Should you go low-carb og low-fat to lose weight? Here’s what science says

It’s the eternal discussion, but luckily scientists have done the work to set the record straight.

Want to lose weight?

Millions of people all around the world wants to lose weight.

Whether it’s for health reasons, to look good or something else, you or someone you know probably dream about shedding a bit of fat – or maybe a lot.

How to do it?

Weightloss is actually a matter of math:

If you consume more calories, than you burn, you put on weight.

If you consume fever calories, than you burn, you’ll lose weight.

Carbs vs. fat

During the 80’s and 90’s, fat was the big bad wolf regarding weightloss.

That changed in the 2000’s when carbs were branded as the thing to avoid in order to lose weight.

So what is actually the best thing to cut down on?

Scientists to the rescue

In 2018 scientists from Stanford University published a study in JAMA about just that question.

For a year, the scientists had tracked more than 600 overweight adults, of which half was put on a low-carb diet and the other half was put on a low-fat diet.

Drumroll, please

So what was the result?

That there was no significant difference between the weightloss of the two groups.

The more detailed results

The low-fat group lost 5.3 kg on average, and the low-carb group lost 6 kg on average.

But according to the sceintists, that is not a significant difference, meaning other factors could have contributed to the 700 gram difference.

The takeaway

What this study shows is that it really doesn’t matter how to make sure, you’re in a caloric deficit.

The important thing, if you want to lose weight, is, that you are, in fact, in a deficit.

So whether you cut down on carbs or fat is a matter of preference!