14 DAY TRIAL // Men and women struggling with their weight and especially those who are constantly looking for a new diet to try out in the hope that, maybe, this time, it will work out, have now new-found hope. A new study has determined that slimmers stand to lose more weight if they make the healthy-diet choice the easy choice, as USA Today informs.
What this means is that it’s not enough to just go on a diet, especially if said dietary regime is in sharp contrast with what we’d normally eat. In return, if we choose a diet that does not imply drastic restrictions on our part and, furthermore, set out to lose weight with the help of a friend or relative in the same situation, we actually stand more chances of dropping more pounds than we would otherwise.
“Dieters can boost their weight loss if they clean up their act at home and get a partner to lose weight with them, a new study shows. If you want to trim down, you should set up your home to make the healthy choice the easy choice, says Amy Gorin, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut.” USA Today writes of the new study. In order to come up with these findings, Gorin took 201 obese and overweight volunteers and divided them into two groups.
One group went about the losing-weight task like we would probably do as well: they were put on a diet, were told to exercise at least moderately and were told to attend meetings with counselors weekly. During these meetings, they were offered advice and tips on how to stay on the diet, how to eat healthily, how to increase the number of calories they burned, but also how to fight cravings and temptation. At the end of the six-month trial, all volunteers in this group lost an average of 15 pounds.
Those in the second, though, lost 20 pounds and that’s because their lifestyle was also subject to change. They “had an overweight partner participate in the weight-loss program with them. This was either a spouse or another adult who lived in the same home; were given a piece of exercise equipment (a treadmill or exercise bike), bathroom scales, a full-length mirror, healthy cooking and fitness magazines and smaller dinner plates that were about the size of salad plates; were encouraged to watch less television.” USA Today says.
The conclusion can be but one: in order to get the best results, dieting must not be the only change we make about our life.