Wouldn’t it be life-changing to discover the secret to staying slim? Well, that’s what researchers at the Cornell University Food & Brand Lab set out to do. They did this y setting up an online registry to capture the behaviours of people within the healthy weight range. And guess what they found? That there are no secrets.
Rather than fad or extreme dieting, the researchers found that common sense prevails. Of the total 147 respondents (118 female):
- 63 per cent eat vegetables with dinner every day
- 61 per cent prefer chicken over red meat
- 35 per cent enjoy a salad with their lunch
- a high proportion eat breakfast – 46 percent eat fruit and 31 per cent opt for eggs
- 90 per cent exercised (25 per cent, 6–7 days; 27 per cent 4–5 days; and 38 per cent 1–3 days).
Despite the respondents being veggie-loving, only seven per cent are vegetarians. Interestingly, they also do not deny themselves of what’s usually considered as guilty pleasures, such as alcohol and soft drinks. And as far as snacks are concerned, most choose fruit and/or nuts as their preferred mid-meal fuel.
So the key messages to come out of the study are:
- eat veggies everyday
- breakfast (and what you eat for breakfast) is important – but no breakfast is probably better than downing a bowl of sugary cereal
- while exercise is essential, you don’t have to be a gym junkie
- you can enjoy guilty pleasures in moderation.
And, of course, forget that dogmatic diet or even counting calories. In fact, that appears to be part of the secret.
You can find out more information about the study at Science Alert.
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