LOSE & WIN: MyFitnessPal was rated the most satisfying diet. (
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If you’ve resolved to lose weight in the new year, this will whet your app-etite — a diet plan with a free app tops Consumer Reports’ list as the most satisfying to use.
MyFitnessPal, a smartphone-app and Web-site do-it-yourself plan, scored the highest in satisfaction, with an 83 out of a possible 100 points based on the magazine’s survey of 9,376 readers — coming in ahead of Weight Watchers, which scored 74.
MyFitnessPal “enables you very easily to track your calories, whether you use it online or on your phone as an app,’’ said Nancy Metcalf, Consumer Reports’ senior program editor.
“It outscored Weight Watchers on how helpful readers felt it was in keeping weight off once you lost,’’ she said.
Paleo Diet, a DIY plan, scored an 80.
Paleo encourages people to eat like cavemen. Dine on things like lean meats, fish — but cereal grains, dairy products and processed foods are no-no’s.
Readers were asked to rate their overall satisfaction with four commercial plans, where you pay for membership and/or required branded foods, as well as nine DIYs, where you don’t pay for membership or branded food.
“We asked them their overall satisfaction and what they thought of different aspects of diets, such as did they encourage exercise, did they encourage you to eat fruits and vegetables, how quickly you started losing weight once you started and how much weight you lost,’’ Metcalf said.
Among the commercial plans, the low-calorie Medifast program scored 70, about the same as Weight Watchers. People using the Medifast program shed more pounds than those using other diets, the survey found.
Medifast was followed by Jenny Craig, which scored 66 and Nutrisystem, which scored 56. It scored lowest of all the diets, with 38 percent of people on it saying they didn’t like the taste of the food.
Of the DIY plans, Mediterranean diets scored 77, SparkPeople, which like MyFitnessPal, is an app and Web site, scored 76. South Beach Diet scored 72; Glycemic Index Diet, 71; low-carb diets other than the Atkins Diet got a 71 score and Atkins Diet got 70. Slim-Fast scored 60, with dieters scoring it low for speed of initial weight loss and for not encouraging them enough to eat more fruit and vegetables.
“The plans that people were satisfied with were not necessarily those where they lost the most weight,’’ Metcalf said. “We think people in the real world make a trade-off in their head. Is this a diet that fits into my life and is it tolerable to me, where I feel I can lose some weight?’’