A calorie is a calorie, you might think. Yet it matters from what kind of nutrients you get your calories. A diet that avoids fat puts your metabolism at a much lower level than a diet with as few sugars or carbohydrates as possible.
Diets are difficult. But staying on weight after a diet is at least as difficult. One of the reasons for this is that your body jumps into a kind of more economical state because of the diet. Your cells then consume less energy, regardless of what you do. This is convenient in times of food scarcity. But in today's Western society there is no shortage, but abundance. All the food you eat but that your body does not consume is converted into fat. And that fat storage goes faster if your metabolism is in a more economical state.
That is what you want to avoid. Now you can lose weight in many different ways. Do all these methods also have a similar effect on your metabolism? An article in the journal JAMA of this week answers this question. In short, it is: no.
According to the American authors of the article, their research is the first to look at the effect of different dietary forms on the energy management of your body. Cara Ebbeling and her colleagues selected 21 young test subjects, between 18 and 40 years old, who, besides being overweight, were otherwise healthy. They all had to lose 10 to 15 percent of their body weight first, by eating significantly less. Then they were put on a specific diet for four weeks. And that three times, with three different diets.
The diets were based on a tactic that is very popular in the modern diet world: deleting a certain nutrient largely from your diet. For example, the famous Atkins diet revolves around eating as few carbohydrates as possible. Trying to get as little fat as possible is also a well-known waste method. And also avoid sugar. It was these three strategies that were used by the American researchers.
After the four-week periods, all sorts of physical characteristics were measured in the subjects, including how much energy they consumed at rest, how much energy they consumed throughout the day, and all sorts of substances were looked at in their blood and urine. Because all subjects followed all three diets once, in random order, they formed their own control group. For example, it could be excluded that the apparent effects of a particular diet did not come through that diet, but were left to the individual.
Although the participants had exactly the same amount of calories with each diet, the different diet forms clearly had a different effect on their metabolism. A diet in which fat is avoided appeared to be least favorable. This put the metabolism at a very low level. After a few weeks of following this diet, the subjects at rest consumed about 67 kilocalories less than the most favorable diet for the metabolism. The total difference in energy consumption was around 300 kilocalories per day. So the subjects ate and moved as much as during the other two dietary forms. The lower energy consumption occurred purely because their bodies jumped into an extra efficient mode. In order to get rid of those 300 kilocalories that their bodies now consume less per day, for example, the subjects had to exercise moderately intensively for one hour every day.
In other respects too little fat food turned out to be not very beneficial. After this diet, the subjects had more substances in their blood that are associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. If you want to stay slim and healthy, this is the least favorable choice among the three dietary forms. Avoiding carbohydrates had the most favorable effect on the basal energy consumption. If you only pay attention to this, this would be the most favorable diet form of the three. But there was a snake in the grass. Unlike the other two diets, the subjects made extra stress hormone cortisol during the period that they avoided carbohydrates. And prolonged exposure to cortisol entails various health risks. This increases your chances - there they are again - diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Moreover, it can provoke obesity.
Remains: the diet form in which you leave sugar on the left. This diet took a middle position in many ways. It does put your body in a slightly more economical state, so you use less energy and therefore arrive easier than someone with a normal (faster) metabolism. But it put the metabolism at a lower level than a diet without fat. And, unlike the low-carbohydrate diet, it did not result in a significant increase in the production of stress hormones. In short: do you want to stay slim? then let the candy, the cookies and the cake stand from now on.
Diets are difficult. But staying on weight after a diet is at least as difficult. One of the reasons for this is that your body jumps into a kind of more economical state because of the diet. Your cells then consume less energy, regardless of what you do. This is convenient in times of food scarcity. But in today's Western society there is no shortage, but abundance. All the food you eat but that your body does not consume is converted into fat. And that fat storage goes faster if your metabolism is in a more economical state.
That is what you want to avoid. Now you can lose weight in many different ways. Do all these methods also have a similar effect on your metabolism? An article in the journal JAMA of this week answers this question. In short, it is: no.
According to the American authors of the article, their research is the first to look at the effect of different dietary forms on the energy management of your body. Cara Ebbeling and her colleagues selected 21 young test subjects, between 18 and 40 years old, who, besides being overweight, were otherwise healthy. They all had to lose 10 to 15 percent of their body weight first, by eating significantly less. Then they were put on a specific diet for four weeks. And that three times, with three different diets.
The diets were based on a tactic that is very popular in the modern diet world: deleting a certain nutrient largely from your diet. For example, the famous Atkins diet revolves around eating as few carbohydrates as possible. Trying to get as little fat as possible is also a well-known waste method. And also avoid sugar. It was these three strategies that were used by the American researchers.
After the four-week periods, all sorts of physical characteristics were measured in the subjects, including how much energy they consumed at rest, how much energy they consumed throughout the day, and all sorts of substances were looked at in their blood and urine. Because all subjects followed all three diets once, in random order, they formed their own control group. For example, it could be excluded that the apparent effects of a particular diet did not come through that diet, but were left to the individual.
Although the participants had exactly the same amount of calories with each diet, the different diet forms clearly had a different effect on their metabolism. A diet in which fat is avoided appeared to be least favorable. This put the metabolism at a very low level. After a few weeks of following this diet, the subjects at rest consumed about 67 kilocalories less than the most favorable diet for the metabolism. The total difference in energy consumption was around 300 kilocalories per day. So the subjects ate and moved as much as during the other two dietary forms. The lower energy consumption occurred purely because their bodies jumped into an extra efficient mode. In order to get rid of those 300 kilocalories that their bodies now consume less per day, for example, the subjects had to exercise moderately intensively for one hour every day.
In other respects too little fat food turned out to be not very beneficial. After this diet, the subjects had more substances in their blood that are associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. If you want to stay slim and healthy, this is the least favorable choice among the three dietary forms. Avoiding carbohydrates had the most favorable effect on the basal energy consumption. If you only pay attention to this, this would be the most favorable diet form of the three. But there was a snake in the grass. Unlike the other two diets, the subjects made extra stress hormone cortisol during the period that they avoided carbohydrates. And prolonged exposure to cortisol entails various health risks. This increases your chances - there they are again - diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Moreover, it can provoke obesity.
Remains: the diet form in which you leave sugar on the left. This diet took a middle position in many ways. It does put your body in a slightly more economical state, so you use less energy and therefore arrive easier than someone with a normal (faster) metabolism. But it put the metabolism at a lower level than a diet without fat. And, unlike the low-carbohydrate diet, it did not result in a significant increase in the production of stress hormones. In short: do you want to stay slim? then let the candy, the cookies and the cake stand from now on.
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