Calorie is king; type of diet not important
By Linda
You may have seen this news article recently about the study that seems to indicate it doesn’t matter what kind of diet you choose in order to lose weight, as long as the net result of the diet is reduced calories. I thought this was pretty interesting, kind of a no-shitter and yet it’s nice to know there’s actual data that goes against what’s constantly being marketed by the diet industry. Basically, the study shows no one diet plan — low carb, South Beach, low fat, whatever — is more successful than another on its own, it’s all about the bottom line: calories consumed (each plan studied cut about 750 calories from a normal diet, but no one ate fewer than 1,200 calories a day).
The real question, according to Dr. Frank M. Sacks, the study’s lead author, is what are the biological, psychological or social factors that influence whether a person can stick to any diet. “The effect of any particular diet group is minuscule, but the effect of individual behavior is humongous,” Sacks said. “We had some people losing 50 pounds and some people five 5 pounds. That’s what we don’t have a clue about.”
Heh. He said “humongous”.
Anyway, as he goes on to say in the article, “[...] researchers should focus less on the actual diet but on finding what is really the biggest governor of success in these individuals.”
The takeaway? Find a diet plan that works for you. Write down what you eat, if that helps. Be aware of what’s going in your body. Don’t worry about sticking with a specific plan that forbids certain types of foods if that’s not your style, because as long as you’re reducing your calories, you’re doing the right thing.
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:45 am
People are always looking for a quick fix and this is why fad diets will continue long past my lifetime.
During my struggle to lose weight, my mother said, “It took you 22 years to get this big. You can’t expect it to happen overnight.”
March 3rd, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Yep, I’m with you on this. After trying every kind of diet out there I’m finally healthy carbs, proteins and fats in moderation. I don’t even bother counting calories anymore.
Cutting out junk food, fast food, refined flour and sugar – the ‘foods’ that messed with my blood sugar, gave me cravings and kept me fat – works for me.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Wow, how can that conclusion even be drawn from the results presented in their own study? Or is this just another tired rehash of the same reduced-calorie dogma that nutritionists have been spouting for years with no significant body of research to back them up? Anyone who has ever experienced a plateau while dieting knows all too well that the black-box theory of calories-in, calories-out is fundamentally flawed.
March 4th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Wait, what? Explain, please. I don’t understand how calories-in, calories-out is fundamentally flawed.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Have you ever experienced (or known anyone who has experienced) a stall or plateau during weight loss, despite maintaining roughly the same eating/exercise regimen? If so, ipso facto, the calories-in, calories-out model is shown to be flawed. At the very, VERY least, it doesn’t even attempt to account for the extremely complex metabolic mechanisms and pathways that influence the speed/success of weight-loss efforts. Check out Gary Taubes’ extensively researched -Good Calories, Bad Calories- for a 600-page exegesis. I’m not saying that reducing the caloric density of your diet won’t help weight loss, but the unthinking, uncritically parroted dogma to which most nutritionists resort when they can’t reasonably explain experimental results should make every single person who cares about fitness and wellness angry.
March 4th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Ah, okay. I have in fact experienced plateaus and usually find that it means I need to shake up my exercise or take a look at what I’m eating (have I started snacking at 11 PM again?) — this has always led me to assume my body does work by the old cal in/out standard, but obviously one experience does not a truthiness make.
This report doesn’t seem to be saying much more than “hey, whether you’re doing Atkins, WW, low fat, or whatever the hell, it doesn’t matter as long as you’re reducing the caloric weight of what’s going in your food-hole”. Which I think offers people a lot of relief/flexibility, really.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
If it were as simple as calories in/calories out, people would be able to reach negative weights.
March 4th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Like, before or after they starved to death?
March 5th, 2009 at 7:51 am
My point is if losing weight were simply a linear function of calories taken in versus calories expended, one would never hit a weight loss plateau until there were nothing left but skin and bone. Most randomized clinical trials of dieting show that calorie deprivation works (in the sense of losing a small amount of weight) over a period of about 6 months and then weight creeps back on whether the subjects continue the diet or not.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
But the article isn’t saying that losing weight is simply a linear function of calories taken in vs. calories expended. For one thing, the article already assumes a diet is in place; the point is instead that the *type* of diet isn’t as critical as other factors:
["It really does cut through the hype," said Dr. Frank M. Sacks, the study's lead author and professor of cardiovascular-disease prevention at the Harvard School of Public Health. "It gives people lots of flexibility to pick a diet that they can stick with."]
Or, in other words, whether the subjects continue the diet, in addition to those *other* “biological, psychological or social factors.” You know, life-style changes like healthier eating and exercise.
I think the article was actually doing something very positive here — encouraging people not to blindly believe all the marketing hype (cut fat! no, cut carbs! no, take this magic pill! eat eggs! don’t eat eggs! here’s a 12-step program to learn not to eat eggs!) in the very marketing-driven diet industry — another thing that I would think would make a person who truly cares about wellness and fitness angry.
March 5th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
This is an interesting article: http://www.thedietchannel.com/Change-Your-Weight-Set-Point.htm
December 27th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Great article… I’ll come back again to look for more articles like this… All credits to the author…