Low Fat Diets Work For Weight Loss

Low fat diets have been extremely popular over the past several decades. As of late there has been a trend to reduce carbohydrate consumption and increase dietary fats and proteins. This newer diet strategy has shown to be extremely effective in improving overall health, body composition, and performance. There has been some confusion lately regarding low fat diets as research studies are still ongoing that examine the efficacy of low fat/high carbohydrate diets for weight loss.

A lot of the confusion stems from the fact that low fat diets work when it comes to weight loss. That’s right. I said low fat diets work. But this shouldn’t be a surprise if you think about it because throughout the 80’s and 90’s bodybuilders all over the world got extrememly lean using low/no fat diets. The reason low fat diets work is because anytime you decrease a person’s caloric intake to a level significantly below their energy expenditure they will lose weight. It isn’t rocket science just simple math. The initial reason that dietary fat was restricted to elicit weight loss is because fat has more calories per gram than any of the other macronutrients (carbohdyrates or protein). Thus the thinking was that if you had to cut out 20grams of some nutrient then you should cut out fat as that would lead to the greatest decrease in calories.

However, the question should not be if low fat diets work but if they work the best? The answer to that is a resounding NO. Lowering your carbohydrate consumption and increasing your fat and protein intake yields a diet that is more effective at pulling fat off your body, preserving and building lean body mass, and improving health. Moderate carbohydrate, protein, fat diets also increase your level of satiety (you feel full longer), increase blood sugar control (yielding better weight loss), and improved compliance. Improved compliance is arguably the most significant benefit the more you stick to your plan, the better your plan will work.

Low fat (especially very low fat) diets are extremely restrictive and thus people don’t follow them. This fact was most evident in the findings from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Study. The WHI was a HUGE study that spanned almost a decade. In this study some women were put instructed to follow a low fat diet (<20% of calories from fat). In the grand scheme of low fat diets this isn’t even that low as Dean Ornish recommends <10% of calories from fat. At the end of the study the low fat group never reached their goal of <20% of calories from fat. Instead they consumed about 30% of calories from fat (down from 38%). The WHI showed that it is just not feasible to expect people to decrease their fat intake too much below 30%.

Are you having trouble sticking to your diet? If so is your diet on one of the extremes (high fat vs. low fat, high carb vs. low carb)? Remember the best diet is the one you can follow and people have the easiest time following a diet of moderation.