For those of you who have been following my blog posts about some of the popular diet plans out there, you may be wondering…. where does this leave you?!

To round out this discussion, I’d like to draw your attention to a recent meta-analysis of data in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which compared data on a wide range of weight loss diets of 3 months’ or longer duration.   They found that there was very little difference between the weight loss on each diet, on the order of a couple of pounds or less.

The point is that there is no one particular diet plan that works best for everyone – it is a matter of finding the diet plan that will work for you, on a permanent basis.  To engage in a temporary diet is most often pointless and often even a setback in the longterm, as most often these efforts result in weight regain (and then some) after the diet plan is stopped.

So, when you are looking at permanent lifestyle changes to make, ask yourself – are these changes that you can make and stick to for the rest of your life?  Finding the right personalized formula for you, to best answer this question, is key.  Bringing a nutritionist or dietitian on board can be helpful to get you set in the right direction.  Remember to speak with your family doctor before making any changes, particularly if you take medication to treat diabetes, or if you have any medical problems such as kidney or heart problems.

Follow me on twitter! @drsuepedersen

 

www.drsue.ca © 2015