So our newest article on dieting from the prestigious medical journal, the JAMA, tells us that in a study lasting one year, people lost the most weight on the Atkins diet. The study with an over 300 individual cohort, compared the Atkins low carb diet to other diets like the Zone (which is also low carb but does not encourage ketosis) and the Ornish program which albeit heart healthy, is very low fat and very difficult to totally comply to.
At the end of a year, the 77 women assigned to the Atkins group had lost an average of 10.4 pounds. Those assigned to LEARN lost 5.7 pounds, the Ornish followers lost 4.8 pounds and women on the Zone lost 3.5 pounds, on average.
Did anyone notice that the year end results on a non diet like that of Dr Oz in which you cut 100 calories a day, promises a similar result to the "best diet", the Atkins diet?
We also must look at the funding of these studies - I suspect the Atkins corporation might have funded this one. Because in a study funded by Weight Watchers by Stanley Heshka, researchers found that, people on the Weight Watchers diet had lost an average of 11 lbs in the first year. (same as attributed to the Atkins). However, in the second year, the picture had changed a bit. The average weight Loss on Weight Watchers was down to 7 lbs overall. (The cohort was over 400 on this study)
The Weight Watchers group lost 4,3 to 5 kg (11 lbs) by the end of the first year, and 2,7 to 3 kg overall by the end of the second year (7 lbs).
Did anyone notice that neither of the studies showed a really impressive result from (any kind of) dieting? Perhaps the media hopes we will just read headlines and not the details (which are usually hidden way down in the article) and come away thinking we should buy this or that diet.
None of these studies we've seen lately have lasted 4 or 5 years - funding is always a problem but beyond that, drawing out a study like this for a longer term, might have results which the diet industry does NOT want people to see.
For it seems that the greatest ongoing scam in the American society today is the myth that ANY diet works! One wonders why we continue to buy into this scam when for most of us, diets have failed.
We would consider it a bit ridiculous to blame the driver for a car which stalls on the highway and yet, when diets don't work for us and our automatic system kicks in and forces a regain, we DO blame ourselves.
So the greatest scam in history, diets, upon which people spend some 45 BILLION dollars a year in the USA alone, continues with willing repeat customers!
And that is, I guess because none of us want to realize that our bodies basically control our weight and NOT US. We'd rather berrate ourselves for being "pigs" or having "no character" and then, go and buy the next diet to reinforce our desperate hope that we, too, will somehow be magically able to attain the mythical "perfect body".
But is a perfect body one which WORKS well, or one which looks like a model? Spending time with people who severely restrict calories to stay slim suggests that MOST of these do NOT enjoy very good health. And when we are sick in bed, or chronically fatigued, it really doesn't matter how fat or slim we are. Here in the USA, we have increasing numbers of young people dropping dead from sudden heart attack and are also riddled with autoimmune disease like LUPUS and Fibromyalgia and CFS. Some estimates theorize that 1 in 100 has some kind of chronic pain syndrome. So not only has our affinity to constantly diet NOT rendered many of us "slim", it might also be a factor in the -not so good- general public health observed today in the USA.
In a study at USC which compared living a healthy lifestyle (frequent cardio exercise and healthy food choices) without a focus on weight loss, to dieting,and DID last for 2 years, the researchers found that those who just LIVED healthy and did NOT lose weight, remained healthy at the end of the second year but those who dieted, not only gained back all the weight they'd lost during the first year, they also regained their health issues AND sustained psychological damage (it's extremely disheartening to gain a bunch of weight back). The non dieters had a self image which had IMPROVED in the second year.
Bottom line? Time to realize what a scam dieting is, and simply live healthy because health, it has been found in MANY studies (including the Cooper Institute studies of 30 years duration and 29,000 individuals) that health is mostly dependent on your lifestyle and NOT your weight.
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