High fibre diet helps in healthy weight loss

Whole grains high in fibre help in weight loss and also provide some healthy nutrients to those who diet. Researchers from the University of Rhode Island, Kingston conducted a six-month long study of 180 overweight adults and found that whole-grain cereals helped people lose weight while boosting their consumption of fibre, magnesium and vitamin B-6. Their intake of these nutrients was higher than that of dieters who cut calories but did not eat whole-grain cereal. The implication is that fibre-rich cereals can help people cut calories while maintaining or improving the quality of their diet. A problem with cutting out calories or certain foods to shed pounds is that nutrients can be lost from the diet. The current findings suggest that whole-grain cereals can help prevent some of these losses. The researchers compared three weight-loss strategies: exercise only; exercise plus a reduced-calorie diet that emphasised whole-grain cereals; and exercise plus a low-cal diet that included no cereals. They randomly assigned 180 overweight, sedentary men and women to one of the three groups. Those in the cereal group were given packets of whole-grain breakfast cereal and were told to eat a serving twice a day for the first half of the study, then once a day for the remaining time. In the end, both diet groups lost more weight than the exercise-only group, with dieters in each dropping roughly 12 pounds, on average. But the cereal group cut down on saturated fat to a greater extent and increased their fibre, magnesium and B-6 intake. On the other hand, all three groups were short on calcium and vitamin E. Many study volunteers who were in the cereal group ate their cereals directly as snacks rather than with milk or yoghurt, because of which their calcium intakes did not increase as much as expected. Besides having their cereal with milk, dieters can get calcium from foods like green vegetables, almonds and canned fish with bones. Vitamin E sources include vegetable oils like canola and safflower, some fish, wheat germ, almonds, peanut butter, avocado and mango. Some of these foods, like nuts and oil, are high in calories, so people trying to lose weight will have to exercise portion control.