Weight Control and Diet

Description

Alternative Names

Weight Loss and Maintenance

Even modest weight loss can reduce the risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. The simplest (but still difficult) approach to weight loss is reducing calories and exercising at least 150 minutes a week. Behavioral and mental changes in eating habits, physical activity, and attitudes about food and weight are also essential to weight management. For people who are very overweight and cannot lose weight using lifestyle measures, a number of effective weight-loss medications are available. And for those with severe obesity, surgical procedures are proving to be very beneficial.

Some Tips for Losing Weight. The following offer some general suggestions for dieters:

• Start with realistic goals. Diet failure is extremely common and the odds of significant weight loss are low, particularly in people with the highest weights. People who are able to restrict calories, engage in an exercise program, and obtain help in making behavioral changes can expect to lose between 5% and 10% of their current body weight--which is generally all that is needed to achieve meaningful health changes. Certainly, the unwholesome and distorted image of a super-thin female shape should not be anyone's goal. (Anorexia, obesity's alter ego, is far less common but is the other side of this dysfunctional aspect of our culture.)
• Maintain a regular exercise program, assuming no precluding health problems. Choose one that is enjoyable. Check with a physician about any health considerations. [For more information, see Well-Connected Report #29 Exercise.]
• Do not use hunger pangs as cues to eat. A stomach that has been stretched by large meals will continue to signal hunger for large amounts of food until its size reduces over time with smaller meals.
• Be honest about how much you eat and start by recording all calories in writing. Studies suggest that when many people report their own calories intake they significantly underestimate their consumption of high-calorie and over-estimate the low-calorie foods. People who do not carefully note everything they eat tend to take in excessive calories when they believe they are dieting.
• Observe weekend eating. People tend to eat more on the weekends. If it is difficult to monitor all meals during the week, it be may be useful to at least track eating habits during these days.
• Once the pound are lost, strive to maintain the healthier weight. Make daily, even hourly, conscious decisions about eating and exercising activities. Such thinking, in many cases, can become automatic and not painful.
• Don't give up, even after repeated weight loss failure. Most studies indicate that yo-yo dieting or weight cycling has no adverse psychological or physical effects. Repeated dieting also does not impair the body's ability to burn calories efficiently.
• Weight loss, in any case, should not be the only or even the primary goal for people concerned about their health. The success of weight reduction efforts should be evaluated according to improvements in chronic disease risk factors or symptoms and by the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits, not by just the number of pounds lost.