3 Keys to Maintain Your Weight Loss

Weight is not fat. “Weight” could be composed of mostly lean tissue, or it could be mostly water weight. In fact, I would go a step further and point out that rapid loss of bodyweight correlates very highly with a greater chance of relapse, weight re-gain and long term failure.


So what does impress me? What gets my attention?


I pay attention to what the “long term maintainers” have to say - those are the people who have maintained an ideal weight for over a year… preferably even 2-5 years or more.


Don't listen to "losers"... listen to maintainers!


As I was researching the subject of long term weight maintenance recently, I was surprised at the huge amount of research that's already been done in this area.


One paper that caught my interest was published by Judy Kruger and colleagues in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity/ It was titled,


“Dietary and physical activity behaviors among adults successful at weight loss maintenance.”


This was not an experimental study, but a compilation of data from the “Styles Survey” which was representative of the U.S. population and asked respondants questions about strategies to aid with weight maintenance.



In this particular survey, only one-third (30.96%) of the respondents said they were successful at keeping their weight off. The researchers wanted to know the difference between the small group that was successful and the majority that were not.

The difference between losers and maintainers

Both groups reduced the amount of food they consumed, they ate smaller portions, more fruits and vegetables, fewer fatty foods and fewer sweetened beverages.

Not really any surprises there, but what we want to know most is not what losers and maintainers have in common, but what the maintainers did that the losers didn't.
Some major differences emerged between losers and maintainers:
First, a significantly higher proportion of successful maintainers reported exercising 30 minutes or more daily, and they also reported adding other physical activity to their daily schedules (recreation, sports, physical work, etc).

In addition, more of the successful maintainers included weight training in their exercise regimens than did the losers.
Reducing sedentary activities (TV watching, etc) was also a significant difference between those who successfully maintained and those who did not.

The next big difference that separated the successful maintainers from the unsuccessful was in their “self-monitoring behaviors” including:
tracking calories

tracking body weight

planning meals

tracking fat