How to maintain weight loss: YOU CAN DO IT.

Yes, it's possible to maintain weight loss, even if you've yo-yo dieted in the past; you have mental health issues; you are/were a binge eater; you have certain negative personality traits, or any number of other things. The greatest predictors of long-term maintenance were: rapid, strong weight loss, especially early in the diet but not greater than 30% at the beginning; the ability to self-moderate, and keeping your exercise routine at least at 50% of your dieting exercise routine.

That first part flies in the face of the common advice to lose weight steadily and slowly. It looks as though Allan's method works better over the long haul. Rapid loss is more associated with long-term loss, as long as it's under 30% in the early days.

The ability to self-moderate is huge. This applies not only to those who were in a system such as Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, etc., but to those who are on the 1200/day diet sheets people are using in the Challenge. I'm interpreting that as perhaps keeping some of those menu suggestions in place, just add more food to them until you get up to maintenance calorie levels. Don't eat sundaes and Cinnabons. Continue with oatmeal, whole grains, eggs, tuna, shrimp, chicken, scallops, lobster, lean beef/pork/lamb, non-fat yogurt, a zillion vegetables, some fruit, etc. And don't batter and deep fry the shrimp, or eat KFC chicken. Be reasonable. That's self-moderation. That's also enough to eat for anyone, really. Oh! Keep drinking water!

The exercise thing was also interesting. They were recommending walking four miles a day three times a week or any other 30 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week, and keeping on a routine. They also advised continuing some weight training, just for general health/strength, but it was not required. If there were enough exercise and continued calorie restriction, weight loss would continue beyond target weight, which was not advised, obviously.

It said that 100% of those who kept off the weight for at least six years had done those things. 100%!! It comes down to this--do you want to be one of the 100% who's good to go after six years, or one of the majority who gains 30% back at the one year mark? 

You know how to get it off and keep it off. Don't let anyone tell you that you have to gain it back. IT'S NOT TRUE.

This was all from a paper written by Rena R. Wing and Marylou Klem. I don't know when it was published, but it was a large study of the over 3,000 subjects in the National Weight Control Registry. The majority of the data it's based on came from 1999. It's in the book Eating Disorders and Obesity, ed. Christopher G. Fairwell and Kelly D. Brownell.

I over-ate today. Just hungry, that's all--no excuse, just gave in. I didn't eat breakfast or lunch, and by 4 p.m. I was ravenous. I ate a huge bowl of stew (delicious, since I made it, lol) to the very full point. You know how that is. If you eat until you're full, a half-hour later you're nearly sick from being stuffed to the gills. Ugh. I sure paid for it. I won't make that mistake again. I guess every once in a while, you need a kick in the pants. I got mine.

Enough already! Time to sign off.