An article in this morning’s Sun-Sentinel reports what I have believed all along…for people trying to lose weight where their calorie intake comes from matters much less than simply cutting back on them, period! Results, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that there was NO difference in the amount of weight lost OR the reduction of fat, between four groups all on different diets with different proportions of fat, carbohydrates and protein. This study, consisting of several hundred overweight and obese people, assigned participants to one of four different diets, each designed to reduce daily caloric intake by 750 calories. At the end of 6 months everyone that remained in the study lost weight, regardless of which diet program they had been assigned to. “The major predictor for weight loss was ADHERENCE,” said George Bray, at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rogue, La, who worked on the study. In the end, he said that people should choose the diet that’s easiest for them to stick to! Dr. Deepak Chopra would call that the Law of Effort. But we’ll save that for a different day. For today, if weight loss is your goal, get on a calorie reduction road, and stick with it. Your goal awaits you.
Related articles
- Calories Count, But Not Where They Come From (nlm.nih.gov)
Do you think the results would be the same for people who are not technically “over” weight. If your BMI is 24 – you’re not overweight, but you could still benefit from losing another 2-4 BMI points which could translate to 10-15 pounds.
Thats a million dollar question, Carol. I think if one knew their exact “tipping” point with regard to calories, and they were always ADHERENT results might be similar. That said, there are always going to be exceptions to the rule and of course it gets sooooooooo much harder to lose when one is, as you say, at the high end of a normal BMI. My guess is some definitely would benefit from tweeking what they eat, as opposed to just how much….