The Best Way to Lose Weight According to Harvard

According to a large new study from Harvard Medical School, obese people are losing lots of weight by sticking to the basics and avoiding diet pills, fad diets, special "diet" foods, and other diet/weight loss products. In fact, the research showed that the best way to lose weight is by eating less, exercising more, swapping high-calorie foods for lower-calorie alternatives, and eating less fat.

This isn't exactly new or surprising info but it does highlight the fact that millions of people are wasting billions of dollars looking for easy weight loss solutions that simply don't work very well. Obese Americans who are actually losing significant amounts of weight are doing it the old-fashioned way: moving more and eating less.

In the study, a small percentage of participants used popular commercial weight loss programs (and some even used prescription weight loss pills) and had success. But those who used the simpler (and much cheaper) traditional weight loss methods lost nearly as much weight without spending a lot of money or risking their health. According to study author Dr. Christina Wee:

"It's reassuring that patients are using the less costly strategies that have been shown to be effective and the more ‘tried and true’ strategies... I think what is also reassuring is that when they try, in general, they lose weight."

Experts say that, especially for obese and overweight people, losing pounds is only part of the fight. Keeping them off over the long-term can often prove to be an even tougher challenge for many people. The good news is that people who develop healthy lifestyle habits (like daily workouts, healthy eating, drinking lots of water, etc.) almost always have a much better chance of keeping the weight off than people who used crash dieting or OTC diet pills to lose the weight!

Learn some mo': For Successful Weight Loss, Forget Fad Diets and Pills