Why do diets work - when they work?
It turns out that the type of diet individuals follow is much less important in producing weight loss than whether they actually adhere to the diet.
Investigators from Tufts-New England Medical Center (Journal of the American Medical Association, January 2005) studied 160 overweight or obese adults who wanted to lose weight, and randomized them to one of four popular diets: the Ornish low fat diet, the Adkins low carbohydrate diet, the Zone low-glycemic index diet, and the Weight-Watchers low calorie diet. Subjects attended formal training and diet classes to help them understand and stick to their diets for the first two months. After that, they were on their own.
After one year, the investigators found that subjects on average achieved modest weight loss for all four of the diets, with no differences according to diet type. The highest dropout rates were for the Ornish and Adkins diets. But overall, those that stuck to their diets - any of these diets - lost weight. And none of these diets were superior to any of the others.
DrRich comments:
Pick a diet, any diet, and stick to it. Tricks and fads appear far less important than choosing some method of paying attention to what you eat, and sticking to it. You can violate the laws of Congress, and even the laws of God, but you can't violate the laws of physics: the calories you eat minus the calories you burn up equal the calories you lose (or gain.)
