Vegetarian diet helps keep pounds off

Updated: 11:35 a.m. ET March 14, 2006

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11811506/from/ET/ 

Dear Nutrient Rich Blog Readers.

I am posting this article, not to make a point or promote a strictly vegetarian diet because eating Nutrient Rich does not neccessarily mean you are not eating meat. But today the nutritional landscape is so much in our daily consciousness and the differences between diets are so subtle, yet profound that it makes sense to talk about every diet out there, and their benefits, in the context of Nutrient Rich "ness". After all the net result is your health and the only sane way to eat is Nutrient Rich.

Remember, that Nutrient Rich is a quality standard, not a diet that compares itself to the South Beach Diet or the Atkins Diet, or the Flavor Point Diet etc. These are all diet plans, leveraging one single, albeit in some cases valuable point about food and then building a whole dietary institution around them. Nutrient Rich is in a whole different league.

Ok here is the article that I will comment on. People gain less weight when they go meat-free, five-year study finds

LONDON – If you want to keep the weight down, switch to a meat-free diet, scientists said on Tuesday.

Researchers who studied the eating habits of 22,000 people over five years, including meat eaters and vegetarians, found they all put on a few pounds but meat eaters who changed to a vegetarian or vegan diet gained the least.

This would make sense since as you age your metabolism slows somewhat, and today we are more sedentary, therefore using less than we consume. If you are not eating a calorically rich, high fat diet and eating a more efficient, clean Nutrient Rich diet then you should gain less weight.

"Contrary to current popular views that a diet low in carbohydrates and high in protein keeps weight down, we found that the lowest weight gain came in people with high intake of carbohydrates and low intake of protein," said Professor Tim Key.
It’s not that you are not getting a low intake of protein eating a predminantly plant based diet, you are getting plenty of protein eating plant foods, it’s just that you are eating foods that promote activity and not eating as many foods that slow activity and compromise your health; all of which promote living at or near your ideal weight.

The research compared weight gain among meat eaters, fish eaters, vegetarians and vegans — who eat no animal products — and is published in the International Journal of Obesity.

It showed that on average people gained 4.4 lb over five years. None of the volunteers was overweight.

"The weight gain was less in the vegans than in the meat-eaters and somewhere in between in the other groups," said Key, of Britain’s Cancer Research UK charity and the University of Oxford, who conducted the study.

"The lowest weight gain was in people who changed their diet to eat fewer animal products," he told Reuters.

Key and his colleagues said exercise was another important factor in controlling weight.

"The data also showed that people who became more physically active during the five-year period gained less weight than people who did very little exercise," Key said.

You do have to use what you consume.

The findings are from the British arm of EPIC (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition), which is comparing the diets of 500,000 people in 10 countries to discover how diet is linked to cancer.

The EPIC study has already revealed that diabetics have three times the normal risk of developing colorectal cancer, which kills more than 490,000 people worldwide each year.

It also showed that diet is second only to tobacco, as a leading cause of cancer, and, along with alcohol, is responsible for nearly a third of cancer cases in developed countries.

Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

1 thought on “Vegetarian diet helps keep pounds off”

  1. This is a great post! I've written several blog articles about vegetarian and vegan diets and weight loss since there have been numerous studies on them, but I haven't seen this study yet – good find!

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