Saturday
Dec192009
Sat, December 19, 2009 | by Lisa Barger Low-Carb Diets Increase "Rebound" Chances
Low-carb diets—those in which most of your daily calories come from protein or fat—were really popular not too long ago but as a new study confirms, they can also make it very easy to gain a lot of that weight back really quickly when the diet is over.
In this study, researchers put laboratory animals on either ordinary animal chow or on a special low-carb chow for 8 weeks. At the end of 8 weeks, the special-diet animals were put back on a diet of regular old chow.
What researchers found was that the special-diet animals lost weight and better controlled their blood sugar than the animals on regular chow. But after they were switched back to plain old food, those animals lost all the ground they had gained and actually ate far more than the animals who had been on the plain food all along.
What does this mean? Well, it’s more evidence that a diet that severely but temporarily restricts calories greatly increases your chance of a “rebound” effect. This may explain why some serial dieters gain back more weight than they lose with almost every attempt at dieting.
Now, it’s worth pointing out that you’re a human being—not a laboratory animal. This study obviously doesn’t take into consideration that fact that a truly determined person will use the diet period as time to re-think old eating habits. But we think that the potential “rebound” effect might be worth factoring into your dietary choices when it’s all over.
Source:
Honors, M., et al. (2009). Effects of consuming a high carbohydrate diet after eight weeks of exposure to a ketogenic diet. Nutrition & Metabolism.
In this study, researchers put laboratory animals on either ordinary animal chow or on a special low-carb chow for 8 weeks. At the end of 8 weeks, the special-diet animals were put back on a diet of regular old chow.
What researchers found was that the special-diet animals lost weight and better controlled their blood sugar than the animals on regular chow. But after they were switched back to plain old food, those animals lost all the ground they had gained and actually ate far more than the animals who had been on the plain food all along.
What does this mean? Well, it’s more evidence that a diet that severely but temporarily restricts calories greatly increases your chance of a “rebound” effect. This may explain why some serial dieters gain back more weight than they lose with almost every attempt at dieting.
Now, it’s worth pointing out that you’re a human being—not a laboratory animal. This study obviously doesn’t take into consideration that fact that a truly determined person will use the diet period as time to re-think old eating habits. But we think that the potential “rebound” effect might be worth factoring into your dietary choices when it’s all over.
Source:
Honors, M., et al. (2009). Effects of consuming a high carbohydrate diet after eight weeks of exposure to a ketogenic diet. Nutrition & Metabolism.
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