Slimming With 7NEWS: Final Results

7NEWS recently finished a program in which we put seven people on seven different diets and followed them through seven weeks.

Expectations Going Into Diets
Diet Confessions
Final Weigh In: How The 7 Slimmers Did The diets that were chosen included the American Heart Association diet, a diabetic diet, the food pyramid diet, SlimFast, Atkins, The Zone, and Weight Watchers. After three weeks into the Zone, Jennifer Hulse, our Zone dieter, dropped out. "Everything you put into your mouth has to be balanced," Hulse said. "It's 40 percent carbs, 30 percent protein and 30 percent fat. I was just frustrated." "I think the Zone diet is the hardest one to do," dietician Bunny Foxhoven said. "It's not real life. It's very difficult to find the exact ounces and the exact measurements." "I was not happy about it. I was obsessed about food and it just wasn't easy," Hulse said. "I was hungry a lot of the time. Maybe, if I do it again, I will just plan it out better, being that type of person. If somebody would have brought me my meals, that would work." Overall, the dieters did pretty well, Foxhoven said. As a group, the 7Slimmers lost 62.5 pounds and experienced a lot of ups and downs. Bill Clarke, who was on the American Heart Association diet, lost five pounds. "You know you're on a good diet, you just have to be on a diet," Clarke said. "Nobody said that it was going to be this hard." Karen Quintana, who was on the Weight Watchers program, lost a total of four pounds. She lost six pounds of fat but gained two pounds of muscle, Foxhaven said. "I wasn't crazy about the program," Quintana said. "I really had to modify it, but the last seven weeks has taught me a lot about myself. I like myself a lot better." Ann Grover, who was on the food pyramid plan, lost a total of 10 pounds. Foxhoven praised the food pyramid plan as the most well-balanced. "I could eat like this for the rest of my life," Grover said. "I feel great. I'm going to keep on doing it." The person who lost the most weight -- an astounding 20.5 pounds -- was Ed Kehoe, who put himself on the diabetic diet for health reasons. "My cholesterol is down, my blood sugar is down," Kehoe said. "I've got more energy." Val Purser, who tried the SlimFast plan for the second time in her life, lost 7.5 pounds. "I feel the same, but I've learned the trigger points that set me off to binge eating," Purser said. "The easy thing was just grabbing a can." Foxhoven said that she preferred dieters lose weight by eating food instead of drinking diet shakes. The dieter on one of the most popular diet plans, the Atkins low-carb diet, lost 15 pounds and two belt sizes. "It's a real quick way to lose weight," Atkins dieter John Betancourt said, smiling. "That's two belt loops and a new pair of pants!" But our certified dietician criticized the Atkins diet. "Even though he was exercising, he was losing muscle. He's missing the vitamins and minerals as well as the carbs," Foxhoven said. But how much of the group's lost pounds came from a special diet, and how much came from a daily exercise regimen (which was part of the everyone's diet program)? Well, 7NEWS had a person who was the "control" -- who would not go on any special diet but would exercise regularly -- just to see if it was the exercise or the food that caused people to lose weight. Unfortunately, our didn't exercise very often. "It was frustrating. It was like being part of the game and not being part of the game," control David Green said. "I'm not particularly disciplined, i don't like to exercise." "Being our control, I wish he had done exercised five or six times a week for an hour," Foxhoven said. More Information: