Vegetarian Diets May Be More Effective for Weight Loss Than Restricting Calories

http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/healthtrending/vegetarian-diets-may-be-more-effective-for-weight-loss-than-simply-restricting-calories-according-to-a-study/ar-BBCz1Jw

by Mz • 9 years ago

42 56 9 years ago

msn.com

dpflan• 9 years ago

The MSN page is pretty distracting (maybe it needs an ad/sponsored-content removal diet :)) - here is the linked article which has a pretty good summary (probably as good the MSN article) at the top of the page:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07315724.2017.13...

panglott3• 9 years ago

"The aim of our study was to compare the effects of a vegetarian and a conventional diet on thigh adipose tissue distribution in subjects with type 2 diabetes (T2D)."

The broader conclusion seems plausible to me, since a healthy vegetarian diet can have lots of high-fiber foods that give high satiation with relatively low calories. But: The study focused only on diabetic patients.

stcredzero• 9 years ago

Does anyone who has studied this in depth know: How much of the lost weight is muscle mass?

grnadav1• 9 years ago

Given that top body builders are vegans, I'd guess - not much

serg_chernata2• 9 years ago

Gonna need a source on that.

capkutay• 9 years ago

The world's top body builders are certainly not vegan across the board...for example the actor/competing body builder who plays The Mountain on Game of Thrones consumes almost 2000 grams of animal fat daily[0].

Also no one should emulate top body builder diets unless they plan on working out like top body builders (e.g. 2-3 intensive training sessions a day).

You might be able to find a few vegan body builders but its certainly not the norm.

0: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-mountain-game-of-thrones-...

gozur88• 9 years ago

How many of those vegan body builders don't take massive doses of anabolic steroids?

panglott3• 9 years ago

The actual study (linked above) examined subcutaneous and subfascial fat distribution, not weight loss or muscle mass.

1001101• 9 years ago

More in the vegetarian diet, FTS: "The greater weight loss in V was accompanied by greater muscle loss in V (−5.0 cm2 [95% CI, −5.7 to −4.3] in V vs −1.7 cm2 [95% CI, −2.4 to −1.0] in C; Gxt p < 0.0001; Fig. 2B), which was reversed partially in V after the addition of exercise (+1.3 cm2 [95% CI, 0.7 to −2.0]; p < 0.05" and "Our data stress the importance of exercise in weight loss programs to preserve lean mass."

I will have been vegan for 10 years next Jan. Haven't had any problems with retaining muscle mass personally, although I have a pretty high protein diet and supplement with vegan vitamins. I do cardio a handful of times a week, and lift weights periodically. Sample size N=1 :)

jackmott• 9 years ago

The whole idea that eating vegetarian will lead to a less muscular physique is just completely unfounded. There are elite athletes that are vegetarians who make no special effort to get protein. (citation: my wife was one). My build didn't change when going vegetarian. It just isn't a thing.

it isn't a magic pill for weight loss either.

yathern• 9 years ago

I have no horse in this race - but another anecdote is Tom Brady - who recently mentioned how he has a mostly vegetarian diet, except some chicken in the winter. Granted, Quarterbacks don't put on nearly the same muscle mass as other positions - in terms of overall fitness, you can't deny Tom Brady is in very good shape.

accountyaccount3• 9 years ago

Throwing another anecdote on the pile:

I've been vegetarian for 2 years and have zero perceptible changes to weight or muscle mass (I don't take supplements either).

code_duck• 9 years ago

It seems you're assuming that there would be a difference in that compared to any other diet, and that it has something to do with nutrition and protein. If you check out protein powders in stores, which are made with pure protein isolates and often have their specific amino acid content listed, almost all of them are vegetarian and most are vegan - pea, whey, pumpkin seed, and soy, mostly.

jtwebman4• 9 years ago

I have been on a whole food no oil starch based vegan diet eating mostly potatoes and some other veggies with no fat for 5 months. I have lost 43 pounds eating as much as I wanted. I have done only a little exercise walking a little more but nothing crazy. I feel like I am 21 again though I turned 41 this weekend.

The Starch Solution by John A. McDougall is a great book. Also this video that just came out has a bunch of studies that I read before going on the diet. He does a good job at explaining them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHfbqodBXdw

FungalRaincloud• 9 years ago

Counterpoint here: I went on a ketogenic, high fat, medium protein, low carb diet this past year, and managed to lose roughly the same amount in probably the same amount of time (if not less), doing basically the same thing. I ate what I wanted. I got full a lot faster, though. I also felt like I had more energy and suffered less brain fog while on the diet. I'll likely go back on it pretty soon here.

jtwebman4• 9 years ago

You can lose weight on it but you are really tricking your body into starvation. Also it does nothing to help with our number one killer in the US, heart disease. It really isn't healthy for you and most people gain all the weight back. Here is a good video on it as well. He does a way better job at explaining it with links to all the sources he brings up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzHLAqyO7PQ

tutufan• 9 years ago

It could well turn out that the common factor here is not consuming a lot of highly refined carbohydrates (sugar, flour, etc.).

More importantly, metabolism is just incredibly complicated, with many complex relationships and effects. On top of that, there is significant genetic variation, so these will differ across individuals. For now, we pretty much have to experiment on ourselves and observe what works.

intopieces• 9 years ago

Could the result, if validated, also be attributed to the reduction of antibiotics consumed by the ones on the diet?

http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-eating/food/food-saf...

dreen• 9 years ago

74 subjects over 6 months? Is that even a meaningful sample? Especially considering all the other factors like stress levels etc...

coldtea3• 9 years ago

Sounds way higher than most such studies, so I'd say yes.

mnm1• 9 years ago

Maybe the specific vegetarian diet used here leads to that conclusion, but extrapolating it to all vegetarian diets or vegetarian diets in general is not science and it's not a conclusion they can make. I wish it was true, but experience, common sense, and actual science tells otherwise. So the headline should be "Some Vegetarian Diets May Be More Effective for Weight Loss Than Some Non-Vegetarian Diets." Because there's plenty of counter examples otherwise. Well, no shit. The corollary is also true: "Some Non-Vegetarian Diets May Be More Effective for Weight Loss Than Some Vegetarian Diets."

joelrunyon• 9 years ago

This.

An all "oreo" diet, could technically be a vegetarian diet.

rangersanger• 9 years ago

Vegan, even.

mrspeaker• 9 years ago

I laughed out loud when I read that headline... I'm a vegetarian and am sitting here munching on some sickening off-brand potato-chips that I'm pretty sure will kill me if I finish the packet. No animal products though.

simonsarris• 9 years ago

It's really "Vegetarian Diets May Be More Effective for Weight Loss" for people who have Type 2 diabetes AKA are already eating very unhealthy diets, and versus the control group eating diet X. That's two separate enormous caveats.

I want to see a vegetarian diet for weight loss vs a high fat high protein meat based diet, a la: http://www.empiri.ca/p/eat-meat-not-too-little-mostly-fat.ht...

The vegetarian diet (∼60% of energy from carbohydrates, 15% protein, and 25% fat) consisted of vegetables, grains, legumes, fruits, and nuts. Animal products were limited to a maximum of one portion of low-fat yogurt a day.
[non veg diet] contained 50% of energy from carbohydrates, 20% protein, less than 30% fat (≤7% saturated fat, less than 200 mg/d of cholesterol/day).

What is less than 30% fat? Were they encouraged to eat low fat foods? Were some of them eating only 10% fat?

To any high fat/keto/low carb adherents, these sound like crap diets.

panglott3• 9 years ago

It's hard to read a ketogenic diet page that begins with a long disclaimer about you only you are responsible for your health and diet and "we can't take any responsibility for the consequences", and then conclude that the result represent good advice for the overall health of average people. Normal people are not going to tune their diet by measuring their blood chemistry.

Edit to say that the point may be that those diets were broadly comparable except in consumption of animal foods; the vegetarian diet was modestly higher and lower in protein and fat, but not by much.

undersuit3• 9 years ago

Normal people are not going to tune their diet by measuring their blood chemistry.

Not consciously, but that's what normal people already do.

logicallee• 9 years ago

In my experience the most effective diet of all is vegan, non-GMO, gluten-free. Not that there's anything special about that combination, but good luck scrounging together more than a handful of calories in the course of each day about town!

EDIT: what I mean is if society had such options plentifully available it would negate the effect. So it is similar to a diet where you can only eat foods beginning with the letter 'A'. If it's harder to meet some arbitrary criterion, it will reduce your caloric intake.

MisterBastahrd• 9 years ago

Here's what I've learned about diets over the past 5 years, anecdotally:

Being conscientious about what you eat is the most important part of losing weight. There are plenty of fat vegetarians out there. They've gotten very comfortable with what they can eat because they aren't reading every label anymore.

Oreos are vegan. There are new and improved vegetarian and vegan ice creams coming out weekly, it seems. When there are as many bad food choices for vegetarians and vegans as omnivores, they'll make the same bad food choices and suffer for it.

Why?

When the final word is written on how diets have destroyed the health of people in the Western world, it's gonna be the fat / sugar combo that is shown to be the culprit. It's much easier to be sated if you eat a lot of fats or a lot of sugar (well, starches, really) than eating a lot of fat AND sugar.

jeffdavis• 9 years ago

We have a tendancy to try to isolate variables, like "meat is bad" or "carbs are bad". There are probably multiple diets that work, but not all of the combinations.

I suspect that we have so much choice today that we combine things not meant to be combined in the same diet.

GhostVII• 9 years ago

Wouldn't it be more likely thay the vegitarian diets are better at restricting calories than non-vegetarian diets? In general you can't lose weight without reducing calorie intake until it is lower than the amount you use

Simulacra• 9 years ago

Does not one lead to the other? A diet that is vegetarian would seem to have less calories overall. What a strange headline.

undersuit3• 9 years ago

Why would a vegetarian diet have less calories? I could eat cups of rice drowned in olive oil and suck down a gallon of Coca Cola a day and I'd still be Vegan.

epmaybe2• 9 years ago

It's less dense, so you generally feel more full than if you eat more dense foods like meats. That's just personal experience though.

Vegetarian Diets May Be More Effective for Weight Loss Than Restricting Calories

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