The statistics around weight regain are damning.

Research has shown that short-term weight loss utilizing a variety of approaches can be successful, yet more than 80% of successful individuals experience weight regain after 1 year, 85% after 2 years and over 95% after 3 years (Langeveld & de Vries, 2013).

What's clear is that whilst many people can lose weight, most people cannot maintain it.

This can lead to immense frustration and a sense of despondency.

Why even try losing weight in the first place?

The good news? There is plenty of research on successful weight loss maintainers available. Below I distil 5 key traits these people share and how they can help you on your weight loss journey.

So here are the five key traits that successful weight loss maintainers share...

1. Changing lifestyles: Maintaining weight loss over the long-term requires a shift in lifestyle. Your old habits and behaviours resulted in your old results. Without changing your habits and behaviours you'll end up with the same results...

"Once a problem improves, people often stop doing what caused it to improve" (Dweck, 2006).

2. Periodically Track Food Intake: Tracking food intake is a useful tool to utilise periodically to ensure you are eating the correct amount of food to maintain weight loss. It will also help reinforce how much food you require so that once you stop tracking food you can continue to eat a similar amount. It is not something that you need to do all the time. However, tracking food for a week every 3 to 6 months is a highly useful exercise to ensure successful weight loss maintenance.

3. Continue to Self-Monitor: Successful weight loss maintainers have a greater frequency of self-weighing than weight regainers (Mcguire et al, 1999). It’s important to keep tracking your weight, to ensure that you are remaining successful. If you notice your weight beginning to creep up, you can take action to stop regain by tweaking food intake or activity levels. The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) is a database in the US of successful weight loss maintainers. One of the earliest studies conducted in the NWCR found that 44% of participants weighed themselves at least once per day and 31% weighed themselves once per week.

”Weight monitoring may allow individuals to notice how specific situations or patterns of eating or physical activity behaviours relate to changes in body weight. Weight monitoring also provides an opportunity for positive reinforcement when changes in behavior correspond to weight loss or avoidance of weight gain.” (Butryn et al, 2012)

4. Stick to a Weight Range: Weight can fluctuate based upon a number of factors including food intake, sodium intake, activity levels, time of day, time of cycle (females) etc. As a result, trying to stick to an exact weight can prove to be a frustrating pursuit. Therefore, maintaining your weight within a range can be more useful. For example, rather than trying to remain at 80kgs, you try to stay between 78-82kg, for example.

5. Remain Active: Seek out as much activity within your day to day life as possible. Can you go for a walk during your lunch break, rather than stay stuck at your desk? Can you meet a friend for a walk, rather than a pint at the pub? Can you get off the bus/train a stop early and walk a little further each day?

“A higher number of pedometer recorded daily steps and other measures including everyday activities has likewise been found among weight maintainers.” (Elfhag & Rossner, 2004)

To summarise, successful weight loss maintainers...
-Continue to self-monitor weight & food intake;
-Focus on sticking to a weight range, rather than obsessing over a single number;
-Remain active;
-Adopt these behaviours as part of a new lifestyle they have adopted for themselves.