Wed, Apr-12-23, 10:32
|
 |
|
|
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
|
|
Lose weight and keep it off: the new rules
Quote:
Lose weight and keep it off: the new rules
Is it possible to slim down by the summer even if you’ve struggled before? Research shows small changes can make a difference
Spring is in the air, and with it thoughts inevitably shift towards getting fit and healthy for summer. If you’ve tried and failed to lose weight in the past, it might not be through lack of willpower but because your body doesn’t respond to the diet you have chosen to follow. No single weight-loss diet suits everybody and scientific research into personalised nutrition that is tailored to meet individual needs is thriving. Now, a team of researchers from Stanford University Medicine have pinpointed at least some of the factors that might help you to lose pounds and keep them off.
Most people lose most weight by cutting carbs or fat, so in their trial, the team recruited 609 people and asked them to follow either a healthy low-fat or healthy low-carb diet, logging everything they ate and drank for a year. Meanwhile, they tracked exercise patterns, the total number of calories consumed every day and, importantly it turned out, how well people stuck to their prescribed diet. Results, published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine showed, unsurprisingly, that successful short-term weight loss comes down to how strictly you stick to a diet and the quality of foods you consume. Whatever plan they were on, most people lost weight after the first six months, but what mattered most was strict adherence to the diet in question and selecting foods rich in the right sort of nutrients to support weight loss.
After a year on the prescribed diets, individual responses were more marked. Whereas some people had shed 30kg, others had difficulty sustaining weight loss after their early success. Some had even gained 10kg at the 12-month follow-up. To find out why some were so much more successful than others on the same diet, Xiao Li, who was one of the lead researchers at Stanford at the time and has since moved to Case Western Reserve University, delved deeper with her colleagues into what was firing up their metabolism. What they discovered was that some people are naturally better at burning carbs while others burn fat more effectively, and that if you are on a low-carb diet and your body prefers carbs as fuel, you will find it much harder to lose weight.
Some of the variables influencing how we each respond to different diets can’t be changed. Li says they found that the amounts of some proteins our bodies produce and the levels of carbon dioxide we exhale can affect our ability to lose weight and that these are mostly genetically determined. But there is much you can do to embrace your body’s preferred route to shedding pounds. “If a diet doesn’t seem to be working for you, it’s likely because you are not suited to it,” Li says. Here are the new rules for losing weight and keeping it off:
Low fat or low carb – which are you?
There is no instant way to tell which works for you, and Li’s advice is to select a low-fat or low-carb diet and stick at it for six months. During the Stanford trials, people were instructed to cut back on fat or carbohydrate until they achieved a daily intake of no more than 20g of carbs or fat, but were then asked to increase their intake slowly, by 5-15g each week, until they reached a maintenance level they thought they could keep up for a year. “To give either diet a real chance, you should truly adhere to one approach for several months, eating little fat on the low-fat diet or few carbs on the low-carb diet,” Li says. “If that still does not work, it is then time to try the other diet and this will increase your chance of success.” Swapping from one approach to the next too quickly will not be effective either, and can lead to yo-yo dieting and unhealthy side effects. “Whichever approach you choose, your focus should be on consuming high-quality, minimally processed foods that are low in sugar,” Li says. “And focus on what you can eat rather than what you can’t.”
Women: try a low-fat diet first. Men: try low-carb
In the trial, women seemed to find the low-fat diet easier to stick to than men. “We also found more females achieved long-term weight loss and that the healthy low-fat group achieved better long-term weight loss,” Li says. That doesn’t mean it won’t work for men, but previous findings from the Stanford team suggest men respond better to cutting carbs, losing an average of 3kg and significantly more fat than men on a low-fat diet over 12 months.
Eat more foods rich in vitamins C, E, K and iron on a low-carb diet . . .
To maximise results on a low-carb diet you should aim to increase your intake of vitamins K, C and E from foods. “We looked at specific nutrients and ratios of nutrients in each diet that might be driving the weight loss,” Li says. “People on a low carb diet achieved better weight loss if they consumed vitamins C, E, K and iron and this would translate to a diet high in vegetables, nuts, seeds and fruits.”
Kale, spinach, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cabbage are particularly good sources of vitamin K and the same foods, along with berries and peppers, provide vitamin C. You will find vitamin E in almonds, nut butters, sunflower seeds and squash, and iron in beans, meat and eggs.
. . .and pack in the avocados and healthy fats
Eating plenty of monounsaturated fats from avocados, olives and olive oil was also important for weight loss on the low-carb diet. “Those eating unsaturated fats, specifically monounsaturated fats, achieved more weight loss than those with higher intake of saturated fats on the low-carb diet,” says Li. Almonds, cashews, peanuts, sunflower oil and chia seeds are other sources of these healthy fats. Some studies have shown they can help to make you feel more full after a meal, reducing hunger and cravings. They have also been implicated in the reduction of visceral fat, the type that surrounds the internal organs and raises the risk of conditions such as Type 2 diabetes. One study showed that eating an avocado every day as part of a meal for 12 weeks helped to shift belly fat in women.
Eat more pulses and wholegrains on a low-fat diet
Cutting the wrong type of carbs from your diet will thwart progress and Li says that while unrefined carbohydrates such as wholegrain bread and cereals helped people to lose weight, refined carbohydrates did not. Blood samples revealed that the least successful low-fat dieters had higher levels of sodium compared with potassium. “Processed foods are higher in sodium and plant foods are higher in potassium,” Li says.
More fibre is key on any diet
What’s clear from the findings is that certain types of gut bacteria can promote faster weight loss for us all. “Different bacteria work together to help weight loss through different mechanisms,” Li says. “Strains of gut bacteria influence the calories extracted from the foods we ingest and provide more calories from the fermentation of dietary fibre, as well as increasing or decreasing levels of appetite hormones that can make us feel more or less hungry.” Consuming fibre from different sources is key. British researchers have shown that the greater variety of it we consume, the more diverse our gut bacteria becomes and the more likely we are to avoid weight gain.
In future, Li believes that tracking levels of gut microbe strains with “next-generation sequencing technologies” will “give people specific dietary recommendations to make specific changes to their microbiome composition” and enable them to determine precisely which diet will work best for them. In the meantime, we can all boost our chances for weight loss by adding more wholegrains, vegetables, nuts, seeds and pulses — all good sources of fibre — to our diet. “What we do know is that including more dietary fibre can help to promote a more diverse and potentially healthier microbiome,” Li says.
Eat more kimchi, kefir, cottage cheese and yoghurt
Fermented foods are another dietary staple that will accelerate weight loss by enhancing the variety of gut bacteria. Research by Justin Sonnenburg, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford, shows that the more yoghurt, kefir, fermented cottage cheese, kimchi and other fermented vegetables, vegetable brine drinks, and kombucha tea people consume over ten weeks, the better their gut microbe diversity and the lower their levels of inflammation that make weight loss more difficult. Last month a group of scientists led by the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) reported in The Journal of Nutrition that eating more of these fermented foods is directly associated with a lower waist circumference and body mass index.
Cut out sugars and refined carbs
Reiterating what she has already said, because it’s essential advice that people often ignore, Li states that any successful weight-loss plan should centre on reducing sugar, refined flour and highly processed foods. “Sugars and refined starches do not satisfy appetite and the calories in these easy-to-digest carbohydrates are very easy to access by the body,” she says. “They are also digested and absorbed into the bloodstream very fast and cause a quick rise in blood sugar that triggers hormonal responses.” This includes a rise in insulin, the hormone secreted by the pancreas in order to control how the body absorbs and uses blood sugar after a meal or snack. Sugar that your cells don’t need for energy ends up being stored as fat. “It’s very different to the response to eating other, slower to metabolise carbohydrates including wholegrains,” Li says. Her message? Reduce sweet foods and replace white carbs with the wholegrain variety whenever possible.
|
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...rules-k6kz3qrgq
Study: Distinct factors associated with short-term and long-term weight loss induced by low-fat or low-carbohydrate diet intervention - DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100870 |
|
Linear Mode
