Scientists have weighed in on the battle over whether low-fat or low-carb is the way to go. And the answer is: low-fat. Well, they’re pretty sure.

There was a new health study executed by the National Institutes of Health. The researchers did an in depth analysis of 19 equally overweight people. During the study their diet was controlled as well as exercise, according to Immortal News.

From the data that was collected, it showed that the groups that was on a low-fat diet, actually shed more weight than those on the low-carb diets.

But even though the study clearly provided fact-based evidence that cutting fat over carbs yielded more weight loss, the lead author of the study Dr. Kevin Hall, stressed that it is really just more important for people to choose one sustainable diet that they can maintain for the long-run. Being able to stick to a diet that works for you is far more important than the difference between a low-fat and low-carb diet.

The researchers added that the study they performed would be impossible to mimic outside of that controlled environment. They said that in the real world, it would not be reasonable for a person to follow as strict as diet as what they had their volunteers do.

They also suggested that it would be more important to choose a diet that leads to a reduction in calorie intake for the long haul.

The long time belief though is going to be hard for people to let go. For years, the low-carb path has been favored because of the effect it has on the body’s metabolism. The theory was that fewer carbs would lead to lower levels of insulin, in turn, leading to fat being released from the body.

According to Dr. Hall, “those things do happen with carb reduction and you do lose body fat, but not as much as when you cut out the fat.”

In the end, the results of the study prove that progress can be made with either the low-fat or low-carb diet and that the most important thing is that calorie intake goes down overall.