The thing that was striking to me about this study is how little weight the participants lost over a two year period. Beyond that, the main problem with diets is that people tend to gain back the weight over time and end up right back where they started, or sometimes even worse. I wish I knew what the solution was.

Wrong attitude. From a population point of view, dropping an average of ten pounds, even if most people are still overweight, could have a major impact on the overall group's rate of heart attack, stroke and progression toward diabetes. From that perspective, the best diet (seen as the way you eat, not what you can't eat) is one that you can live with day after day for the rest of your life, and one that provides some health benefits. That's any one of these three diets, apparently, if you're moderately obese, with the Mediterranean and low-carb diets resulting in more lost weight and better health indicators than the low-fat diet, which is good for you, too. Though the study was too short to address it, I suspect the low-fat diet (less dairy, less meat, more fruits and vegetables) would have a long-term benefit of less cancer than the other diets or routine pig-out American fare, which contributes to the high rates of colon, breast, stomach and pancreatic cancers in this country.

I agree weight loss is good, and some weight loss is better than none, but most people regain a significant part of the weight they lose. Here's a study comparing some strategies to minimize weight regain.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/10/1139

"eat food. not too much. mostly plants"
M Pollan

Every thing in moderation, and exercise daily, how hard is it.. Lazy people I believe

I can't imagine this dieting advise being of any use. 10 pounds over a year is well within normal variation in my experience.

I recently went from from 235 to 160 at slightly faster than my planned two pounds a week. That ended last Christmas and since then has been between 158 and 164. During both phases (loss and maintenance) I ate a wide variety including some "fun" food. To sum up my approach in a sound bite I was continually aware of my weight and acted to control that value in accordance to plan. It worked better than I could have hoped.

A previous attempt at weight loss was centered entirely around exercise. I had no success with that and now feel fortunate that I didn't give myself a heart attack or stroke for my efforts. I found that if anything exercise was negatively correlated with weight loss.

As a civilian to the health issues debate its always curious when two professionals that I respect take an opposite tack on an issue. Your position seems to be that moderate obesity is dangerous for health but Sandy Szwarc at Junk Food Science (http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/) seems to hold the opposite. I'd appreciate it if you would take a look and comment.

Thanks for the great information you put out on your blog.

Pat

While many people fluctuate 10 pounds during the course of a year, the problem is that so many people (especially those that want to weigh less) gradually gain weight over time. So, losing 10 pounds instead of gaining 4 pounds, is progress. And, the study is based on average weight for many people, not just one, so that the "average fluctuations" would have balanced each other out (with some weighing more on a given day and some weighing less).

Although 10 pounds might not seem like much, for many people losing 10 pounds and keeping it off is good for their health -- reducing the risk of osteoarthritis, diabetes, heart disease, breast cancer, etc. That 10 pounds probably is more of a health boost for someone who was 30 pounds overweight than for someone who was 100 pounds overweight -- but either way, its going in the right direction (eating less and/or exercising more) instead of the wrong direction.

Some research indicates that many people gain just a few pounds (let's say 3 lbs) a year, often during the holidays or times of stress -- and most don't like it but don't think it is enough to worry about. But between the ages of 30 and 50 that would be a weight gain of 60 pounds -- which is very unhealthy and helps explain our country's obesity epidemic.

Congrats to you Pat for your terrific weight loss, and thanks for the info, Merrill. We have some info about weight and health at www.center4research.org