Wednesday, July 14, 2010 #

Science suggests slow weight loss might be less effective

Yesterday, I blogged about fad diets and whether or not they truly help people lose weight.

Today, scientists say people who lose weight quicker are actually more likely to keep the weight off over the long run than those who take their time and lose weight over time.

According to this Reuters article, scientists say it doesn't matter how much weight is initially lost as much as when and how quickly it is lost. The scientists examined data from over 1,000 obese participants.

All of the participants went on diets and the scientists grouped them based on how quickly they lost their weight, evaluating all participants one year later. What they found was that there was no significant difference in the amount of weight that was kept off by the people who took their time.

Still, doctors are not encouraging everyone to go out and radically lose as much weight as they can. One to two lbs. per week is the most they recommend.

What do YOU think? Does losing weight slower help or hurt your efforts to keep it off longer?
posted @ Thursday, July 15, 2010 9:33 PM | Feedback (5)

Is Fad Bad?

Fad diets are like a nice summer day. They're great at the time, but you know at some point the sunshine ends.

Some of us find success in fad diets though. For some of us, fad diets jumpstart our weight loss goals. But do they do more harm than good?

According to this article, fad diets are a "waste of time and energy" and that while they do help many people lose weight rapidly, once we settle back in to our "real lives" we cannot continue to maintain the quick weight loss.

Sometimes, the article says, fad diets mask the real issues behind our overweight-ness in the first place, and give us a quick solution to something that otherwise should be more closely examined. Why we overeat, for example, remains a question left unanswered, and if the reason is emotional and something we could learn to control with other means, we can kill the problem without having to go on a radical diet.

I've definitely been tempted into almost trying a few fad diets. One, for example, is the cottage cheese diet. This one I definitely would have tried...if I could, at all, tolerate eating cottage cheese let alone only eating cottage cheese for the duration of the diet.

I've also been tempted by The Cookie Diet, The Ice Cube Diet, and The Burrito Diet. But I usually seem to talk myself out by convincing myself it would be impossible to live the rest of my life eating only cookies, ice cubes (ha) or burritos, so why try for even a period of time to make it the only thing I eat?

What do YOU think? Do fad diets work?
posted @ Wednesday, July 14, 2010 10:08 PM | Feedback (7)