Category: Weight Loss

The largest study yet pits weight lifting against aerobic exercise for weight loss.

Aerobic exercise is the best way to burn fat, recent research concludes.

People who jog, cycle, swim or do other forms of aerobic exercise, lose weight quicker than those doing resistance exercise, like weight lifting.

The study found little evidence that weight lifting helps to burn fat.

The results come from the largest randomised controlled trial yet conducted on the subject.

Ms Leslie H. Willis, the study’s first author, said:

“Given that approximately two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight due to excess body fat, we want to offer clear, evidence-based exercise recommendations that will truly help people lose weight and body fat.”

For the study, 234 overweight and obese people were split into three groups.

One group did resistance training, involving lifting weights three days a week.

A second group did aerobic exercise, running around 12 miles per week.

A third group did a combination of the two.

The results showed that aerobic exercise was the most efficient way to lose body fat.

Those doing aerobic exercise spent less time exercising (133 minutes per week) than those doing weight lifting (180 minutes per week).

The combination group did not lose any more weight than those doing just aerobic exercise, despite exercising for twice as long.

Ms Willis said:

“No one type of exercise will be best for every health benefit.

However, it might be time to reconsider the conventional wisdom that resistance training alone can induce changes in body mass or fat mass due to an increase in metabolism, as our study found no change.”

Dr Cris A. Slentz, study co-author, said:

“Balancing time commitments against health benefits, our study suggests that aerobic exercise is the best option for reducing fat mass and body mass.

It’s not that resistance training isn’t good for you; it’s just not very good at burning fat.”

The study was published in the Journal of Applied Physiology (Willis et al., 2019).

Meal timings and certain supplements can both help to boost weight loss.

Eating meals at slightly different times can potentially double weight loss, multiple studies find.

In addition, adding supplements to the diet can also boost weight loss.

Changing meal timings involves eating the evening meal a little earlier and breakfast a little later.

People in one study who had their breakfast 90 minutes later and supper 90 minutes earlier doubled their weight loss.

Other than this change, people in the study were free to eat what they liked.

To increase weight loss even further, reducing calorie intake and doing more exercise will be beneficial.

Another way to increase weight loss is to use supplements.

While many supplements have little evidence to support them, increasing protein intake has been shown to be effective.

However, protein supplements should be taken with meals rather than in between, to help boost weight loss.

Professor Wayne Campbell, study co-author, explained:

“It may matter when you take your supplements in relation to when you eat meals, so people who consume protein supplements in between meals as snacks may be less likely to be successful in managing their body weight.”

The research reviewed 34 separate studies — these found that protein supplements taken between meals led to weight gain.

However, when taken with meals, protein supplements can boost weight maintenance and loss.

Professor Campbell said:

“Such dietary compensation is likely missing when protein supplements are consumed as snacks.

Calories at meal times may not be adjusted to offset the supplement’s calories, thus leading to a higher calorie intake for that day.

If the goal is to manage weight, then snacking on protein supplements may be less effective.

People who are trying to gain weight may consider consuming protein supplements between meals.”

The study was published in the journal Nutrition Reviews (Hudson et al., 2019).

The breakfast that stimulates the breakdown of fat.

A breakfast high in fat is healthier for weight loss than a carbohydrate-rich morning meal, research finds.

Fat consumed in the morning stimulates the breakdown of fat, but carbohydrates do not improve fat or energy metabolism.

The old saying that you should “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper,” is useful advice.

A breakfast high in fat can improve metabolic profiles, while a high-carbohydrate meal in the morning and a high-fat diet for dinner can increase the risk of metabolic syndrome, a study has found.

Metabolic syndrome is a combination of high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.

Researchers in this study wanted to see if what we eat and when we eat can influence body weight or increase cardiometabolic syndrome risk.

They fed mice a high-fat meal after waking and saw that blood sugar levels, blood pressure, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and waist circumference stayed normal.

On the other hand, mice that had high-carb foods in the morning and ate high-fat foods in the evening gained weight, adiposity, glucose intolerance, and elevated levels of triglycerides.

Professor Martin Young, study co-author, said:

“The first meal you have appears to program your metabolism for the rest of the day.

This study suggests that if you ate a carbohydrate-rich breakfast it would promote carbohydrate utilization throughout the rest of the day, whereas, if you have a fat-rich breakfast, you have metabolic plasticity to transfer your energy utilization between carbohydrate and fat.”

These findings suggest that weight loss regimes should consider the timing of food intake as well as quality and quantity of food.

Professor Molly Bray, the study’s first author said:

“Humans eat a mixed diet, and our study, which we have repeated four times in animals, seems to show that if you really want to be able to efficiently respond to mixed meals across a day then a meal in higher fat content in the morning is a good thing.

Another important component of our study is that, at the end of the day, the mice ate a low-caloric density meal, and we think that combination is key to the health benefits we’ve seen.”

The study was published in International Journal of Obesity (Bray et al., 2010).

Eating this luscious food can reduce cravings for both sweet and savoury.

Dark chocolate can lower the craving for fatty foods, sweet, and salty treats due to increased satiety and reducing the desire to eat more.

When it comes to choosing between dark chocolate and milk chocolate, we know it is much healthier to eat dark chocolate.

Studies have shown that dark chocolate, due to its high cacao content, can boost attention and increase people alertness.

A study conducted by Professor Larry Stevens and colleagues found that dark chocolate helps with relaxation, lowers blood pressure and improves heart health.

A Danish study suggests that dark chocolate is far more beneficial than milk chocolate in reducing appetite.

So, if you want to keep your weight down over the holidays, then dark chocolate for desserts might not be a bad idea as it gives a feeling of fullness with satisfaction.

Researchers looked at the effect of milk and dark chocolate on appetite and calorie intake on a group of young, healthy men with normal weight.

Participants fasted for 12 hours and then ate 100g of dark chocolate or milk chocolate in two separate sessions.

Their satiety, hunger, and cravings for special foods were recorded for 5 hours after eating each type of chocolate.

150 minutes after consuming either dark or milk chocolate, they were given pizza and asked to eat until they felt full.

The results showed that eating dark chocolate beforehand reduced their appetite and calorie intake by 17 percent, meaning they ate significantly less pizza.

The participants also reported that after eating dark chocolate they craved less salty, fatty foods or sweets.

Unsweetened dark chocolate with more than 60 percent cacao also contains healthy fats and antioxidants.

Professor Stevens, said:

“People don’t generally eat chocolate and think it’s going to be healthy for them.

A regular chocolate bar with high sugar and milk content won’t be as good, it’s the high-cacao content chocolate that can be found from most manufacturers that will have these effects.”

The dark chocolate study on appetite was published in Nutrition and Diabetes (Sørensen & Astrup, 2011).

People taking the supplement show reduced activity in brain regions vital to food cravings.

A range of different supplements have been linked to increased weight loss.

One of these is a type natural fibre called inulin.

Inulin, which can quadruple weight loss according to one study, is found in foods like onions, leeks, bananas and wheat.

Inulin supplements can be added to the diet by mixing into normal foods, such as bread or smoothies.

An inulin supplement works by decreasing cravings for high-calorie foods.

People in the present study ate 14 percent less, on average, after taking the supplement.

It also helps to enhance the signals to stop eating sent from the gut to the brain.

People taking inulin show reduced activity in brain regions vital to food cravings, scans have shown.

The latest research on weight loss has linked inulin to a fatty acid called propionate.

Propionate is produced naturally by the gut when dietary fibre is fermented.

For the present study, people took an inulin-propionate ester.

The results showed that it reduced appetite, reduced intake of calories and helped people maintain their weight, rather than putting on more.

The supplement also reduced belly and liver fat in people who took it.

Professor Gary Frost, who led the study, said:

“We know that adults gain between 0.3 and 0.8 kilos a year on average, and there’s a real need for new strategies that can prevent this.

Molecules like propionate stimulate the release of gut hormones that control appetite, but you need to eat huge amounts of fibre to achieve a strong effect.

We wanted to find a more efficient way to deliver propionate to the gut.

This small, proof-of-principle study shows encouraging signs that supplementing one’s diet with the ingredient we’ve developed prevents weight gain in overweight people.

You need to eat it regularly to have an effect.

We’re exploring what kinds of foods it could be added to, but something like bread or fruit smoothies might work well.”

The study was published in the journal Gut (Chambers et al., 2014).

It is a natural appetite suppressant and can help in the burning of fat and calories.

A pint of water drunk half-an-hour before eating can increase weight loss by five times, research finds.

Drinking water before a meal led to 10 pounds of weight loss across three months.

In comparison, people in the study who only drank water before one meal lost just 2 pounds.

Drinking water works simply by making people feel more full before they eat.

As a result, they consume fewer calories.

Water is a natural appetite suppressant and can help in the burning of fat and calories.

The only drink allowed in the study was tap water — not sodas, sweetened drinks or sparkling water.

However, as long as the drink contains no calories, it would probably be just as effective.

Dr Helen Parretti, the study’s first author, said:

“The beauty of these findings is in the simplicity.

Just drinking a pint of water, three times a day, before your main meals may help reduce your weight.

When combined with brief instructions on how to increase your amount of physical activity and on a healthy diet, this seems to help people to achieve some extra weight loss — at a moderate and healthy rate.

It’s something that doesn’t take much work to integrate into our busy everyday lives.”

For the study, 84 people were split into two group.

One group only imagined that their stomachs were full before each meal.

The other group drank a pint of water 30 minutes before eating.

The results showed that drinking water before every meal led to 9.48 pounds of weight loss, on average.

However, only drinking water before one meal was linked to an average weight loss of just 1.76 pounds.

Dr Parretti said:

“Losing a few extra pounds over the course of a year can be significant to an individual, and this could be an easy way to help with that weight loss.

It’s a simple message that has the potential to make a real contribution to public health.”

The study was published in the journal Obesity (Parretti et al., 2015).

The method allowed people in the study to lose more weight and fat.

A simple shift of mealtimes can help to increase weight loss by 100%, research finds.

Using this method, people can even lose weight without other changes to their lifestyle or diet.

The technique involves eating earlier in the day, which helps to lower the appetite.

Moving meals to earlier in the day can also help to burn more fat.

One way of achieving this change is to have both breakfast and dinner 90 minutes earlier every day.

A study of this method has shown it can double body fat loss.

Another easy approach to understand is to eat dinner in the afternoon.

The 11 people in the study ate three meals between 8am and 2pm.

After this they fasted — effectively meaning they were eating nothing from 2pm one day to 8am the next day.

The results revealed that restricting eating times helped to lower people’s appetite, compared with eating dinner at 8pm as normal.

The researchers also observed decreases in the hunger hormone ghrelin.

Having dinner at 2pm also resulted in more fat loss than eating in the evening.

Losing weight is about more than just what you eat, the researchers concluded.

Dr Eric Ravussin, the study’s first author, said:

“Coordinating meals with circadian rhythms, or your body’s internal clock, may be a powerful strategy for reducing appetite and improving metabolic health.”

Timing meals more effectively can help to boost weight loss, said  Dr Courtney M. Peterson, study co-author:

“We suspect that a majority of people may find meal timing strategies helpful for losing weight or to maintain their weight since these strategies naturally appear to curb appetite, which may help people eat less.”

The study was published in the journal Obesity (Ravussin et al., 2019).

Eliminating this from your diet is more important than what you eat for weight loss.

What you drink could have a higher impact on your weight loss than what you eat, a study suggests.

Cutting down the amount of calories consumed from liquids has a stronger effect on losing weight than reducing calories from solid foods.

Researchers looked at the effect of sugar-sweetened drinks and weight change in adults and found that limiting liquid calories will lead to weight loss and stops the regaining of weight.

Previous studies have found that consuming sugar-sweetened beverages could result in excessive weight gain and increase the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Sugar-sweetened beverages are drinks with added sugars such as sweet alcoholic drinks (liqueurs), energy drinks, sports drinks, fruit drinks, coffee drinks, sweetened tea, sweetened milk, soft drinks and soda.

Professor Benjamin Caballero, , study co-author, said:

“Both liquid and solid calories were associated with weight change, however, only a reduction in liquid calorie intake was shown to significantly affect weight loss during the 6-month follow up.

A reduction in liquid calorie intake was associated with a weight loss of 0.25 kg at 6 months and 0.24 kg at 18 months.

Among sugar-sweetened beverages, a reduction of 1 serving was associated with a weight loss of 0.5 kg at 6 months and 0.7 kg at 18 months.

Of the seven types of beverages examined, sugar-sweetened beverages were the only beverages significantly associated with weight change.”

In this study, based on their nutritional and calorie contents, drinks were divided into different classes:

• Sugar-sweetened beverages including regular soft drinks, high-calorie beverages sweetened with sugar, fruit punch, and fruit drinks.
• 100 percent juice including fruit and vegetable juice.
• Diet drinks including diet soda and other diet drinks sweetened with artificial sweeteners.
• Milk including skimmed milk, 1 percent low-fat milk, 2 percent reduced-fat milk, and whole milk.
• Tea and coffee with sugar.
• Alcoholic drinks.
• Coffee and tea with no sugar.

Their results showed that nearly 40 percent of sugar-sweetened beverages were the main source of liquid calories.

Dr Liwei Chen, the study’s first author, said:

“Among beverages, sugar-sweetened beverages was the only beverage type significantly associated with weight change at both the 6- and 18-month follow up periods.

Changes in the consumption of diet drinks and alcoholic beverages were inversely associated with weight loss, but were not statistically significant.

Our study supports policy recommendations and public health efforts to reduce intakes of liquid calories, particularly from sugar-sweetened beverages, in the general population.”

The study was published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Chen et al., 2009).

The drink supplements the critical nutrients in which many are deficient.

Drinking low-fat milk is linked to increased weight loss, multiple studies find.

Two cups of low-fat milk doubled the fat loss of people in the research in comparison to soy milk or a carbohydrate drink.

Having as little as two-thirds of a glass of milk each day could even double weight loss, another study found.

Milk contains both calcium and vitamin D, which are both thought to aid weight loss.

Calcium deficiencies may affect around half of people who are obese.

When calcium levels are depleted, the body craves more food so that it can replenish levels of the essential mineral.

Vitamin D is crucial as one of its main functions is to help the body absorb calcium.

For the current study 56 men followed a weightlifting programme for 12 weeks.

They were given either two cups of skimmed milk to drink each day or a non-milk alternative.

The results showed that those drinking milk lost two pounds of fat compared with just one pound of fat loss in the other group.

Dr Stuart Phillips, study co-author, said:

“The loss of fat mass, while expected, was much larger than we thought it would be.

I think the practical implications of these results are obvious: if you want to gain muscle and lose fat as a result of working out, drink milk.”

The men who drank milk also put on much more muscle than those given a soy alternative or a carbohydrate drink.

Dr Phillips said:

“I think the evidence is beginning to mount.

Milk may be best known for its calcium content in supporting bone health, but our research, and that of others, continually supports milk’s ability to aid in muscle growth and also promote body fat loss.

To my mind – with milk being a source of nine essential nutrients – it’s a no brainer: milk is the ideal post-workout drink for recreational exercisers and athletes alike.”

The study was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Hartman et al., 2007).

A proven way to lose weight without diet or exercise.

Replacing some high-carb foods to low-carb alternatives can lead to 20 pounds in weight loss, recent research finds.

The weight loss can be achieved without doing more exercise or reducing calorie intake.

The reason is that a low-carb diet helps people burn more calories without extra exercise.

Foods that can be minimised in the diet include starch vegetables, pasta, bread and anything that is very sugary.

Foods to be maximised include leafy green vegetables, fish, lean meats, nuts and eggs.

The conclusions come from a study that tested how people can best maintain their weight loss in the long-term.

The results showed that changing from carbohydrates to different food groups was a good way to maintain weight loss.

David Ludwig, , study co-author, said:

“This is the largest and longest feeding study to test the ‘Carbohydrate-Insulin Model,’ which provides a new way to think about and treat obesity.

According to this model, the processed carbohydrates that flooded our diets during the low-fat era have raised insulin levels, driving fat cells to store excessive calories.

With fewer calories available to the rest of the body, hunger increases and metabolism slows — a recipe for weight gain.”

The study included 164 adults who had already lost 10 percent of their body weight.

They were put on diets containing either 60, 40 or 20 percent carbs.

The results showed that people on the low-carb diet ended up burning an additional 250 calories per day more than those on the high-barb diet.

Dr Cara Ebbeling, the study’s first author, said:

“If this difference persists — and we saw no drop-off during the 20 weeks of our study — the effect would translate into about a 20-pound weight loss after three years, with no change in calorie intake.”

Among people who secrete the most insulin, the difference between the groups was even more pronounced.

Those secreting high amounts of insulin burned an extra 400 calories per day.

Dr Ebbeling said:

“Our observations challenge the belief that all calories are the same to the body.

Our study did not measure hunger and satiety, but other studies suggest that low-carb diets also decrease hunger, which could help with weight loss in the long term.”

The study was published in the BMJ (Ebbeling et al., 2018).