Like any yo-yo diet can tell you, lose weight is the easy part; Keeping weight is difficult. But long-term counseling and online support are strategies that could help you launch those extra pounds for good, new search shows.
In the largest and longest study until the date of examining weight loss maintenance strategies, researchers at Duke University Medical Center found that personal support and, to a lesser extent, online support, were useful for maintaining The weight after successful weight loss. / p>.
But the researcher Laura SvetKey, MD, tells WebMD that over time, the impact of both support strategies was modest.
The study is published in the March 12 edition of the American Medical Association magazine.
. (Have you tried telephone counseling to help you keep your weight loss? Talk to others in webmd maintenance that keeps weight loss: support group board.)
Forum Weight Loss - Counseling Helps Maintain Weight Loss
"[Our results] send a strong signal for those who seem to believe that obesity is such an intractable problem that nothing can be done about it," says SvetKey in a news version.
But, in general, the difference in weight loss was small among dieters who received advice - or personally or through the Internet - and those who do not have long-term support.
"In the end, the principles that helped people lose their weight seemed to be the same ones who helped them more in the weight maintenance phase," says WebMD.
People who have continued to monitor their own behavior, as well as defined goals, seek social support and work on motivated permanence had the greatest success in the long run, it says. "These things are important, but as a person comes to this point will vary by their situation and need."
The study included 1,032 adults with overweight or obesity that had lost an average of 19 pounds over six months (9 to 66-pound variation), following a reduced diet of calories in fruits, vegetables, dairy products Low fat content, and grains and low in animal fat, more exercise.
Participants were followed for two additional years, during which you have received any counseling to help keep your weight loss, monthly personal counseling and support, or a web-based program that supports similar supportless support.
People in the personal contact group were more successful in keeping their weight loss, with 77% weighing less after two and a half years than when they entered the study.
But 69% and 67%, respectively, of the intervention of the computer and in the non-intervention group also maintained a bit of the weight.
A total of 42% of the participants in the personal contact group maintained weight loss of at least 5% of its initial weight, compared to 35% of people in the other two groups.
Svetkey says much more research is required to better identify strategies that can help people who have successfully lost weight keeping it off.
"Now we know a lot about weight loss, but still very little about maintaining weight loss," she says. "We're really at the beginning of this research."
Weight Loss and Search Weight Maintenance Researcher, Diane Berry, PhD, agrees that self-monitoring combined with social support are fundamental to maintain lost weight switched off.
As a postdoctoral fellow of Yale University, Berry interviewed women who successfully lost weight and kept for up to 27 years.
Along with self-monitoring, daily exercise and control of portions, it discovered that social support was important to strengthen behavioral changes that led to weight loss.
Berry now performs an intervention program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, helping families lose weight together.
"One of the things that tells parents and children is that they have to pay first," says WebMD. "This means reserving time for healthy behavior change. If you dedicate some part of each day to promote better health, you get to look at it different."
