Why Most Diets Don’t Work

Posted: February 14th, 2011 | Author: Dr. Bill Stillwell | No Comments »

Today, I learned about a study done a couple of years ago, called
the A to Z weight loss trial. I had never heard of it, even though I
try and get my hands on as much weight loss information as possible.

In this study, over 300 female Lardassians were recruited, to follow
one of the many popular diet programs, much like the ones you can
find at Ediets.

Each woman was given “coaching,” before she started her diet, which
included 8 classroom sessions, so that she would know what she was
doing. (Nothing complicated, right?)

Here’s what happened:

All the recruits lost a lot of weight in the first 60 days. Then the
results began to sag. And at the end of the one year trial, no diet
produced results averaging more than 10 pounds each, for the
recruits. Losing ten pounds in an entire year certainly isn’t
impressive and we know that only 2% of the recruits kept off the
weight they lost.

Most of the popular diets then…and now…are highly restrictive.
They tell you exactly what you can eat and how much. This drives
most people crazy, after a short time frame (60 days). So they cheat
and their weight loss slowly comes to a standstill.

What does that tell us?

What you ought to see is that the more rules and complications a
diet has, the lower it’s chance of success, over the long term.

What it boils down to is that you should find the most comfortable
way to reduce the total amount of calories that you put into the old
pie hole. Remember what I said a couple of weeks ago: the only way
to lose weight is to take in fewer calories than you have been, over
the long haul.

Many of us take in 4,000 calories a day. (I used to,but it’s nowhere
near that number today.) That’s 28,000 calories a week, or 112,000 a
month, 1,344,000 a year. To lose 1 pound a week, 4 pounds a month,
or 48 pounds in a year, you need to drop 500 calories a day, or
3,500 calories a week, 14,000 calories a month, or 168,000 calories
a year.

You can, of course, speed this up by doing regular exercise, if you
need to.

I have written a book about how I lost 55+ pounds and have kept it
off. You can get a copy by going here:

Click here

A few weeks ago, I repeated the words of a top pharmaceutical
executive researcher who said, “The single worst thing you can do to
yourself, in terms of health…is to be overweight. Being overweight
keeps the body in a constant state of inflammation, which leads to
all serious disease.”

So join me in melting off some lard and keeping it off. It could
lead to some horizontal bopping. I wrote a book about that, too:

Click here

I’ll be back tomorrow with more.

With my best wishes for your optimum health,

Dr. Bill

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