The low-carb diet has surpassed the low-fat diet in terms of popularity in recent years, but a surprising new study finds that we’re all wrong for going that route, as we reported recently. But why is that the case?

The study, performed by the National Institutes of Health, examined 19 obese adults who had about the same weight and body mass index in two-week increments. They were given a diet of 2,740 calories with 50 percent carb, 35 percent fat, and 15 percent protein breakdown, and then they were split into two groups who either got a low-fat or low-carb diet, with both diets slashing calories by 30 percent and requiring participants to exercise an hour per day on a treadmill. The results? Not even close. The average participant dropped 463 grams on the low-fat diet, and just 245 grams on the low-carb diet.

The theory behind a low-carbohydrate diet is that carbs result in higher levels of insulin, which can cause the creation of fat. Therefore, lower carbs causes the body’s stores to release that fat.

And that’s certainly true — but as it turns out, cutting fat indirectly by cutting carbs doesn’t work nearly as well as simply cutting the fat itself.

But there’s a bit of a twist: just because the low-carb diet doesn’t cut as much fat as a low-fat diet, that doesn’t mean people aren’t more likely to lose weight with it.

How is that possible? It all comes down to which diet is easier to stick to. After all, both diets do cut the fat and result in weight loss, it’s just that low-carb diets do it more slowly. But if people find it easier to stick to a low-carb diet because cutting breads and sugars is easier than cutting fat, they may be more successful simply because they’ll be more inclined to stick to that diet.