Eat Yogurt to Lose Weight

Once upon a time, it was believed that consuming too many dairy products would create too much fat on one's body. Of course, too much of any kind of food can cause weight-gain! However, new discoveries have shown that including dairy in your daily diet can actually increase weight-loss!

Yogurt is one of the best dairy sources to include in your weight loss plan. According to research conducted at the University of Tennessee, individuals who included yogurt in their weight loss plans lost 'significantly' more weight than those individuals who merely cut their caloric intake.

Michael Zemel, Ph.D., professor of nutrition at the University of Tennessee, and his colleagues conducted a 12-week study on how including yogurt in a reduced-calorie diet may impact the rate and efficiency at which an obese person loses weight. Thirty-four obese adults were the subjects of this study. They were randomly divided into two diet groups.

The results of the study showed that those who included yogurt in their daily diets lost "22% more weight, 61% more body fat, and 81% more stomach fat" than did those who did not include yogurt in their daily diets. The average weight lost among the participants who ate yogurt regularly was 13 pounds.

The incredible amount of stomach fat lost by eating a calcium-rich diet is great news! After all, stomach fat is DANGEROUS fat! Extra fat around the middle can increase one's risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and various types of cancer.

A diet rich in yogurt also protects the dieter from bone loss. And, it helps in the maintenance of muscle mass.

According to Zemel, adequate calcium in the diet seems to trigger the body to burn more fat and to decrease the number of new fat cells made by the body. He was the first to discover that a change in calcium levels in fat cells affects the signals within the cells that 'control the production and breakdown of fat.'

"The moral of the calcium story is to not dump dairy when you're dieting," Zemel said. "A diet rich in lowfat dairy foods, like yogurt, can help make your weight loss efforts easier."