"Soup diet," "vinegar diet," "Hollywood Secret Diet," "low-carb diet"... the list goes on. Sadly, these diet fads perpetuate many of the most common myths surrounding nutrition and losing weight.

Over time, these myths have become deeply rooted in the consciousness of Americansespecially for those who are desperately grasping for truths about nutrition. In fact, I'd bet it's safe to say you and I were taught long ago the supposed "right way" and "wrong way" to lose weight. Unfortunately, most of these "truths" are, in fact, dead wrong.

Usually, these myths were based on some haphazard, outdated approach, passed on from generation to generation, leaving little to no room for dispute. And while a few of them may work over the short term, the majority of them hardly ever work over the long term. And worse, most of them are not a healthy approach to weight loss. Today, modern science has, thankfully, uncovered some of the most destructive myths surrounding nutrition and losing weight.

Here are the five most easily avoidable yet highly destructive myths for how to positively affect the metabolism with food and boost your body's ability to "burn" fat:

MYTH: You should restrict calories when you want to drop pounds.

FACT: You must eat smart, not less, if you want to lose weight! Contrary to common belief, if you severely restrict your food intake, your body quickly "panics" and goes into a fat-protection "survival mode." As a result, your metabolism slows and you start using muscle as fuel (muscle actually burns fat, so we don't want to lose this precious tissue), and restricting your food intake too much will leave you feeling irritable, hungry, and grouchy. (Surely we've all been there before!) And because your body is in "survival mode," very powerful signals are sent from your brain, telling you to eat, eat, eat! Why? Because it thinks it's starving, and it doesn't know when it will get food again.

"If you want long-term weight loss, you must carefully choose the type of foods you eat!"Realistically, you can expect to hold off your uncontrollable urges for only so long before you give in. And voila, instant weight return, plus some bonus bodyfat for your efforts.

Unfortunately, millions of people every year resolve to lose fat by severely restricting their daily food intake. My hunch is that's one reason Americans are, in general, in worse shape now than ever before! And a new study, found in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, confirmed, once again, that restricting calories will decrease your metabolism and only prevent you from losing bodyfat.

MYTH: It isn't necessary to pay attention to the type of calories you consume to lose weight.

FACT: If you want long-term weight loss, you must carefully choose the type of foods you eat! Whenever you're considering the types of food to eat, remember this: all calories are not created equal. Fat requires only two percent of your body's energy to use it up; carbohydrates require roughly 10% energy to burn them; whereas protein requires an astonishing 20% of your body's energy to use it... Thus, by consuming more protein, you're actually revving up your metabolism.

"Research shows that right around .8 to one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight is adequate, and safe, for enhancing your body's metabolic rate..."Research shows that right around .8 to one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight is adequate, and safe, for enhancing your body's metabolic rate as well as helping your body maintain fat-burning muscle tone. Consuming around 40% of your daily calories in the form of quality proteins is adequate for recovering from workouts and keeping healthy muscle tone.

It's easy to see why the common adage "fat is more fattening than carbohydrates or protein" came into being. So it's smart to take in no more than 20% dietary fat any given day whenever you're attempting to lose fat. (These fats will likely occur naturally in most whole-food proteins, so don't worry about adding any "extra" fat.)

So finally, carbohydrates should be consumed in the range of no more than 40% of your daily intake, avoiding simple carbs and completely eliminating the refined (sugary) types of carbs and incorporating plenty of fibrous types of carbs. In fact, new scientific evidence from the American Journal of Epidemiology has shown that when consuming too many carbs (especially simple-sugar carbs at one sitting), your body responds by stimulating a surge of insulin to be released. Why do you want to avoid this? Because insulin is a hormone that encourages fat stores to become larger, more easily "transporting" fat to be stored and sealing the fat stores shut, preventing fat cells from breaking down.

Fortunately, adding more protein to each meal in your diet "buffers" this insulin secretion by slowing the rate of absorption of carbohydrates. And, the addition of dietary protein also kicks up another hormone called glucagon (insulin's opposing hormone), which can offset the fat-storing ability of insulin by dragging it down and helping dispose of it before it stores more fat. A new study in the European Journal of Nutrition offers evidence that glucagon's release in the body (as a result of increased protein consumption) may further stimulate fat burning by encouraging fat to be liberated and used more easily.

Kristen Leventis has learned how to positively affect her metabolism with food and boost her body's ability to burn fat by avoiding the pitfalls of common dieting practices.MYTH: I don't need "extra" protein to help my body lose weight.

FACT: Any person who exercises and wishes to lose weight must have more protein in their diets. If you tell the average nutritionist you consume plenty of protein-rich foods because you're attempting to lose weight or because you train with weights, you'll often hear, "Oh, you don't want to do that. You don't need that much, and it may even lead to kidney disease." Unfortunately, as in any industry, nutritionists are susceptible to ingrained teachings, even if they've now been shown to be false or misleading. In this particular case, there isn't a single decent study that indicates that healthy adults should not consume a protein-rich diet, especially if they are involved in regular exercise and are trying to drop extra bodyfat.

New research confirms that those performing any type of weight training require a greater amount of protein than sedentary individuals. What causes concern for most people is this amount is above the current Canadian and U.S. recommended daily protein intake requirements for healthy adults.

However, from extensive research, one of the top researchers in the nutritional field, Dr. Peter Lemon states, "...data suggest that the RDA for those engaged in regular endurance exercise should be about 1.2 to 1.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body mass (that's 150% to 175% of the current recommended daily allowance)."

Other well-noted researchers and leaders in the field of nutrition have come to similar conclusions repeatedly over the years. They've found that persons engaged in physical activities, yet merely adhering to the RDA standards for protein requirements, were actually losing precious muscle tissue as they worked out, simply because their bodies did not have enough protein readily available to repair and rebuild their muscles after a workout.

Plus, it's been shown that those who consume increased amounts of protein (even higher than the RDA recommendation) have denser bones than people who ate less.

From the scientific evidence alone, it is clear that people engaged in regular exercise and who want to lose weight require greater than the RDA in protein to get optimal results.

MYTH: To lose weight, I can just cut down on the number of meals I eat each day.

FACT: Eating five to six evenly spaced meals per day provides the body everything it needs to starve (and reduce) bodyfat. Rather than running around with your calorie-counter book, you must instead pay attention to the "types" of food you eat, the respective "proportions" of each type, and "how often" you eat. I like to call this meal patterning.

As indicated in a recent study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, by spreading your meals more evenly throughout the day, in five or six smaller meals, rather than two or three large meals (or an overindulgence in snacks whenever you're hungry), you can maximize the absorption of nutrients (so your body can use more of the food you eat) and supply your body with more stable (non-spiking) levels of insulin-levels your body can adequately manageto keep your body from storing and trapping fat and steadily increase your metabolism throughout the day. So, never go more than a few hours while you're awake without eating a balanced, high-quality, carbohydrate-rich, low-fat meal.

MYTH: All calories are created equal, so to lose weight, all I need to do is reduce the number of calories I eat every day.

FACT: You must focus on the types of calories you put into your body, in addition to the number of calories you consume. "Sadly, many nutritionists today continue to preach the outdated theory that 'all calories are created equal.'"Sadly, many nutritionists today continue to preach the outdated theory that "all calories are created equal." Thankfully, for those of us who pay careful attention to the most recent scientific findings (as well as carefully watch what's going on in the real world!), this old-school theory is being replaced by the newer, more accurate theory about calories when it comes to gaining or losing weight.

Before today, you too may have thought that weight loss or weight gain was strictly a matter of "calories in versus calories out." In other words, if you "burn" more calories than you consume, you would in effect lose weightregardless of the calorie source. Conversely, if you were to consume more calories than you burn off each day, you would then gain weightagain, regardless of the calorie source.

The truth is, however, the "calories in versus calories out" philosophy fails to take into account modern research that finds that proteins, carbohydrates, and fats have very different physiological effects on the body's metabolism through countless pathways. For instance, hormones such as insulin and glucagons, as well as thermic effects (the way the body internally regulates "heat" production), and literally thousands of other effects foods have on the body are all uniquely caused by different macro-nutrients.

As I will point out, in the next section of my Plan, not only is the mantra "all calories are created equal" proven to be false, "protein is protein" and "all fats are created equal" is also incorrect. For example, we now know different fats, such as healthy omega/fish oils versus unhealthy saturated fats, have vastly different effects on the body's metabolism and overall health. We also now know that different carbohydrate sources have their own unique effects on the body's ability to use, or store, fat (such as high glycemic index carbohydrates versus low glycemic index foods). And surprisingly, we now know that different proteins can have unique effects in the body too.

So, as my friend, William Brink, a Harvard graduate, with a concentration in the natural sciences, and academic researcher, has so eloquently pointed out in his "Unified Theory of Nutrition," while the total calorie intake does in fact dictate how much weight a person gains or loses, the macro-nutrient ratios or proteins, carbohydrates, and fats ultimately dictate what type of weight a person gains or loses.

Make no mistake about it, this seemingly simple statement will allow you to better understand the differences between the old theory of calories and the new theory of macro-nutrients. And the reason we know this to be true is because of recent studies, which have concluded that two groups of people who are put on the same number of calories per day but given different ratios of protein, carbohydrates, and fats will lose different amounts of bodyfat and/or lean body mass.

Other evidence shows that even though people on these diets may lose the same amount of weight, one group loses more bodyfat and retains more muscle tissue than the other group, which loses only weight, which could be comprised mostly of water and muscle mass and very little fat weight.

It is for these reasons, in addition to the number of calories I consume, I pay careful attention to the types of foods I put into my body and, most importantly, the ratio of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats I consume them in.

Putting this truth into practice, my daily eating patterns consist of balancing my meals, repeated five to six times throughout the day, such that the macro-nutrient ratio of foods found on my plate are somewhere near 40% high-quality proteins, 40% energy-rich, low glycemic carbohydrates, and no more than 20% naturally occurring fats. You simply can't go wrong with a sound, intelligent, science-based plan like this for eating.