The One Thing That's Standing Between Us & a Flat Stomach
Throw away all those fad diet books (and their accompanying "motivational" CDs). Tune out your brother-in-law's obsessive yammering about the miracle of Atkins or South Beach or, whatever, cabbage soup. A new study has confirmed what many of us probably knew all along: It's calories that make us gain weight and accumulate body fat. And as far as our bodies are concerned, it doesn't matter whether those calories come from protein or carbs or fat or anything else, the study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, concluded. A calorie is a calorie is an extra inch on your waistline and unsightly bulge around the thighs.
The good news is that this information rids us of the false hope those fad diets present.
Just eating more of one thing (say, protein) and less of another (say, carbs) won't really let us catch a fast train to slenderness. And so we can forgive ourselves for not being able to stay on those diets since, after all, they don't really work anyway. Or at least they don't work any better, in terms of helping us lose weight, than simply eating less and exercising more.
Of course, that's also the bad news. The only way to take weight off is to eat fewer calories and exercise more. Period. Full stop. Sigh. Still, at least that gives us some flexibility. If you snack on a cookie in the afternoon, you know you can compensate for the extra calories by cutting back on a few bites of pasta at dinner or pushing to do a few extra reps at the gym. It's not like you have to stick to any specific, prescribed plan. (Of course, eating a nutritious, balanced diet is important for reasons other than weight loss.)
Personally, I'm pleased to have my hunch confirmed -- that weight loss plans based on adjusting the nutritional components of a person's diet are just a bunch of hooey (no matter what our brothers-in-law say). No, there's no easy way to lose weight. So we'll all just have to do it the hard way -- and spend the money we save on diet books on skinny jeans when we reach our goals.
Are you surprised to learn that calorie intake pretty much solely determines weight gain and loss?
Image via Lauren Manning/Flickr
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linzemae
EquestrianMom
I dunno, I think it depends for each person. I worked (as in, lived with) for a ranch who was all on the atkins diet. Prior to that I had spent a year trying to starve myself down to jockey weight so I could get on the racetrack. The atkins diet? I lost 25lbs (taking me down to 85lbs, and more then I wanted to lose!" in six weeks! WHEW! It took me 6 months of porking out on everything that was edible and got close to me to regain that weight. Ive also lost weight every time I go on a high protien, low carb diet, and now, I eat a larger portion of carbs and fruits, veggies and sugars then protiens, or I drop weight. Just me I guess!
Madelaine
hmmm..........
Anne4222
MamaBear2cubs
That's interesting,I always thought it was less input more output.Less food more excersize.
emmasmama2007
slw123
It does make a difference where those calories come from though. If you eat 3500 calories of Oreos vs 3500 calories of spinach.......you aren't going to store fat off of spinach.
jaxmadre
I wholeheartedly disagree. You need to feed your body the kinds of calories it needs so that it can burn them properly and efficiently. I gaurantee chips, bread, ice cream are not going to be used by your body as efficiently as meat and vegetables.
And SO, your aerobic exercise is not going to be effective if you're feeding your body processed garbage. It'll be a very inefficient way to get where you want.
I hate these crappy "studies" that give people false hope.
atmartin06
SLW122, you are incorrect. It really doesn't matter where the calories come from, it matters how many calories you consume vs. how many you burn. Sure, if you eat 3500 calories worth of oreos you won't get the vitamins you would get from the spinach but you will store the same amount of fat either way if you don't burn 3500 calories. I am friends with a personal trainer/dietitian who studied exactly this in college and explained how it works. Have you heard of the professor who lost weight on the "Twinkie diet?"
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html
Wish2Be
I think there is proof otherwise....
Every diet claims theirs is the best for such and such reason. Some say Calories dont matter...some say carbs dont matter....etc.. If every "fact" there is another "fact" that contradicts it. We can only try to be more active...drink more water...and eat happy green foods and meats....less garbage.