Test Your Weight Loss IQ: The Ultimate Quiz

**Jim Hill:** Welcome to Weight Loss And, where we delve into the world of weight loss. I'm Jim Hill.

**Holly Wyatt:** And I'm Holly Wyatt. We're both dedicated to helping you lose weight, keep it off, and live your best life while you're doing it.

**Jim Hill:** Indeed, we now realize successful weight loss combines the science and art of medicine, knowing what to do and why you will do it.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yes, the “And” allows us to talk about all the other stuff that makes your journey so much bigger, better, and exciting.

**Jim Hill:** Ready for the “And” factor?

**Holly Wyatt:** Let's dive in.

**Jim Hill:** Here we go. Holly, today we're going to do a little something different. We're diving into a fun and enlightening quiz designed to test your weight loss knowledge. It's quiz time.

**Holly Wyatt:** We're going to ask our listeners questions.

**Jim Hill:** Listeners, it’s quiz time. Okay. You've listened to our podcast and now you have to take the quiz. There are a lot of misconceptions out there. How much do you really know about weight loss? Are you ready to gauge your weight loss IQ?

**Holly Wyatt:** I love this topic. We've kind of crafted this episode around questions for you to answer and then we'll reveal the correct answer. So we're going to give you a chance to think about it. And I really challenge you. Think about what you think the answer is.

Don't just wait for the answer. See how good you are. Heaps score. We would love to even know how many of these you get right. And heads up, guys. Some of these questions may be a little tricky or counterintuitive.

**Jim Hill:** Ooh, a tricky quiz.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah.

**Jim Hill:** Well, this should be a blast.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. And I think it'll be educational and fun. And you know, that's my favorite combination. And And listeners are pretty savvy about weight loss. So it's going to be interesting to see what the average score turns out to be. I think our listeners would score better than average people.

**Jim Hill:** They're going to ace this quiz. No question.

**Holly Wyatt:** All right.

**Jim Hill:** Let's dive in, Holly.

**Holly Wyatt:** All right. Let's go.

**Jim Hill:** So who has the higher resting metabolic rate, a person who weighs 300 pounds or a person who weighs 150 pounds?

**Holly Wyatt:** One of my favorite, favorite questions. My state of slimmers know the answer this because I talk about this all the time. So someone that weighs 300 pounds, what's their metabolism? What's their resting metabolic rate versus someone who weighs 150? Which one has the higher metabolism? All right, Jim.

**Jim Hill:** Hey, everybody have their answer? The answer is Holly, the 300-pound person.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yes. And that's counterintuitive, right? Some people would say that the 300-pound person has the lower or slower metabolism.

**Jim Hill:** Your metabolic rate is a function of your body size. You You it's your lean body mass, your muscle that's the most metabolically active. And someone that's 300 pounds, they have a lot more fat than the 150-pound person. They also have a lot more lean body mass. So resting metabolic rate is higher in people who weigh more, not lower.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. And people don't understand that. They think when people do gain body fat, they gain muscle under that fat, right? You can see that when we do dexa scans. You can actually see, yes, there's a lot of body fat, but there's also more muscle. And that more muscle gives them that higher resting metabolic rate. So that 300-pound person is the correct answer for the first question.

All right, number two, this is going to be a true or false. You can convert fat into muscle by eating strategically and lifting weights. Convert fat into muscle. That's what people want to do, right?

I want to take some of this fat and replace it with muscle. True or false? What do y'all think? And the correct answer to that question is false. You can't convert. And the tricky part of that is I think the word convert, Jim.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah. Fat stays fat. You can have more or less of it. You can add it or you can get rid of it, but it stays fat and muscle stays muscle.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. So you could add a pound of muscle and get rid of a pound of fat, but you're not going to convert it. I hear people saying all the time, I'm going to turn this fat into muscle. And I'm like, well, not exactly. That's not exactly what's going to happen.

**Jim Hill:** All right. Number three, which activity burns more calories? Running three miles or walking three miles? Which one burns more calories? Running three miles or walking three miles?

**Holly Wyatt:** This is a good one. What do y'all think?

**Jim Hill:** Choose your answer. Running or walking? Holly, this is one of those that's a little tricky.

**Holly Wyatt:** I think I've been all kind of a little bit tricky so far.

**Jim Hill:** So basically it takes the same amount of energy to run a mile versus walking a mile. Think about back to your high school physics, mass times distance. You're moving a body three miles. It doesn't matter if you do it quickly or slowly, you burn the same amount of energy.

But Holly, there's a big but. If you're running three miles, you do it quickly. And then your resting metabolic rate kicks in the rest of the time. If you look at the same amount of time, the running is going to be more. But technically, it's exactly the same number of calories to run a mile or walk a mile. And again, maybe the answer here is what we've said over and over. Move your body, move it, movement burns calories.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. I think the tricky part of this is three miles. If you walk three miles, you run three miles, you burn approximately. The same amount of calories. But if you were then to walk for one hour versus run for one hour, definitely running for one hour, you would burn more.

**Jim Hill:** But ultimately, it's mass times distance. If you move your body three miles, you burn the same amount of calories no matter how much time it takes to do that.

**Holly Wyatt:** And that's counterintuitive because I think you think, oh, running should burn more calories. But it doesn't necessarily, like you said, for the amount of miles. Just because I know some people are going to talk about this. What about afterburn? So what if you run three miles versus walk? It's a higher intensity. A lot of the programs out there talk about afterburn. They even sell the program based on that afterburn.

**Jim Hill:** The research is a little iffy on this one. My reading of it, if there’s anything there, it's minor compared to the energy you expend in the physical activity. I wouldn't put a lot of weight on that. If you get a little bit, it may be in some people and some types, but overall, your calorie burn is really during the movement, not so much afterwards.

**Holly Wyatt:** I agree. And usually when I'm in one of those classes and they start talking about it, I just kind of have to look the other way because I think they oversell that piece of it. It might be a little bit, especially if you're not trained, so you may have some recovery that's going on.

But think once you get trained, I think it's a pretty small amount compared to, you know, just the movement itself. So all right, what number are we on? We're number four. How are y'all doing so far? How many have you gotten correct?

Number four is going to be another true or false. Doing sit-ups will help you reduce your belly fat. So if you got some belly fat, do some sit-ups that are going to help reduce that spot area for you. What do you think? True or false: sit-ups help you reduce belly fat. What do you think, Jim? What's the correct answer?

**Jim Hill:** Correct answer is false.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah.

**Jim Hill:** It's impossible to work on reducing fat from any particular point in your body. There's sort of a genetic pattern to doing it. So you can do sit-ups and you might lose some body fat, but it isn't necessarily going to come from belly fat. It may come from other places. So sit-ups are good and they may help you lose fat, but you can't target fat loss from any specific place with exercise.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. And if you're doing the sit-ups, a lot of times to strengthen the muscles or to develop the muscles, but I also say that you're not going to see those muscles, those ab muscles, that six pack that sometimes people talk about doing abdominal exercise to get if there's a layer of fat over it and doing sit-ups won't get rid of that layer of fat. And this is one of the frustrating things for me is when I lose weight, that's where I need to lose it.

I definitely store it in around my waist. My arms are pretty thin. My legs are pretty thin, but it's all right there. And when I reduce my calories, which is what is really required to lose fat, right? Not do sit-ups. I really need to reduce my calories is going to be doing it. I lose more of my arms and legs. I can't make it go to where I want it to go. I wish we could figure that out, but spot-reducing, we can't. And also then doing something like sit-ups doesn't work either. All right. Next one.

**Jim Hill:** Number five, you can lose weight while consuming more calories than you burn. If you follow a low-carb diet, it's the type of calorie, not the amount that influences weight loss. So if you follow a low-carb diet, can you lose weight even though you're consuming more calories than you burn?

**Holly Wyatt:** This kind of goes with those commercials or programs that talk about you can eat anything you want.

**Jim Hill:** And lose weight.

**Holly Wyatt:** Lose weight as long as you just eat or eat as much as you want as you just eat this one type of food and you can lose weight. It kind of goes along with that, I think.

**Jim Hill:** So true or false, write down or think about your answer. True or false? Holly, what's the answer?

**Holly Wyatt:** False. Definitely it is about being in a negative energy balance. Now, eating a certain type of calorie or certain macronutrients, eating eating carbohydrate may help you reduce your calories, which produces a weight loss. But I don't think we've yet to find a program or to study a person who's eating more calories than they're burning and losing body fat.

**Jim Hill: I**t's not going to happen. If you're eating more calories than you're burning, you're gaining weight, not losing it. Doesn't matter what you're eating.

**Holly Wyatt:** Now, the tricky part of the counterintuitive piece to this question is that the type of calorie you eat might influence other things. So, if you're eating low carb, it might mean that your appetite is lower or something else has changed, that it influences the amount of calories you eat. And that's how it has its effect. But it's not doing it, in spite of eating a large amount of calories, that's just not happening.

**Jim Hill:** Okay. Next one. Number six, we're rolling right along.

**Holly Wyatt:** Oh, this is, I think, hopefully.

**Jim Hill:** This is an easy one.

**Holly Wyatt:** This better be. If you've been listening to us at all, I think you'll get this one. True or false? Weight loss is slowly a matter of willpower. If you just have the right willpower, you'll be successful. Willpower is the thing that matters. True or false. And I hope you all get that.

That's absolutely false. Yes, willpower is important. It plays a role. But oh my gosh, there are so many more other things that play a role like genetics and environment and so many things. And willpower alone is not the cause of obesity and is not how you produce a weight loss, in my opinion. What do you think, Jim?

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, totally. The new obesity drugs show that people who couldn't do it with willpower alone, once they have help in overcoming biology, now they can do it. So if it were willpower, that'd be thin people all over it. Majority would be thin. It's more than willpower. It's biology. It's genetics.

**Holly Wyatt:** All right, we're on number seven.

**Jim Hill:** All right. Number seven, the location of weight loss in your body doesn't matter. So it doesn't matter where you lose the weight. And let's make it on health. The location of your body weight does not affect your health. It's how much weight you have, not necessarily where it is. True or false?

**Holly Wyatt:** True or false. So let me, I'm a little confused by that question. Let me make sure we're going to be clear. Where you lose the weight…

**Jim Hill:** You lose it from your arms, your legs, your belly, your butt. It doesn't matter that the main thing is how much you lose, not necessarily where that fat comes from.

**Holly Wyatt:** Okay. And that's true or false is what we're saying. Is that true or false?

**Jim Hill:** Okay, Holly, the answer is false. It does matter. What we know is fat around the middle, internal fat. There's subcutaneous fat in your middle, but fat within your abdominal wall, which is the fat around your organs, your liver, your kidney, and your heart. That seems to be the fat that's most associated with negative outcomes.

Okay. Whereas fat in your hips and thighs, you may not like the way it looks, but it doesn't confer the same risk of chronic disease as the fat in your middle.

**Holly Wyatt:** Agree. I think to even add to that though, losing weight even in your hips and thighs, I do think is beneficial, just not as beneficial. Would you agree with that?

**Jim Hill:** Right. Absolutely.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. So you can't pick where you lose it. And if you lose it in your midsection and that fat around the organs, that's great. That's the best place. But if you lose it in your hips, you're still doing something good.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah. And most people are going to lose some. You may lose it largely in your hips, but you're probably going to lose some in your belly too. And so anytime you can reduce fat, it's a good thing.

**Holly Wyatt:** Got it. All right. Next question. I think we're on number eight. Also a true or false. I hope you all are keeping track.

**Jim Hill:** This is a hard one, Holly.

**Holly Wyatt:** Oh, I think they're going to get this. We talked about it. We already alluded to it a little bit. All right. True or false? Consuming 500 calories of carbohydrate. So food that's just carbohydrates has the same impact on your weight as consuming 500 calories of protein or fat. So this is about the same amount of calories, but now we're changing what the calorie is, the macronutrient. 500 calories of carbohydrate has the same impact on your weight as consuming 500 calories of protein or fat. True or false?

**Jim Hill:** What's the answer, Holly?

**Holly Wyatt:** What do you think? This is a tricky one. It is a tricky one. And because in some ways it's true and in some ways it's false. So we really should give them credit for either one.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah. You can't get this one wrong.

**Holly Wyatt:** You really can't get it wrong, but it depends on how you think about it. And this is always that tricky question we get on the nightly news and you have like five seconds to answer it and it's not that simple. But if it's just about losing weight and you control, you give everybody that the food that they're eating, then a calorie is a calorie and it doesn't matter if the calorie is coming from a carbohydrate or the calorie is coming from protein or fat, it doesn't matter. If you get an innovative energy balance, doesn't matter what you're eating. It is the amount of calories that's going to produce the weight loss.

And we've seen this over and over and over again. When we control it, we give them exactly what to eat and we make the calories the same, but we change the composition of the diet. We do not see very much of any difference in the amount of weight loss. However, in the real world, when people are out there eating on their own, very much what they eat may impact their appetite, may impact their energy expenditure and how much energy they have or how much they fidget. So in that sense, calories may not be the same. You may eat 500 calories and it may have an impact on energy balance on other calories.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah. And I think it depends. If you're a negative energy balance, if you're losing, eating less than you burn, it really doesn't matter. Calories are calories. If you're in maintenance, it doesn't matter. It's during overfeeding. If you overeat 500 calories of fat versus carb versus protein, you may store a little bit more with the extra fat. So it's a tricky question and you get credit for true or false on this one.

**Holly Wyatt:** Right. So there's a little bit different, different than storage. So that is one way that it's different. I like how you put that. It's not really different if you're trying to lose weight and you're really controlling what you're eating. But I think in the real world, I know for me, if I eat 500 calories of carbohydrate, it's going to affect my hunger. And I'm going to, I'm going to have to either use more willpower or I'm going to tend to overeat at other meals versus if I have 500 calories of protein, I have more satisfaction and then be able to adhere to my diet moving forward. So in that case, the calories aren't exactly the same.

**Jim Hill:** Okay. All right. Number nine, this is a good one. Using Using oil instead of butter will result in less weight gain.

**Holly Wyatt:** So a good fat.

**Jim Hill:** If you eat the good fat versus an olive oil would be mono-unsaturated fat versus butter, which is saturated fat. You'll gain less weight if you eat the good fat, the olive oil, true or false?

**Holly Wyatt:** I mean, come on, a good fat versus a bad fat, which, which one's going to produce more weight gain?

**Jim Hill:** Less weight gain. The answer Holly is they produce exactly the same, even though it's a good fat and it might have other benefits. Fat contains nine calories per gram, olive oil and butter, same amount of energy. So going the good fat may help in terms of other things, heart health, etc. But it wasn't going to result in less weight gain.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. I think that's an important one. I would still choose the olive oil over the butter.

**Jim Hill:** There are reasons. Yes.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yes. And so I'm always about, let's make that good choice, but it's not because it's going to affect my total weight loss or weight gain, according to this question.

**Jim Hill:** Cool. Okay. Number 10, we're already on number 10.

**Holly Wyatt:** Number 10. And this is one that I know some people are going to argue about. So we'll see what you think, Jim. Another true or false. Drinking a four ounce glass of red wine before you go to bed or with your evening meal will help with weight loss. Four ounces of red wine before bed or with your evening meal can help you lose weight. What do you think, Jim?

**Jim Hill:** I know the answer. And I think the answer is false. It won't. It's calories coming in and it's not going to help. It may help your mental health and otherwise, but it isn't going to help with weight loss.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. There's definitely some data and even this data is a little bit controversial, but there may be some benefits to red wine, small amounts of red wine in your diet, but doesn't help with weight loss. I know some people are saying, but Holly, it helps with the stress a little bit. Take, you know. I don't know. I don't think that is enough to really improve weight loss. And if anything, I think that if you have a little bit of wine, sometimes that then leads you to want to eat a little bit more or maybe consume a little bit more calories. And then plus the red wine itself has calories in it.

**Jim Hill:** And there are a lot of calories in alcohol and a lot of people have problems. That's where they really have problems with their weight. They've taken so many calories with alcohol.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah, so I think alcohol has seven calories per gram. So protein and carbohydrate have four calories per gram. Alcohol has seven.

**Jim Hill:** So it's more like a fat than a carbohydrate.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah, and fat has nine. So, your body has to burn it right away. No place to store it. So it's going to stop burning fat. This is one of the things I always tell my state of slimmers. You want to turn off fat burning? Drink some alcohol because your body is going to have to burn that fat fuel first.

**Jim Hill:** Burns the alcohol and it doesn't burn some fat it would have burned.

**Holly Wyatt:** Absolutely.

**Jim Hill:** Holly, this is the next one I know you know, but let's see if our listeners know this. If they're listening to our podcast, they will definitely know that. How do you calculate body mass index? BMI. How do you calculate BMI?

**Holly Wyatt:** So, you want to know my answer?

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, give me your answer.

**Holly Wyatt:** I would just go and put it in the calculator. Just go and do BMI calculator and the web. I know the equation, but shoot, man, I wouldn't use that. I would simply ask. I would ask Alexa or anybody and get them. You know, you got to know your height. You got to know your weight, but have it calculate.

**Jim Hill:** The tricky part here is BMI's in-better. So it's weight in kilograms, not pound. Weight in kilograms over height squared in meters. So it's metric. And the easiest way, as Holly said, Google calculating BMI and there's so many online calculators you put in your pounds and inches and it converts it to BMI. So that's number 11. 12 is sort of a follow-up, Holly, and I'll go ahead and ask that. What are the cutoffs for overweight and obesity in BMI? We use BMI.

It's controversial, but still BMI is used primarily to determine if you're normal weight, overweight, or obese. What are those BMI cutoffs? What's the cutoff for overweight? What is the BMI where overweight begins? What is the BMI where obesity begins?

**Holly Wyatt:** So the answer to that is 25. Body mass index of 25 is when we start to put you in the category of overweight and a body mass index of…

**Jim Hill:** So if you're normal weight, you're less than 25. 25 and above is overweight.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. And then a BMI of 30 or greater puts you in the obese category. So the key is you got to know your own number and then you've got to know the cutoffs, the two cutoffs to say, am I in a healthy body weight, overweight, range, or obese range? All right, the next one. This is controversial. We may argue on this one. I didn't see this one. You added this one. So I'm going to see... This is definitely a little bit more controversial.

**Jim Hill:** If we can't agree, everybody gets it right, right?

**Holly Wyatt:** That's true. That's true. Does eating late at night cause weight gain?

**Jim Hill:** Ooh. So think about it, listener, do you think eating late at night is a cause of weight gain? What do you think, Holly?

**Holly Wyatt:** Well, this is tricky. I think I know what you were going for, that it doesn't... It's all about calories and it doesn't matter when you consume them. If you overconsume calories, you're going to gain weight. But I don't know that we understand the timing as much. I mean, this timed eating, this fasting is starting to have more and more data that it may impact body weight regulation in different ways and it may be that consuming calories at night does something that would set us up for some weight gain.

A calorie is a calorie if you over consume. So I get that part. But I don't know. I don't know about eating a bunch of calories and then going to bed. If we fully understand what that does, what do you…

**Jim Hill:** I actually think it can be a cause of weight gain. I think eating late at night and then going to sleep. So you've got a lot of calories coming in and then a time with very little activity. And again, I would caveat and say not all the time. If you do it every now and then, but if you chronically eat a lot late at night, I think it can put you at a little higher risk of weight gain.

**Holly Wyatt:** But it's got to do something. I mean, it's got to then produce either efficiency where you're not burning as much. Something's got to happen.

**Jim Hill:** We don't know the mechanism, but this was a very famous obesity researcher, Mickey Stunkard, pointed this out many years ago and he called it night eating syndrome. And some people eat late at night.

They may even wake up and eat from sleep. So I think there is something there. We don't know totally. The evidence is still a little controversial.

We don't know the mechanism but I got to tell you from my experience, my advice would be try not to eat late at night. I don't think there's a downside to not doing it and there may be a negative to doing it. So that was a little tricky.

**Holly Wyatt:** So we should give them credit for either answer.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, we get credit for either one.

**Holly Wyatt:** But this question, the mechanism, how it's working, I mean, when our time-deeding, we talk about time-deeding and intermittent fasting, when you stop eating at a certain time, we're starting to see some positive effects from that. Part of it may be related to this.

We now don't understand why, but that may be why timed eating is beneficial for some body weight regulation. All right, let's see. Oh, this is one that's perfect for you. I think we're on number 14, can you lose weight with exercise alone. Can you lose weight with exercise alone? Also tricky.

**Jim Hill:** Tricky, but true or false?

**Holly Wyatt:** It's true. You can.

**Jim Hill:** It is true. But the caveat is you have to do a heck of a lot of it. You can reduce calories. You can reduce a thousand, even 2,000 calories a day easily for a while.

You can't do that much exercise. Holly, one of my favorite papers, I reviewed this paper maybe 30 years ago, and it was a study from Singapore where at that time, if you were overweight, you got out of being in the army. And they decided, well, that's not fair. So they started drafting overweight men, but they put them through a training program. And they were like exercising five and six hours a day. These people lost tremendous amounts of weight, and they were eating like 4,000, 5,000 calories a day.

They exercised so much, they just couldn't keep up. So it is possible, but for most people, it's not feasible. Most of us can't devote five or six hours a day to exercise. So really, the most feasible way is to do it with diet. Exercise helps. And it's again, we've said over and over during weight loss maintenance, it totally turned around and exercise is important. But you can lose weight with exercise alone without food restriction if you do enough. It just takes a lot.

**Holly Wyatt:** You just got to be prepared to be out there exercising all day long almost, or for multiple, multiple hours.

**Jim Hill:** And most of us can't do that. If you can, more power to you. Great way to lose weight if you can do it, but most of us can't do it. All right, Holly, 15. Is eating breakfast critical for weight loss? True or false?

**Holly Wyatt:** Man, man, man, man. So once again, a little tricky. The data has changed on this. And I've changed my mind. I published a paper. We published a paper saying breakfast was important for success in terms of weight loss maintenance, for sure.

But now I've changed my mind. I don't think the data is supporting that it's as critical as we said. I'm not saying it's not important for some people, but I'm not sure it's as critical as we initially thought.

**Jim Hill:** We were proponents of breakfast because we saw traditionally people in the National Weight Control Registry ate breakfast. But remember, that's an association, not a cause and effect. And I think what we were seeing was eating breakfast was part of a lifestyle that most of these people were doing. They were also watching their food intake. They were physically active.

They were not watching as much TV. So it's one of those things. And I agree, as the data has come out, I don't think eating breakfast alone is that critical. You can be successful eating breakfast. You can be successful not eating breakfast. I still think a lot of people we see who are successful do eat breakfast, but I'm not sure it's the breakfast itself other than it's part of a healthy lifestyle.

**Holly Wyatt:** So the clustering of behaviors, they figured out how to do some healthy behaviors, and breakfast has kind of gotten clustered in those behaviors, and they do them all together.

**Jim Hill:** So the answer to this one is it's false. It's no. Eating breakfast is not critical. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I still think for a lot of people eating breakfast is important, but I think as the science has evolved, we've learned it's not absolutely critical.

**Holly Wyatt:** Right. And I think you make a good point, though, because we talk a lot about precision nutrition and individualizing what you need to do to be successful. And there may be some individuals that eating breakfast is an important part. So I think if you figure it out, it really works for you, then you keep it. But I don't know that it's something that we need to recommend for everybody. I don't think the data really shows that.

**Jim Hill:** You can have a pattern of eating that doesn't include breakfast that's still going to allow you to lose weight or keep it off.

**Holly Wyatt:** All right, Jim, I'm going to do number 16. Does drinking water help with weight loss? Now, oh my goodness, I already know this is this. I already can hear people talking about this one because I get this all the time that when I don't drink my water, I gain weight or I don't lose weight. When I do drink my water, I lose weight successfully. So does drinking water help with weight loss? What do you think?

**Jim Hill:** Well, I think this is another tricky one. There are studies out there that show that drinking water before a meal, you might eat a little bit less. But I got to tell you, Holly, overall, I think it's a minor effect. I think it's important to drink water to stay hydrated. I don't think it's a major driver of weight loss.

**Holly Wyatt:** That's what the data would show, that it is not. That drinking the water does not produce a lot more weight loss. So if we're going with the data, that is the correct answer. Having said that, I have state of slimmers that tell me every single month that drinking water is critical to their success. So anecdotally, they feel very strongly about this, that when they're not losing their weight, like, you know what, I haven't been drinking my water, so they get on their water. Now, is it because of the water or is it because they refocus? Is water causing them to refocus on other behaviors? I don't know.

**Jim Hill:** But that's okay. If they think it is, we've talked about this before. If you think it's working, then it may be helping you. So if you think drinking water is important and it works for you, man, drink that water.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. Send us a comment. Let us know if you think drinking water is really important for your weight loss or not because I do think there's a lot of people out there that are going to disagree with us on this one.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah. Holly, I'm going to switch around a little because we have more than we're going to get through. Here's one for you. Do detoxes and cleanses help with weight loss?

**Holly Wyatt:** Oh, I get this question all the time. I am going to say false. I think the data would show that they don't. If you lose weight, you may lose weight right after a detox or right after a cleanse, but it comes right back. If you empty everything out of your gut, well, whatever was in your gut and a lot of times some water, they can be dehydrating, so they can cause you to lose water. You're going to weigh less.

So immediately. But as soon as that water comes back, as soon as you eat some food, as soon as you fill up, you're intestine again, that weight comes back. I don't think they do anything besides that. I don't know of any data that they are removing some toxins or have a different mechanism that's producing weight loss. Now, I could be wrong. We may prove something different. It's a little bit interesting now that we talk about the gut microbiome. Could they be doing something in there that we have yet to understand? So I would say right now the data says, no, they don't really help. I can't see the mechanism where they truly help with fat loss. We could be wrong. There could be something that comes up in the future that shows it differently.

**Jim Hill:** So that's a false for right now.

**Holly Wyatt:** It's a false for me for right now. Would you agree?

**Jim Hill:** I agree. All right, Holly, I've got a good one for you. True or false, you can be fit and fat.

**Holly Wyatt:** True. True, you can. Now, is it common? No, I don't think it's common, but you could be. You can be fit and have some extra body weight. Not common, but possible.

**Jim Hill:** So I see these as two different things. You want to be as fit as you can, and you want to be as close to normal weight as you can. And those two are related. So as you exercise to get fit, you're probably going to lose some weight. But you can be fit and be overweight. You can even be fit and obese. I think being fit and overweight is more common than being fit and obese, but there are two separate things. And to me, your goal is to be as fit as possible, given your weight. And as you increase your fitness, you're going to decrease your weight a little bit. So I do, I agree with you. I think you can be fit and fat.

**Holly Wyatt:** I think where the controversy comes up in this kind of question is, does it matter? If you're fit, does it matter if you're fat? In other words, that's where I think the controversy is that as long as your fitness level is high, it doesn't matter how much body fat you have. That to me is the question.

**Jim Hill:** My good friend, Steve Blair, who unfortunately passed away last year, did a lot of research here to show that fitness was a better predictor of avoiding chronic disease than obesity was. That if you were fitter, your chances of diabetes and heart disease and so forth was reduced much more than being leaner. But I think both are important, and it's important to concentrate on both, to reduce your fatness as much as possible and increase your fitness as much as possible.

**Holly Wyatt:** I agree. I think they're interrelated, and that's what you see. There's some interrelationship, but I also think they're independent. And I think just to some degree, and so that you really want both, you want to reduce the amount of body fat and you want to be as fit as possible.

**Jim Hill:** So here's an easy one, Holly. What research on what hormone has led to a new generation of weight loss medications? Everybody is going to get this one right.

**Holly Wyatt:** Right. This is the GLP-1 drugs. GLP-1. Yes, that's changed in the field. But in reality, it's interesting. That's the hormone that's getting all the attention, but there's so many other hormones that do similar things. The system, the hormonal system for appetite is so redundant that I think we're going to start hearing about a lot of other hormones and new drugs that come out. And so the GLP-1 drugs are just the first hormone that's been targeted.

**Jim Hill:** All right, Holly. I've got three more questions for you.

**Holly Wyatt:** Three more?

**Jim Hill:** You haven't seen these. I just made these up.

**Holly Wyatt:** Oh my goodness. So what are you trying to do, Jim? Make me look bad on the podcast?

**Jim Hill:** I'm testing your obesity IQ.

**Holly Wyatt:** Well, that's what I mean.

**Jim Hill:** What is the country in the world with the highest rate of obesity?

**Holly Wyatt:** Oh, country. I don't know, Jim, for sure. What are you going to tell me? What is it?

**Jim Hill:** All right. So this one's a little tricky. The country with the absolute highest is Nauru, which is an island in the Pacific. So there are several islands in the Pacific where obesity rates are over 60%, huge, large genetic predisposition. But throwing those out, get rid of the Pacific Islanders, the United States is number two. You know who number one is? You wouldn't guess it. Kuwait.

**Holly Wyatt:** I've heard that before, but yeah, no, I would never guess that.

**Jim Hill:** So Kuwait has 43.8% obesity, US 42.7%. So the US is not number one anymore. Kuwait has surpassed us.

**Holly Wyatt:** So I have a question for you, Jim, since you give me that one without even letting me know. Why? Why do you think that's the case?

**Jim Hill:** Well, I think a lot of Kuwaitians, they're very rich. So it's an oil-rich country. I actually visited Kuwait, Holly. Food is dirt cheap. Everybody gets money from the government for oil money. Food is very cheap. Also for women, they cover their bodies such that you don't really see them because they're pretty much all covered up. So I think there are a number of reasons, but I think the big one is they're rich and food is very inexpensive and it's so hot, it's hard to get out and be active.

**Holly Wyatt:** Oh, so there you go. It's not an environment that is easy to move.

**Jim Hill:** Right. Cheap food and hard to exercise.

**Holly Wyatt:** That perfect combination for obesity, right?

**Jim Hill:** Following that line, what's the US state with the lowest rates of obesity?

**Holly Wyatt:** Oh, well, that's easy. That's Colorado. Colorado is the best.

**Jim Hill:** Wrong.

**Holly Wyatt:** No, did Colorado move out?

**Jim Hill:** Wrong.

**Holly Wyatt:** What? Who is now?

**Jim Hill:** Actually, the leanest, it's not really a state, which is District of Columbia. Okay.

**Holly Wyatt:** Did that just happen?

**Jim Hill:** Yeah. In the latest numbers, and second is Hawaii, and Colorado is now third, only by about a tenth of a percent. Hawaii is 25 percent, Colorado is 25.1 percent.

**Holly Wyatt:** But Jim, you know why. We moved out of the state. When we moved out of the state, Colorado fell apart. I'm going to go with that.

**Jim Hill:** So you've missed those two. Let's see if you get the third one right. What is the US state with the highest rate of obesity?

**Holly Wyatt:** I think that's Mississippi.

**Jim Hill:** West Virginia. Mississippi is up there. Those are tough ones, and those are based on self-reports. So anyway, I think we're going to stop there. This was really fun because really good questions. But one of the things you see is some of these are, they're tricky.

There's a lot we don't know, and there are some caveats to some of these. But I hope you had fun, and I hope you write down how many you got right. Let us know. We would love to hear from you. Let us know at www.weightlossand .com.

**Holly Wyatt:** So let us know at www.weightlossand .com, or you can email us at hello at [weightlossand.com](http://weightlossand.com/).

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, let us know. And you can complain about some of our questions being tricky, because I know they were.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah, if you think one of them, we got it wrong. If you think one of these questions was wrong, or which one you thought was tricky, that's what we'd love to hear about.

**Jim Hill:** So I think the point here, Holly, is this stuff is hard. There's stuff we don't know. There's stuff that may be this, it may be that, it may differ in different people. It's hard to actually answer some of these questions.

But we did have some that had clear answers. And so we would love to know how you did on our quiz. And if you like it, maybe we'll do another one. We had several more that we could have gone through.

And it's just fun to look at these things and think about what we know and maybe what we know that's wrong as we learn more about weight loss and weight loss maintenance.

**Holly Wyatt:** All right.

**Jim Hill:** Thanks. This was a great episode. We want to hear from you. If you like our podcast, share it with others, and we will talk to you next time on Weight Loss And.

**Holly Wyatt:** Bye, everybody.

**Jim Hill:** And that's a wrap for today's episode of Weight Loss and. We hope you enjoy diving into the world of weight loss with us.

**Holly Wyatt:** If you want to stay connected and continue exploring the “Ands” of weight loss, be sure to follow our podcast on your favorite platform.

**Jim Hill:** We'd also love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, or topic suggestions by reaching out at [weightlossand.com](http://weightlossand.com/). Your feedback helps us tailor future episodes to your needs.

**Holly Wyatt:** And remember, the journey doesn't end here. Keep applying the knowledge and strategies you've learned and embrace the power of the “And” in your own weight loss journey.