Fad Diets Don't Help With Weight Loss, Consuming Less Calories Does

Diets involving intermittent fasting don't really help an individual lose their weight quicker than a regular diet, reveals a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Bath.

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The study (published in Science Translational Medicine) was led by Professor James Betts, Director of the Centre for Nutrition and Exercise and Metabolism at the aforementioned institution.

In the study, the team tested volunteers practising intermittent fasting (although not a specific kind of intermittent fasting). They allocated 36 participants into one of the three groups. Group 1 fasted on alternate days. The day after the fasting showed the individuals eat 50 percent more than they would normally eat every day.

Group 2, on the other hand, was a proxy for traditional dieting where they observed reduced caloric intake across all means, every day by 25 percent.

Group 3, on the other hand, fasted on alternate days, just like group 1, however, the day after the fast day, the group would consume 100 percent more than they would normally eat every day.

Participants from these groups were consuming a typical diet of around 2,000 to 2,500 kilocalories every day on average in the beginning of the study. However, after three weeks of constant monitoring, group 1 and 2 showed a reduction in calorie intake between 1,500 to 2,000 kilocalories on average. Group 3 however, was fasting without any reduction in overall caloric intake.

In the end, the results showed that group 2 -- the group without intermittent fasting, lost 1.9 kilograms in just 3 weeks. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scans revealed that loss of body fat content resulted in these weight drops.

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On the other hand, the first group which saw a similar reduction in caloric intake, due to eating 50 percent more after the fasting day, saw a loss of 1.6 kilograms of weight. However, surprisingly only half of the weight loss came from body fat, the remaining half was due to muscle mass. Group 3 however had the most negligent weight loss.

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Betts explains, ¡°Many people believe that diets based on fasting are especially effective for weight loss or that these diets have particular metabolic health benefits even if you don't lose weight. But intermittent fasting is no magic bullet and the findings of our experiment suggest that there is nothing special about fasting when compared with more traditional, standard diets people might follow.¡±

He added, ¡°If you are following a fasting diet it is worth thinking about whether prolonged fasting periods is actually making it harder to maintain muscle mass and physical activity levels, which are known to be very important factors for long-term health.¡±