Choose Your Own Weight

According to a recent study by The New England Journal of Medicine, the type of food a person chooses over another each day determines weight loss or gain over a four year period. As expected, vegetables, fruits, and yogurt help with weight loss while fried foods and sweets can cause a gain. However, shockingly, potatoes in all forms cause more long-term gain than sweets and desserts. Yogurt leads in the weight loss group. Fruit and nuts beat out vegetables and whole grains. “This suggests that the path to eating fewer calories is not simply to count calories, but to focus on consuming a more healthy diet in general,” said the study’s lead author, Dariush Mozaffarian, in an article in The Wall Street Journal. Here is a list of what to choose and what to lose.

Foods that were associated with weight gain (4 year period)

French Fries: +3.35 pounds

Potato chips: +1.69 pounds

Sugar sweetened drinks: +1 pound

Red meat: +.95 pounds

Processed meat: +.93 pounds

Boiled, baked or mashed potatoes: +.57 pounds

Sweets and desserts: +.41 pounds

Butter: +.30

Foods that were associated with weight loss
Yogurt: -0.82 pounds

Nuts: -0.57 pounds

Fruits: -0.49 pounds

Whole grains: -0.37 pounds

Vegetables: -0.22 pounds

Source: Wsj.com

Originally Published in Reader's Digest