The Keys to Successful Weight Maintenance

You did it! After years of self-doubt, you educated yourself, adopted a healthy new lifestyle, set clear and measurable objectives, and finally lost the excess weight you'd been lugging around for way too long.

Your family and friends watched - first with trepidation, then cautious optimism, and finally in celebration - as you transformed yourself into the person you've always wanted to be. When you reached your target weight, they let you know how proud and impressed they were by what you'd accomplished.

And then they started in with the horror stories.

Your brother had tried the same thing a couple of years ago, but couldn't keep it up and ended up gaining back every pound he'd lost. Your cousin's best friend's neighbor lost 50 pounds on a great new diet, but then put on 75 pounds when he tried to go back to eating "normally." Your uncle's boss's wife slimmed down to her target dress size in time for her daughter's wedding, but six months later she was bigger than she'd ever been before.

At times, it seems like even the most well-meaning members of your personal support network can't make it through a conversation without sharing a cautionary tale or two. And though you appreciate their concern, all these "post-diet" tales of woe are likely to leave you wondering whether it really is possible to keep the weight off.

WHAT THE STATISTICS SAY

A statistical analysis of weight-loss case studies suggests that maintaining a significant weight loss is a difficult, but not impossible task. Writing in the July 2005 edition of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers Rena R. Wing and Suzanne Phelan reported that, on average, only about one in five individuals who lose at least 10 percent of their body weight are able to maintain their target weight for at least one year.

Though this 80-percent failure rate may make maintenance sound like a losing proposition, a closer look at the statistics shows that success in keeping the weight off is a matter of continuing to follow the plan that allowed you to lose the weight in the first place. In other words, individuals who decided that they were done dieting once they reached their target weight were more likely to put the pounds back on, while those who stuck to their healthy lifestyle plans had a better chance of also staying at their ideal weight.

In an attempt to learn from those who have experienced long-term success with weight loss and maintenance, Wing and fellow researcher James O. Hill founded the National Weight Control Registry. Established in 1994, the registry contains information about more than 5,000 adults who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept the weight off for more than one year.

With 14 years (and counting) of data to analyze, the NWCR researchers have identified three consistent behaviors that are common among most successful maintainers: continuing to follow a healthy diet plan, getting regular amounts of physical exercise, and closely monitoring one's weight.

CONSISTENCY IS CRUCIAL

The findings of the NWCR are consistent with the information offered by other reputable organizations and individuals. For example, a weight maintenance article on the Mayo Clinic website advises, "focus on the process of lifestyle change rather than the end result ...Once you've lost the weight, you can't stop your efforts."

Support for this philosophy is echoed by Lynn Haraldson-Bering, who has maintained a 168-pound loss since reaching her goal weight in March 2007. After previous losses, Haraldson-Bering recalled, "The biggest obstacle for me was my head. I thought ‘Hey, you're thin again - you can eat whatever you want! So what if you don't exercise this week? You're thin!' Of course, I didn't stay thin long with that mentality."

After reducing her weight from 296 pounds in January 2006 to 128 pounds 26 months later, Haraldson-Bering said she realized she had to abandon any ideas of returning to her bad old habits. "Maintenance requires a huge commitment," she said. "The reality is that you have to pretty much keep doing what you've been doing."

Wing and Phelan noted the necessity of a similar mindset in their article in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, writing that "successful weight loss maintainers continue to act like recently successful weight losers for many years after their weight loss."

STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS

Just as there are few secrets (and even fewer shortcuts) when it comes to losing a significant amount of weight, so, too, is the maintenance process a relatively straightforward proposition. The keys, say those who have studied or experienced the effort, are revising your goals, retaining your focus, and recruiting additional members of your support network.

"At my goal weight, support is an even more important aspect than when I was losing," said Haraldson-Bering, who recently co-founded the "Refuse to Regain" blog in an effort to build an online community of healthy maintainers. "We're all looking for people like ourselves to check in with, to see if we're ‘doing it right.'"

In addition to solidifying your personal support sources, maintaining your ideal weight is a matter of making sure you don't abandon the core principles that enabled you to achieve your initial successes. As Jacqueline Craig wrote in her Nov. 3, 2007, weight-maintenance article for Diabetes Spectrum, "maintaining behavior changes is paramount for maintaining lost weight."

The following are among the core essential strategies employed by successful weight maintainers:

• Keep eating healthy - Remember: You didn't achieve your ideal weight because you went on a diet. You earned your success by deciding to adopt a healthy lifestyle, which includes eating sensibly and nutritiously. And that's the same plan you need to follow in order to avoid putting the weight back on. Keep eating a variety of low-fat, low-calorie foods that are rich in nutrients, and continue to avoid saturated fats, trans fats, and sugars. The good news is that your success losing the weight proves you know what to eat and when to eat it - switching from a loss philosophy to a maintenance mindset is simply a matter of following the path you're already on.

• Don't stop exercising - Regular physical activity offers a wealth of health benefits, not the least of which is helping you maintain your ideal weight. When you were losing the weight, you should have established some good exercise habits. Now that you're in the maintenance phase, make sure that your workout routine remains an integral part of your daily schedule. Even though you've reached your goal in terms of total body weight, you can still set new exercise objectives to increase your abilities and retain your motivation. To underscore the importance of staying active, note that 90 percent of the successful maintainers in the National Weight Control Registry's database exercise an average of one hour each day, and 62 percent watch fewer than 10 hours of television per week.

• Monitor your maintenance - Achieving your goal doesn't mean you're finally finished with weekly weigh-ins. In fact, self-monitoring may take on an even greater role once you shift into maintenance mode. Seventy-five percent of NWCR members weigh themselves at least once per week. Monitoring your maintenance keeps you focused on retaining the progress you've made, and allows you to identify and address potential obstacles before they morph into major threats to your continued health. Conducting regular weigh-ins, keeping a record of your daily diet and exercise, and writing in a personal maintenance journal are three self-monitoring steps that many individuals credit with helping them remain at their desired weight.

TODAY, TOMORROW, FOREVER

Perhaps the best news about weight maintenance is that the more you do it, the less likely you are to backslide. As Wing and Phelan observed, "The single best predictor of risk of regain was how long participants had successfully maintained their weight loss." The researchers wrote that individuals who maintain their target weight for two years can reduce their risk of regaining by as much as 50 percent.

For Lynn Haraldson-Bering, every day she spends at her ideal weight is one more reminder that all the work is worth it. "The way my body feels at goal is its own reward," she said. "I don't want to ever feel pained or tired again due to being overweight."