She's only smiling so she won't cry.
Most diets follow the same three rules:
1. Eat a bit less
2. Drink more water.
3. Move around some.
But much in the same way that most religions share the same basic laws (be nice, don’t steal, try not to kill each other quite so much), much of the strife that occurs between different dieting philosophies occurs not because of their differences, but because of their similarities. Specifically: what their disciples should be eating less of, when they should be eating less of it and how these two ideas can be stretched out over 80,000 words and sold at a Hudson News airport kiosk.
The major and minor differences between diets have been responsible for not only a 586 billion dollar international weight loss industry, but also the entire career of Richard Simmons (which is a blessing to us all). Though there are countless diets vying for supremacy, a recent study published in Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology compared some of the major players — the low-fat diet, the low-carb diet and even no diet at all — over 53 long-term studies since 1960. And things didn’t go so well for the low-fat team. As reported by The Guardian:
“There is no good evidence for recommending low-fat diets,” said lead author Dr Deirdre Tobias from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard medical school, Boston. “Behind current dietary advice to cut out the fat, which contains more than twice the calories per gram of carbohydrates and protein, the thinking is that simply reducing fat intake will naturally lead to weight loss. But our robust evidence clearly suggests otherwise.”
This isn’t to say that the low-fat diet participants did not lose weight — participants averaged six pounds of weight loss across all diets. But compared to the other options, the low-fat diet was only more effective than “no diet at all,” and participants in the low-carb groups lost 2.5 more pounds on average. (And though there is not currently a scientific measurement for human misery, speaking from experience as someone who has given the low-fat diet an extended shot, people in the low-fat diet group were approximately “very much” more miserable than everybody else.)
While this study may show that the low-fat diet is slightly less effective than the low-carb diet, let’s not forget the key phrase in this sentence is “less effective.” Because even if a low-fat diet is not quite as effective as the low-carb diet, it is still a somewhat “effective” weight loss method in its own right. And compared to the “King of the Hill re-run at 3 AM, microwave quesadilla” diet, the low-fat diet is infinitely better. (Again, extensive personal experience on this one.)
As mentioned a few paragraphs earlier, diets are a lot like religions. People aren’t going to abandon their religion just because some guy in a lab coat from Harvard tells them to do so. In fact, that is exactly the sort of thing religious groups DO NOT responded well to. So folks who believe in the low-fat diet should probably stick with the low-fat diet. Because even if the low-fat diet is the worst weight loss plan, the diet has helped countless people improve their health over the years, and all for the low price of feeling terrible about themselves every moment of the day. As so many religions have proven, that life philosophy can work out pretty well for some people.
In all likelihood, scientists are working around the clock in the laboratory to refute these findings (just as the study published in Lancet refuted these recent findings supporting a low-fat diet) and the cycle of confusion and argument will continue in a snake eating its own tail/Spiderman reboot eternal loop of madness. So until scientists tell you that you’re doing everything wrong again, try to follow these three simple rules:
1. Eat a bit less.
2. Drink more water.
3. Move around some.
