Adding yogurt to your diet may rev up your body’s fat-burning engines, speed weight loss, and trim your tummy, according to a new study. Researchers found that obese adults who ate three servings of fat-free yogurt a day as part of a reduced-calorie diet lost 22% more weight and 61% more body fat than those who simply cut calories and didn’t bone up on calcium.
Yogurt eaters also lost 81% more fat in the stomach area than non-yogurt eaters.”Not only did yogurt help the study participants lose more weight — the average weight loss was 14 pounds — they were about twice as effective at maintaining lean muscle mass,
“says researcher Michael Zemel, PhD, professor of nutrition at the University of Tennessee, in a news release. “This is a critical issue when dieting — you want to lose fat, not muscle. Muscle helps burn calories, but it is often compromised during weight loss.”
The results appear in the April issue of the International Journal of Obesity.Researchers say the results add to a growing body of evidence that the calcium and protein derived from eating low-fat dairy products may help burn fat and promote weight loss.
