Taking a break from your diet might speed up weight loss
- Study from University of Sydney put groups of mice on calorie restricted diets
- One group followed diet for 12 weeks, the other took a break every six days
- Mice who took break, ate healthy food in unrestricted amounts lost more weight
- Researcher Amanda Salis said she expects the same to be true for humans
Hannah Moore For Daily Mail Australia
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Counting calories can be a frustrating process.
But letting things slide every now and again may actually speed up your weight loss, according to a study from the University of Sydney.
Mice who were on a calorie controlled diet were split into two groups. One group stayed on the diet for 12 weeks straight, and the other would stay on the diet for six days at a time, followed by up to three days of unrestricted eating.
The unrestricted eating still needed to be healthy, but when done correctly it was proven to speed up weight loss in the rodents, reported Coach.
Science says yes! A study from the University of Sydney showed calorie restricted diets could be boosted by a few days of healthy gluttony
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Lead author on the study Amanda Salis said she expected the results to be the same in humans, based on existing research.
‘Our study suggests that if you’re trying to lose weight, then taking a break from dieting could give you better bang for your buck in terms of the amount of weight you lose relative to the effort you put in,’ she told Coach.
Having a few ‘days off’ from a diet can help stop your body from going into starvation mode, where the body slows down its natural burning of kilojoules, desperate to survive what it believes to be a famine.
Starving: Staying on a calorie restricted diet for too long could mean your body goes into starvation mode and holds on to more kilojoules, slowing your weight loss
The researcher said it was important that the unrestricted meals were still healthy – crushing every dieter’s dream of inhaling an entire pizza – but it wasn’t too important how much food was consumed.
‘If you do find yourself sometimes eating more than you intended, it may not have any adverse effects on your overall progress, so don’t get discouraged – just get back on the wagon and keep going,’ she said.
‘If the results of this study apply in humans, as we predict they will, then when you return to a more careful diet after your weight loss holiday, your break could actually improve the efficiency of your weight loss.’
The idea of a diet which sees participants stick to controlled eating for some time before letting loose later is nothing new.
There’s a catch: The diet holiday days still need to be filled with healthy food, and dieters should take no more than three at a time
The 5:2 diet has boomed in popularity, with stars like Benedict Cumberbatch, Jennifer Lopez and Miranda Kerr all believed to be fans.
Dieters eat healthy food in unrestricted amounts for five days of the week, and on the other two, women restrict their calorie intake to 500 and men to 600.
Salis praised the diet in Body and Soul, and revealed her personal interest in intermittent fasting, a similar concept which sees dieters keep their calorie intake at zero for various periods of time.
‘I fasted as an experiment by eating only during daylight hours, and lost and kept off 2kg,’ she told the publication.
‘Anything that involves not eating or eating less for a period of time is likely to provide benefits.’
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