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There are literally thousands of studies available about dieting. No one knows  which one is best. Low fat diets, low carb, low this and low that. With so many diet plans available and most of them if not all of them waiting to take your money how is the average person to know which one is best for them? Most of these diet plans are looking to make money from you and it will cost you whether you buy a book, join a club, join a web site. It does not matter.

This post you can read for free and it is probably the only thing you can do for free so enjoy it while you can. First we will start off with an excerpt from WEBMD which follows, then after that we will add some comments of our own. At the end of the day you need to make your own decision regarding what you want to do about your weight. After all it is your body and your life, you need to decide how much you are going to spend and how it will be spent to lose weight. Low fat diets are not always the answer.

Low Fat Diets

Here are the study results for one study that looked at Low Fat Diets!

Study Shows People on Low-Fat Diet More Likely to Keep Weight Off

By Jennifer Warner, WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

March 1, 2010 — A low-carb diet may offer quick results. But a new study suggests that a low-fat diet may be best for long-term weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight.

Researchers found obese people who followed a low-fat diet may be more likely to keep the weight off three years later after starting the diet than those who followed a low-carbohydrate diet.

“Although participants in the low-carbohydrate group lost more weight at 12 months, they regained more weight during the next 24 months,” write researcher Marion L. Vetter, MD, RD of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “In contrast, participants in the low-fat group maintained their weight loss.”

In the study, researchers started with a group of 132 obese people. They weighed an average of 289 pounds before starting either a low-fat diet. A calorie restricted diet with less than 30% of daily calories from fat, or a low-carb diet with fewer than 30 grams of fat per day for 12 months.

After six months on the diets, the group on the low-carb diet experienced the greatest weight loss. But by 12 months there was no significant difference in weight loss between the two groups.

Longer Term Results

Three years after the study began and two years after the diets ended, researchers followed up with 40 people in the low-carb diet group and 48 in the low-fat diet group.

They found people in the low-carb diet group weighed an average of 4.9 pounds less than before they started dieting. While those in the low-fat diet group weighed an average of 9.5 pounds less than they did at the start of the study.

Researchers say while both diets appear to offer weight loss benefits, the pattern of weight change was different between the low-carb and low-fat diet groups.

“The differences in weight regain between the two groups probably reflects initial weight loss,” write the researchers. “Participants who lost more weight during the first 12 months tended to regain more weight by month 36.”

End of article from WEBMD

So what do we think about this particular study. All they are saying is that one diet was slightly better than another diet! That’s it and these people appeared to not lose very much weight either.

So what should you do? Should you chose one diet over another? Should you buy the book on low fat diets or low carb diets?

The sad result in our opinion is neither! Get hold of your life and seriously limit your portion size, decrease your salt intake, eat well balanced meals  and start exercising!  There is no easy way to lose weight, it takes hard work and it takes discipline.  Forget the deserts, the second helpings, the buffets and whatever else you indulge in. Go for walks, go to the gym, reduce your intake and lose weight!

The equation is simple. Energy into your body less energy burned for the day = plus or minus weight gain. Nothing else. Forget all of these fancy weight loss programs. Eat sensibly and eat carefully, in restaurants share meals – it will cost you less, dring water instead of soft drinks and forget the deserts.

As you can see we are not fans of these diet plans.  If you have comments or would like to add to the comments please feel free to do so.

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