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Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated way to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight, or to prevent and treat diseases such as diabetes and obesity. As weight loss depends on calorie intake, different kinds of calorie-reduced diets, such as those emphasising particular macronutrients (low-fat diet, low-carbohydrate, etc.), have been shown to be no more effective than one another. As weight regain is common, diet success is best predicted by long-term adherence. Regardless, the outcome of a diet can vary widely depending on the individual.
The first popular diet was "Banting", named after William Banting. In his 1863 pamphlet, Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public, he outlined the details of a particular low-carbohydrate, low-calorie diet that led to his own dramatic weight loss. (2025). 9780313352751, Greenwood. ISBN 9780313352751
Some guidelines recommend dieting to Weight loss for people with weight-related health problems, but not for otherwise healthy people. One survey found that almost half of all American adults attempt to lose weight through dieting, including 66.7% of obese adults and 26.5% of normal weight or underweight adults. Dieters who are overweight (but not obese), who are normal weight, or who are underweight may have an increased mortality rate as a result of dieting.
One of the first was the English doctor George Cheyne. He himself was tremendously overweight and would constantly eat large quantities of rich food and drink. He began a meatless diet, taking only milk and vegetables, and soon regained his health. He began publicly recommending his diet for everyone who was obese. In 1724, he wrote An Essay of Health and Long Life, in which he advises exercise and fresh air and avoiding luxury foods.
The Scottish military surgeon, John Rollo, published Notes of a Diabetic Case in 1797. It described the benefits of a meat diet for those with diabetes, basing this recommendation on Matthew Dobson's discovery of glycosuria in diabetes mellitus. By means of Dobson's testing procedure (for glucose in the urine) Rollo worked out a diet that had success for what is now called type 2 diabetes.
The first popular diet was "Banting", named after the English undertaker William Banting. In 1863, he wrote a booklet called Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public, which contained the particular plan for the diet he had successfully followed. His own diet was four meals per day, consisting of meat, greens, fruits, and dry wine. The emphasis was on avoiding sugar, sweet foods, starch, beer, milk and butter. Banting's pamphlet was popular for years to come, and would be used as a model for modern diets. The pamphlet's popularity was such that the question "Do you bant?" referred to his method, and eventually to dieting in general. His booklet remains in print as of 2007.
The first weight-loss book to promote calorie counting, and the first weight-loss book to become a bestseller, was the 1918 by American physician and columnist Lulu Hunt Peters. (2025). 9780865477568, Faber & Faber, Incorporated. ISBN 9780865477568
It was estimated that over 1000 weight-loss diets have been developed up to 2014.
A low-fat, plant-based diet has been found to improve control of weight, blood sugar levels, and cardiovascular health.
The concept of crash dieting is to drastically reduce calories, using a very-low-calorie diet. Crash dieting can be highly dangerous because it can cause various kind of issues for the human body. Crash dieting can produce weight loss but without professional supervision all along, the extreme reduction in calories and potential unbalance in the diet's composition can lead to detrimental effects, including sudden death.
Intermittent fasting commonly takes the form of periodic fasting, alternate-day fasting, time-restricted feeding, and/or religious fasting. It can be a form of reduced-calorie dieting but pertains entirely to when the metabolism is activated during the day for digestion. The changes to eating habits on a regular basis do not have to be severe or absolutely restrictive to see benefits to cardiovascular health, such as improved glucose metabolism, reduced inflammation, and reduced blood pressure. Studies have suggested that for people in intensive care, an intermittent fasting regimen might "preserve energy supply to vital organs and tissues... and powerfully activates cell-protective and cellular repair pathways, including autophagy, mitochondrial biogenesis and antioxidant defenses, which may promote resilience to cellular stress." The effects of decreased serum glucose and depleted hepatic glycogen causing the body to switch to ketogenic metabolism are similar to the effects of reduced carbohydrate-based diets. There is evidence demonstrating profound metabolic benefits of intermittent fasting in rodents. However, evidence is lacking or contradictory in humans and requires further investigation, especially over the long-term. Some evidence suggests that intermittent restriction of caloric intake has no weight-loss advantages over continuous calorie restriction plans. For adults, fasting diets appear to be safe and tolerable, however there is a possibility that periods of fasting and hunger could lead to overeating and to weight regain after the fasting period. Adverse effects of fasting are often moderate and include halitosis, fatigue, weakness, and headaches. Fasting diets may be harmful to children and the elderly.
Plant-based diets include vegetarian and vegan diets, and can range from the simple exclusion of meat products to diets that only include raw vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, and sprouted grains. Exclusion of animal products can reduce the intake of certain nutrients, which might lead to nutritional deficiencies of protein, iron, zinc, calcium, and vitamins D and B12. Therefore, long term implementation of a plant-based diet requires effective counseling and nutritional supplementation as necessary. Plant-based diets are effective for short-term treatment of overweight and obesity, likely due to the high consumption of low energy density foods. However, evidence for long-term efficacy is limited.
The Paleo diet includes foods that it identifies as having been available to Paleolithic peoples including meat, nuts, eggs, some oils, fresh fruits, and vegetables. Overall, it is high in protein and moderate in fats and carbohydrates. Some limited evidence suggests various health benefits and effective weight loss with this diet. However, similar to the plant-based diet, the Paleo diet has potential nutritional deficiency risks, specifically with vitamin D, calcium, and iodine.
Gluten-free diets are often used for weight loss but little has been studied about the efficacy of this diet and metabolic mechanism for its effectiveness is unclear.
The Mediterranean diet is characterized by high consumption of vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole-grain cereals, seafood, olive oil, and nuts. Red meat, dairy and alcohol are only recommended in moderation. Studies show that the Mediterranean diet is associated with short term as well as long term weight loss in addition to health and metabolic benefits.
A major challenge regarding weight loss and dieting relates to compliance. While dieting can effectively promote weight loss in the short term, the intervention is hard to maintain over time and suppresses skeletal muscle thermogenesis. Suppressed thermogenesis accelerates weight regain once the diet stops, unless that phase is accompanied by a well-timed exercise intervention, as described by the Summermatter cycle. Most diet studies do not assess long-term weight loss.
Some studies have found that, on average, short-term dieting results in a "meaningful" long-term weight-loss, although limited because of gradual 1 to 2 kg/year weight regain. Because people who do not participate in weight-loss programs also tend to gain weight over time, and baseline data from such "untreated" participants are typically not included in diet studies, it is possible that diets do result in lower weights in the long-term relative to people who do not diet. Others have suggested that dieting is ineffective as a long-term intervention. For each individual, the results will be different, with some even regaining more weight than they lost, while a few others achieve a tremendous loss, so that the "average weight loss" of a diet is not indicative of the results other dieters may achieve. A 2001 meta-analysis of 29 American studies found that participants of structured weight-loss programs maintained an average of 23% (3 kg) of their initial weight loss after five years, representing a sustained 3.2% reduction in body mass. Unfortunately, patients are generally unhappy with weight loss of <10%, and reductions even as high as 10% are insufficient for changing someone with an "obese" BMI to a "normal weight" BMI.
Partly because diets do not reliably produce long-term positive health outcomes, some argue against using weight loss as a goal, preferring other measures of health such as improvements in cardiovascular biomarkers, sometimes called a Health at Every Size (HAES) approach or a "weight neutral" approach.
Long term losses from dieting are best maintained with continuing professional support, long term increases in physical activity, the use of anti-obesity medications, continued use of meal replacements, and additional periods of dieting to undo weight regain. The most effective approach to weight loss is an in-person, high-intensity, comprehensive lifestyle intervention: overweight or obese adults should maintain regular (at least monthly) contact with a trained interventionalist who can help them engage in exercise, monitor their body weight, and reduce their calorie consumption. Even with high-intensity, comprehensive lifestyle interventions (consisting of diet, physical exercise, and bimonthly or even more frequent contact with trained interventionists), gradual weight regain of 1–2 kg/year still occurs. For patients at high medical risk, bariatric surgery or medications may be warranted in addition to the lifestyle intervention, as dieting by itself may not lead to sustained weight loss.
Many studies overestimate the benefits of calorie restriction because the studies confound exercise and diet (testing the effects of diet and exercise as a combined intervention, rather than the effects of diet alone).
These organizations' customs and practices differ widely. Some groups are modelled on twelve-step programs, while others are quite informal. Some groups advocate certain prepared foods or special menus, while others train dieters to make healthy choices from restaurant menus and while grocery-shopping and cooking.
Attending group meetings for Weight loss programmes rather than receiving one-on-one support may increase the likelihood that Obesity people will lose weight. Those who participated in groups had more treatment time and were more likely to lose enough weight to improve their health. Study authors suggested that one explanation for the difference is that group participants spent more time with the clinician (or whoever delivered the programme) than those receiving one-on-one support.
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