Programs Designed to Maintain Weight Loss
For those involved in the design of weight loss programs, check out the post, Brain’s response to seeing food may be linked to weight loss maintenance, on the brain mysteries blog. First, they summarize very nicely the problem of maintaining behavior change versus achieving behavior change:
”Long-term weight loss maintenance continues to be a major problem in obesity treatment. Participants in behavioral weight loss programs lose an average of 8 to 10 percent of their weight during the first six months of treatment and will maintain approximately two-thirds of their weight loss after one year. However, despite intensive efforts, weight regain appears to continue for the next several years, with most patients returning to their baseline weight after five years.”
Second, the investigators found via a brain scan study, that to maintain weight loss, the self-regulation that is learned to lose the weight must become hardwired or automatic over time. The effort must shift from a conscious, energy intensive, effort to one that is automatic or effortless.
