The best way to lose weight: low-fat diet vs low-carb diet?

Searching for the best way to lose weight? What is the best fat loss diet plan?

“Eat a low-fat diet and cut calories” — this is the endorsed unified message of the mainstream groups such as the American Dietetic Association.

How can you lose weight with a low-fat diet?

The fundamental principle of weight loss is that you have to consume less calories to create a shortage of calories so that your body has to start utilizing its fat stores to release extra calories to make up for the deficit.

Of all the nutrients, fat is the most energy-loaded. Each gram of fat contains 9 calories (while alcohol contains 7 calories per gram). Therefore reducing fat in your diet (and reducing alcohol as well) is an easy way to cut your calories consumption, thus forcing your body to utilize its fat stores, and thus resulting to your weight loss.

But this low-fat low-calories approach draws thumbs down from numerous dieting experts who recommend cutting down on carbohydrates with high-protein low-carbohydrate diets instead.

How does a high-protein low-carb diet help you lose weight?

(1) Proponents of high-protein low-carb diets believe that you will find it easier to reduce your overall calorie consumption when you go on low-carb diets. This is because low-carb diets give you a limited choice of food that you can eat. You usually get more than half of your daily calories from carbohydrates (eg bread, rice, cereals, pasta, milk, sweets and most fruit). Therefore, when you use a low-carb diet, you limit or avoid carbohydrates, thus reducing your calorie intake significantly, which in turn leads to weight loss.

(2) You eat more protein but less carbohydrates, and this makes you feel fuller because protein takes longer to digest, and therefore less likely to consume more calories.

The battle

Low-fat diet supporters claim that low-carbohydrate diets cannot cause weight loss effectively, and even can be unsafe. Low-carbohydrate diet proponents retaliate similarly. This war of words has been ongoing.

Which is the winner?

The Journal of the American Medical Association (”JAMA”) published an article (by Bravata, Sanders and Huang) suggests the following:

(a) neither diet has a strong case,

(b) there is no consistent evidence to support the claim that a low-fat diet makes it easier to lose weight than a low-carb diet, or vice versa,

So, you believe these findings? But wait, this article was published in 2003. In the same year, Dr Samaha in his Low Carb Diet Study report criticized the shortcomings of the JAMA article’s findings.

Samaha asserted that most of the studies reviewed by the Bravata Survey were too small to produce meaningful data, and that it did not compare the low-carb diet to a traditional low-fat diet. He said studies with more participants, over longer periods of time, were needed to gauge the true effects of low-carbohydrate versus low-fat eating, especially on the risk of heart attack.

So, where does this leave us? Should you follow the low-fat diet or low-carb diet?

Well, interestingly, in January 2008 The American Diabetes Association (ADA) issued its annual Clinical Practice Recommendations which include a statement acknowledging that low-carbohydrate diet and low-fat diet were equally effective for losing weight in the short term (up to one year).

Well, does that settle the debate between the two groups of proponents?

How should you choose your weight loss diet plan then?

Given the current state of knowledge and information, it seems that the most sensible thing to do is to experiment with different diets until you find the one that helps you lose weight most quickly and effectively.

Here’s a tip for you: to lose weight fast, you must consume all 3 types of calories, viz. protein, carbohydrate and fat calories, in the optimal proportions. But unfortunately most dieters don’t know the correct proportions of calories, and therefore fail in their weight loss campaigns.

The good news is: this brand new type of diet tells you how. Click here to get your new fast weight loss steps: