Bounce Out of Yo-Yo Dieting…

With the holidays coming up, many people will be both gaining weight and starting the time honored New Year’s tradition of trying to lose it. Most New Year’s resolutions to lose weight end up in failure. While most people can lose weight, most people can’t maintain that weight loss for any appreciable amount of time.

A new study from the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology suggests a new way to approach a weight loss effort. Rather than trying to lose weight right away, half of the 267 overweight or obese women were randomized to a program teaching them various skills to help maintain their current weight for 8 weeks. After the 8 weeks were over, the women embarked on proven weight loss strategies such as increased physical activity and food journaling for another 20 weeks. The control group had the opposite order of their training. They first participated in 20 weeks of weight loss counseling, and then 8 weeks of weight maintenance training.

At the end of the 28-week programs, both groups of women lost on average 17 pounds. A year and no outside help later, the control group had regained on average 7 pounds while the pre-weight loss skill group had regained only 3 pounds. The lead author commented, “Losing a significant amount of weight requires a lot of focused attention to what you’re doing, and most people can’t keep up that intensity over the long term. For weight maintenance, we wanted something that would make the day-to-day experience positive while not requiring overwhelming amounts of effort.”

For this year’s New Year’s resolution, you might want to start in November, spending two months or so practicing small weight maintenance skills such as finding low-fat or low-calorie foods that can substitute for high-fat/high-calorie foods without making you feel deprived, occasionally eating and savoring small amounts of your favorite sinful foods, weighing yourself daily to see how your body weight naturally fluctuates, identifying a 5 pound range that encompasses normal fluctuations in body weight and activity, being more careful with your diet and exercise before you knowingly have a break such as a vacation coming up, or eating a little more if your weight is at the low end of your 5 pound range of normal. So before you head home for Thanksgiving turkey, practice eating healthy with some salads or veggies!

Krista Whalen is a PhD Student at Emory University Department of Epidemiology, who does research in nutrition and chronic disease. She also is a great lover of the zombie genre, and feels preparing for the zombie apocalypse is a great reason to get into better shape. 

Michaela Kiernan, Susan D. Brown, Danielle E. Schoffman, Katherine Lee, Abby C. King, C. Barr Taylor, Nina C. Schleicher, Michael G. Perri. Promoting Healthy Weight With “Stability Skills First”: A Randomized Trial..Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 2012;

Image: http://www.choosemyplate.gov/