Best Diet for Weight Loss: Veganism

If you want to lose weight and you want to lose it fast, a review of 12 weight loss studies concludes that your road to success is a vegan one. Reporting in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, Ru-Yi Huang of E-Da Hospital in Taiwan finds in her review of 1,151 dieters—who followed specific eating regimes from anywhere between nine and 74 weeks—that the vegetarians (who ate dairy products and eggs) lost just over 3 pounds more than dieters who ate meat, while vegans (who consumed no animal products at all) lost nearly twice that, reports Eureka Alert.

It should be noted that Huang investigated the amount and speed of weight loss, not which diet may in fact be the healthiest. Meanwhile, Science 2.0 reports that people who eat only animal products also lose weight, though the reason may be due to living healthier in general once going on a diet. Huang surmises that vegans lose the most weight the fastest (even, by the way, over the Atkins diet as well as ones recommended by the American Diabetes Association and the National Cholesterol Education Program) because by eating more whole grains, vegetables, and fruits they are consuming more soluble fibers, antioxidants, minerals, and protective chemicals found in plants. (Check out what the Atkins diet might do to your mood.)