Does Counting Calories Really Work?

Everywhere, dietary gurus - medical doctors, dieticians, nutritional consultants, popular press, and other advocates of “politically correct” nutrition - parrot each other that the only sure method to lose weight successfully includes counting calories, exercising, and embracing low-fat, high-fibre dietary regime, similar to that outlined in the USDA Food Guide Pyramid. The theory of dietary calories is undoubtedly the corner-stone of the mainstream approach to weight loss. However, calorie restricting as a way to slimness has been widely criticized not only by numerous honest researchers, but also by those who have ever tried to lose weight by counting calories and restricting the amount of high-calorie foods, especially fats. The result of such diets is usually humbling - after the initial stage of modest weight loss, dieters gain back all the lost pounds plus “interest” - a famous “yo-yo effect” of low-calorie diets.

“Politically correct” approach to dieting has been successfully challenged since the mid of the 19th century, when W. Banting published his famous book “Letters on Corpulence”. The modern controversy of low-carb diets is in their complete rejection of the theory of calories. Although critics of Dr. Atkins’ or Dr. Bernstein’s dietary plans (or the natural diets of Eskimos and Masai) claim that weight loss on low-carb diets is achieved because people consume fewer calories (since all-meat diet is “extremely boring”), many researchers insist that low-carb foodies eat much more calories yet lose more weight than conventional dieters.

Recently, scientists from Harvard have conducted two studies that looked at the effectiveness of low-carb, high-calorie diets as opposed to low-fat, low-calorie diets in their relation to weight loss. These pilot studies, conducted by Dr. Green’s team of Harvard researchers, show that calorie restriction is not what makes people lose weight successfully.

In the course of the first study, dieters on a low-carb, high-fat diet lost twice as much weight as dieters on a low-fat, low-calorie diet.

In the course of the second study, overweight, middle-aged dieters were divided into three groups: a low-fat, calorie-restricted group; a low-carb, calorie-restricted groups; and a low-carb group that consumed liberal amounts of calories. After a four-month period, it was estimated that the average subject of the latter group had consumed at least 25,000 calories more than a dieter on a calorie-restricted regime. If the theory of calories was correct, the dieter from the third group should have lost about seven pounds less than that of the first two groups. However, the subjects of all three groups lost approximately the same amount of weight.

The results of these research, which were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, clearly indicate that calorie limitation is not the only method to lose unwanted poundage. Moreover, dietary regime that restricts carbohydrates but allows unlimited calories is proven as the most effective and comfortable way to lose weight. Once again, Atkins is vindicated.

Kim Suffolk

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