Weight Maintenance

Weight maintenance is different from losing weight. When we lose weight, we can try any diet method we like – as long as the result is positive. But maintaining weight – keeping weight off – requires us to develop stable, healthy eating habits, together with regular exercise habits. Weight maintenance means adopting new and regular eating habits, combined with a routine of healthy exercise.

In a nutshell, in order to maintain our weight we should avoid all fad diets and weight loss gimmicks, and focus on adopting a healthy lifestyle.

The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) is a national database containing data on a large group of people who have on average lost more than 60 pounds and maintained their weight loss for 2 years. Here are some of the weight control strategies adopted by these ‘weight-losers.’Weight Maintenance Advice

• They eat a regular breakfast.
• They monitor their weight regularly (sometimes daily).
• They take up to 60 minutes of daily exercise daily, burning an average of 400 calories.
• The most popular weight control exercise is walking.
• They follow a fat-reduced diet, (24 percent calories from fat) while eating healthy carbs.
• They control their calories, averaging 1400 calories, per day.