Weight Loss Can be Maintained: Researchers Say Study Offers Hope
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Researchers say weight loss can be maintained after losing it, adding that there’s hope to win the weight battle, according to a study.
Researcher published by the Obesity Society found that the achievement was possible among people who kept a healthy lifestyle after losing at least 30 pounds.
“People do want to hear that there is hope, and it is possible to keep weight off without having to take extreme measures,” Dr. Robert Kushner, a professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinburg School of Medicine told ABC News.
Researchers tracked 3,000 successful dieters from the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), over a 10 year period and found that they had maintained an average of a 52-pound loss at five years and an average of a 51-pound loss at 10 years, according to an analysis presented by the Obesity Society and reported in USA Today.
Those dieters weighed an average of 224 pounds before losing weight and dropped an average of 69 pounds, according to the analysis.
But the weight consistency seen in members of the NWCR is strongly backed by a healthy lifestyle that requires the following behaviors, according to USA Today:
•Track food intake.
•Count calorie or fat grams or use a commercial weight-loss program to track food intake.
•Follow a low-calorie, low-fat diet. Take in about 1,800 calories a day and less than 30% of calories from fat.
•Eat breakfast regularly.
•Limit the amount you eat out. NWCR members dine out an average of three times a week and eat fast food less than once a week.
•Eat similar foods regularly and don't splurge much on holidays and special occasions.
•Walk about an hour a day or burn the same calories with other activities.
•Watch fewer than 10 hours of TV a week.
•Weigh yourself at least once a week
“Most people are discouraged. The behaviors listed by the NWCR are reasonable, practical and consistent with healthy living,” Dr. Robert Kushner added.