How weight loss myths can get in your way

From the Paleo diet to five-minute workouts andraspberry ketone supplements, there's always something new and trendy in weight loss — enough to persuade Americans to spend nearly $60 billion a year.

But all that spending seems to produce, at best, modest results: Two-thirds of U.S. adults remain overweight or obese. And those who do lose weight often lose just a few pounds. Many then regain the weight.

"Obesity is a difficult disease to treat," says psychologist Martin Binks, an associate professor of nutritional science at Texas Tech University. He was among experts in Los Angeles this week for Obesity Week, an annual research meeting hosted by two professional groups, the Obesity Society and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.

Binks and other experts who spoke at the meeting say weight loss is not a hopeless pursuit. But, they say, it's not surprising the dieting public is confused and disillusioned.

"We have people wearing medical scrubs on television feeding people really inappropriate information about magic potions and quick fixes," Binks says. When people don't lose weight, he says, "they blame themselves… setting up a cycle of failure and self-blame."

These are among the myths that he and other experts say can get in the way of achieving a healthy weight:

The diet that looked the best in the latest study, or sells the most books, or worked for my neighbor, is the one for me.

"We haven't found anything that works for everyone. If we did, everyone who wanted to lose weight would get on that diet, it would work, the obesity epidemic would be over," says Christopher Gardner, a nutrition researcher and professor of medicine atStanford University.

Factors including genetics, metabolic differences and even differences in gut microbes might affect how easy it is for someone to follow a diet and lose weight on it, he says.

In a study of 609 overweight and obese people now underway, Gardner says, he and his colleagues are finding that some participants on either low-fat or low-carb diets are losing more than 50 pounds in a year, while others are losing little or nothing. The point of the study, not yet analyzed, will be to find what individual differences might help explain those outcomes, he says.

Supplements are the answer.

An estimated 30% of U.S. adults use dietary supplements for weight loss, but unlike over-the-counter and prescription weight loss medications, those products have not undergone Food and Drug Administration review for safety and effectiveness — though they should, the Obesity Society and three other groups said in a statement released in October.

The statement came on the heels of a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing dietary supplements send 23,000 people a year to emergency departments. Weight loss supplements, which often contain stimulants, accounted for 25% of those visits in adults.

"People so want to believe that these products are miracles," says Laura Shane-McWhorter, a professor of pharmacotherapy at the University of Utah. "But with most of these products, there isn't any compelling evidence that they cause a lot of weight loss. And there can be side effects."

Exercise is the royal road to weight loss — or useless unless you exercise for hours every day.

While exercise has many health benefits, "obesity will not be fixed by exercise alone," Binks says.

"We primarily control our body weight through the energy-intake side of the equation," meaning the calories we eat and drink, says Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Canada.

But the calories we burn matter, too, and research on ways to burn them more effectively and efficiently is showing some promise, Gibala says. His own studies focus on high-intensity interval training (HITT) — workouts in which bursts of intense exercise alternate with periods of less intense activity. Small studies suggest such workouts can modestly increase calorie burn, even after exercise — the "afterburn" effect.

"Even modest fluctuations in intensity appear to be effective," Gibala says, citing studies in which overweight people with type 2 diabetes have lost more weight and burned more fat by alternating fast and slow walking.

One appeal is that these workouts can be completed faster than traditional workouts. Will science ever give us a five-minute regimen that keeps us fit and lean? Probably not, Gibala says — but 20 minutes, warm-up to cool-down, might not be unrealistic.

You have to lose a lot of weight to get healthier.

"The message that people have been getting for decades from the popular diet plans is that you have to lose a lot of weight and you have to lose it fast," Binks says. "But there are multiple health benefits associated with the 5% to 10% weight loss range."

Those include improvements in quality of life, cardiovascular health, joint pain and sleep apnea, he says.