Control weight with a simple diet trick after age 40
Weight typically starts to creep up in middle age, but keeping it under control could be fairly simple.
Pick your carbohydrates carefully to avoid so-called middle-age spread.
A Harvard-led study published in the BMJ this week looked at more than two decades’ worth of data collected on 136,432 healthy men and women to see how much their weight changed over a four-year period, concluding that eating more whole grains and fewer starchy carbohydrates had the potential to reduce weight gain in middle age.
That’s a time when “a more sedentary lifestyle, the accumulation of bad habits over time and hormonal changes can all play a role in midlife weight gain,” as Today reported.
The findings were especially strong for women and for those already overweight.
The researchers wrote: “The findings of this study highlight the potential importance of carbohydrate quality and source for long-term weight management, especially for people with excessive body weight. Limiting added sugar, sugar-sweetened beverages, refined grains and starchy vegetables in favor of whole grain, fruit and non-starchy vegetables may support efforts to control weight.”
“The quality of the carbohydrates in a person’s diet is much more important than the amount,” senior author Water Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told NBC News. He noted that no previous study had shown how weight gain was affected by simply reducing the consumption of refined grains, starchy vegetables and sugary beverages.
“Is sugar the villain? It should be behind bars,” he told NBC. “But interestingly, there are bigger villains. Overall, starch is a bigger villain.”
Consuming more fiber, natural sugars, whole grains, fruit or non-starchy vegetables was linked to less weight gain.
They also said that starch intake was more strongly associated with weight gain than increases in added sugar.
Reading labels is important if you don’t know how to recognize whole grains, which are readily available and include popcorn, quinoa, farro, oatmeal, whole-grain pasta and whole-wheat bread, among others. Eating whole fruits and non-starchy vegetables, including green leafy ones like spinach, as well as sweet potatoes, broccoli and carrots, was linked to less weight gain, too.
The foods that contribute to weight gain include white-flour products and other refined grains, starchy vegetables, white rice and drinks that have been sweetened with sugar.
“This is a well-designed study that shows us a relationship but not a causation between types of food we eat and weight gain in midlife,” Dr. Holly Lofton, an obesity medicine specialist at NYU Langone in New York who was not involved in the study, told Medical News Today.
Study details
Among the study participants, all from the United States, folks were excluded if they were older than 65, since any weight loss could be loss of lean mass, not body fat. They were also excluded if they already had a history of diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular or respiratory disease, neurodegenerative disorders, gastric conditions, chronic kidney disease or lupus. The final analysis included 46,722 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study, 67,186 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II, and 22,524 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Participants filled out questionnaires on their medical history, lifestyle factors and health initially, and again every two to four years throughout the study, which lasted more than two decades.
The subjects gained an average of three pounds every four years — just over 18 pounds over the length of the study.
Study limitations include the fact that estimates of carbohydrate intake and weight outcomes were self-reported, the researchers said. They also noted that changes in carbohydrate variables could be associated with other dietary changes that might contribute to the findings.
Better choices
Harvard Health says that low-glycemic foods can help control weight by minimizing blood sugar and insulin levels. They also help reduce the risk of other health conditions, including some cancers and heart disease.
Harvard Health’s “8 principles” of eating a low-glycemic diet include:
Eat non-starchy vegetables like beans and fruits such as apples, pears, peaches and berries.
Eat grains as unprocessed as possible, such as “whole-kernel bread, brown rice, and whole barley, millet, and wheat berries; or traditionally processed, such as stone-ground bread, steel-cut oats, and natural granola or muesli breakfast cereals.”
Limit white potatoes and refined-grain products to small servings.
Make high-calorie, low-glycemic index foods like ice cream an occasional treat, skip sugar-sweetened beverages and don’t have more than a half-cup of fruit juice a day.
Generally choose healthful proteins like beans, fish or skinless chicken.
Don’t eat trans fats, limit saturated fats and do eat — moderately — healthful fats like olive oil, nuts and avocados
Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and have a snack or two.
Finally, “eat slowly and stop when full.”
