Welcome to the Get Fit Guys quick and dirty tips to slim down and shape up.

My name is Ben Greenfield and I'm the Get Fit Guy.

As obesity levels climb at a breakneck pace, the burgeoning weight loss industry is also growing by leaps and bounds.

In 2013, it was up 1.7% to $61 billion,

and that's just in the U.S. alone. There's no denying that people are making money

off our expanding waistlines and our desire to lose fat, tone muscle, and get better bodies.

But where there's money, there's often

myths and mistruths, too. So in this episode, you're going to discover the top five

fat loss lies perpetuated by the weight loss industry, plus the truth behind the claims.

Let's jump right into the top five fat loss lies. Lie number one is that food labels

are steeped in science and can be trusted. Well, most of us at one time or another have inspected

the food label on a package of food or a meal description on a restaurant menu and perhaps

eaten just a little bit more in the knowledge

that the item is low in sodium or low calorie or low fat. But food labels are not always

pristine and accurate accounts of what's inside the package. For example, a study recently in the

Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that the actual amount of calories

in frozen foods was an average of 8% higher than what was listed on the label. That same

study found that items served in restaurants had 18% more calories than the menu said that

they did. These kinds of gross inaccuracies are prevalent on packaged foods as well.

The food label discrepancy is partially due to the fact that under the rules published by the FDA,

which regulates nutrition labels on foods, the ratio between the amount obtained by laboratory analysis

and the amount declared on the product label in the

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