Dieting Myth #10: 

Save Your Calories for Dinner

Dr. Freedhoff says:

If you know you've got a big dinner planned, while it might intuitively make sense to try to skimp on your daytime eating, if you show up to your indulgent meal hungry, you're likely to eat back your savings and then some.

The average restaurant appetizer packs between 400-600 calories. Bread baskets beckon before appetizers even arrive. Decadent mains and desserts festoon all menus.  If you show up to a restaurant hungry because you skimped all day long -- between the bread, an appetizer, a more indulgent hunger-influenced main that you're more likely to finish, --  whatever daytime calorie savings you racked up will likely be gone even before your main course arrives.

On the other hand, show up not particularly hungry and suddenly the bread's less tempting, there'll be no need for an appetizer, your main is likely to be less indulgent (and perhaps not finished), and dessert'll be easier to share.

Bottom line for most meals out - if you save your calories for dinner, your overall daily total may well wind up higher than if you don't.

Dieting Myth #11: 

There are Bottles Full of Weight-Loss

Dr. Freedhoff says:

There are no shortage of products promising remarkable weight loss benefits. You can buy them from actual pharmacies and sometimes they're even promoted on television by actual doctors (or at least by one actual doctor).

Yet the only thing remarkable about those bottles is that they're legally allowed to be sold.

If there were such a thing as bottles full of weight loss, the world would be very slim indeed.

Dieting Myth #12:

The Last 10 lbs Are the Hardest

Dr. Freedhoff says:

If you want those last 10 lbs to stay off, well then they'd better not be any "harder" to lose.

"Harder" usually implies extremes of effort - lots of white-knuckles to pass by the yummy stuff; more gym sweat than is enjoyable; or incredibly monotonous eating; and denying yourself the ability to enjoy food for comfort or celebration.

Well guess what? You're not likely to live with those extremes for good and as a result (and you know this is true) it's not a matter of if, but rather of when those last 10 lbs are going to return.

I don't know which 10 lbs that your real last 10 lbs are going to be.
But, while your last real 10 lbs will certainly be the slowest, that 10 lbs shouldn't be any "harder" than your first 10.

If they are, you're doing something wrong.

Dieting Myth #13:

Our Weights Should Be "Ideal"

Dr. Freedhoff says:

If I had to pick the single most toxic, backward, and yet desperately believed societal myth about weight there's no doubt it would be this 13th myth of modern day dieting - that weights should be "ideal", that people of similar heights are supposed to weigh similar amounts, and that numbers make useful goals.

They don't. But if you believe that they do, well that's likely to lead you to all sorts of stupid when it comes to trying to lose as it's a belief that has fueled the past 60 or 70 years of traumatic and extreme diets.

Let me say it quite plainly (and forgive me for my language) - as a means to set personal goals BMI is bullshit. Sure it may be useful when considering a population and risks associated with weight overall, but it's simply not useful to you as an individual as there are all sorts of weight-affecting realities that you simply won't be able (or willing sometimes) to change.

Like every other area of your life, your goal with weight management or healthy living is to do your best, and whatever weight you reach living the healthiest life you honestly and actually enjoy - well that's your "best weight". And I'm here to tell you, whatever that weight is, it's frickin' great.