Do you feel like you are lost in a sea of weight loss tips and tricks? Do you feel like you are drowning in myths and incorrect information? Are you tired of being fat? If you want to be that hotter version of yourself, then you may have to change things up a bit. Yes, I’m talking to you — sitting there on the couch with that pint of ice cream. Drop the ice cream and step away because it’s time to get some serious weight loss going!

Yes, you can do it, so stop resisting and get ready for some magic. I know, I know — you’re probably thinking that you can’t do it. You don’t want to do it. You are past this and have reconciled yourself to the fact that you will just always be fat.

Stop the madness, because nobody HAS to be fat. You are going to have to put forth some effort and, yes, I know, that’s the part you probably don’t like. You worked hard in a way to get fat, and now it’s time to work hard to get thinner. It’s also about getting healthier though too, so don’t think that this is just a looks thing.

You Have to Know What to Filter Out – Use Your Ear Muffs If You Have To

You may not like how you look but it’s about much more than just that. This is about figuring out what you should and should not focus on where weight loss is concerned. Just ignore the hype and learn to block out what the many crazy myths out there.

Have you ever bought into one of these absurd weight loss rules? Have you tried one of the insane weight loss products? Guess what? There is no belt in the world that will help you shed the weight. Eating nothing but cabbage is not going to help you to lose weight either.

Some of the weight loss rules are very clearly strange and unjustified. Some of them are very easy to spot as insane and unhelpful. There are, however, some myths and misconceptions that are not as easy to spot. You may wish to believe them or you may just fall into the trap. Marketing is what sells products, and sometimes we all become little lambs wanting to believe it all.

Yes even you, the smart one with the pint of ice cream in her hands, even you can believe the false claims. If something sounds good then you want t believe it, right? Here we look at some of the food rules that are keeping you from losing the weight. Sneaky but true, these are never going to help your waistline but may drain your wallet!

1: Drastically Cutting Out Calories Will Help You Lose Weight

Okay, so this is one that may be initially easy to buy into.

You may recognize the need to cut out calories in a certain way. You may eat too much, eat the wrong types of calories, or just indulge in foods that you really shouldn’t have that often. It’s easy and we’ve all been there. You know that you need to cut back on calories a bit — but that doesn’t mean that you should eat the equivalent of what a five-year-old eats either. Healthy balance is what will help you get to where you want to be.

While you may need to relearn proper portion sizes and how many calories you need, you also don’t want to go to an extreme here. You need a certain number of calories in a day to help your body function properly. You may lose a few pounds with extreme calorie restriction, but that won’t last. Your body will think that you are literally starving, and the end result is that it will hold onto every ounce of food you eat and store it as fat.

Nobody wants to cut calories drastically, this is not the way you saw yourself losing weight anyhow. You know that you likely need to change things, but do you really want to be hungry all the time? Do you want to freak your body out and end up gaining weight? No way! So forget about extreme calorie-cutting and focus on something that actually works like eating the right foods in the right way—that is far more effective than counting calories anyhow.

2: Eating A Few Select Foods Will Take the Weight Off

If you want to lose weight then it’s all about the cabbage soup diet. If you want to achieve long term weight loss, then you need to avoid

all carbs forever. Right? Wrong! If you want to keep the weight off, then it’s all about a well-rounded diet. It’s not about eating only chicken breast, brown rice, and broccoli for the rest of your life either. Yuck!

If you don’t keep your diet balanced and rich in healthy foods, then you will give up on this eating plan. Nobody wants to eat only chicken, nor do they want to avoid carbs forever. Life is too short to go without carbs, so get that crazy idea out of your head! It’s time to regroup and determine what will work and why these crazy rules need to be gone for good.

You need balance and that comes in the way of lean protein, healthy fats, whole grains, and loads of fruits and veggies. Notice that this is about eating smarter and not focusing only on a few key foods. Nobody can sustain themselves forever on fish and veggies alone. Try to eat healthy about 80% of the time and then let yourself enjoy some treats to comprise about 20% of the time. Forget about only a few key foods to help you because that is not going to last and you are going to get hungry and mad!

3. Extreme Diet Trends Will Get the Weight Off for Good

You are so desperate to lose the weight that you likely will try just about anything. A cleanse where you eat absolutely no solid foods for 72 days? Sure why not — if it will help you to lose the weight then it’s worth trying. You so badly want to believe that this is the latest trend and it will finally help you be successful. You are willing to try anything and you realize that when you are choking down apple cider vinegar before every meal.

Sure, you may have some initial success with these crazy weight loss trends and feel really good at first. You may be completely focused and feel like you have finally found the secret to weight loss. Oh yes, finally the weight will stay off — until suddenly it’s not coming off anymore. As a matter of fact, your progress has come to a screeching halt and you are so hungry!

That’s the thing with extreme diet trends, they may work for you but only for a little while. They may initially seem enticing and you are drawn in by doing this one thing to achieve long term weight loss. The problem is that you will find yourself in a situation where the weight loss stops.

You either fall off track because you can’t diet in this way forever, or the diet stops working for you. Ignore these trends that promote extreme methods to help you in losing weight. Focus on the right things and they are never extreme in nature — so no you do not need to constantly cleanse to take off a few pounds.

 4: Three Square Meals a Day Is the Way to Go

This is an easy one to believe, because there’s a good chance you’ve heard this since you were a kid. Eat all your veggies, drink your milk, and eat three square meals a day — sound familiar? It may have been shoved down your throat to the point of exhaustion, and so here you are as an adult ready to face this incorrect guidance head-on. Yes, you’ve been fed a line of nonsense!

So, here’s how it goes — you throw down a quick and useless breakfast, then get way too hungry just in time for lunch, and then wait hours before you shove down dinner in the fashion of a pig at the trough. Does this really sound like a recipe for weight loss success?

Though you might think that spacing out your meals is a good thing, the reality is that you aren’t giving your body the fuel it really needs. You need to eat, but you need to eat more frequently. What, did you hear that right? Yes, you need to eat smaller meals more frequently throughout the day. You need to keep up your fuel and energy, and that means that you aim to eat smaller meals about every 3-4 hours.

Then you never get too hungry, you are much less likely to overeat at any one meal, you never get hangry, and you keep a constant level of fuel. You are likely to actually feel full and satisfied by eating in this way. It makes you wonder how you ever ate only three times a day and thought that white bread and fruit punch were acceptable foods, huh?

5: Certain Foods Counteract Junk Food

This may be one of the more ridiculous food rules out there. If you eat junk food and go off track, then just eat a certain food to get rid of it, so to speak. Try eating hot and spicy foods to melt away the fat that you ate. Try drinking grape juice or red wine to cut through fatty junk foods. There is nothing scientific about it — and let’s face it, this is just something that we really want to believe.

If you want to lose the weight then it’s time to let go of the cupcakes and throw out the chips. No, you don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. It’s the only way that you are going to get rid of those love handles. There is no magic food that wipes away fat. There is no way to get rid of fat and calories that you don’t really want in certain foods. It’s so tempting to believe this, but you do realize that this is ridiculous, right?

The very simple answer here is to avoid the junk foods in the first place. Forget that they exist, though an occasional splurge is okay if you can hold yourself back from being a beast. A small taste of chocolate or something along those lines is perfectly fine. If you can’t stay away from it or if you want to throw down a pound of chocolate, then avoid it altogether. There is no magic way to wipe away what you ate — for even exercise has its limitations. Avoid the things that made you fat, simple as that!

It’s very tempting to give into the most ridiculous food rules out there. The truth is, however, that they are only going to leave you disappointed. You want to focus on things that will actually help you to lose weight and keep it off. So, while there’s a fine line between downing that pint of ice cream and drastically cutting your calories, it’s all about focusing on the right things too. Forget the madness, ignore the hype, and focus on well-founded nutrition.

Though it may be tempting to give in to the latest trend, it’s only going to leave you disappointed and fat again. Focus on what really matters, treat your body well, eat the right foods for fuel, and all the rest will follow. It’s amazing how it all comes together when you know the right things to focus on. Suddenly the crazy food rules show through as exactly what they are, and you can be much happier as you actually lose the weight and keep it off for good.