Discontinuous Diet Improves Weight Loss, Study Finds

Have you ever felt guilty for not sticking to a weight loss diet for more than a few weeks? I have good news for you. New research found that interrupting your diet for 2 weeks is actually a good thing! Not only does it help you lose more weight, it decreases the chances of regaining weight.

Forty five million Americans spend $33 billion on weight loss products every year. Obesity is a serious problem in the country where about two-thirds of the citizens are either overweight or obese.

Although weight regain after weight loss is a puzzling problem to many people, it is very common. Sometimes the weight people lost during their diet program comes back despite the fact they are still leading healthy lifestyles. This can be very frustrating as it takes away your motivation.

Problems in keeping the lost weight off have even been widely observed in participants of the reality weight loss show, "World's Biggest Loser". A study based on the show's 14 former contestants, who had managed to lose 125 pounds on average, revealed that 13 of them had regained most of the weight they had lost during the show. In fact, their bodies fought to gain the weight back within only a few years after the contestants left the show.

Why People Regain Weight

Blame it to BMR! Also called Basic Metabolic Rate, this health parameter reflects how much energy your body needs to sustain itself in a 24-hour period while at rest. When your BMR is high, you burn more calories obviously, even if you are sleeping.

Unfortunately, when you go on a diet and lose weight, your body reduces its BMR, which means you burn less calories while resting than you used to before you started the diet. Scientists believe that human body developed this mechanism to protect our species from starvation when facing long periods of famine. But while this biological reaction was lifesaving a few thousand years ago, today it is responsible for the difficulty we have to lose excess weight and keep it off. If there was a way we could maintain our BMR even after losing weight, this alone would allow us to achieve sustainable weight loss results.

But that is not the only problem weight watchers have to grapple with. The body increases appetite after losing some weight as a way to encourage you to regain the weight you have lost. A study has even quantified the problem. It found that for every 2 pounds you lose, you will get an urge to consume 100 more calories daily than you did previously.

This increase in appetite, and hence the increase in calorie consumption, paired with the decrease in metabolic rate, is what causes people to regain the pounds they lost during their spirited weight loss efforts.

What the Research Uncovered

Studies on intermittent dieting have been conducted in the past, but none had shown that this weight loss mode had any noteworthy impact on weight loss results. A previous study showed that a 1-week break while dieting had nothing worth writing home about as far as improved weight loss results was concerned.

But the current study shows that a rest period of 2-weeks makes a world of difference when it comes to resolving the weight regain issue. In fact, these breaks also significantly improve weight loss results.

Which is why the researchers also concluded that continuous dieting could be the reason why many dieters cannot lose weight or keep it off. So, dieters need not feel guilty for cheating on their diet once in a while. If anything, they should do it more often, but in the manner prescribed here of course.

The study was published in the International Journal of Obesity. It involved 51 men of between 25 and 54 years. The men were separated into two groups. One group went on a continuous 16-week diet while the other was instructed to follow two weeks of the same diet followed by two weeks of rest until they attained 16 weeks of dieting.

Therefore, by the end of the study, all the participants had spent 16 weeks dieting. The results showed that those who took breaks between the diets lost more weight. Furthermore, after 6 months, the men who dieted intermittently maintained a weight loss that was 8 kilograms higher than that of their counterparts.

"So, if you are dieting, take 2 weeks out", says Lisa who lost over 50 lbs going on and off the popular Nutrisystem diet. Not only did this strategy help her lose more weight, it allowed her to keep it off.

Interval Weight Loss Works

This study, and others like it, have inspired the book, "Interval Weight Loss" by Dr. Fuller. Released recently, the book explains why the key to greater and sustainable weight loss lies in intermittent dieting.

When you lose weight suddenly due to continuous dieting, your body remembers where you started from. Therefore, once you get off the diet and start eating enough calories, it will work to get you back to that weight level.

However, when you lose a bit of weight and take a break from the diet, the body does not bother to recover this weight since the loss does not register as a health crisis that your body needs to resolve once it gets the chance. By repeating this process, as you go through several cycles of diets and breaks, your body will not have the urge to recover the lost weight, which means the weight loss will be more sustainable.

So, if you lose 4 pounds in two weeks, you should use the other two weeks to rest and maintain that weight loss. Then you can use the subsequent 14 days to lose another 4 poinds before taking a second break. This book also contains meal plans, great recipes and other tips overweight and obese people can use to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way.