A team of European researchers confirms what many weight-loss gurus have claimed: eating more protein and fewer refined carbohydrates helps to keep the pounds off.
Among men and women who had lost at least eight percent of their body weight on a low-calorie diet, those who spent the next six months following a maintenance diet high in protein and low in refined carbohydrates were the least likely to regain any weight, and were also the least likely to drop out of the study.
So is this something you can try at home? Maybe. Participants were divided into groups eating varying amounts of protein, a moderate amount of fat, and different quantities of carbohydrates categorised as either high or low on the glycemic index, a measure of how fast a food is converted to sugar in the blood.
Whether the study results "translate into different dietary advice for more broad use probably still has to be discovered because glycemic index is really not an easy and straightforward tool to use for most people I would say," Dr Thomas Meinert Larsen of the University of Copenhagen, one of the study's authors, told Reuters Health.
The glycemic index, GI for short, was originally developed for use by diabetics, and indicates how quickly blood glucose peaks after a person eats a particular food. High-GI foods, like white bread, produce a quick spike in blood glucose, while low GI foods, like whole grain breads, cause a slower increase in blood sugar that lasts for a longer period of time.
Most food labels don't list a food's GI, nor is there adequate information on the GIs of different foods available on the Internet, according to Larsen.