Many of us who struggle with weight gain and some extra pounds after holidays will remember mums or grandmothers who kept telling us losing weight is all about the will to give up your favourite foods or at the very least to eat less of them for a while. The belief that weight loss starts in your mind is in fact so strong that many people have quite negative preconceptions about the will of overweight people. Some evidence even highlights those preconceptions are formed very early in life, while I won’t argue that the will to change is necessary I know too well that there are many other aspects which will make weight loss successful and sustainable.
We already know that people who take part in regular exercise while losing weight are more likely to keep it off and that people who consciously chose healthy foods or write food diaries on a regular basis are usually more successful dieters. We also have good evidence that short term diet changes are commonly less effective in the long term because the weight quickly lost with crash diets is soon regained. Finally metabolic and genetic research has discovered many individual differences which may influence your weight loss independently of the environment.
While much research focuses on the effects of different foods to aid weight loss, this recent research looked into other factors which could make diets less successful. Scientists call these factors environmental factors and those are often overlooked in diet plans which tell us what foods to eat at what time and what quantities and this although most of you will agree with me that humans are social beings which act and interact with their environment at all times.
My previous blog investigated the possibilities of hypnotherapy to aid weight loss and one of the reasons why it might be a beneficial approach is that it takes our behaviour and our social environment into consideration and tries to build a set of behavioural responses to act on different diet threats. So the point I am trying to make is, while the type of foods you consume when trying to lose weight may be of importance your behaviour, the support your receive and in fact the complexity of the diet advice you need to follow will make or break your weight loss.
When German researchers questioned 390 women on two different diets over a period of eight weeks they found that women were more likely to stick to their diet if they were asked to follow simple instructions such as a shopping list, a meal plan and increasing their activity level. In this study the women who followed the ‘Brigitte diet’ (a diet promoted by a well know women magazine) lost on average more weight that women who followed the more complex yet more flexible weight watchers plan. The adherence or how well those women followed the diet regimes differed also significantly women on the ‘Brigitte diet’ followed the plan much more closely than the women who signed up for weight watchers.
Weight watchers assigns point values to foods and gives certain point allowances per day, whereas the ‘Brigitte diet’ gave clear meal plans, shopping lists and activity goals for each day/week the researchers suggest therefore that it was easier to follow the less complex ‘Brigitte diet’. In addition as this diet was easier to follow women adhered for longer periods, which led to the weight loss differences found in this study. Hence they concluded if diet plans are less complicated people find it easier to follow it for longer periods and will adhere more closely to the diet regimen, which in turn suggests a more sustained weight loss.