Best Tips to Lose Weight
 Its
the 20- or 40- or even 60-pound question...
How do you lose
weight
and keep it off?
A team of researchers created the National Weight Control
Registry to find out. Using newspaper and magazine
advertisements, they identified about 5,000 people who had
successfully lost weight and kept it off. Study participants
lost an average of 72 pounds. Although some gained back some
weight, all maintained at least a 30-pound loss.
The January issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter highlights
successful weight-loss strategies that emerged from this
research:
Eating a low-fat, low-calorie diet Strategies
included restricting certain foods, limiting quantities,
counting calories or fat grams, using a liquid or exchange
diet. Whatever the method, 99 percent of participants
reduced overall calorie intake.
Getting high levels of physical activity More than
90 percent of participants exercised regularly. The average
expenditure of energy was the equivalent of a daily one-hour
brisk walk. Walking was the most common activity.
Eating breakfast Nearly 80 percent of participants
ate breakfast every day. Cereal and fruit topped the list.
Frequent weighing Seventy-five percent of
participants weighed themselves at least once a week. About
60 percent of those people weighed themselves every day.
Once the weight was off, how did they keep it off? By
maintaining behavior changes that worked to lose weight. Two
factors that seem to predict long-term success were
day-to-day consistency in diet and the ability to recognize
when they were slipping back to their old habits. Those who
dealt with small weight gains early were most likely to stop
or reverse the gain. When participants maintained their
weight loss for at least two years, they reduced the risk of
regaining weight by 50 percent.
Another theme: No single strategy worked or was used 100
percent of the time. Any set of weight-loss techniques is
only as good as the motivation to use it in both the short
and long term. Among this group most of whom had tried and
failed to lose weight in the past the most common
motivation was a health concern or the realization that
their weight had reached an all-time high.
For more information about Mayo Clinic Health Letter visit
http://HealthLetter.MayoClinic.com.
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