Many people believe that weight lost quickly is quickly regained, and there are some studies that suggest this may be true. But a new randomized trial has found no long-term difference in weight regain among people who lost pounds slowly and those who did so quickly. Australian researchers randomly assigned 200 obese people to one of two groups. The first followed a severely calorie-restricted diet for 12 weeks, the second a moderately restricted diet over 36 weeks. The study is online in Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
The researchers then placed all those who lost at least 12.5 percent of their weight — 51 of the gradual weight losers and 76 of the rapid losers — on a weight maintenance diet.
After three years on the maintenance diet, there was no significant difference in the amounts of weight regained: 71.2 percent was regained on average by the gradual losers, versus 70.5 percent by the rapid losers.
The senior author, Dr. Joseph Proietto, a professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne, emphasized that the rapid weight loss diet was carefully designed and supervised by health care personnel. “The key is to use properly formulated diets that have all the micronutrients,” he said.