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Health

06th Dec 2015

Science says there are only TWO diets that really work

Sive O'Brien

We’re all about healthy eating around here. Usually – not today, though, but usually. As a rule, we don’t advocate faddy, crash diets and believe in adopting a healthy eating lifestyle for you and your family. That’s not to say we haven’t done any…

A quick straw poll around the table has confirmed we have all followed some celeb or another and tried one of these diets over the years: The Dukan, Atkins, Paleo, Weight Watchers, Juice fasting – all in a last-ditch attempt to lose some weight before our weddings, someone else’s wedding or a holiday that called for an itty bitty bikini. Granted, most of these were tested out in our twenties when we gave a proper shit what we looked like. Since then, we’ve been too tired to deal with dieting because once kids come along, the mental and physical energy it takes to have some sense of order in our lives is just a bit, well, tiring.

So the brilliant news is, despite boiling cabbage and weighing foods and calculating calories, most fad diets just do not work. Don’t believe us? Scientists have actually tested this one out at the John Hopkins University. According to new research in the Annals of Internal Medicine which studied eleven weight loss programmes found that only two diets have been proven to help you lose weight and keep it off. And they were… drumroll: Weight watchers and Jenny Craig, and even these would only be recommended to obese women plus they produced only modest results and were not miracle workers at keeping the weight off.

It might be time to put down the Dukan book, hide your Paleo Pinterest boards and adopt a new-found love of just eating less, ditching processed foods and eating healthier. If only it were that easy…

Tell us what healthy eating approach you think works to keep weight off? [email protected] or on twitter @HerFamilydotie.