Recent Research on Weight Loss Maintenance

Sadly, but it is a documented fact that most individuals who lose their excess weight through an exercise program and healthy dieting will soon gain it back. Eating salads and sweating in the gym will almost inevitably give way to gulping down pizzas and watching TV - and to regaining all the pounds the dieters tried so hard to shed!

Or is it really inevitable? Scientists conducting a large-scale, nationwide study on post-diet weight maintenance point out that news is not quite that hopeless. However, they also admit that a one hundred percent reliable method to keep the lost weight off is yet to be discovered.

To find a dependable solution appears especially important in light of a rapidly spreading epidemic of obesity and diabetes sweeping the industrialized world. The issue could get even bigger as an average age of the population increases and people become even more reluctant to exercise, walk instead of driving, give up watching TV, or cook healthy meals from scratch.

In the course of the study, the scientists examined general tendencies and rates of weight regain in three groups of volunteers who had recently dropped their unwanted weight. The first group was composed of those who had lost the most amount of weight. Unfortunately, within a study period of two years those dieters regained more than half of their lost poundage, despite adhering to an exercise program, eating healthy foods, and being in a constant contact with their personal counsellor. The participants of the first group regained only about three pounds less than subjects of two other groups, who were left without professional counselling in managing their post-diet shape.

The results of the trial, which were reported at the recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, also contain some encouraging news. According to a leading author of the study, Dr. Lawrence J. Appel, PhD, maintaining healthy weight is possible, although it is hard to achieve. The study showed that about 70 percent of the participants managed to maintain some of their weight loss achievements. A problem is that we really do not know what the best method of keeping off those unwanted pounds is, he commented.

Modern age is indeed a hard time for those who want to keep their bodies lean. Despite a cornucopia of weight-loss programs, approaches, medications and dietary supplements, evidence has accumulated that losing weight is easy but keeping it off is indeed very problematic. A year ago, scientists of the Los Angeles’ University of California who investigated a number of weight-loss trials arrived to a disturbing conclusion that more than half of initially successful dieters regained more pounds than they had previously managed to lose.

Dr. Laura P. Svetkey of the Duke University says the keeping off those extra pounds is hard because weight loss triggers an increased secretion of hormones that stimulate appetite and slow down metabolism, which is a protective evolutionary mechanism against starvation. Other factors involved in the problem are sedentary western lifestyles and social pressures that make people succumb to temptations of eating processed foods and under-exercising.

Currently, the researchers are investigating which factors can play the most important role in long-term weight loss maintenance, which can lead to the development of an effective post-diet strategy to help dieters keep their newly-achieved healthy weight.

Tim Ford