To help Australians better manage their weight, the CSIRO and GI Foundation partnered to make the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet (TWD) available online to provide Australians with a more flexible approach to weight control.
The online program was launched in 2015 and 5 years later is now one of Australia’s most popular online diet program. The scientifically tested, higher protein low GI diet and its best-selling books have already helped more than half a million Australians lose weight since the publication of the first TWD book in 2005.
CSIRO has licensed the Total Wellbeing Diet to Digital Wellness for the development and management of the Total Wellbeing Diet online program, in collaboration with the Glycemic Index Foundation.
Almost 60,000 Australians following the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet from 2015 through to 2019 were studied to understand how the scientifically formulated eating plan translated to the digital age.
The research showed that participants who completed the 12-week online program lost an average of 5.3 per cent of their starting weight, which was three times more than participants who started the program but didn’t reach the end.
The study also found that frequent use of the Total Wellbeing Diet’s system was associated with greater weight loss. The most successful participants, who on average lost 21 per cent of their body weight, used the system almost four times more during the 12-week program than those who only lost a small amount of weight.
Dr GIlly Hendrie, the CSIRO research scientist who led the study, described the findings as very encouraging for the millions of Australians looking for successful, sustainable weight loss in 2020.
“We have known for over a decade that the higher protein, low GI carbohydrate eating plan made popular in the Total Wellbeing Diet books resulted in clinically significant weight loss,” Dr Hendrie said.
“Now we have evidence, in a very large sample, that combining the diet with a specially designed system including online tools, results in weight loss for even more people. The results show that the more you use, the more you can lose.
“Interestingly we saw similar weight loss achievements across all demographics, with older participants aged 51 to70 years losing around 5 per cent which was about the same weight as the younger participants aged 18 to30 years.” Analysis of the data also found those participants in the high-risk obesity group lost 6 per cent of their starting body weight.
“There is a wide body of research that shows for overweight and obese adults, the greatest health benefits come from losing the first five per cent of body weight,” Dr Hendrie said.
To find out more about the new and improved CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet visit: www.totalwellbeingdiet.com