"I am not sitting around counting calories," said Loglisci, who weighs about 230 pounds today and went public with his weight loss journey on WBAL-TV, where he used to be a producer. "But I don't drink regular soda. Every time I eat a cracker or a cookie, I'm conscious of it. You have to realize that everything you put in your mouth matters that day."
Snitker said the key to any diet is that a patient believes in it. A decade ago, dieters praised the Atkins high-protein, low-carb diet and it became all the rage. But it didn't work for everyone.
"You couldn't go to a restaurant or a grocery store without someone offering you low-carb this and low-carb that," he said. "I know a lot of people who told me how wonderful that diet was. But people might have been caught by the enthusiasm for that diet."
A strength of this study is that it removed the dieting labels - such as South Beach, Zone and Mediterranean - to help participants focus on losing weight, rather than following a trend.
Snitker said this research should spur a study that examines how to determine the best diet for a particular person. Too many dieters are quick to dive into the latest craze, sometimes eating food they don't even like.
"What I would like to see, instead of being guided by the newest fad, is for people to sit down with a dietitian and look at ways they can shave off calories in their diet," he said.
Catherine Loria, a nutritional epidemiologist at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, said she discourages dieting. Rather, she advises people to adopt healthy eating patterns they can maintain for the long term.
"It's a lifestyle change," she said.
THE STUDY
* 811 people were randomly assigned to one of four diets: low fat/average protein; low fat/high protein; high fat/average protein; high fat/high protein.
* For all four diets, participants were to eat 750 calories a day less than their baseline. They also had to exercise 90 minutes a week.
* Two years later, 645 people were still in the study. Regardless of diet, their success rates were similar:
* 31 percent to 37 percent lost at least 5 percent of their initial weight
* 14 percent to15 percent lost at least 10 percent
* 2 percent to 4 percent lost 44 pounds or more.
