Why Dieting Won't Cut It

 

Researchers have recently shown that a low-carbohydrate diet is more effective than other types of diet in helping overweight people lose weight safely. In 2008, a study appeared 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, as participants lost more weight on the low-carb diet than on the others, and without any of the supposed health risks that some people assign to low-carbohydrate diets.

This is exciting. Just go on a low-carb diet for a while and you'll soon have the body you want, right? Sorry, but no. We need to look into this a bit more to see why dieting alone isn't enough to get the body you need.

A major problem with basing your fitness plans on dieting is that diets don't take into account this muscle loss. That is, diets may help you lose weight and reduce body fat, but they don't do anything to preserve your muscle mass, and they certainly don't help you add muscle. You might not know this, but starting around our 30th birthday, we gradually begin losing muscle mass. Without taking steps to remedy this, we will typically lose five to ten pounds of muscle per decade. That's a significant loss, and something that diet plans do nothing to prevent.

Secondly, the results cited in this study are pathetic. The participants were overweight men and women, or people with Type 2 diabetes. They were placed on one of three types of diet. 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 received motivational phone calls as well.

So what were the detailed results of the study? When people stuck with the diet for the full two years, the low-fat diet gave the worst results, followed by the Mediterranean diet. The low-carbohydrate diet gave the best results. The diets also caused some welcome changes in blood chemistry, including reduced levels of cholesterol. If you want actual numbers, the people on the low-carbohydrate diet lost just over 12 pounds during the two years of the study.

These results aren't very impressive. Under more or less ideal conditions, and with some professional coaching, the best diet only resulted in the long-term loss of about a half a pound a month. Of course for an overweight person to lose 12 pounds safely is a good thing, but we're not talking about impressive results here. Will losing a dozen in 2 years, while simultaneously losing some of your youthful muscle, give you the body or the level of fitness you want?

A healthy diet is surely a good first step, and a key element in achieving the fitness you want. But as this study shows, dieting alone won't get you there. The key to a super body and personal fitness is a comprehensive fitness program.