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How To Keep Your Weight Off?
 

Once a person is overweight, the usual advice from the doctor is to lose weight so as to lower the likelihood of getting undesirable medical conditions including diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), heart disease, and stroke.

The initial attempt, which is also the least intrusive way, is probably to adjust the eating pattern and increase physical activity. Once this person’s body is exerting more energy (in work and metabolism) than it is consuming (from food or other nutritional supplements), the stored reserves from fat or muscle will have to be used and this will gradually lead to weight loss.

When it comes to adjusting eating patterns, there are different schools of thoughts. Some experts argue that adopting a low-carbohydrate diet and staying away form meat works best while others advocate that eating lean meats or other foods that are high in protein would most likely to help reduce weight. Such debate has continued for decades.

But the real challenge facing every dieter is the so-called ‘yo-yo effect’ or ‘yo-yo dieting’. The term is used to describe a process in which the dieter is initially successful in losing weight but is unsuccessful in keeping the loss in the long run and begins to gain the weight back. So the dieter will seek to lose the regained weight and the cycle continues.

In the past, most research would just show that if people can burn more calories than they eat, they could slim down in the short term irrespective of which weight loss methods used. Not too many studies have examined the way to keep the weight off in the long run.

On November 25, 2010, European researchers from Denmark's University of Copenhagen reported their findings in the ‘New England Journal of Medicine’ that diets rich in lean meats, poultry and beans, and low in starchy carbohydrates appear to be the ideal method for preventing weight regain.

The study, which was funded by a European Commission health agency, looked at 773 overweight and obese adults with families from 8 European countries. These adults had already lost on average 11 kilos after 2 months on a low-fat diet. The researchers intended to get their family involved in order to help keep them on track.

The participants were assigned to one of the 5 diet groups to see which one was the best to prevent weight regain. 4 groups were a combination of high or low amounts of proteins and carbohydrates while the fifth was a control diet consisting of moderate protein but no limit on carbohydrates.

There was no restriction imposed on dieters on the amount and timing they ate but they received counseling and were given recipes and cooking advice. They were also required to keep food diaries and provide blood and urine samples.

6 months later, only the low-protein, high-carbohydrate group regained significant weight (2 kilos). Meanwhile, a little more weight loss was found among those in the high-protein, low-carbohydrate group.

The dropout rate was higher than expected probably because it is not easy to keep the whole family motivated. However, fewer adults from the high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet withdrew from the study, indicating that they were comfortable in sticking with it.

One possible reason why people can stick with high-protein diet is that they do not need to concentrate on calories or how much they eat and so it becomes a much more attractive mean to help control people’s weight. Meanwhile, eating protein might trigger metabolic changes that make people feel full.

While losing weight is very important for people who are overweight or even obese, a diet that could effectively prevent weight regain in the long run could have significant impact on the public health system.

The above findings seemed to provide a solution to break the ‘yo-yo’ cycle. Unfortunately, the period of study was short. Therefore, more study is necessary to see whether the proposed diet could keep the weight loss over a longer duration.

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