Why just eating less won’t make us slim
DIETERS who count calories and reduce eating but fail to increase their amount of exercise will not lose any weight, according to a report.
People who are eating less while doing more physical activity each week appear to be more successful at shedding the pounds.
Experts have long insisted that combining a healthy diet with regular bouts of exercise is the best way to stave off cancer, heart trouble, diabetes and even Alzheimer’s disease.
But a scientific study has shown that simply reducing caloric intake is not enough to promote any significant weight loss. It says this appears to be down to a natural mechanism in the human body that reduces a person’s physical activity in response to a reduction in calories.
Dr Judy Cameron, senior scientist at Oregon Health and Science University in the United States, studied 18 monkeys on a high-fat diet. When they were put on a lower-fat diet with a 30 per cent reduction in calories, they showed no significant weight loss.
But another group fed a normal monkey diet and trained to exercise for an hour a day on a treadmill did lose weight.
Dr Cameron said: “This shows that simply dieting will not cause substantial weight loss. Diet and exercise must be combined to achieve it.”
Dr David Haslam, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said: “If you have a low calorie diet you will lose weight but you are only doing half the job. You won’t get the benefit you would if you were exercising as well.”