Shedding weight isn’t the toughest part of the diet wars; ditching those pounds permanently is. Here’s how 10 weight-loss winners emerged victorious.
How to Keep the Weight Off -- for Good
We've all been there: You lose weight for a personal resolution or special occasion, and you feel empowered and encouraged. But before you know it, diet and exercise become the balls you can't keep in the air during your daily juggle, and the scale creeps back up to that number you thought you'd seen the last of.
Study after study finds that the majority of dieters regain everything they've lost -- and often more. Unfortunately, this struggle only proves harder as time goes by. "As we age, we start to lose our muscle mass, which slows metabolism," says Donald Hensrud, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "In women, weight maintenance can be especially difficult after 40 because the estrogen loss associated with menopause leads to a tendency to gain more weight around the middle."
So what does it take to lose weight and keep it off? That's what researchers for the National Weight Control Registry have been investigating for more than a decade. Its database includes 6,000 people who've lost at least 30 pounds and kept them off for a year or more. We talked to 10 women, ranging in age from 42 to over 60, who've used NWCR's successful techniques (along with creative approaches of their own) to slim down for good.
