THE HABITS THAT MAINTAIN
WEIGHT LOSS
Data collected from over 10,000 people that successfully maintain significant weight loss provides insights into their habits , traits and behaviours , writes Dr Jason Karp PhD .
DATABASE INSIGHTS
I n a television interview with Barbara Walters in 2014 , Oprah Winfrey confessed that not being able to maintain her weight loss was her biggest regret . In that interview , Walters asked Winfrey to finish the sentence , ‘ Before I leave this Earth , I will not be satisfied until I …’ ‘ Until I make peace with the whole weight thing ’ Oprah replied . Losing weight is hard ; keeping it off is even harder . What is unique about those who succeed ? The answer is buried deep in the archives at the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center in Providence , Rhode Island , USA : The National Weight Control Registry ( NWCR ), the largest database ever assembled on individuals successful at long-term maintenance of weight loss . Founded in 1994 , the NWCR includes data from more than 10,000 individuals who complete annual questionnaires about their current weight , diet and exercise habits , and behavioural strategies for weight loss maintenance .
Habit
01
Live with intention
Living with intention eliminates the random approach to weight loss maintenance in favour of the systematic and methodical one that leads to results . The NWCR has shown that , when intention is behind weight loss maintenance , 21 % of overweight people are successful weight losers . 1
The longer people keep their weight off , the fewer strategies they need to continue keeping weight off . 2 In other words , weight maintenance gets easier . The longer your clients persist in their intention and behave in accord with that intention , the easier it is for that behaviour to ‘ stick ’ and turn into a habit .
What makes one individual persist at a specific behaviour while another individual doesn ’ t ? For starters , the persistent individual has a conscientious personality . In the most recent NWCR study published in 2020 , conscientiousness was compared between successful weight losers from the NWCR and non-NWCR weight regainers . 3 The successful weight losers were found to be more conscientious than the weight regainers and scored higher on measures of order , virtue , responsibility , and industriousness . The scientists suggest that being conscientious may help individuals maintain their weight loss by improving adherence to specific behaviours .
In a review of 56 studies that contained 58 health behaviours , researchers at Université Laval in Quebec , Canada and the University of Limburg in The Netherlands found that intention remained the most important predictor of health behaviour , explaining 66 % of the variance . 4 In half of the reviewed studies , perceived behavioural control ( believing that you have control over your behaviour ) significantly added to the prediction .
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