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Family Living
Healthy
Life Styles
Five Key Strategies
For Maintaining Weight Loss
The National
Weight Control Registry has collected information on almost 5,000
who have maintained at least a 30-pound weight loss for five or
more years. They have found that successful maintainers follow five
key strategies.
- The eat
a high-carb, low fat diet. They get a majority of their calories
from good carbs - fruits, vegetables and other high fiber foods,
but not high sugar carbohydrates.
- They are
conscious of calories. Total calories count no matter what
diet is followed. Whether the calories come from carbs, fat or
protein, a calorie is a calorie.
- They eat
breakfast. Eight out of 10 successful maintainers eat breakfast
every day.
- They self
monitor. These successful weight maintainers weight themselves
at least weekly, many more often.
- They engate
in lots of physical activity - 60 to 90 minutes a day. Walking
is the number 1 activity.
After two years
of successful weight loss individuals reported that it was easier
to maintain their weight that it was to lose it.
See the National
Weight Control Registry web site for information and weight loss
guidelines. www.nwcr.ws
(Summarized
from Wellness Letter, University of California, Berkeley,
August 2005.)
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