The Secrets of Dieting on a Budget

lunch There’s an interesting article at Consumer Reports Health called Dieting on a Budget. They surveyed over 21,000 people and have published much of the results online. There are some very interesting results, and I highly recommend taking a few minutes to read a few of the articles in the report. They’re short and to the point and have some great strategies and motivational nuggets.

One aspect of the data they collected speaks directly to the question of cost relating to dieting and staying in shape.
The report says:

More than half of our successful losers reported shedding the weight themselves, without aid of a commercial diet program, a medical treatment, a book, or diet pills. That confirms what we found in our last large diet survey, in 2002, in which 83 percent of “superlosers” — people who’d lost at least 10 percent of their starting weight and kept it off for five years or more — had done it entirely on their own.

I’m really surprised by these results. With the success of the diet industry and all of the products you can buy that support different diet strategies, it’s very telling that of these 21,000+ people that more than half of those who lost weight did it themselves. Does this prove that fad diets don’t work? That people already know what to do, it’s just a matter of doing it? Interesting questions…

The article also links to some good budgeting tips.

Price vs. nutrition: Making smart choices – A brief list of foods that are both healthy and have a low cost per serving.
The Downturn Diet – 20 strategies for eating healthy on a budget.

I also found this last quote interesting, related to the habits of those who are thin or working on staying fit:

The eating and exercise habits of the vast majority of the always-slim group look surprisingly like those of people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off.

Both groups eat healthful foods such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and eschew excessive dietary fat; practice portion control; and exercise vigorously and regularly. The only advantage the always-slim have over the successful dieters is that those habits seem to come a bit more naturally to them.

“When we’ve compared people maintaining a weight loss with controls who’ve always had a normal weight, we’ve found that both groups are working hard at it; the maintainers are just working a little harder,” says Suzanne Phelan, Ph.D.

A very interesting twist on the common stereotype that thin people are just thin and that they don’t have to work at it. So apply this to people who are living on a budget and still seem to always get what they want. Maybe they’re efforts aren’t as obvious, but I would bet that they’re working just as hard if not harder to stick to their budgets, to make good choices about where their money goes and to stay focused on their overall financial goals.

What do you think?

photo credit: malias