Your Dieting Will Never Get You Anywhere

Can you diet your way into shape? Last year, a study with the title, “Weight Loss With a Low-Carbohydrate, Mediterranean, or Low-Fat Diet,” published in the New England Journal of Medicine gave the results of a study on the effectiveness of three types of diet over a two-year period for overweight people. The best results came from low-carbohydrate diets, without the health risks that opponents of these diets claimed would exist.

These results look promising. It looks like all we need to do is go on a low-carb diet and we’ll shed those excess pounds faster than with any other diet. Unfortunately, there’s more to it that that, and even the most effective diet ever won’t get you the results you need.

One major concern is that dieting alone doesn’t do anything to help you retain your muscles. As you may know, once people reach the age of 30 or so, we start to start losing our muscles. An average person will lose 5-10 pounds of muscle per decade. And dieting doesn’t change that. It might reduce the amount of fat over your shrinking muscles, but it won’t maintain those muscles, much less build more muscle mass.

Secondly, the results of the diets are weak. The people studied were either overweight or suffering from Type 2 diabetes. They were placed on one of three types of diet. Each person also received instructions and information related specifically to the type of diet they were on. During the two-year study, 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 were having particular trouble received motivational phone calls as well.

Here are the numerical results of the study. For people who stuck with it the entire two years, the average weight loss for the low-fat diet was 3.3 kg (7.27 lb), for the Mediterranean diet was 4.6 kg (10.14 lb), and for the low-carb diet was 5.5 kg (12.13 lb). In addition, participants saw some improvement in cholesterol levels and other health markers.

These results aren’t very impressive. Under more or less ideal conditions, and with some professional coaching, the best diet only produced a 12 pound loss in two years. That’s about a half a pound a month. There’s no denying that for an overweight person to lose weight safely over the long term is a good thing, but we’re not talking about impressive results here. What about for you? Would losing 12 pounds in 24 months, while gradually losing some of your youthful muscle, make you feel better about your health and fitness?

A healthy diet is surely a good first step, and crucial to achieving the fitness you want. But as this study shows, dieting alone won’t get you there. The secret to superior health and fitness is a comprehensive fitness program.