• It may be harder than ever to maintain a healthy weight, according to a top Harvard researcher who's studied people's diets for decades.
  • You may need to re-think your relationship with fat and ramp up intake of plant-based foods like vegetables, nuts, and seeds, while consuming less meat and sugar.



Stampfer, who has pioneered many long-term top-notch health studies, said the easiest way to get people to lose weight is to simply limit how much they eat every day. 


Average portions in the US have ballooned as much as 138% over the past five decades, and sugar is hiding in everything we eat, from salads to plain bagels and almost every low-fat product out there.

Sara Seidelmann, a cardiologist and nutrition researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, sees the issue in a similar way.



beans salad plant-based diet healthy food
Hearty enough for a main dish or served as a side, this bean salad is packed with fiber, protein, and other plant-based nutrients.
Larry Crowe/AP

Healthy eating isn't necessarily low-carb

Seidelmann recently published a study involving more than 447,000 people around the world. The results revealed that people who eat too many or too few carbs don't live as long as those in the middle who eat a moderate amount.


Even though some veggies and beans might be considered "high-carb," eating them is associated with a longer life than low-carb diets that push people to eat large quantities of meat and animal products.

Focus on choosing healthy fats

"Eating fat doesn't make you fat," Stampfer said. That sound advice has been backed up by study after study after study. 




Eat 'just a little bit' less


Eating less and forgoing food for an occasional fast may even help you live longer, studies suggest. Some Silicon Valley biohackers have even decided to skip one meal a day, a version of the "intermittent fasting" craze that eliminates about a third of a day's calories.



Don't discount strength training

Your brain and your heart are some of the biggest calorie-burning machines in your resting body. But muscles can help keep your metabolism going all day, which means that incorporating some strength training into your routine can be a great way to maintain a healthy weight. But the benefits don't end there.

"Muscle building can not only bring up your body's metabolic rate, but also brings its own distinct health benefits that are often not as well appreciated as those associated with aerobic activity," Stampfer said.


You don't need a wide or colorful variety of foods — just find the healthy ones you like

Many principles of healthy eating that you might have learned as a kid are being debunked.



"It’s O.K. if your diet is not very diverse if you’re focusing on healthy foods and trying to minimize consumption of unhealthy foods," University of Texas epidemiologist Marcia Otto recently told the New York Times.