Category: Weight Loss

Study participants lost weight without dieting or making other lifestyle changes.

Taking a vitamin D supplement is repeatedly linked to weight loss by studies.

People taking vitamin D lose weight without dieting or making other lifestyle changes.

Adding in dieting and exercise can help to boost weight loss even more.

One study has shown that people drinking more milk, which contains vitamin D and calcium, can double weight loss.

The new study included 50 overweight and obese women.

Half of them received doses of vitamin D equivalent to almost 10,000 IU per day over six weeks.

The study’s authors write:

“Previous studies had shown that the vitamin D deficiency is more prevalent in obese people and there was an inverse association between vitamin D, body mass index, and weight.”

The other half received a placebo that they were told was vitamin D, but was in fact inert.

The researchers measured people’s weight, waist and hip circumference, cholesterol and other biological markers, before and after supplementation.

The results showed that people taking vitamin D lost 3.5 pounds after taking vitamin D for six weeks.

The study’s authors explain the results:

“The findings of this double-blind clinical trial study in obese and overweight women aged 20–40 years showed that supplementation of the vit D with dozes 50,000 IU/w for 6 weeks reduced significantly the mean BMI [body mass index], weight and on the other hand, it increased significantly the level of vit D in comparison with the control group.”

The average weight loss was around 3.5 pounds in the vitamin D group compared with no change in the control group.

Around half the world’s population is deficient in vitamin D.

Foods that are rich in vitamin D include oily fish and eggs, but most people get their vitamin D from the action of sunlight on the skin.

The study was published in the International Journal of Preventative Medicine (Khosravi et al., 2019).

This weight loss is achieved without making changes to exercise or diet.

Simply tracking food intake and weight can help to double weight loss, research finds.

People who keep a food diary, which involves noting down what they eat, and track their weight, see increased weight loss.

The more notes that people keep, the greater their weight loss.

This weight loss is achieved without making changes to exercise or diet.

However, adding these elements can increase weight loss even further.

For this particular study, people used a free app called ‘MyFitnessPal’.

Other similar apps would likely work just as well.

Professor Gary Bennett, study co-author, said:

“Free and low-cost weight loss apps have changed the ways that Americans manage their weight.

However, we knew little about whether these tools worked very well on their own.

We’ve shown that commercial smartphone apps can be a helpful way to get started with weight loss.”

There were 105 overweight people in the study, which lasted three months.

The only intervention people followed was tracking their food and drink consumption.

The results showed that those who lost the most weight, an average of 7 pounds, were those that tracked their consumption and weight most assiduously.

Ms Michele Lanpher Patel, the study’s first author, said:

“We wanted to study a lower-intensity treatment for weight loss whereby people could join from the comfort of their home.

Not everyone wants or has time for a high-intensity weight-loss treatment.”

Professor Bennett said:

“We have very strong evidence that consistent tracking — particularly of diet, but also one’s weight — is an essential element of successful weight loss.

Consumers should look for apps that make it easy for them to track on a consistent basis.”

The study was published in the journal JMIR mHealth and uHealth (Patel et al., 2019).

The diet helps people control their blood sugar more effectively.

Going on a vegan diet accelerates weight loss and reduces harmful belly fat, research suggests.

People following a plant-based, vegan diet for 16 weeks lost an average of over 12 pounds, including almost 9 pounds of fat mass and belly fat.

More fibre is the most critical element of the diet, researchers think.

Plant-based diets contain plenty of fibre which helps to boost healthy bacteria in the gut.

The study included 147 overweight people who were randomised to a vegan diet or no change for 16 weeks.

The results revealed that a vegan diet reduced weight significantly.

A vegan diet also helped people control their blood sugar more effectively.

The study’s authors write:

“A 16-week low-fat vegan dietary intervention induced changes in gut microbiota that were related to changes in weight, body composition and insulin sensitivity in overweight adults.”

The diet also increased the health of the gut.

People with a greater abundance of critical healthy bacteria in the gut lost more weight.

Bacteria that a vegan diet boosts include Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Bacteroides fragilis.

The authors conclude:

“A plant-based diet has been shown to be effective in weight management, and in diabetes prevention and treatment.

We have demonstrated that a plant-based diet elicited changes in gut microbiome that were associated with weight loss, reduction in fat mass and visceral fat volume, and increase in insulin sensitivity.”

Fibre is the key to weight loss and a healthy gut, the authors write:

“The main shift in the gut microbiome composition was due to an increased relative content of short-chain fatty acid producing bacteria that feed on fibre.

Therefore, high dietary fibre content seems to be essential for the changes observed in our study.”

The study was presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Barcelona, Spain (Kahleova et al., 2019).

There are only a handful of weight loss supplements that work.

Low-fat dairy, fibre and green tea are the best supplements for weight loss, research finds.

Soluble fibres, like those in beans, vegetables and fruits, improve weight loss and reduce belly fat by reducing appetite.

The caffeine and flavonoids contained in green tea help to speed up the metabolism and process fat more quickly.

Vitamin D and calcium are present in relatively high levels in dairy products.

Low levels of calcium are frequently linked to obesity and vitamin D helps in the absorption of calcium.

The conclusions come from research that examined multiple studies carried out on supplements for weight loss.

Professor Melinda Manore, the study’s author, said that while supplements can help, making dietary changes is critical:

“For most people, unless you alter your diet and get daily exercise, no supplement is going to have a big impact.

I don’t know how you eliminate exercise from the equation.

The data is very strong that exercise is crucial to not only losing weight and preserving muscle mass, but keeping the weight off.”

Increasing protein intake may also be effective, along with these three changes, Professor Manore said:

“Adding fiber, calcium, protein and drinking green tea can help.

But none of these will have much effect unless you exercise and eat fruits and vegetables.”

The research looked at a variety of weight loss supplements including appetite suppressants and caffeine, but few were effective, the study concluded.

Professor Manore said:

“What people want is to lose weight and maintain or increase lean tissue mass.

There is no evidence that any one supplement does this.

And some have side effects ranging from the unpleasant, such as bloating and gas, to very serious issues such as strokes and heart problems.”

The study was published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism (Manore et al., 2012).

How changing the timing of meals can boost weight loss.

Changing when meals are eaten can be enough to double weight loss, multiple studies have found.

The simplest weight loss option is to shift calorie consumption to earlier in the day.

Eating more calories for breakfast and less in the evening is linked to weight loss.

Unfortunately, the modern trend in society is to eat smaller breakfasts and larger evening meals, which is linked to weight gain.

A related weight loss approach is to delay breakfast and eat an earlier supper — compressing eating into the middle of the day.

One study told people they could eat what they liked between a breakfast delayed by 90 minutes and a supper eaten 90 minutes early.

The results showed they lost double the body fat, despite not being on any specific diet or changing their lifestyle in any other way.

Eating earlier also helps to improve sleep and blood sugar levels.

A recent review of studies concluded that people tend to eat more of their daily calories in the evening than ever before — a worldwide trend that is leading to weight gain.

Dr Gerda Pot, study co-author:

“There seems to be some truth in the saying ‘Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper’, however, this warrants further investigation.

Whilst we have a much better understanding today of what we should be eating, we are still left with the question as to which meal should provide us with the most energy.

Although the evidence suggests that eating more calories later in the evening is associated with obesity, we are still far from understanding whether our energy intake should be distributed equally across the day or whether breakfast should contribute the greatest proportion of energy, followed by lunch and dinner.”

The study was published in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society (Almoosawi et al., 2016).

The best pieces of advice from people who have successfully maintained their weight loss.

People who have lost weight and managed to keep it off report that there are four main strategies that help them achieve their goal.

First, people kept themselves motivated to lose weight by thinking about the improvement in their appearance and second the medical benefits they were gaining.

Third, weight-loss maintainers persevered despite setbacks and, fourth, they continued to track food intake and weight.

Professor Suzanne Phelan, the study’s first author, said:

“One of the most impressive findings was how weight-loss maintainers described perseverance in the face of setbacks.

Weight-loss maintainers saw setbacks as part of their successful journey.

Setbacks were not described as failures.

They were seen as a temporary interruption in their path.

Many weight-loss maintainers described getting back on track at the next meal or the next day and measuring overall success based on long-term goals.”

Stay motivated

The conclusions come from a study of over 6,000 members of Weight Watchers who had lost over 50 pounds, on average, and kept it off for over 3 years.

For the study, participants were asked about their motivations and strategies related to weight loss.

Four of the biggest themes were:

• Appearance concerns: people felt motivated by their sense of shame and disgust after looking at themselves in the mirror, along with embarrassment when trying to buy clothes.
• Medical health: weight loss maintainers were motivated by the fear of diabetes, heart conditions and other medical problems related to obesity.
• Perseverance: weight-loss maintainers described their journeys as being like, “a long marathon with individual victories and setbacks,” requiring “great perseverance.”
• Tracking: weight-loss maintainers said continuing to track weight and food intake was central to success.

Fear of going back

One of the most important ways that people motivated themselves was by looking back.

Here is a quote from one anonymous weight-loss maintainer:

“What motivates me is the thought of gaining all that weight back and the negative impact it would have on me.

I don’t know if I would have the energy to start over.

It is better for me to stay within a couple pounds of goal weight and take it off when necessary.”

And another said:

“Fear of going back to the way I was and throwing all these years down the tubes.

It took me too many years to reach goal and it was a hard road.”

Again, appearance was a big motivator, said many, such as this person:

“How I feel physically and how I look physically.

I love being able to do whatever activities I choose to and my boundless energy.

I feel physically beautiful again and I love buying clothes!

Looking at my before pictures keeps me humble, recalling my “non-scale-victories” keeps me motivated daily.”

The biggest rewards

The biggest rewards people described from weight loss were major improvements in:

• confidence,
• pain,
• mobility,
• body image,
• and mental and physical health.

Some negative points were unexpected criticism, clothing costs and sagging skin.

The study was published in the journal Obesity (Phelan et al., 2022).

Low calorie sweeteners are supposed to help people lose weight, but do they?

Low calorie sweeteners are supposed to help people lose weight, but they are actually contributing to type 2 diabetes and weight gain, a review of different studies reveals.

Low calorie sweeteners are consumed as a substitute to simple sugars including sucrose, glucose and fructose or fruit sugar.

The artificial sweeteners market is growing fast and is expected to reach $2.2 billion in 2020.

Despite the marketing that artificial sweeteners provides fewer calories and so lead to weight loss, consumers are more likely to gain weight.

According to Professor Peter Clifton, the lead author of this study, in the past 20 years, consumption of low calorie sweeteners has increased by 200 percent among children and 54 percent among adults.

However, recent studies show that low calorie sweeteners can have several harmful effects on the human body.

For example, a study suggests that artificial sweeteners have an appetite-stimulating effect on the brain, causing people to eat more.

Another study over seven years on 5,158 American adults found that people who had a high intake of artificial sweeteners put on more weight compared to nonusers.

Professor Clifton said:

“Consumers of artificial sweeteners do not reduce their overall intake of sugar.

They use both sugar and low-calorie sweeteners and may psychologically feel they can indulge in their favourite foods.

Artificial sweeteners also change the gut bacteria which may lead to weight gain and risk of type 2 diabetes.”

Although it is not clear why, artificially sweetened beverages have been shown to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, dementia, and death.

Professor Clifton and his team reviewed 13 studies in which they suggest an association between artificially sweetened beverages and the risk of type 2 diabetes.

One study found that changing from artificially sweetened beverages to natural fruit juice would reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by 7 percent.

Professor Clifton concluded:

“A better option than low-calorie sweeteners is to stick to a healthy diet, which includes plenty of whole grains, dairy, seafood, legumes, vegetables and fruits and plain water.”

The study was published in Current Atherosclerosis Reports (Kim et al., 2019).

The drink can boost weight loss without exercise or changing diet.

Apple cider vinegar can boost weight loss without exercise or changing diet, research finds.

People in one study who added two teaspoons of vinegar to their diet per day lost weight.

They achieved this without making any other changes to their diet or doing more exercise.

The vinegar also led to lower levels of triglycerides, which is an indicator of better heart health.

Whether or not the vinegar is of the apple cider variety, probably makes little difference.

To make the vinegar more palatable, it can simply be stirred into a glass of water, or any other drink, to help reduce the sharp taste.

Alternatively, it can be drizzled on a salad, added to a smoothie or used to add zest to another food.

Other benefits of vinegar include that it may lower blood pressure and help inhibit the spiking of blood sugar after eating.

For the study, 175 people in Japan were split into three groups.

One acted as a control and ate their normal diet, another group added a single teaspoon of vinegar per day, while a third added two teaspoons per day.

The results showed that after 12 weeks, those who had added two teaspoons had lost between 2 to 4 pounds in weight.

They also had lower triglyceride levels.

The other two groups did not lose significant amounts of weight.

The study’s authors conclude:

“The present study is the first to demonstrate that vinegar reduces body weight, BMI, and body fat mass in obese Japanese subjects.

Furthermore, continuous vinegar intake was found to lower serum triglyceride levels.”

Animal studies have previously found that acetic acid, the main component of vinegar, can reduce body fat.

The authors write of vinegar’s other benefits:

“Vinegar has a very long history, going back to Babylonia in 5,000 BC.

We have found that intake of vinegar lowers blood pressure, improves hypercholesterolemia, and inhibits postprandial hyperglycemia.”

The study was published in the journal Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry (Kondo et al., 2009).