Atkins Fares Best in Study Of Four Weight-Loss Regimens

[Allen Yeh]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...030601166.html

So in this "study" over the course of a year these 311 women lost:

10.4 pounds - Atkins
5.7 pounds - LEARN
4.9 pounds - Ornish
3.5 pounds - The Zone

At a glance this seems to be a vindication for Atkins and it may well be but the on further reading the article it seems like the guidelines around the study weren't well defined. Anyone find a link to this study? I can find a previous one that compared Atkins, Ornish, WW and Zone but not this one.

"All the participants reported eating about 2,000 calories a day when the study began. All also reported having cut their intake -- some by as much as 500 calories per day at two to six months -- but then gradually adding back many of those calories. But as researchers noted, if participants ate as little as they said, all the groups would have lost much more weight."

In another article I found about this:
"
Barry Sears, who developed the Zone diet, criticized the study as "bad science," saying details show the participants did not really follow the diet rules.

"The execution basically was fairly pathetic at best so the conclusions are jaded," he said in an interview. The way people followed the Atkins diet in the study, he said, is actually closer to the Zone's principles.

Study author Gardner, however, said one of the strengths of the $2 million project was that it mimicked real-world conditions, with participants preparing or buying all their own meals and not everyone following the diets exactly."

While I can see how that might be a strength I still think that's a somewhat shady way of conducting a study that compares 4 different diets/products. If I wanted to do a study on comparing weight loss through, diet alone, diet + Crossfit, diet+steadystate cardio....etc but then the people that were suppose to be in one group didn't follow the guidelines....how valid is that study????

[Danny John]

I think the single best part of the study is the fact that the researchers went "real world." I'm sure that anyone diet...any diet...works in the right setting. At discus camp, I have athletes eat three meals a day and throw four full...long...sessions a day. At the end of the week, they are little throwing machines.

So, in a camp setting...which Ornish uses for his research (as I understand it), things go well for any diet. If we got together 200 athletes and did the V Diet together, it would be outstanding...our LDLs would crash as a group.

Real world is the key here. I have always thought that if someone actually read Atkins...the book, not want Mom's hairdresser thought the book might have said from a friend whose brother did his own adaption of Atkins from what he thinks he read at a website from a guy who adapted Atkins...it is quite real life friendly.

A noted nutritionist, who I refuse to name, but I will give a pseudonym, Bobbb Lonecougar, once told me the great secret of the Zone:
1. Protein at every meal
2. Fiber at every meal
3. Take your damn fish oil capsules.

I honestly think that Robb's advice...sorry, Bobbb's...is still the single best answer to all this I have yet to see.

So, I agree wholeheartedlly that we need to have studies like this: real world is a huge issue in the obesity epidemic. Most diets I see and read are not life friendly.

[Ronnie Ashlock]

The most weight I have ever lost was on the Atkins diet. And it was the easiest fifty or so pounds I have ever lost. It was also the simplest transition in terms of eating I had ever made. The book makes a lot of sense, and the diet is easy (provided you actually follow it) - you are never, ever hungry on it. That was the key for me - satiety. I had no idea you could lose weight, enjoy what you ate, and not have food cravings or crazy hunger swings until I started doing the Atkins diet. Once I combined Atkins and exercise (in my ignorance I was just a runner - wish I had done more lifting early on), the pounds dropped off.

Funnily, I had people telling me I was wrecking my health as they drank five soft drinks a day and ate candy bars and ice cream. I could never understand why eating lean meats and vegetables and a little fruit while eliminating potatoes and bread would "ruin your kidneys" until I realized they equated Atkins with "you eat a pack of hot dogs with bacon." Or, they thought you stay on the induction phase the whole time. They had never read the book or done any research whatsoever into what the diet really advocated. It is probably one of the most maligned diets out there simply because of all the lame misinformation that is spread by people who don't have their facts straight.

[Mike ODonnell]

People who claim to follow a diet...are lucky if they even read the book...but usually make up their own version which will of course not work....another book isn't going to the answer...as there are plenty of books already if people actually followed them they would see results....