Lose Weight and Keep It Off

Proven Strategies to Keep Weight Off for Good

If 2011 was a successful year for slimming down, now comes the tricky part: maintaining your weight loss. Here, we reveal the secrets of those who have shed 30 pounds or more and kept if off
By Hollis Templeton fitbie
 

Take It Off, Keep It Off

Proven Strategies to Keep Weight Off for Good // man and woman running on treadmills © Thinkstock

Image: Thinkstock

As fantastic as it feels to reach a weight loss goal, hitting your target is not a point at which you should cancel your gym membership and bury your food diary in the junk drawer. Keeping weight off can be harder than shedding pounds in the first place, especially when popular diet and exercise programs are more focused on weight loss than weight loss maintenance. (Search: How should your diet and exercise program change once you hit your goal weight?)

That’s exactly the type of question the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) was designed to answer. The NWCR is a database of more than 10,000 Americans who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for a 1 year or longer. Founded in 1993 to discern whether it was possible to successfully maintain weight loss long-term, the registry uses detailed questionnaires and yearly follow-up surveys on lifestyle habits and weight-maintenance techniques to investigate what makes individuals successful in keeping off the pounds for good.

While the average member has lost 66 pounds and kept it off for 5.5 years, weight loss among NWCR members ranges from 30 to 300 pounds, and the duration of successful weight maintenance ranges from 1 year to 66 years. These successes have been the subject of several scientific studies, researchers being drawn to the popular topic and very large sample size. Here, we condense recent research on NWCR members into nine tips that can help you keep pounds from creeping back on.

More: 20 Low-Calorie Recipes for Weight Loss

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