Atkins Will Make You Thin —but Miserable

Study suggests nighttime fasting is effective

(NEWSER) - Want to lose weight, but can't bear to give up french fries? Well, there might be a "diet" of sorts that lets you indulge—provided you do it early. A new study has found that eating early, and then fasting at night, could be a powerful weight-loss strategy, the LA Times reports. "We have come up with something that is a simple alternative to calorie counting," the biologist who led the study boasted. More»

... or so says a British survey

(NEWSER) - Women dish out 474 lies a year to themselves and others about their diet, according to a new survey. That works out to about nine per week. The single most popular fib? "It was only a small portion." Next up are, "I'll have a big lunch so I won't eat much after this," and "I only treat myself once in a while," reports the Telegraph . It's not exactly a scientific study: Timex surveyed 3,000 women in Britain to promote a Health Tracker watch, notes the Toronto Star . (Go there for the full top 10 on the list.) The foods most likely to trigger a lie were chocolate, potato chips, cake, wine, and cheese. More»

DASH tops rankings, just in time for resolution season

(NEWSER) - Odds are, your New Year’s resolution involves losing weight. Most everyone’s does. Well good news: US News & World Report has just released its second annual diet rankings, with the top 25 diets you can jump on to get healthy. The list isn’t haphazard either—the magazine says it spent months combing medical journals, government reports, and more to compile it. Here’s the cream of the crop: More»

Chowing down when depressed may just be instinct

(NEWSER) - There’s a reason we gorge on chocolate bars or French fries when we’re down: Fatty foods actually do make us feel better, a study suggests. Scientists in Belgium had subjects look at images of sad people and listen to sad music while being fed through a tube, the Daily Mail reports. Brain scans revealed that those who received a saline solution grew 4% more depressed, while those who got a fatty solution through the tube didn't experience changes in their mood. More»

Weight Watchers, Atkins make it in top 5

(NEWSER) - If one of your New Year’s resolutions just so happened to involve dieting, you’re in luck: The Daily Beast does your homework for you, analyzing 10 major diets for overall weight loss, change in BMI, and of course, whether the weight loss actually sticks. The result? A ranking of the most effective diets:

1. Volumetrics: It focuses on foods packed with water, like soup and non-starchy vegetables to make you feel more satisfied. The 6-month mean weight loss is 19.6lbs.
2. Low-fat diet: Pretty simple, really. Stick to a diet in which up to 30% of your calories come from fat and 10% from saturated fat, and eat 1,500 calories a day (women) or 1,800 (men). The 6-month mean weight loss is 12.9lbs.