Did the Surgeon General Get It Wrong About Weight? By Heidi Dulay, Ed.D., N.C.
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Massive reviews of the research reveal the miserable results of low-calorie diets:

Literature Reviews

1. Weight loss less than 5 lbs after 6, 12, 18  months
Weight loss from low calorie diets “was so small as to be clinically insignificant” The average weight loss after 6, 12 and 18 months on either low-calorie or low-fat diets was less than 5 lbs.

- Pirozzo S et al. (Cochrane Collaboration), 2002
12 studies from MEDLINE, EMBASE and
Science Citation Index

2. Average loss: 9 lbs after 6 months
Overweight people who ate less than 1700 calories per day averaged weight loss of 9 lbs over 6 months.

– USHHS and USDA, 2001. 20 studies

Gluttony is not the problem.1

“Most studies comparing normal and overweight people suggest that those who are overweight eat fewer calories than those of normal weight.”

- National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, 1989

Calorie counting is the problem!  Consider the awful side effects of low calorie dieting:

Side Effects of Low-Calorie Dieting

  1. Constant hunger
  2. Craving for sweets and snacks
  3. Loss of sex drive
  4. Weakness or pain during physical activity
  5. Lower metabolism (up to 30% lower) causing quick weight gain after dieting
  6. Feeling cold despite a lot of clothing
  7. Inability to concentrate
  8. Slower reflexes
  9. Loss of ambition, narrowing of interests
  10. Depression and irritability        

These observations were made in two of the most meticulous experiments ever done on weight loss – studies of healthy young men who had volunteered to be guinea pigs in the calorie-restriction studies.2

The first five side effects were also the most common obstacles mentioned in our recent casual survey of 100 people who were interested in a new weight loss program.

  1. and neither is laziness.  More about that in another paper.  See Taubes, 2007, for evidence that exercise is not the answer to overweight either.
  2. (Francis Benedict, 1917, director of the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Nutrition Laboratory; and Ancel Keys, 1944, at the University of Minnesota, who replicated Benedict’s study over 6 months.)

Did the Surgeon General Get It Wrong About Weight? By Heidi Dulay, Ed.D., N.C.
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