{"id":14545,"date":"2025-08-23T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/?p=14545"},"modified":"2025-10-17T13:45:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:45:20","slug":"is-processed-food-sabotaging-your-diet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/is-processed-food-sabotaging-your-diet\/","title":{"rendered":"You Restrict Meals and Don&#8217;t Lose Weight? Calories Aren&#8217;t Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Revolutionary Study by London Scientists<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Two British research units, University College Hospital and University College London Hospitals, conducted an experiment to test whether processed food slows down weight loss. 55 people were involved in the analysis and divided into two groups. Both groups were given nutritionally balanced meals, but in excess. There was so much food that it exceeded the subjects&#8217; daily caloric needs. However, they were given free rein &#8211; they could eat as much or as little as they wanted. <strong>The most important aspect of the study was the use of ultra-processed (UPF) and minimally processed foods (MPF).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first group&#8217;s diet was based on minimally processed <a href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/these-foods-work-like-ozempic-japanese-research-confirms-it\/\">food<\/a> for eight weeks. This was followed by a four-week &#8220;cleansing&#8221; period, during which the subjects returned to their own daily diets. Then, the same group was fed ultra-processed food for another eight weeks. The procedure for the second group was the same, but in the reverse order. For the first eight weeks, their plates contained UPF meals, and after a four-week break, they switched to a minimally processed diet for eight weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was the first study of its kind in the world. When composing meals for both groups, the researchers adhered to the <em>Eatwell Guide<\/em>, which outlines the UK government&#8217;s recommendations for healthy eating. <strong>Both groups had the same calculated caloric value of their meals. The only difference was the degree of food processing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Recommended reading:<\/em><\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/meal-timing-and-weight-loss-what-scientists-discovered\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Why Your Healthy Diet Isn\u2019t Working: The Hidden Role of Meal Timing<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Research is Clear. Processed Food Slows Down Weight Loss<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The people who consumed a minimally processed diet lost more weight than those on an ultra-processed diet.<\/strong> The results of the experiment were described in the scientific journal <em>Nature Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;In conclusion, eight-week non-rigorous MPF and UPF diets, consumed to satiety and meeting UK dietary guidelines, resulted in weight loss, with significantly greater weight reductions observed with the MPF diet than with the UPF diet. These findings underscore the importance of the degree of food processing in public health policy and dietary guidelines and the need to supplement existing recommendations,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41591-025-03842-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">the study<\/a> reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the analysis showed, people on the minimally processed diet experienced a calorie deficit of 290 calories. Volunteers who consumed ultra-processed food ended up eating only about 120 calories less than their bodies needed. <strong>It was these differences that contributed to the subjects losing more weight when they ate minimally processed food.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the case of MPF, there was a 2.06% body weight reduction, while the UPF diet resulted in a 1.05% reduction. <strong>This is almost half the result of the group that ate minimally processed food.<\/strong> The people on the minimally processed diet reduced their body fat levels and accumulated water. However, there were no changes in muscle mass, which indicates the maintenance of a better body composition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The conclusion from this research is simple: ultra-processed food slows down weight loss. The researchers who conducted the analysis suggest that even if we follow dietary recommendations, the degree of meal processing can contribute to more &#8211; or less &#8211; effective weight reduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Read the original article:<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/planujesz-diete-zywnosc-przetworzona-spowalnia-odchudzanie\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ograniczasz posi\u0142ki i&nbsp;nie&nbsp;chudniesz? Kalorie to&nbsp;nie&nbsp;wszystko<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You decide to go on a diet. You count calories, take care of your meal composition, but you have the impression that something is constantly slowing down your weight loss. Sound familiar? A new study proves that the problem might not be your willpower. What are you missing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":14546,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[992,1458,1454,1179,607,1600,1499],"class_list":["post-14545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-diet","tag-experiment","tag-food","tag-health","tag-human","tag-processed-food","tag-weight-loss"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is Processed Food Sabotaging Your Diet?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new study reveals that processed food can slow down weight loss. 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Discover why just cutting calories doesn&#039;t always guarantee success.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/is-processed-food-sabotaging-your-diet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Holistic News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/portalHolisticNews\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-08-23T06:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-17T11:45:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/processed-food-and-weight-loss.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Patrycja Krzeszowska\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@news_holistic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@news_holistic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Patrycja Krzeszowska\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/is-processed-food-sabotaging-your-diet\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/is-processed-food-sabotaging-your-diet\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Patrycja Krzeszowska\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/00d8484052b491e0dbe93d6ee7deef88\"},\"headline\":\"You Restrict Meals and Don&#8217;t Lose Weight? 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