I remember reading a few years ago that some scientists surveyed a group of people who successfully lost weight and kept the weight off and found that there were 4 common characteristics. From my member I quote them as:
- Carefully monitor food intake each day (for example, count calories, or points from a weight loss program)
- Exercise daily
- Eat breakfast
- Weigh themselves regularly (perhaps daily)
These seem to make sense to me. The last two might be a little surprising, but apparently those who skip breakfast are much more likely to be over-weight. The last one I believe isn’t so much that the data is useful each day as variations occur based upon timing of food, hydration, salt intake, urination, and bowel movements. But I believe that looking at the scale each days is a useful motivation to ‘stay the course.’
I then decided I should try to find the study and found two studies with slightly different results.
Study 1
Brown University and University of Colorado started a database called the National Weight Control Registry, which tracks 5,000 people who have lost an avverage of 66lbs and kept it off for more than 5 years without gastric bypass surgery. The results were summarized in this article.
The four characteristics that this study uncovered were:
- Eat breakfast (78%)
- Weighing in on a regular basis (at least weekly but generally more often) (75%)
- Turning off the TV (62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week)
- Exercise (90% of the group exercise about 1 hour per day)
Study 2
Len Kravitz’s review of Artile by Wing and Phelan in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This was based upon the same NWCR and some other studies.
The four characterisitics gleaned in this analysis are:
- Doing high level of physical activity. Men reported an average of 3,293 kcal/week and women report an average of 2,545 kcal/week. This level of physical activity is equivalent to about 1 hour/day o f moderate intensity activity. 76% percent report that walking is their main activity. It was reported that as auxiliary physical activity decreased by more than 800 calories from this standard there is a tendency to gain some weight
- Consuming a low-calorie, low-fat diet wih a consistency of behavior on the weekdays and the weekends. The most common dietrary interventions during weight loss were restricting food (87.6%, limiting food quantities (44%), and counting calories (43%). People can also check out these options for effective weight loss.
- Eating breakfast. 78% members report eating breakfast (typically cereal and fruit) every day. As well, they reported 2.5 meals/week at a restaurant and .74 meals /week in fast food establishments.
- Weighing themselves frequently.
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