The most important word for healthy weight loss is consistency

It’s not an exciting word or a very exciting concept. However, consistency is perhaps one of the most important words in your weight loss efforts.

A study carried out by researchers from the Lipid Metabolism Laboratory at the Mayer USDA Human Research Centre on Aging at Tufts University and Tufts-New England Centre in Boston and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, random assigned 160 overweight or obese volunteers to one of four diet plans.

The diets chosen included a carbohydrate restricted diet, fat restricted diet, calorie restricted diet and high-glycemic-load carbohydrate restriction with increased protein diet.

The participants in each diet plan were representative of the overweight population in the US, taking age, race, sex and body mass index.

The research indicated that the most successful way to lose weight is not the type of diet chosen, but the sticking to it.  The research also revealed that people are most likely to stick to calorie and portion restricted and high-glycemic-load carbohydrate restriction with increased protein diets than fat and carbohydrate restricted diets.

However, these results were only observed in those participants who completed the full period of dieting. And when it came to the more extreme diet plans carbohydrate restriction and  fat restriction only half the volunteers stuck to these for the full year. In contrast, almost two thirds were able to complete the calorie restricted.

The study showed that whether the volunteers restricted carbohydrate or fat calories or whether they lowered intake overall, overall everybody lost weight.

Ultimately, it came down to calorie restriction. The strongest predictor of weight lose was not the type of diet, but the compliance with the diet plan that subjects were given.