Consumer Reports weighs in on popular diets

Looking for a good fit
Sometimes it can take a few tries to find the right plan.

Brooke Fike-Carlson knew she needed to get serious after gaining 60 pounds during her second pregnancy. The Atkins diet looked appealing because there were no restrictions on meat and fats. All told, she lost 37 pounds while on the carb-cutting plan, which brought the 5-foot 9-inch horse trainer down to a slim 160 lbs.

She was happy. The diet, she says, didn’t feel like a diet.

“It truly was the best,” remembers the 42-year-old Morgan Hill, Calif., woman. “I ate as much meat and cheese as I wanted. I ate butter and ice cream.”

But, like many others, Fike-Carlson couldn’t stick with the restrictive eating plan. “I couldn’t keep it up,” she says. “I wanted chips with my Mexican food. I wanted french fries and bread.”

And over the next year all the weight — plus a few more pounds — came back.

Fike-Carlson tried Weight Watchers next, but gave up after a few weeks because she felt hungry all the time.

In the end, what worked was exercise.

For the past four years, Fike-Carlson has hit the gym three times a week for three hours a day. One hour is spent on the weight machines, one hour doing aerobic exercise and another hour doing crunches and other body-toning exercises.

“Now I can eat pretty much what I want,” she says.

What separates the best plans and books is their focus on lifestyle change rather than an attempt to lose weight through short-term changes with a restrictive diet, experts say. 

That’s because so many people lose weight only to gain it back when they go back to eating the way they once did. Better plans included regular exercise, menus with balanced meals and strategies for dieters to keep calories permanently under control.

Going it alone
Consumer Reports gave lower marks to diet plans and books that were needlessly restrictive or too elaborate.

For instance, the lowest-ranked three books were “The South Beach Diet,” “The Sonoma Diet” and “Ultra-Metabolism.” Among diet plans, the bottom four were eDiets, the Zone Diet, the Ornish Diet and the Atkins diet.  The experts were concerned about lack of long-term adherence for several of these plans.

The report also gave a thumbs down to three popular dieting strategies — diet pills, “angel and devil foods,” and plans based on glycemic index, which scores foods according to how quickly they boost blood sugar levels — arguing that there’s no good science to support any of them.

For the many dieters who choose to go it on their own, Consumer Reports offered strategies and tips, many coming from what are known as “successful losers.”  These are people, like Nina Beyer, who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept the weight off for a year or more and who have signed up with the National Weight Control Registry.

Based on information gleaned from participants in the National Weight Control Registry, Consumer Reports admonishes dieters against skipping breakfast and urges them to step on the scale regularly. A full 78 percent of the registry’s members say they eat breakfast every day, while 75 percent say they weigh themselves at least weekly.

Beyer says she checks her scale daily. Fluctuations of 1 or 2 pounds are no big deal, but 5 pounds means she’s got to pay attention. “I know that’s not fluid,” Beyer says. “And it means I’ve got to be responsible.”

The new report also suggested cutting carbs and fats and adding more foods to your diet that are low in energy density.

Another hint from Consumer Reports: Choose a more monotonous diet since variety stimulates appetite.

These eating tips may be helpful, but it’s best to choose a plan that is simple and easy to stick to, says Dr. George Blackburn, associate director of nutrition at the Harvard Medical School. “You can cut these tips to three: Eat less, eat healthy and exercise.”

Linda Carroll is a health and science writer living in New Jersey. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, Health magazine and SmartMoney.

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