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Study Says Cut Calories, Not Food Groups, For Weight Loss

Contrary to the logic of diets which suggest eliminating a specific food group or overemphasizing another, new findings published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine point towards calorie reduction as the key to weight loss, not abiding by a specific arrangement of foods.

The study of some 800 overweight adults involved four diets that reduced calories through different combinations of fat, carbohydrates, and protein. The diets were loosely based on the principles behind popular diets such as the Atkins diet and the Mediterranean diet, but these diets were focused on numbers: each diet removed 750 calories from the participant’s normal diet but stayed above 1,200 calories per day. In addition, participants received group or individual counseling. 

Over the course of the two-year study, every diet group lost and regained about the same amounts of weight. On average, participants lost 13 pounds six months into the diet, and by the end of the study, most had managed to maintain about nine pounds of weight loss and a two-inch drop in waist size. Regular attendance at counseling sessions was linked to weight loss success for some dieters, but not all. Some dieters lost very large amounts of weight despite only sporadic attendance at counseling sessions.

Chances of keeping the lost weight off were not better with any one diet, either. A year after the study concluded, many of the dieters returned to their pre-study eating habits.

The takeaway point, lead author Dr. Frank M. Sacks of the Harvard School of Public Health told The New York Times, is that “[the study] really does cut through the hype. It gives people lots of flexibility to pick a diet that they can stick with,” he added.

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