Losing weight more about diet quality than calorie quantity

Weight loss is a much debated topic. In an interesting development, a new research has found that losing weight is more about diet quality than calorie quantity. The findings, published last week in the academic journal JAMA, showed that dieting individuals who reduced their consumption of added sugars, highly processed foods and refined grains while focusing on increasing their vegetables and whole foods, lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a year without counting calories or limiting the size of portions.Instead of putting limits on calorie intake, the researchers instructed participants to focus on eating as much whole or “real” foods as they needed to avoid feeling hungry, lead researcher Dr Christopher D Gardner told The New York Times. He is the director of nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. More than 600 individuals participated in the study backed with $8mn in funding from the National Institutes of Health and other groups. While the study focused primary on diet, the participants were also given health education classes and were encouraged to meet standard guidelines for physical activity.The study was designed to examine how overweight and obese people would compare when consuming low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets. The recruited individuals, who hailed from northern California, were split into two groups: “healthy” low-carb and “healthy” low-fat. Both groups attended courses led by dietitians who instructed them to consume minimally processed and nutrient-rich whole foods. They also encouraged participants to cook at home on a regular basis. Individuals in the low-fat group were told to eat foods such as brown quinoa, fresh fruit, legumes, rice, barley, steel-cut oats, lentils, lean meats and low-fat dairy products. They were told to avoid fruit juice, white rice and white bread as they are highly processed or contain added sugars. The low-carb group was advised to eat foods such as avocados, hard cheeses, vegetables, olive oil, salmon, nut butter, and grass-fed and pasture-raised animal foods.After one year, both groups demonstrated significant weight loss even though they did not worry about their calorie intake. Those in the low-fat group lost about 5.30kg on average, while the members of the low-carb group lost a little more than 5.90kg. Individuals in both groups also showed improvements in other important health markers such as reduced body fat, lower blood sugar, improved blood pressure levels and decreased waist size. Beyond calorie counting, the study contradicted the increasingly popular theory that diets should be catered to an individual’s genetics. According to US News and World Report, previous research has suggested that certain genes or an individual’s insulin levels could interact with different diets to affect weight loss. This new study showed no significant difference when filtering for such factors. Weight loss among the participants was found to be the same, regardless of genetics, insulin levels or diet type. The bottom line: Diet quality is important for both weight control and long-term well-being, as pointed out by Dr Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health.