If you're looking for the best ways of losing weight, you have two well-researched choices: a low-fat diet or a low-carbohydrate diet. Both will allow you to lose significant weight if you follow them faithfully for several months, according to Harvard Medical School's "Family Health Guide." However, the low-carb approach appears to lead to quicker weight loss, while you may be able to sustain the low-fat approach better over time.
Low-Fat Diet Approach
If you're counting calories, you'll find that a gram of fat has more than twice the calories of a gram of carbohydrates or protein. Therefore, cutting fat from your diet can help you lose weight, since by eating a lower-fat diet, you're also cutting significant calories. However, you shouldn't cut all fat from your diet. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, you should limit saturated fats, which are found mostly in animal products, and eliminate trans-fats, which are found in processed foods. You should consume some monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats, such as those found in olive oil.
Low-Carb Diet Approach
If you decide to follow a low-carb diet approach, you'll fill your meals with protein and fat sources while eliminating most grain products and many fruits and vegetables. Low-carb diet adherents don't count calories; instead, they count grams of carbohydrates. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, low-carb diets work because they prevent the rise in blood sugar and increase in hunger levels that accompanies carbohydrate consumption. If you decide to choose a low-carb diet approach, you can follow a specific low-carb program or design your own carb-limiting diet approach.
Research
Low-carb diets work faster than low-fat or calorie-counting diets -- after six months, for example, low-carb dieters lost up to 13 pounds more than low-fat dieters lost, according to the "Family Health Guide." However, low-carb dieters eventually seem to catch up, evening out the weight-loss tally at the end of a year. Results do vary substantially -- in each group, some people lose huge amounts of weight, while others actually wind up gaining.
Considerations
Ultimately, you'll need to choose which approach you view as the best way to lose weight. If you think you'll have trouble grazing on low-fat salads as your main meals, you may want to consider the low-carb approach, which would allow you to eat steak, eggs and cheese. But if you can't abide the idea of giving up your bread and cereal, you may want to switch to skim milk and skip the butter as part of a low-fat diet. Either way, you should be able to lose weight if you stick with the diet.
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