Packaged diet foods may spur more weight loss

In a head-to-head comparison with a traditional diet, people who stuck to a diet of portion-controlled packaged foods lost almost twice as much weight as those who only got advice on how to trim calories, according to a new study.

Dr. Michael Dansinger, a nutrition expert at Tufts Medical Center, said having less freedom in choosing meals seems to help people meet their dieting goals.

"When there's less structure, then participants are making more decisions, and I think too often they're making decisions that undermine their goal to stick to a calorie target," said Dansinger, who was not part of the study.

The diet the researchers studied was the Medifast 5 & 1 Plan. It consists of five pre-packaged meals each day, along with one meal of vegetables and protein prepared by the dieter.

Dieters can pick from 70 different packaged foods to create five meals totaling about 1,000 calories a day.

People on the plan can also purchase different levels of support along with the meals, such as access to dieticians and recipes. Typically, the plan costs about $300 a month.

To see how effective the Medifast diet is in helping people lose weight and keep it off, the researchers asked 60 people to join the plan for free.

Pour a Bowl of Cereal for Lunch

A study from Purdue University shows that eating cereal in place of meals helps you lose weight. Participants consumed an average of 640 fewer total daily calories and lost roughly 4 pounds during the 2-week intervention.

According to study author Richard Mattes, M.P.H., Ph.D., R.D., the approach teaches portion control with a convenient, easy-to-use food. Stick to filling, high-fiber cereals, like All-Bran or Fiber One, and eat them with low-fat milk.

They compared these dieters to another 60 people who were given advice on how to meet a 1,000 calorie-per-day target, but who continued to buy and prepare their own food.

For everyone in the study, the goal for the first 26 weeks was to lose weight, and during the second half of the study the goal was to maintain weight.

All of the participants were obese, having a body mass index (BMI) - a measure of body size relative to height - between 35 and 50.

Snack on Almonds

Seventy per day, to be exact. That's the number that people in a City of Hope National Medical Center experiment ate daily for 6 months, in conjunction with a reduced-calorie diet, to drop 18 percent of their body weight.

Study author Michelle Wien partially credits the satiety factor. "Almonds are a nutrient-dense food that provides healthful monounsaturated fat, protein, and fiber, which together contribute to feeling full," she says.