Diets That Work Are Those Suiting You
If you are looking for diets that work, simply pick the one that best suits you, as once again research has shown that any will do, as long as you stick to it.
Low This, Low That
Many, many people claim that their diet ideas and plans are the one-size-fits-all solution for anyone trying to lose weight.
The Atkins Diet has you eat tons of fat, the Dukan Diet copies Atkins, but makes the whole thing rocket science, the Paleo Diet wants you to eat like our prehistoric forefathers, Weight Watchers has you count points, the South Beach Diet wants you divide between “good” and “bad” carbohydrates – the list could go and on.
It’s easy to imagine that many would-be dieters give up when faced with all these demands and choices to make.
Yet, as I already said a good while ago, it doesn’t matter what diet you follow, as long you stick to it. Research one more proves this simple fact.
No Differences After Two Years
A group of scientists at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, put people into one of four groups: high fat, high protein, high carbs and one that simply ate less.
Measurements after six months and two years revealed that basically was little difference in weight lost and body composition, no matter what diet the study’s participants had followed:
Participants lost more fat than lean mass after consumption of all diets, with no differences in changes in body composition, abdominal fat, or hepatic fat between assigned macronutrient amounts.
Stop Blaming Yourself
There are a lot of supplement manufacturers and book authors that sell diet programs and products for a lot of money, hiding the above facts behind fancy window-dressing.
Of course, some people will stick to these programs and lose weight, becoming completely convinced that this is the only way to go about it – which, as we just saw, could have happened with other programs as well.
The pity in all this is what happens when one of these diets don’t work for a person: the “true believers”, companies and authors are quick to assign the blame to the person for whom it doesn’t work, and not to the diet.
It’s Not You, It’s The Diet
For the convertees admitting fault with their chosen path would shake their newfound self-confidence, for the last two there’s all that money to think about.
Don’t let anyone tell you that the diet that worked for them or the one they sell is the only way. If diet program xy leads to nowhere for you, the fault may not lie with you, but simply with that diet. Find the one you like, stick to it and have your health status monitored by a doctor.
Picture courtesy of “*highlimitzz“.
7 Comments
Refreshing to read an article that is grounded in reality.
Always nice to see DEXA being used.
“Between-diet differences remained nonsignificant at 2 y (P > 0.23).”
“In the dose-response test across amounts of carbohydrate, there was no linear trend across assigned carbohydrate amounts for fat or lean mass change at either time point (P > 0.48).”
Damn study, tell us something we don’t know!
And Evil, I believe “…put people into one of four groups: high fat, high protein, high carbs and one that simply ate less.” is a mistake.
The 4 diets were either (P/C/F), 15/65/20, 25/55/20, 15,45,40 or 25/35/40. They were all at a 750 deficit (page 2, RHS column, first paragraph, last sentence).
Thanks for catching that, Rani! I indeed misread it!
Many ways I see us having this all wrong by focusing on the weight loss and not the health side of things. If you eat healthy you will lose weight though this doesn’t always work the other way around.
Don’t really care if you are Atkins/Dukan/Paleo/South Beach eating 200 grams of vegetables will leave your body in much better shape than 200 grams of wheat/rice/grains.
Healthy eating does NOT = weight-loss. A caloric deficit = weight-loss. And no, they aren’t the same thing.
Losing weight improves just about every metabolic function and biomarker from glycemic control to blood lipids.
So regardless of how you get there, losing weight will do your overall health wonders. But it really goes without saying, any weight-reducing diet should be ‘healthy’…
Exactly. 1,000 kcal in butter, rice, nuts or whatever are always 1,000 kcal.