Research

Energy balance

A combined intervention of calorie-reduced low-fat diet and moderate-intensity aerobic exercise produces significantly greater weight loss and body composition improvements than either intervention alone in overweight-to-obese postmenopausal women.

For postmenopausal women aiming for weight loss, combining a calorie-reduced, low-fat diet with moderate-intensity aerobic exercise is the most effective strategy. While exercise alone has limited impact on weight, adding it to a diet plan yields the greatest reduction in body weight and fat mass. Aim for 45 minutes of moderate exercise, 5 days a week, alongside a diet of 1,200-2,000 calories with less than 30% fat.

StrongSupportsVERY_HIGH confidence
Among postmenopausal women, lifestyle-change involving diet, exercise, or both combined over 1 year improves body weight and adiposity, with the greatest change arising from the combined intervention.
Karen E. Foster‐Schubert et al. · Obesity · 2011

Why this rating

Large-scale (N=439), randomized, controlled, 12-month trial with high retention (91%) and intention-to-treat analysis.

Source

Effect of Diet and Exercise, Alone or Combined, on Weight and Body Composition in Overweight‐to‐Obese Postmenopausal Women

Karen E. Foster‐Schubert et al. · Obesity · 2011

DOI 10.1038/oby.2011.76

rct · n=439Cited 456×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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