We’ve all been repeatedly told that rapid weight loss leads to immediate weight gain. However, the latest research proves otherwise.
Rapid weight loss is no more likely to lead to rapid weight regain than slow and steady dieting.
People who lose weight fast are likelier to hit their targets than those who do it slowly.
The weight you lose in the first few weeks of a diet predicts how much you will lose and keep off in the long run.
This article contains THREE new clinical studies in 2023 in favor of rapid weight loss.
The DIRECT Study
The PREVIEW Study
The DROPLET Trial
1. The DIRECT Study
The DIRECT Study
A doctor in Britain, Dr. Roy Taylor, professor of Medicine and Metabolism at Newcastle University and one of Europe’s leading diabetes experts, claimed:
“People who follow a rapid weight loss diet not only lose a lot of weight, fast but also clean fat out of their livers and reverse their type 2 diabetes.”
Along with a friend and colleague, Professor Mike Lean of Scotland’s Glasgow University ran a study called DIRECT (DIabetes REmission Clinical Trial). They recruited 298 patients and randomly allocated them to an 800-calorie-a-day diet (SOZA Weightloss is an 800-calorie-a-day diet), made mainly of meal replacement shakes, with behavioral support or following the best conventional advice and support.
The astonishing results were published in UK’s, The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal, in February 2023,
Those on the 800-calorie diet had lost an average of 10kg (22 pounds), compared to 1kg (2.2 pounds) in the control group.
A quarter of those on the 800-calorie diet had lost over 15 kg. None of those in the control group managed these.
Nearly half of the 800-calorie group managed to bring their blood sugars back to normal, despite coming off all their diabetes drugs. The more weight they lost, the higher their chance of bringing their pancreas back to life: 86% of those who lost more than 15 kg went into remission (i.e., their blood sugars returned to normal despite coming off all medication).
Going on an 800-calorie rapid weight loss diet is challenging, but people with type 2 diabetes have a lot of motivation to do it. So would the rapid weight loss approach work for people who don’t have type 2 diabetes? Would they stick to it?
Two other extensive studies, which published results in 2023, suggest it would.
2. The PREVIEW Study
The PREVIEW study was set up to prevent people with pre-diabetes from developing diabetes. Pre-diabetes, where you have raised blood sugars not yet in the diabetic range, is incredibly common. Around a third of the adult population have it, but unless you’ve been tested, you won’t know because there are usually no symptoms.
Lindsey did our program because her doctor told her she was a pre-diabetic. She did our rapid fat loss program and lost 52 pounds.
When the study started, the volunteers were 2326 middle-aged men and women from eight countries (Britain, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Holland, Bulgaria, New Zealand, and Australia), all had pre-diabetes. Once the usual tests were done, they were all asked to go on an 800-calorie-a-day diet for eight weeks.
Results of this massive study, published in August 2023, show that they lost an average of 11 kg (24 lb) in just eight weeks. Most of this was fat, with their waists shrinking by an average of 10 cm.
Many participants managed to get their blood sugar levels back to normal, and there were few side effects apart from constipation (7%) and headaches (3%). The best way to counter both of these is to drink more water.
The study is ongoing to monitor how long they keep diabetes at bay.
3. The DROPLET Trial
Hot on the heels of DIRECT and PREVIEW came another 800-calorie-a-day rapid weight loss trial by researchers at Oxford University. For this trial, called DROPLET, 278 obese adults were either assigned to a regimen with 800 calories daily as meal replacement soups and shakes or on a standard slow and steady diet program.
Those on the meal replacement regimen were asked to stick to it for eight weeks before gradually switching to natural foods. They also got behavioral support throughout.
At the end of the year, the group on the rapid weight loss diet had lost an average of 10.7 kg, while those in the standard dieting group had lost 3kg.
Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at Oxford University and the lead researcher, was delighted by the results. ‘It’s phenomenal – extraordinary, like nothing we’ve seen in primary care before.’ She thinks one of the reasons that the rapid weight loss group did so well is because rapid weight loss is very motivating: ‘The excitement gets them through the first few difficult weeks…We need to capitalize on all that enthusiasm that people have at the beginning to lose weight and get off as much weight as they possibly can.’
‘Weight loss at four weeks, certainly at 12 weeks, is an excellent predictor of what will happen later. A previous study showed that weight loss at 12 weeks predicted weight loss at two years.’
Professor Jebb is hugely frustrated by how slowly things are changing. “This is an area of medicine where our understanding has come on in leaps and bounds but practice has not changed. If we had a new drug that had achieved what DIRECT (Roy Taylor’s diabetes study) had achieved, it would be screamed from the rooftops…We have something which is effective and which is cheap. We are not doing it. I find that unbelievable.”
Bottom Line
So there you have it. Science did not support the often-repeated claims that people’s metabolic rates will crash, never to recover, or that people who lose weight will put it on even faster. Instead, new studies consistently show that early weight loss predicts long-term weight loss.
Rapid weight loss is challenging, but the benefits are fantastic and clinical studies prove its efficacy. Furthermore, clinical studies debunked many myths about rapid weight loss diets. It is worth everyone giving it a go (click here for those that should NOT do the diet).