Statistical analysis
The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for normality was used to confirm the normal distribution of the variables. The results are presented as mean ± standard deviation for numerical variables and absolute numbers (percentage) for categorical variables. Paired Student’s t-test was used for comparisons between the patients in the beginning and in the end of the treatment and unpaired t- test was used to compare men and women. Comparisons between different degrees of overweight were made with One-Way and variance (ANOVA) analysis. Multivariate analysis (Dendogram) was also performed to find out the degree of similarity (%) between the mean of EWL and TWL groups.The Spearman correlation was used to verify if the number of dietitian consultants was related to greater %EWL and %TWL. All statistical analyses were performed using STATA (v.12.0, Stata Corp. College Station, TX, USA) and a p<0.05 or p<0.001 was considered to be significant.