If you’re a woman older than 50, changing your diet to include more fruits and veggies and less meat and cheese may be a small change that makes a big difference in your ability to lose weight—and, more importantly, keep it off—over a period of months or even years.
While conventional dieting calls for reducing caloric intake and increasing energy expenditure, new research shows it may not be an effective strategy for long-term weight loss for postmenopausal women.
A recent study by University of Pittsburgh researchers—published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics—suggests that focusing on overall eating behavior, rather than specific diets, may improve long-term weight loss.
Cutti
ng out foods like desserts, sugary drinks and fried food can contribute to both short-term and long-term weight loss, the researchers found. But eating more fruits and vegetables, coupled with consuming less meat and cheese, are additional factors that may improve long-term weight loss or control.
“With more than one-third of all Americans considered obese, it’s clear that standard behavioral obesity treatment is producing poor long-term results,” said Bethany Barone Gibbs, PhD, an assistant professor in the university’s Department of Health and Physical Activity. “We found that some important behaviors differ for long-term versus short-term weight control among women in their 50s and 60s, who are already at higher risk for weight gain.”
The researchers studied 465 overweight and obese postmenopausal women—previously enrolled in Pitt Public Health’s Women on the Move through Activity and Nutrition (WOMAN) study—from April 2002 to June 2008. They wanted to investigate whether a change in diet and lifestyle, along with a 10 percent reduction in body weight, could lower low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides, and decrease cardiovascular disease.
“If the goal is to reduce the burden of obesity, the focus must be on long-term strategies because changes in eating behaviors only associated with short-term weight loss are likely to be ineffective and unsustainable,” concludes Barone Gibbs.