none of the diets were any more effective than other diets

A Harvard School of Public Health professor, Frank Sacks has confirmed what many of us claim we already know!

Dr Sacks and his researchers have released a report to the New England Journal of Medicine which shows that there is no real difference between one diet and another when it comes to weight loss.  He says that the most important thing is that you reduce the amount of calories that you eat and it doesn’t really matter from which foodstuffs your calories come from. Dr Sacks put it very simply when he said “it's not so much the type of diet you eat,… [but] how much you put in your mouth.”

Over 800 obese individuals took part in this research and were randomly asked to follow one of four different diets. They were low fat and high fat diets with different levels of protein content. All of the diets had sufficient amounts of fruit and vegetables as well as fibre. The diets were lower in saturated fat and higher in unsaturated fat. All of the volunteers were also asked to get at least 90 minutes of exercise every week.

The results showed that on average the volunteers lost around 13lb. in weight after six months which translated into about 7% of their original weight.  But the most important finding of this study was that none of the diets were any more effective than other diets and the essential thing for weight loss success was calorie reduction. It was also noted that most of the volunteers had lower rates of bad cholesterol, higher rates of good cholesterol, better heart health and a lower risk of diabetes at the end of the study.

Another one of the study authors, Catherine Loria, who works for the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute explained that she felt that the “beauty of the study” is that it shows that dieters have a lot of choice when it comes to deciding what to eat provided that they keep the calorie count low.

The researchers however noted that while keeping the calorie count down was successful at the beginning of the project many of the volunteers started to lose enthusiasm after a few weeks and by the end of the study were eating considerably more. One of the big problems with weight loss initiatives is that people lose the motivation to continue going and end up putting on all the weight that they have lost back on again.