Dieting to lose weight can bring about all kinds of positive changes in one’s life.  From improved health, mood, more energy and reduced stress levels.  Now it looks like you can add increases in your sex drive to this list. 

A 2016 study in JAMA Internal Medicine wanted to test whether calorie restriction has an effect on mood, quality of life, sleep, and sexual function in healthy nonobese adults. Recruited were 220 individuals followed for 2 years who were already at a healthy weight or were mildly overweight (their body mass indexes ranged from 22.0 to 28.0).  Healthy body weight runs from 18.5 to 24.9 BMI, while overweight runs from 25 to 29.9 BMI.  Obesity is defined as a BMI of 30 or higher.  Two-thirds of the study participants were originally asked to restrict their calorie intake by 25 percent but during the research the participants were only able to achieve 12 percent calorie reduction on average.  The average amount of weight lost over the 2 years was 17 pounds.  The other one-third study participants could eat whatever they liked.

Results of the study showed those participants restricting their calories had improvements in mood, less depression, improved sleep, increased sex drive and an overall better quality of life.

What appears to be the reason for these improvements are the biological changes that come with weight loss.  Weight loss brings about improvements in blood sugar levels, cholesterol, and blood pressure.  Significant improvements in our health means more energy, better ability to move, less pain in our backs and knees, and enhances our mood. 

It was pointed out that it’s the losing of excess pounds, not restricting calories, that causes the improvements in well-being and in our sex drive.  Losing weight results in increased satisfaction of your appearance making you feel sexier overall.  If your health is good, you have little to no pain, you’re happier with the way you look, your sex drive improves.  Basically when you feel good on the inside and look good on the outside you’ll want to engage in more frequent sex.

The participants who were placed on a calorie restriction were allowed to follow a diet that worked best for their daily lifestyle.  The goal was to lower their daily calorie intake whether it was by following a more traditional low-fat diet or a low-carbohydrate diet.