In the early 1990s, the National Institutes of Health set out to investigate a few critical issues of women’s health. THe result was the Women’s Health Initiative, a collection of studies that would cost in the neighborhood of a billion dollars. Among the questions that the researchers hoped to answer was whether low fat diets actually prevent heart disease or cancer, at least in women. So they enrolled nearly fifty thousand woman in the trial, chose twenty thousand at random, and instructed them to eat a low-fat diet rich in fruits, vegetable and fibre. These women were given regular counseling to motivate them to stay on the diet.
One of the effects of this counseling, or maybe of the diet itself, is that the women also decided, consciously or unconsciously to eat less. According to the WHI researchers, the women, on average consumed 360 calories a day less on their diets that they did when they first agreed to participate. If we believe that obesity is caused by over eating we might say that these women were ‘under eating’ by 360 calories a day. They were eating almost 20 per cent fewer calories than what public-health agencies tell us women should be eating.
The result? After eight year of such under eating, these women’s Weight loss was recorded at an average of just two pounds each. And their average waist circumference – a measure of abdominal fat – increased This suggests that whatever weight these women lost, if they did, was not fat but lean tissue – muscle.
So how is this possible? If our weight is really determined by the difference between calories we consumer and the calories we expend, these women should have slimmed down significantly. A pound of fat roughly contains 3500 calories of energy. If these women really were under eating by 360 calories a day, they should have lost more than 36 pounds of fat per year! It’s more food for thought about the ongoing debate between whether it is calories or carboydrates we need to focus on if we want to Lose Weight