ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 15, 1996 TAG: 9610150096
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BRECKENRIDGE, COLO.
SOURCE: Associated Press
A NEW STUDY has explored the ways in which dieters maintain their weight loss, which is often harder than shedding the weight.
Every dieter knows the hard part is keeping it off. In hopes of finding the formula for success, researchers are exploring the secrets of the determined few who maintain their weight loss.
``Surprisingly little is known about weight maintainers, perhaps because they are so rare,'' said Dr. Mary Klem of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
It turns out the answer is pretty simple - and it's probably not what you wanted to hear: Keep doing whatever you did to lose weight in the first place.
Permanent weight loss is not something you start and then stop. Rather, successful losers almost universally keep on watching what they eat and exercising regularly.
One sad reality of dieting is that most people put back everything they lose, usually within a year or two. Some even end up heavier than when they started, while others yo-yo up and down.
``We are better at getting people to lose weight than to maintain it,'' concedes Dr. Robert Jeffrey of the University of Minnesota.
To see what the successful few are doing right, researchers from Pittsburgh and the University of Colorado have started the National Weight Control Registry, which has enrolled 784 men and women who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for at least a year.
Klem reported the results Monday at a meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity.
Almost all of them said they had tried and failed to keep weight off in the past. This time they said they simply put themselves on stricter diets and exercised more vigorously.
For these people, the initial diets worked extremely well. They dropped an average of 66 pounds and kept it off an average of 51/2 years.
Most of the volunteers had been fat since childhood, which makes their success even more remarkable. While there were plenty of differences among the people, the researchers looked for the things they typically did to keep from regaining weight.
They found that 88 percent said they continued to both diet and exercise. All but 7 percent restricted their food intake in some way.
Exercise was an important way of burning up calories. For women, it consumed an average 2,667 calories a week, and for men 3,489. Walking was by far the most common exercise.
Many believe that getting people to exercise - and to keep exercising - is one of the toughest challenges in weight control. Half of those who start exercise programs give them up within three to six months.
``People would rather have their jaws wired or their stomachs stapled than exercise,'' said Rod Dishman, an exercise physiologist from the University of Georgia.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB