No blog post next week. I will be away.
I've done all kinds of diets including lose weight slow and lose weight fast ones. They all ended up the same way. I'd regain all the weight plus more. Eventually I dieted myself to an extra 70 pounds.
A study in Australia showed that dieters who did crash diets (a very low calories one) not only lost more weight but stuck with it longer, compared to the ones who did plans with slow weight loss. Essentially in the race to lose 12.5% of your body weight, crash diets won!
However, the new study shows that "achieving a weight loss target of 12.5 percent is more likely, and drop-out is lower, if losing weight is done quickly," Purcell said.
12.5% is 15lbs if you weigh 200 lbs.
But before you makers of crash diets pat yourself on the back, the study found out one other thing.
People in both groups regained about 71 percent of their lost weight by the end of three years, regardless of how fast they had slimmed down, the researchers said.
The gist is a crash diet resulted in quicker weight loss than a slow and steady one but 71% of both diets caused weight regain of all their weight within three years (and I bet that percentage will be higher within five years).
Diets do not work in the long run for most people. It doesn't matter if you do it slow, fast, or on alternative Saturdays.
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