a healthy or restricted diet. You would be surprised at how few calories an hour of running really burns.

6. Dietary fat does not always make you fat

This relates somewhat to item number one on this list. Especially in the past, dietary fat was seen as the enemy for weight loss. But this is not 100% true. There are many other nutrients such as carbohydrates (especially additive sugar) that contribute far more to gaining fat. As we mentioned above, diets like the keto diet are very effective in helping with fat loss and often involve a large amount of dietary fat.

7. Does healthy obesity exist?

This one is more controversial and currently being studied in more detail. For most of our modern existence, being obese was seen as being unhealthy. Jerry Brainum points out that many studies have shown that obesity leads directly to certain diseases (like type 2 diabetes) and ailments.

However, the culture is starting to shift into discussing the concept of healthy obesity. This comes from studies that show certain people who are categorized as obese have completely healthy bloodwork.

Jerry Bainum goes on to explain that this is currently a very controversial subject. Some doctors and scientists believe that, while an obese person can be healthy for some time, they will eventually suffer some sort of ailment in the long term. These ailments are harder to directly correlate due to the vast amount of other factors that may contribute. Even so, in today’s shifting culture, there has been a movement to promote “healthy fat” physiques.

The truth is this will likely require more studying before anything can be 100% concluded.

Wrap up

Jerry Brainum goes into far more detail and even more misconceptions and myths than we can discuss in this article. That’s why you should make sure to watch our latest episode of Straight Facts in full to become more informed on the biggest fat loss mistakes and how they can help you improve cutting fat. You can check it out above.

And don’t forget to check back in every Wednesday for new episodes of Straight Facts every week!