Key to weight loss success is finding a diet and sticking to it

It isn't the diet design that's bad, it's the inability of people to follow those diets.

• A new study has indicated that the success of a diet depends much more on whether you stay on it rather than what type of diet you are one, say researchers from the Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston, USA.
• You can read about this study in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association).
• In this study, led by Dr M Dansinger, 160 people were on a diet.
• They all had either hypertension or high cholesterol levels (they were all overweight).
• Some were on the Atkins, The Zone, Weight Watchers or the Ornish diet.
• The researchers monitored these people for a period of one year.
• At the end of a year the researchers assessed how much weight they had lost and whether (how much) their health problems had improved.
• All the diets showed similar cardiovascular and hypertension (blood pressure) benefits.
• All the diets showed similar success and failure rates (number of people who dropped out or stuck to it).
• Experts say that losing weight, keeping it off and staying (getting) healthy is a question of adopting a permanent lifestyle.
• The dieter has to adopt a lifestyle he/she can sustain for the rest of his/her life.
• Possibly, the greatest secret in losing weight, maintaining ideal body weight and staying/getting healthy is to do things in moderation.
• Eat too little and you will not be able to sustain it - when the diet breaks, all the weight comes back plus more.
• Other studies have shown that physical activity can be an even greater contributory factor to achieving good health and your ideal weight.
• Many people who exercise regularly enjoy good health, even if they are not too careful about what they eat.
• Of course, the ideal situation is to eat wisely and also take part in physical activity.