Keys to Weight Loss Maintenance Identified

Write down every food you consume. Eat breakfast every day. Weigh yourself regularly. Count both calories and grams of fat. These are the keys to long-term maintenance of weight loss, according to the latest report from the Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) study. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine published a four-year update of the study in the October Obesity. The trial has enrolled 5,145 obese patients with type 2 diabetes who will be followed for up to 11.5 years.

“These results provide critical evidence that a comprehensive lifestyle intervention can induce clinically significant weight loss (5 percent or more) in overweight/obese participants with type 2 diabetes and maintain this loss in more than 45 percent of patients at four years,” said the researchers.

For more on weight-loss maintenance, read The Gravity of Weight: A Clinical Guide to Weight Loss and Maintenance, available from American Psychiatric Publishing. Mood and anxiety disorders are associated with obesity, but the obesity may be the result of the psychotropic medications used to treat mental health disorders. Read more in Psychiatric News.

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