The New York Times posted an article last February titled “The Key to Weight Loss Is Diet Quality, Not Quantity, a New Study Finds”. Our first response was to wonder why it took the New York Times (NYT), and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), who produced the study, so long to arrive at a solution that we’ve been offering our clients all along.
It also made us wonder if they didn’t think that healthy eating was a key to weight loss, what were they thinking? Their key to weight loss is missing the point of weight loss! To keep it off.
On the plus side, two leading institutions finally have come to their senses about weight loss. For the rest of us, there’s the realization that cutting calories are probably the worst way to healthily and sustainably lose weight.
Why Diet Quality is the Key to Weight Loss
It’s true that if we overeat, we’ll take in more calories than we burn and the extra calories will be stored as fat. But, things like emotional eating aside, it’s not like some of us simply want to eat more than others. There’s something that causes us to overeat.
Empty Calories.
Empty calories are those we get from foods with little or no nutritional value. Like pop; regular and diet. Or cake, chips, candy, crackers, and pie.
Generally, any foods that are high in sugar or other sweeteners, or high in fats and oils, give us too many empty calories.
When your body gets empty calories, two things happen. The food is quickly metabolized into energy. But if you don’t burn that energy, you guessed it, it gets stored as fat.
The second thing that happens when you eat too many empty calories is that your body realizes it didn’t get the nutrition it needs, so it tells you to eat more.
And that’s a major cause of overeating.
But when you eat a balanced diet of good quality, nutritious foods without as many empty calories, your body gets what it needs and doesn’t force you to overeat.
And that’s why the NYT and the JAMA says that the key to weight loss is diet quality, not quantity.
The One Problem with the JAMA Study
When you look at the total amount of weight loss on average for the study participants after one year, which is between 11 and 13 pounds, you might see a problem.
If you are like most people who want to lose weight, you’re probably a little more than 11 or 13 pounds overweight. You might want or need to lose 20, 40, 60 or more pounds.
The nutritional consultants at your local Herbal One Centre can help you lose the amount of weight you want while eating a healthy diet of quality foods. Call or visit today.