Trying to lose those pandemic pounds? Here are the easiest diets to stick to

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As we finally head towards the end of 2020, people are thinking ahead to a new year that is hopefully full of positive changes.  For many people, the stresses of 2020 led to weight gain (not to mention that people working from home suddenly discovered the down-side to having access to their fridges 24/7).  But even before 2020 overweight and obesity have been rampant in most developed countries. 

Every New Year, millions of people resolve to diet and hit the gym, but despite these periodic efforts, obesity rates have steadily climbed over the past decades.  Clearly it is hard to stick to a diet, and there is the ever constant search for the “best diet”.  In this post, I’ll describe our recent paper that examined which diets are easiest to stick to by looking at trends in Internet searches for diet recipes. 

If you want the TL;DR summary: the Paleo diet appeared to be easiest to stick to throughout the year, with Weight Watchers and Low Carb being close seconds… during the pandemic lockdown, the Paleo diet appeared easiest to stick to (more people actually started it than dropped out, in fact!), and second place prize went to Low Carb. Weight Watchers fared particularly poorly during the pandemic, perhaps because in-person support groups that some WW dieters attend were curtailed.

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