“But there aren’t any calories in sour cream.”

crb426 wrote: »

I’ve heard quite a few jaw-droppers lately, including:

“I put sour cream on pretty much everything because it doesn’t have any calories.”

“It’s been proven that calorie counting doesn’t work.”

“Why are you putting whole milk in your coffee? I thought you were trying to lose weight. Whole milk has fat in it.”

Anybody else hear some great misconceptions lately? Please share!

Aliens built the pyramids and those statues on Easter Island.

Printer repair man visiting the office overheard part of a conversation and jumped in with you can’t lose weight without doing cardio, when he heard two of us discussing our lifting routines. My co worker asked him where the 70lbs I have lost had gone then, his response was well it won’t stay off. 18 months later that pesky 70lbs is still missing 😀

The one I get fairly regularly is

“You don’t need to worry about what you eat because you work out.”

"I've been so inspired by your weight loss that I decided to do the mung bean soup diet." WHAAAAA???

or

"I can't eat more than 6 almonds or I gain 5 pounds." SRSLY?

hippiesaur wrote: »

I just saw this comment on a fitness related website.
"You know calories are mostly fictitious? The number from the food label is just the amount of heat released when the food is burned to ashes. It has very little to do with how your body breaks down, assimilates, uses or excretes food."

The bolded section is partly true. Today's calorie counts did originate by literally burning foods to ash and measuring the heat that was released. However, that data is combined with an enormous amount of further research which does account for how a body breaks down, assimilates, uses, and excretes that food. While not perfect, the calorie counts used today are darn good estimates backed up by a whole lot of actual science.

kimny72 wrote: »

This was a while ago now, but I still remember the coworker who would routinely stop by my desk to tell me my diet soda was awful for my health. He was on his way to the back entrance for his cigarette break He'd also get completely trashed at happy hour every Friday.

A friend recently told me she finally gave up her small orange juice with her breakfast because sugar was causing her to hold onto belly fat, while holding a big bottle of POM Wonderful juice. When I asked about it, she said... superfood. I nodded and smiled.

You're giving me horrid flashbacks of something I've mentioned on MFP before:

The chiropractor who gave a presentation on "digestive health" at my breast cancer support group (!) and told us - among other things - that everyone would be better off giving up sugar, gluten and dairy; but that honey was really good for you because it's a superfood; but artificial sweeteners were the worst because your body reacted like they were sugar; and agave was kind of OK because it wasn't a superfood like honey, but was natural.

Literally. Said. All. Those. Things. In. Consecutive. Statements.

My mom thinks certain foods "help" people lose weight in an almost magical way, like "oh I always lose several pounds if I switch to English muffins instead of bread"...or "prevent" one from losing weight, "I can't lose weight if I have any ice cream at all".

She's never pressured me about my weight loss but when I hit my first big plateau in a huge loss she was like, "Maybe more bananas? I know you were having bananas a lot when you were losing". Like it was ALL due to the magic of bananas!

I know a lot of people who really subscribe to the idea that if you simply eat organic, non-GMO, etc, you will be at a healthy weight. Most of them aren't at a healthy weight though. Same with my friend who is a huge believer in full fat dairy and bone broth for all health woes, but she's always ill with colds and flu and random infections. I'm not disputing those things necessarily but it's just interesting to me how much that some people will preach the benefits of something when they aren't reaping said benefits!

I told a friend that I don't do a whole lot of smoothies (referring to restaurant smoothies mainly) because I'm a fast drinker and feel like I don't even enjoy it, just slurp it down...so I'm more satisfied with regular food than a smoothie. She said, "But with smoothies, it's not actually the calories of food, it's just the calories of juice because it's all compressed".

Wha?! In talking further I realized she truly believed this to be true. She regularly gets this smoothie with nut butter and protein powder in it (along with her sandwich) and she's not a calorie counter but she is trying to lose weight. Sometimes I just have to exit those conversations.