We always say that the key to a healthy diet is a wide variety. We’ve always preached that the best way to avoid eating unhealthy things is to have a vast array of healthy choices to pick from. But, a new study says that eating the same meals and snacks every day can aid weight loss.
Researchers from Drexel Univ. looked at the effect of “routinized” eating in a behavioral weight loss program. People who ate the same foods for 12 weeks saw the biggest results. Dietary repetition caused caloric stability — meaning they ate the same amounts of the same things daily.
The study had 112 people who logged their calories and what foods they were eating on an app. They also weighed themselves daily. The people who ate mostly the same diet every day had an average weight loss of 5.9 percent. People who ate more unique foods had an average weight loss of 4.3 percent.
The study also considered how frequently foods appeared in people’s logs. For every 10 percent increase in the portion of repetitive foods people ate, their weight loss increased by 1.6 percent. The researchers theorized that calorie restriction was “less effortful” for the people who ate highly repetitive diets.
“Limiting dietary variety may reduce self-control burden during weight loss attempts,” the researchers wrote. “On a practical level, repeating meals and snacks can make meal planning and food tracking, some of the most effective strategies for weight loss, more manageable.”
Repetition could be a way of cutting through noise and making healthy eating so routine that the dieters didn’t have to think about it.
“Maintaining a healthy diet in today’s food environment requires constant effort and self-control. Creating routines around eating may reduce that burden and make healthy choices feel more automatic,” said paper author Charlotte Hagerman.
Repetition also keeps goals active and at the forefront of the mind. Weight loss may be a nebulous desire to some dieters. If you are making the same repetitive choices, it might make your goal feel clearer and your choice easier. In the study, people who reflected more on their goals were more likely to work toward them. They were not obsessive. But they were more likely to link other decisions to their weight goals and reinforce their motivation.
“If we lived in a healthier food environment, we might encourage people to have as much variety in their diet as possible,” said Prof. Hagerman. “However, our modern food environment is too problematic. Instead, people may do best with a more repetitive diet that helps them consistently make healthier choices, even if they might sacrifice some nutritional variety.”
