11 secrets of successful weight loss

Anyone can lose weight. Live on Diet Coke and Corn Thins for a week. Spend three hours on the treadmill every day for a month before your high school reunion. Come down with a nasty case of gastro…

As long as you’re burning more energy than you take in, kilos disappear. But as soon as you switch your extreme detox for a real meal or skip the marathon gym sessions for True Blood DVDs, the weight creeps back on again. Even if you’ve lost weight sensibly, keeping it off is still harder than dropping it in the first place. You’ve heard the sorry stats: 80 per cent of those who lose 10 per cent or more of their body weight gain at least some of it back in a year.

But keeping the kilos off is not impossible. It’s not even unusual. It just takes a different approach from traditional diets. And thanks to the work of two pioneering weight-loss experts, we now have the formula for making sure that your lost weight never finds its way home.

Who are these saviours of slim? Dr Rena Wing, professor of psychiatry and human behaviour at The Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University, and Dr James O Hill, professor of paediatrics and medicine and director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. In 1994, they founded the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) in the US to study long-term weight-loss maintenance. “Up till then, everything we knew about weight loss was from unsuccessful people,” Dr Hill says. “We just looked at each other and said, ‘We need [to study] successful people’.”

Dr Hill and Dr Wing began their project by searching for winning losers: people who had dropped at least 14 kilos and had kept the weight off for at least a year. The doctors then asked those people to join the registry. Today more than 6000 NWCR members, 77 per cent of them women, have had their eating patterns, exercise habits and attitudes probed, poked and prodded. All that research showed Dr Wing and Dr Hill some amazing similarities. The weight-loss winners all shared successful habits, no matter how they lost the weight.

Stop dieting

Stop doing whatever helped you lose weight. Registry members used a wide variety of methods to shed kilos: liquid diets, the Atkin’s diet, Weight Watchers, and on and on. What they shared wasn’t the diet, but the strategy they used to keep fat off. “Maintaining and losing weight are completely different,” says Dr Hill. “How they lost the weight didn’t have anything to do with their long-term success.” The weight-loss phase is temporary, so choose whatever works for you. But to keep kilos at bay, you’ll have to switch to a maintenance strategy (read on for details). Don’t think of this as a sprint to the finish line, but as a long endurance race you can win.

Move more

Your old fat molecules miss your thighs more than gossip mags miss Anna Nicole. The only way to stop them returning is to outrun (or outbike, outswim, or outwalk) them. “Decreasing kilojoule intake seems to be most important in the weight-loss phase,” says weight-loss specialist Dr Donald D Hensrud. “But physical activity seems to be more important in preventing weight regain.”

So if you didn’t work out while losing weight (hey, it happens), dust off your runners. If you did work out while slimming, you have to up the intensity once you’re no longer losing, because your newly trim body is more efficient at burning kilojoules and will find a way to do the same work with less energy expended. Dr Hill says, “In my opinion, exercise is the single most important strategy.”

Use your time

Gaining weight is often due to little actions that add up: swiping pizza crust from your boyfriend’s plate, or nibbling broken biscuits from the bottom of the jar. Luckily, the same goes for exercise.

While 91 per cent of registry members work out regularly, usually for 60 to 90 minutes a day, most break that time into shorter segments. “They make time for exercise, and take advantage of 10 or 15 minutes,” Dr Hill says. So go for a lunchtime walk, or keep resistance bands in the car for traffic-jam arm workouts. “It’s the total volume of physical activity that counts, even if it’s in small bouts throughout the day,” says Dr Hill.

Eat breakfast

Seventy-eight per cent of the successful losers do so every day – if you skip breakfast, you may overeat later. Dr Suzanne Phelan, a co-investigator at the NWCR and assistant professor of behavioural medicine at Brown Medical School, says your belly’s like a petrol tank – when it’s down to under a quarter of a tank, you’re likely to overfill it. Eating brekkie may also improve cognitive ability, so you’re more likely to see that bacon, brie and mayo sandwich as the kilojoule bomb it is and opt for salad at lunch.

Eat the same stuff

Weight-loss winners chow down on the same kinds of foods and stick to the same eating schedule on weekends as they do on weekdays. In one study, the participants with consistent weekly diets were more likely to maintain their weight over a year than those who dieted more strictly on weekdays than on weekends.

“These people are creatures of habit and they don’t deviate,” Dr Hill says. That may sound reaaallllly boring – but it works because lack of variety reduces food intake. “When there’s a bowl of jelly beans of the same colour in front of people, they eat less,” Dr Phelan says. “With lots of colours to choose from, they eat more.” So if you crave variety, look for it elsewhere: shoes, weekend breaks, men…

Treat yourself once a week

Yes, consistency is key, but here’s the exception: weight-loss winners let a “naughty” treat pass their lips about once a week. The key is making it only a once-in-a-while thing. As long as the rest of your week is consistent, that’s OK. And these little planned indulgences may ward off the temptation to consume an entire tray of Krispy Kremes next week.

Go low-fat

Despite recent studies claiming that a low-fat diet might not be all it’s cracked up to be, our friends at the NWCR disagree. The average member of the registry reports that 25 to 30 per cent of her daily energy intake comes from fat (plus 15 to 20 per cent protein and 50 to 60 per cent carbohydrates). But that’s considered a moderately low-fat diet. And that’s key, says Dr Hill. “You’re more likely to overeat fat.” Why? Four hundred kilojoules of carbs take up more space than 400kJ of fat – picture a bowl of popcorn next to a dice-sized piece of cheese – so you end up eating more fat to feel full. It doesn’t help that fatty foods taste good too, tempting you to eat more. Surprised at the high percentage of carbs? Don’t be. “Our bodies run on carbs,” Dr Hill says. “A low-carb diet is opposite to human physiology – most people can’t do it in the long term.”

Sell your car

OK, not really. But rely on it less. Dr Wing and Dr Hill strapped pedometers to registry members and found that each took an average of 11,000 to 12,000 steps a day. That’s the equivalent of 6.4 to 8.8 km a day – more than double the 5000 steps trudged by the average Australian. All that walking burns a kilo’s worth of kilojoules each week. Think walking is a wimpy way to exercise? Not necessarily: walking is the only activity of 28 per cent of registry members, while half do cardio classes, cycling and swimming in addition to walking.

Weigh yourself often

“More than 75 per cent of our members weigh themselves more than once a week,” Dr Phelan reports. “They want to catch slips and reverse them.” Your weight can fluctuate from day to day for reasons that have nothing to do with food and exercise – say, your period is on its way, or you went a little too heavy on the saltshaker yesterday. Don’t let a little fluctuation scare you; it’s when the weight remains at a higher level for several days that you need to take action.

Try again

If you believe women who succeed at weight loss simply have more self-control than you do, you’re wrong. Almost 90 per cent of NWCR members had tried and failed to keep weight off before succeeding this time. The main difference: “They say they’re more committed now,” Dr Wing says. “They have this feeling, ‘I’m going to do it this time’.” The magic formula is one part optimism, two parts sheer persistence. Successful losers keep exercising and eating well; when they slip, they get straight back on the program.

Stick it out

Sure, the weight-maintenance phase is harder than the losing phase. The upside, though, is that registry members say maintenance gets easier. Studies confirm that the longer you keep weight off, the lower the odds that you’ll gain it back. At the two-year mark, there’s a 60 per cent probability that the weight will stay off. At three years, it’s a 75 per cent chance. And beyond that? Get used to second glances, wolf whistles, and a lifetime of skinny jeans.

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