If you're overweight and eat less fat for four weeks, you might lose more muscle than fat compared to someone who eats fewer carbs — even if both diets help you lose weight.

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (0)

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No supporting evidence found

Contradicting (1)

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55

Low Carb Diet Outrank Low Fat Diet in Weight Loss

Randomized Controlled Trial

Human

The study just says low-carb diets helped people lose more weight overall, but it didn’t measure whether people lost more muscle or fat, and it lasted way longer than the four weeks mentioned in the claim.

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Low Carb Diet Outrank Low Fat Diet in Weight Loss

Score: 55

DOI: 10.23880/ipcm-16000157

Similar Assertions

If you're overweight and eat fewer carbs instead of less fat for four weeks, you might lose more body fat—even if you lose the same amount of total weight as someone on a low-fat diet.

0

55

92%

If you're overweight and eat fewer carbs instead of less fat for four weeks—without counting calories—you might lose about 8 pounds more than someone on a low-fat diet, and it might be because you're losing more body fat.

0

55

92%

When people with excess body fat eat very few carbs and more fats, they lose about 4-5% of their muscle mass within a month, and this muscle loss continues for the full 12 weeks of the diet.

85%

Whether you cut fat or carbs, if you eat the same number of calories, you’ll lose about the same amount of weight.

1

0

80%

If overweight men eat mostly high-sugar, high-refined-carb foods for four weeks, they might lose a little more fat and gain a little more muscle than if they ate low-sugar, whole-food carbs—but it’s so small that it might not actually matter in real life.

54

0

77%