Overview
- The peer-reviewed study, published Thursday in Health Psychology, analyzed real-time food logs and daily weigh-ins from 112 adults in a 12-week behavioral program.
- Participants who repeated many of the same foods lost an average of 5.9% of body weight, compared with 4.3% among those with more varied diets.
- Weight loss decreased by about 0.6 percentage points for every extra 100 calories of day-to-day fluctuation in intake.
- An unexpected pattern showed higher logged weekend calories tied to greater loss, which researchers attribute to more consistent food tracking on those days.
- Authors caution the results show associations from a small sample and did not measure diet quality, and they call for randomized trials and longer follow-up before changing guidance.