Why Your Resolution To Diet Won’t Work
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
The results of a two-year study have provided pretty conclusive evidence that a low-carbohydrate diet appears to be effective in helping overweight people reduce their body weight safely. In 2008, a study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, with the title, “Weight Loss With a Low-Carbohydrate, Mediterranean, or Low-Fat Diet.” The study seems pretty conclusive, with people losing more weight on the low-carb diet than on the others, without any sign of the health problems that some people claim are associated with low-carbohydrate diets.
These results look promising. Now we know that a low-carbohydrate diet is generally the most effective. So that’s all you need to do. Just go on a low-carb diet and after a while you’ll get fit and healthy. Or is it? Unfortunately, there’s more to the story, and not even the best diet plan possible will get you the results you need.
One significant problem with basing your fitness plans on dieting is that diets don’t take into account this muscle loss. Effective diets may help you lose weight and reduce body fat, but they don’t help prevent this muscle loss, much less help you build additional muscle. It is an established scientific fact that starting around our 30th birthday, we naturally start losing muscle mass. Without taking steps to remedy this, a person is likely to lose 5 to 10 pounds of muscle mass for every ten years they age. That’s a significant loss, and something that diet plans do nothing to prevent.
Secondly, the results of the diets are sad. The participants were overweight men and women, or people with Type 2 diabetes. They were split up into three groups, one for each of the three diet approaches. They were also given instructions and materials specific to the diet they were to follow. Over the course of two years, each group of people got a total of 27 hours worth of meetings with a dietician who helped them stay with the plan. People who had trouble sticking to the plan got pep talks over the phone as well.
The results of all this? Among the people who stayed in the program for two years, the average weight loss for the low-fat diet was 3.3 kg (7.27 lb), for the Mediterranean diet was 4.6 kg (10.14 lb), and for the low-carb diet was 5.5 kg (12.13 lb). In addition, participants saw some improvement in cholesterol levels and other health markers.
These results are very discouraging. Under more or less ideal conditions, and with some professional coaching, the best type of diet only produced a 12 pound loss in two years. That’s about a half a pound a month. There’s no denying that for an overweight person to lose 12 pounds safely is a good thing, but come on. Will losing a dozen in 24 months, while simultaneously losing some of your youthful muscle, make you happy?
A good diet is important to your health and fitness. And this study shows that a low-carbohydrate diet is probably the best choice whether you want to drop some pounds or avoid putting on excess weight to begin with. But it is also clear that there’s more to getting and staying fit than diet alone. You’re going to need to break down and go for a http://getfitatlast.com“>total fitness plan, one that combines exercise and good nutrition.
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