The Mind Body Project
The Mind Body Project
Healthy Huddle: Nutrition Myths on Trial
Ever feel like every label screams for your attention while every headline tells you to fear your food? We take a clear-eyed look at the most persistent nutrition myths and boil them down to what actually matters day to day: food quality, sustainable calories, and choices you can live with. From the carb panic to the low-fat hangover, we separate highly processed pitfalls from the one-ingredient staples that keep you full, fueled, and moving well.
We dig into why “calories in, calories out” is true but incomplete, how going too low can stall fat loss, and when increasing calories restores energy and results. You’ll hear practical frameworks for spotting clean carbs, choosing healthy fats without fear, and understanding that late-night eating isn’t the enemy—ultra-processed snacking is. We also pull back the curtain on detoxes and cleanses, explaining how your liver and kidneys already do the job better than any juice, and why water, fiber, sleep, and movement are the real reset.
Supplements and protein shakes get an honest audit—useful as gap-fillers, not replacements. We share tips for reading packaging beyond buzzwords like keto-friendly, gluten-free, and high protein, so you can shop with intent rather than impulse. Most of all, we underscore that there’s no one-size-fits-all magic plan. Your best approach matches your tastes, schedule, activity, and goals, and it evolves as you do.
If you’re ready to replace hype with habits and build a plate that works in real life, hit play, subscribe for more myth-busting conversations, and leave a review with the myth you’re letting go next.
All right. So we are going to talk about the nutrition myths, and we'll put them on trial and talk about some of them. Some of them, a lot of them you've probably heard, but we're going to talk about why they're myths and where they come from. So there's probably what's maybe one food myth that you've heard of or that maybe you still believe, even though you know it's not true. Like a really weird thing, this has nothing to do with food whatsoever. But one of my big goals is to hike the Appalachian Trail from like beginning to end. It's like 2,000 some miles. But if you ever TikTok the Appalachian Mountains and the Appalachian Trail, it's like it says if something whistles at you, don't whistle back in the dark. And it says if it calls your name, don't go towards it because you won't come back. So there's a lot of weird things that happen in the Appalachian Mountains. But I don't know if that's myths or truth, but Kim said, while she's alive, I'm not allowed to go. So, but I may never come back. So, what is maybe a food myth that you used to believe and you don't believe anymore? Or that maybe you know is a myth, but you still have a hard time letting go of it? Eggs are bad?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And and when why do they say eggs are bad?
SPEAKER_01:I I really don't know, but I think that's crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Because they usually say, well, just eat the egg white, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I think and that and that's a good one, but I think and a lot of times I think it's because of they think high cholesterol. And all the egg yolk has the cholesterol, but again, that's what they say, but it an egg is great for you. That that's a good one. Anybody else have one?
SPEAKER_02:All carbs are bad for you. There's no good carbs.
SPEAKER_00:And that's a big one we're gonna talk about too. Yeah. And and somehow we firmly believe that. That's a good one. We're gonna get into that one. Any any other ones that you were a myth are a myth that you still believe that you have a challenge with. So we're gonna start, we'll start with carbs. The interesting thing about myths and the ones we talk about today, is all of them have a little spark of truth. But as what happens is it gets so distorted we don't even know what that truth is. So if we if we talk about carbs, carbs are bad for you, they make you gain weight. So unfortunately, when we say carbs, carbs always get a bad rap because they get uh lumped in with all the bad ones and the good ones. So what if you know there were some uh just a few people, you know? Well, look at all the people in jail. Would there's lots of people incarcerated from blue-collar crimes to very violent crimes, then should we be able to say that all people are bad? No, because all people aren't bad, but that's the same thing we do to carbs. Think of if if carbs were people and you're saying every single carb you take in is bad, that would be the same as saying because people are in jail and have committed crimes, every single person you come in contact with is bad and is gonna hurt you and not be good for you. That's kind of the same thing. So the spark of truth of that would be that some carbs are bad, just like some people are bad. When it comes to carbs, it's those carbs that are highly processed, as we've talked about before. When you're in the grocery store, all of those bad carbs are all in the center of the store. So, those carbs that have gazillion names under the ingredient list are the bad ones. What are the good carbs? Don't have to say necessarily one, but what is a symbol of a good carb? Huh? Fruit? Yeah, fruit's good. You know, it's really those ones that are not processed. How many ingredients are on rice? One now, if you get the kind of rice we like to have on a taco Tuesday, then it comes in the package and you pour it in the water and you mix in the mix, there's more than just the word rice on that. So that's not good. But if you get a big old five-pound bag of rice, you're gonna look at the ingredients and say rice. How many ingredients are in potatoes? Like a baked potato? One, yeah. So those good carbs are those ones that have like one ingredient. You got fruit, it's one ingredient. It's a banana, it's an apple, it's an orange. Rice, the same thing. Sweet potato, same thing. Rice, same thing. Quinoa, same thing. Couscous, same thing. It's it's one. And so though those are the those are the carbs that are good for us. We call those clean carbs. But yet, those poor carbs get lumped in with the bad people. So if you think about that, you're a good person. How would you like to get lumped in with all the people that are criminals and everybody be scared of you? You wouldn't like it. And so neither do carbs. Carbs don't make us gain weight. What makes us gain weight? Calories. Exactly. Calories make us gain weight. And not just, and too many calories make us gain weight. So that's the problem. It's like we're we're taking in, it's it's not, it's not the carbs that are making us gain weight, it's chances are the calories in those that you're that you're eating out of the box, you know, you're mixing your hamburger helper, your riceroni, you know, your fast meal that all you gotta do is add a meat to, but it comes in this box. That's where it comes from. It, you know, our processed carbs are when we go through McDonald's, we go through Whataburger, we go through Arby's, all those, and I mean, and Chick-fil-A, we all know that's the perfect food. So you have no worries there, but not really. That's right, that doesn't count. But those are the the ones, and we say carbs because they have excess calories in them, they have a lot of calories in them. We might go through a drive-thru and get a value meal, and that meal could very easily be our whole calories for the day. And and so while we're talking about calories, and that really is what makes us gain weight, is gaining weight and losing weight when you break it down is really simple. But we all know because if we've if you try to lose weight at all, it's not simple. But the simplicity of it is less calories in, more calories burned. Believe it or not, do you know how you get rid of your calories? Like, like you take in less calories and you lose one pound this week. How did you lose that?
SPEAKER_01:Exercise.
SPEAKER_00:Exercise, that's correct. But you know where those calories go, you breathe them out. Just as you eat those calories in, they go out the same way. It's very interesting. But it's a simplicity. It's you take in less calories, your body burns more, burns more calories. That's how we create, and and that's burn more calories, you take in less, it's through exercise, through diet combined. Maybe it's just through exercise, maybe it's just through diet, but both ways are efficient. But as we all know, it's more challenging than that. So the next thing is it is 1200 calories, we'll just use 1200 calories because it's easy. Is all 1200 calories equal? No, exactly. 1200 calories at Mickey D's is way different than your 1200 calories of your clean eating. Probably if you get a 1200 calorie day at McDonald's, you got one value meal. But a 1200 calorie clean eating meal could be your whole day. So, yes, calories in, calories out, but it's really also what are those calories made up of? If you looked at somebody that just ate 1200 calories every day of McDonald's, they're gonna look way, regardless of exercise, they're gonna look way different than the person who eats 1200 calories of clean eating. Gonna look way different. Again, because those are made up differently. So it's almost challenging to say it's as simple as calories in versus calories out. Because typically, what happens when we drop our calories and we don't lose any weight? What do we do then?
SPEAKER_02:Drop them more.
SPEAKER_00:Drop them more. Where are you at 1200 calories? If that didn't work, surely I need to go to 1,000 calories. And that's really another myth that I really didn't have listed. I didn't talk about the other day, but that really is a myth that oh, if if you know 1,200 calories isn't working, and it's a different calorie for everybody. I'm not saying 12 fits for everybody, but if whatever number I'm at, if it's not working, then I gotta keep going down. And then eventually you're down to 500 calories and still not losing weight, and you wonder what's going on. And the myth sometimes is that I need to reduce calories so low I'm gonna lose. But the reality is that sometimes that those calorie intake may be too low. And so, because is what happens when we get too low is our body says, you're trying to starve me. And if you starve me, I'm gonna go into survival mode because our body is very, very efficient and says, I'm gonna survive, so I'm gonna hang on to everything I got and not let it go. When you find that right balance, maybe 1200 calories, you're not losing weight. Because maybe you need because maybe because of exercise activity, you need 1,500 calories. And then when you go up, you go, man, I start dropping weight. And that is one of the hardest things. I've been training for 18 years. And when I tell people you need more calories, they go, No, I'm not doing it. And then after a month or so of them still not losing weight and gaining weight, they finally go, Okay, I'll try it. And then we find that place where they're taking in more calories and they start dropping weight. And that's one of the biggest myths to get over. It's almost as as big as carbs, carbs being bad. What about eating fat makes you fat? That that is that is not true, but the the little speck of truth to that is well, you're eating junk. And again, it's that ice cream that has a lot of fat and sugar in it. You're eating the all the desserts, you're eating the high, you're eating your going by the golden chick and get your chicken tenders. You know, that stuff, it didn't mean you step on any toes if you get chicken tenders, but but that stuff is your saturated fats. Yes, that is gonna make you gain weight again because it's excess calories. But but it is eating healthy fat gonna make you fat? No, we've talked about it before. You can have healthy fats, and they're gonna help you sustain your energy longer, they're gonna actually be a great benefit for you. So you could have, I've I've been on, you know, I've changed my macros and all that. I've been up to you know 130, 140 grams of fats before, and and dropped some other things, but actually was able to lose weight, do different things depending on what my goals were. So it's not the high amount of fat, it's simply what type of fat it is. So that's why the big craze uh when we talk about diets by the decades, when we're in that craze of low fat, everything was low fat. And if it was on a package low fat, man, you bought it up because it must be bad for you because it has fat in it. And nuts has tons of fat, but it's really good for you. Different oils, tons of fat, but really good for you. So eating fat does not make you fat, it's typically the types of fat you're eating. So again, little speck of truth. What about? Have we ever seen those commercials or with different multi-level marketing companies that sell different health and nutrition products? And we might have had friends say, Hey, I have this new detox you need to try. It's a detox with juice or cleanses. You really need to try this. And you try it and you go, eh, and they go, wasn't it great? And you go, well, maybe you didn't notice anything. I've had clients in the past that have done like seven-day juice cleanses, like actually gone or detoxes, actually gone to a place to buy these freshly squeezed juices and all this kind of stuff. And you know, they don't, and I've had several of them, and all different people, and they really don't do a whole lot of things. But again, the truth is every single day our liver, our kidney, and our skin detox naturally. Every single day. When we introduce those juices, often we spike up our sugar intake, and then we don't have any fiber, which then causes other problems. So our liver, kidney, and skin do that every day. All we have to do is give it some water. I'm kind of like a plant. We have to drink plenty of water, and that helps detox all those things, along with good sleeping habits. Those all help with that. So we don't need those. A lot of times, well, just like just like you know, you need a detox, you need low carb, you need low fat. What are behind that? Most times the motivation is trying to sell you something. Because the the low carb crates, what do we have? We have keto, South Beach, Atkins, and can't you go to the grocery store and find all those packages that say keto friendly, low carb friendly, uh Atkins friendly. And what are they trying to do? Trying to sell you a product. If somebody comes up to you says, hey, you need to try this detox, it's awesome. They're trying to sell it to you because they want to make money. For a while, I sold supplements at the gym at Synergy, and after a while, and I was the worst salesman ever. I tried selling it a couple times, worst salesman ever, because they go, you know, I need protein to lose weight. I'm like, no, this this protein powder isn't gonna make the difference in your life and help you lose weight. You need to stop eating so much and exercise a little more, is really what it boiled down to. You know, they wanted this whole pile of supplements because we we we think that they're all gonna make us better and fitter. But the truth is we got to start with our own pantry and kitchen before we do anything. So I finally stopped selling supplements because a lot of people are so far from needing supplements initially that it, I mean, it's gonna be a while before they get there because, again, a supplement is to supplement maybe something you're not getting in your diet. If you've gone to all the measures you can to fulfill that, just like I had a conversation this morning with one of the ladies this morning that came and she was eating drinking like three protein shakes a day. I said, What are you doing? She goes, Is that bad for you? I said, Well, it's not necessarily bad for you, but I mean, you need to get your protein from whole food sources. And again, a protein shake is not a replacement, it's a supplement. So you've eaten all your protein you can, and you just need another 20, 30 grams. Go ahead and have a shake. That's why it's called a supplement. But I said, you need to get to whole foods, it's gonna be better for you. Again, thinking liquid protein, I'm doing way better. Not always the truth. But again, sometimes that is a myth that that we believe. And while we're talking about protein shakes, that is another myth that and it's changed a lot. I've been probably drinking protein shakes price since early 2000, 2000, 2001, and they've come a long way. If you weren't drinking them then, they were awful, awful. And a lot of times the only people that drank them were people that are working out, bodybuilders, you know. I mean, it was a whole thing. You know, they have to tell you they're going to get their protein shake and they can't miss it, it's a whole thing. But now it's it's more mainstream. So some of you drink protein shakes. And simply, and really for women, a protein shake sometimes is needed just because it's sometimes so for ladies, harder to get in your protein. Just because it takes a little more food. Most don't just love meat of any sort, or just like a very small, narrow amount of what they like. Um, so so protein shakes are good, but does help with recovery and muscle and all those things. So it so really now we're moving on towards it's really for everybody, which is nice. That's one of those myths that are kind of going away. It's still not sticking around. And then what about we've even talked about this on the healthy huddle? What about late-night eating? We, you know, sometimes we think late night eating automatically causes weight gain. What do we typically, what kind of foods do we typically want late at night? Do we want chicken, huh?
SPEAKER_01:Junk food.
SPEAKER_00:Junk food. Do we really want to cook that chicken and rice at 10 o'clock at night? No. That sounds nasty. We want some chips, we want some ice cream, we want something sweet, we want some popcorn, then we want to load all the sugar, all the salt on it, and the butter. So that's really, again, a little speck of truth because late night eating can cause weight gain. Because typically the stuff we're eating late at night is all the junk food. We don't want to always eat healthy late at night. So a little speck of truth. But the real truth is it's what we're eating, not what we're eating. You know, if it's eight o'clock at night and you have four ounces of chicken and a cup of rice, that's not gonna cause weight gain because it is what you're eating, not and and and the amounts. You know, if you try to eat the amount of calories a bowl of ice cream has in it, and chicken and rice, you're gonna be you're gonna be stuffed. No way you can do it. So again, it's not the late night eating necessarily, it's what you're eating that's gonna cause the weight gain. And then a big one we hear is gluten-free is automatically healthy. I've seen a lot of people that are gluten-free that are not healthy and they're overweight. And and you know, sometimes you can go, well, that means that's not healthy. It doesn't automatically mean it's healthy. It can, but it doesn't automatically mean it's healthy. Because the truth is, those gluten-free products often have other things in them like sugar and fat to replace the texture. So now we're adding more calories, different macros. So gluten-free, you know, unless we have you know a sensitivity or a celiac disease, something like that, if we just say I want to believe gluten-free, that you're not telling somebody automatically that you're being healthy. That may be what they hear, but that's you know, not really what you're saying. Because, of course, if something's missing from it, if it's sugar-free, fat-free, gluten-free, if it's free of something, there's something else in there that has to make up for that taste or whatever you when you go, man, this is so good and it's sugar-free, there's probably something else in there that is making it not so healthy for you. Same thing with fat-free. We have to look at those because there's something else in there that's making it maybe not great for us. What about veggies? Frozen veggies aren't as healthy as frozen. A myth. They can be, but as in the other night on Healthy Hut Order, Nay had pointed out that we get those canned veggies or those frozen veggies, we still have to look at the back because we have to see what's in them. Maybe there's other things besides that. Because when we go to the grocery store or buying any supplement, anything, we have to keep the most important thing in mind that the purpose of that product and that person, the company behind that product is to make money, it's to sell it to you. So they're gonna make it sound as good as it can. And when you go buy a car, don't they make it sound like it's the best car you'll ever drive. I mean, why wouldn't you pay just a couple extra thousand dollars for that nice stitching, and you'll be so comfortable riding in that? They're just there to make a couple extra thousand dollars. Same thing is true in the grocery store. Just because it says low fat, high protein, perfect for this, perfect for that, doesn't mean it is for you. So we have to be very aware and educated consumers. It's not just for grocery store, but it's everywhere. Because just because the the marketing says it's one thing, we have to say, does it fit what I'm looking for? Does it fit within maybe my macros, my calories, maybe some things that I'm sensitive to? Does it fit within that? Because the marketer is marketing to the masses and wanting to make some dollars. And we see those, and they're really good at putting buzzwords on there and flashy things that we see all over that we're supposed to say, oh, that's healthy for me. But we have to be educated consumers, and just because it worked for our friend doesn't mean it's gonna work for us, and that's another myth. It's a one-size-fits-all, you know, eating plan, diet plan, exercise plan. Maybe what works for you for exercise will never work for your friend because maybe they don't like cardio, maybe they don't like lifting weights, maybe they don't like running, maybe they don't like walking, all these different things. But we assume if it worked for them, if I eat exactly what they ate, I'm gonna do that. But that's not the case. So we have to be very, very aware and realize that everything that comes at us is to make money. And that's again why I had a really hard time selling supplements, because I wanted you to be healthy. And if you didn't need it, I said you don't need that. They were all, I mean, they they were ready, they couldn't get their money out fast enough, but I would say, no, that's not what you need. Because I knew in the long run that wasn't what's best for them. So I'd be an awful salesman. Just like when people are coming in the gym, I don't try to talk you into it. This is what we got. We'd love to have you, but I'm not gonna talk you into it because if I talk you into it, you're not gonna last long. You have to come wanting it. So we have to be really aware and educated consumers when it comes to this. Because remember, there's a little speck of truth, and this happens a lot of times in a lot of ways. There's a little speck of truth, but then we expand, I can't think of the word, but make it way bigger, it goes way bigger, and it's so far from the truth we don't even know what the truth is. So, any comments or questions on our myths, nutrition myths. There's so many of them out there. All right, if you have any comments, questions about any of it, just let me know. Otherwise, have an amazing day.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Thank y'all. Bye. And thank you so much for joining us this morning on on a healthy huddle. Look forward to seeing you right here next time on a healthy huddle.