Diet

60 years of trials: Most common dieting outcome is weight regain or trivial loss

From this article, Oprah’s Investment in Weight Watchers Was Smart Because the Program Doesn’t Work, a quote:

“My lab reviewed 60 years of clinical trials of diets, and we found that people lose an average of 10 percent of their starting weight on most diets but within two to five years have gained back all but about two pounds.  So, in reality, despite the short-term effectiveness of certain diet regimes, themost common outcome of dieting itself, by a landslide, is either weight regain or trivial weight loss".

A diet is not a permanent fix. Three life style changes that are sustainable:

  1. Make modest permanent changes in eating habits. For me that was no alcohol, no soda, and minimal grains and sweets.
  2. Strength train for the highest marginal return – don’t waste time exercising. A full body HIT workout once a week to deep fatigue with no rest between exercises takes about 25 minutes.  A stronger body will have a higher metabolism and more energy. Mitochondria, found in most cells, is where respiration and energy production takes place. Six months of strength training partially reverses mitochondria impairments to a level consistent with a younger stage in life. It is like having a fountain of youth.
  3. Do an activity you enjoy. Because of one and two you’ll be able to do activities longer with less chance of injury and more enjoyment.

 

Your life will profoundly change, and it does not required hours in the gym.   At Austin Strength Trainers and New Orleans Strength Trainers we have a program you can finally stick to.

Three different diets, equal in calories, three vastly different results

This New York Times article, What Really Makes Us Fat, discusses the result of a study that produced surprising results.

The experiment: Three separate groups on three different diets stuck to a diet for a month. All subjects consumed the same amount of calories.

Diet 1: A high-carbohydrate low-fat diet - fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean sources of protein.

Diet 2: A low glycemic index diet - fewer carbohydrates in total - non-starchy vegetables, beans, and minimally processed sources.

Diet 3: The Atkins diet - high in fat and protein and very low in carbohydrates.

Results: The fewer carbohydrates consumed, the more energy was expended.

A quote from the article:

“On the very low-carbohydrate diet, subjects expended 300 more calories a day than they did on the low-fat diet and 150 calories more than on the low-glycemic-index diet.”

And another:

“The fewer carbohydrates consumed, the more energy these weight-reduced people expended. On the very low-carbohydrate Atkins diet, there was virtually no metabolic adaptation to the weight loss. These subjects expended, on average, only 100 fewer calories a day than they did at their full weights.“

When there a restriction of calories consumed the body makes a metabolic adaption by burning less calories, even more so when the diet is high in carbohydrates. Strength training can offset that metabolic adaptation. High intensity training (HIT) for strength will burn more calories than other forms of strength training. HIT effectively burns calories four ways. HIT produces higher sustained excessive post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) than any other form of exercise. Muscle is metabolically expensive. HIT will make you stronger, and a stronger body will burn more calories even at rest. 

At Austin Personal Training and New Orleans Fitness Training we offer high intensity training (HIT) that has been show effective for weight loss. All you have to do is stick with it and make modest changes in eating habits.  You will lose fat and more likely keep it off.