Oct 16, 2003 2 min read

Those of us who cling fervently to the idea that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie might need to think again. A much-awaited study of the Atkins Diet – in which participants heartily eat meat and anything and everything that isn’t labeled a carbohydrate – lost more weight than those on a standard diet, such as the American Heart Association low-fat plan. To boot, they ate more calories, lost more weight and didn’t drive up their cholesterol counts as would be feared by a diet rich in red meats.

Can you imagine losing weight on a diet that includes pork rinds, cheddar cheese, heavy cream and mayonnaise?

The Harvard School of Public Health conducted the study and presented its findings this week to a stunned gathering of the American Association for the Study of Obesity.

“It doesn’t make sense, does it? It violates the laws of thermodynamics,” said Barbara Rolls of Pennsylvania State University.

Plenty data suggest this just shouldn’t happen. Accepted thinking is that the body burns what calories it needs to functions and then stores the rest. With this theory, a calorie coming from a slab of prime rib is the same as a calorie from the accompanying garlic toast. What calories aren’t used are stored as fat. When a dieter eats fewer calories than the body needs, weight is lost.

People who eat more calories shouldn’t lose weight at a quicker pace. Yet, that is what the study found. Those on the Atkins plan, which shuns carbohydrates, ate 300 calories more each day during the 12-week study, than those on the low-fat plan. All totaled, that’s a whopping 25,000 additional calories that should have added up to about seven pounds. Instead, they lost on average three pounds more than those on a low-fat diet.

This study upsets the standard apple cart of advice that to lose weight one needs to eat less, exercise more.

If it the Atkins Diet works, so be it. But don’t expect that this will be the last word on the subject. Skeptics will certainly attempt to challenge the Harvard study. Perhaps in doing so they will discover a key to metabolism that will help many overweight and obese people lose weight.