Which Diet is Best? Doesn’t Really Matter, Say Scientists

Atkins, Dukan, Paleo, South Beach, or Zone? They can all work, as long as you stick with them. Many studies have been conducted to try to determine which diet is best for losing weight. Overall, the results of these studies have been inconsistent, say the authors of a paper recently published in JAMA, a leading medical journal. It doesn’t really matter, though, because the differences in amount of weight lost with the different diets is relatively small (usually a couple of pounds). The only consistent result of the diet studies is that the best predictor of weight loss and improved health was adherence, or how well dieters stuck to their diet plans. So enough of the endless “diet debates,” which serve mainly to reinforce the multibillion dollar fad diet industry, say the authors of the JAMA paper. What is most needed is a greater understanding of ways to make permanent changes in eating and exercise habits. And that is what this blog is about.

Weight Loss Tip: Instead of looking for the perfect diet, focus on making real, lasting changes in your food and fitness habits.

The Diet Dropout’s Guide on the TODAY Show

The Diet Dropout’s Guide to Natural Weight Loss was featured with a few other new weight loss books on the TODAY show this morning. Here’s how Madelyn Fernstrom, diet and nutrition editor, described it:

“A slim volume that has the basics of behavior change, and includes all the ones people really struggle with.”

“It’s really [about] changing your relationship with food.”

“Dropout is a good word.”

The ebook is currently free at Amazon and ranked #29 in Kindle books.

This New Year Make a Weight Loss Resolution You Can Keep

Most of us have dieted to lose weight, only to gain it back again within a few weeks or months. It isn’t that diets don’t work. It’s that they don’t last. Most diets are so unpleasant, inconvenient, boring, complex, or expensive that they are difficult to stick with for very long. When you quite the diet, the weight returns.

Think of excess fat as a collection of calorie-adding habits. Lose the habits and you will lose the fat. Each time you give up one of these habits (all other things being equal), you will lose fat until your body naturally settles at a lower weight. The key to making these habits stick and successfully keeping the weight off is to create your own weight loss plan—one custom made to fit your particular needs, abilities, and preferences. When designed correctly, this custom plan is your easiest path to a naturally thin lifestyle and body. While each person’s optimal plan is unique, every plan for permanent weight loss should have the following elements:

Personal Preferences
There is no single formula for natural, permanent weight loss. You don’t need to make yourself miserable. Eating yogurt can help you lose weight, but if you really don’t like yogurt, don’t include it in your plan. There are plenty of other things you can do to lose weight naturally.

Changes You Can Live With
Include in your plan only those things you are willing to make lifelong habits. Giving up desserts for a month to lose weight may accomplish that goal, but the lost weight will return just as soon as you start eating desserts again. A better approach might be to limit yourself to one dessert a day, with more allowed on a few special days, and to make it a lifelong habit. You’ll lose less weight, but the weight you lose won’t be coming back. Permanent weight loss requires permanent changes in habits.

Easy Ways to Control Emotional Eating
We often eat for emotional comfort, not because we are hungry. This is called emotional eating. The best way to prevent emotional eating is to learn how to regulate your emotions in other ways. These may include getting more social interaction or using techniques such as meditation or mindfulness to calm your emotions.

Quick Ways to Calm Cravings
Cravings for junk food can crush even the strongest resolve and wreck your attempts to lose weight. The key is not to have more willpower, but to know how to make the cravings weaker so the willpower you already have does the job. For example, taking a brisk, short walk has been shown in scientific studies to reduce chocolate cravings.

Smarter Exercise
Trying to lose weight by doing exercises you hate is a recipe for failure. Find ways to get exercise that you enjoy. Even better, exercise with someone else. You’ll stick with it longer. Do exercises that build muscle, not just burn calories directly. The new muscle will boost your metabolism so you burn more calories even while you’re sleeping.

Removing the Temptations at Home
It’s usually easier to remove temptations than to resist them. Get rid of the junk food in your house. Try to avoid places that tempt you to overeat. Stock your refrigerator with weight loss foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, yogurt, nuts, and whole grains.

Making the Easiest Changes in Habits First
Your weight loss plan might include forming new habits such as meditating daily, eating more whole grains for breakfast, eating sweets only once a day, and exercising five days a week. Don’t try to develop all of your weight loss habits at once. Start with the ones that are easiest. After you have reaped the weight loss rewards of the easier habits you will have extra motivation to tackle habits that require more effort.

Not Expecting Quick or Immediate Results
It’s better to lose twenty pounds over the course of a year than to lose twenty pounds in a month then gain it all back. Changing habits takes time. You probably gained your extra weight slowly, one habit at a time. Let yourself lose it the same way.

After two or three weeks with each new habit, it will begin to feel natural, and you will be a naturally thinner person.

Find more help for making your New Year’s weight-loss resolution a success in The Diet Dropout’s Guide to Natural Weight Loss.

Easy Home Made Yogurt Recipe

Researchers at Harvard University conducted a study in which they tracked the weight and eating habits of 120,877 adults over a 20-year period. They found that study participants who increased their consumption of yogurt tended to lose weight, while those who decreased their consumption of yogurt tended to gain weight. Although the reason for yogurt’s association with weight loss is not entirely clear, it is likely that people who increase their yogurt consumption use yogurt to replace higher-calorie foods or foods that are less satisfying. Read more about the diet and weight loss study on Harvard’s website.

You can make rich low-fat yogurt yourself. It’s really quite simple. Try the recipe below.

Easy Home Made Yogurt Recipe

This recipe has five short steps:

1. Stir ¾ cup non-fat dry milk into 2 quarts 1% milk.
2. Heat it to 180°F.
3. Let it cool to 120°F.
4. Stir ¼ cup plain low-fat yogurt into the milk as a starter.
5. Keep the milk warm for at least 3 hours.

It’s probably easiest to heat the milk in a double boiler or in a glass bowl in a microwave. If you prefer, you can heat the milk in a heavy pan over medium heat, but you will need to stir it constantly to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Any brand of plain yogurt should work for the starter as long as it has “live, active cultures” in the list of ingredients. Use a container of yogurt that hasn’t been previously opened, and check its expiration date. Also make sure that anything that touches the cooled milk or yogurt starter has been freshly washed so as not to introduce foreign bacteria or enzymes that might interfere with the yogurt-making process.

To keep the milk warm (Step 5), put it in a container with a lid and place it in a picnic cooler. Add hot tap water (110-120°) to the cooler to surround the milk and help keep it warm. To become yogurt, the milk must stay above 100° for about 3 hours. The longer it’s kept warm, the tangier and firmer the yogurt will be.

When the yogurt is done, you may see whey, a yellowish liquid, separating out. That’s normal for yogurt that doesn’t have added stabilizers.

Save ¼ cup of the newly made yogurt to use as a starter for the next batch. For best results, use the starter within a couple of weeks. If you don’t like the texture of your first batch of yogurt, try it again using a different brand of yogurt as a starter.

Makes about 12 servings.

Relevance to Natural Weight Loss:

Weight Loss Tip: Eat lots of yogurt. Make your own to save money and avoid the added ingredients in commercial yogurt.

Find more simple weight loss tips and recipes in this top-rated ebook at Amazon.