Counting Calories to Lose Weight doesn't Work; how else do you explain how Peanut Butter is Slimming?

Everyone should be familiar by now with how Americans have been growing bigger and bigger with each generation. And we aren't just talking about those who somehow are unlucky enough to have genes that predispose them to being overweight. People who when they were in their 30s had no trouble with their weight often find that in their 40s, keeping the weight off is more difficult each year. Of course, people blame themselves - they should be counting calories to lose weight and visiting the gym a lot more often, they tell themselves. Everyone knows that these are what you need to do to stay slim and healthy, don't they?

Why doesn't this kind of advice ever seem to work? Is it just that people find it very distasteful to exercise and to eat responsibly? Or is it possible that the advice we've all received so far is wrong that counting calories to lose weight is the way to go?

The research in question was done at Harvard University; it involved following more than 100,000 healthy, slim, middle-class people, get this, for up to 20 years. Every two years, all these thousands of people would be given very intricately-designed questionnaires about their weight, their lifestyle habits and their eating habits. The study just came out in the New England Journal of Medicine a couple of months ago.

On average, the study found that all these people gained about 15 pounds in 20 years. The study concludes that counting calories to lose weight isn't the right approach at all. You aren't supposed to avoid fatty foods, and eat everything in moderation. The new mantra according to study is that you don't need to watch your calories as much is a need to watch where they come from.

As for exercise, while the study does find exercising makes you lose weight, it doesn’t work like you would expect. When measured every four years, the people who exercised the most were only about 2 pounds lighter than those who exercised the least. Exercise isn't as important, they've concluded, as what you choose to eat. If America is getting fatter by the year, it isn't that America doesn't exercise properly; it is just that Americans don't eat properly. That has to be bad news for all the health clubs out there.

As for the kind of foods that you should eat or avoid, the study had some surprising findings and some expected ones. Junk foods like french fries, chips, soda, fruit juice and white bread can be quite fattening. Full cream dairy products - milk and cheese - don't raise your weight. Peanut butter and nuts on the other hand actually make you lose weight. It's vegetable fat and it is good for you.

And unlike what they tell you in that famous Seinfeld episode with the low-fat yogurt, full-cream yogurt according to the study, with its healthy bacteria, can actually help you lose weight. It makes your gut a whole lot healthier and it makes you less hungry.