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Lasting result
Congratulations! You have successfully lost weight and you have (almost) reached your ideal weight. But how do you keep the pounds off and prevent the infamous yo-yo effect? Be guided by the ‘four keys to success’!
It is a wonderful feeling to get your target weight in sight, after many weeks or perhaps months of dieting. Maybe with the help of Sonja Bakker, maybe thanks to a dietician, maybe on your own, you made it! But after this first success, a new and actually even bigger challenge awaits you. Because maintaining the slim line is even more difficult than losing weight.
No more than one in five dieters manage to stay at their target weight for at least a year, according to research. Your chance of success is therefore only 20 percent. And, worse, after four years, at least half of dieters are even heavier than before they went on a diet! In order to understand and prevent this, we need to take a close look at the entire process of dieting and losing weight.
Predict your success
For starters, let’s go back to your last diet. Because the way you lost weight also predicts your chance of success. Losing weight too fast is not good, warns Jaap Seidell. He is professor of nutrition and health at the VU University in Amsterdam and does a lot of research into overweight. “The more drastically we lose weight, the less likely we are to maintain it. This is partly because a strict diet often deviates from normal eating habits. After the diet, almost everyone has had enough of that strict regimen and most people revert to the same eating habits that made them fat.”
You would think that people would return exactly to their old weight, but unfortunately, that is not the case. Because even if you don’t eat more than before the diet, most people do gain more kilos. And then what every dieter is afraid of: the yo-yo effect. That means that we first lose weight, and then gain weight than we once were, and then lose weight again, with the chance to gain extra weight again.
The yo-yoing, says Seidell, is mainly because the body learns to deal with food differently during a strict diet: the metabolism adjusts. “During a diet, food is burned less quickly, because the body learns to be economical. And after the diet, when people go back to eating as much as before, the body starts hoarding, in case another scant period arrives,” said Seidell.
stomach reduction
Klaas Westerterp, professor of human energetics at Maastricht University, knows how long this ‘saving mode’ will last. “A lot of research has been done into the yo-yo effect, for example in people who have lost a lot of weight due to a stomach reduction. The metabolism is on average about 5 percent more economical. That effect can last for five to ten years.”
In other words: after losing weight, you can use an average of 5 percent fewer calories permanently. For an average woman this means about 100 kilocalories less per day, compared to a glass of soft drink and two biscuits.
And we’re not there yet, because there’s another reason why people gain weight earlier after losing weight. “What many people don’t realize”, says Westerterp, “is that after losing weight they have a ‘smaller’ body, which also needs fewer calories. And that difference is permanent, as long as you weigh less than you used to weigh. You can increase your daily calorie budget by exercising more. The more active you are, the more you can eat without gaining weight.”
Four keys to success
What is the secret of successful dieters who do manage to maintain their weight? Many scientists are looking for that. All that research shows that there are four keys to weight loss success. Successful weight loss is not the same as reaching your goal weight, says Seidell: “A weight loss of 5 percent of body weight is very nice. And a 10 percent weight loss is fantastic. Whoever achieves that, does so much good for his health. This lowers blood pressure and keeps blood sugars at a better level. If you’ve lost 10 percent, try keeping it that way for a while. That’s probably better than losing weight at all costs until you’re slim again. Losing weight again and again and then gaining it again is very unhealthy for the body. But also for the mind. If you keep ‘failing’ in a diet, it is not good for your self-image.”
Key 1: Slowly
You have the best chance of lasting success if you have lost weight in a gentle way, because then you learn good eating habits and the metabolism starts to fluctuate less. Anyone who has lost weight quickly with a strict diet must pay extra attention that the kilos do not come back on again, even more than people who have lost weight at a leisurely pace.
According to dietician Jellie Cazemier, ‘quiet’ means losing weight: “Use about 500 kilocalories per day less than you need, combined with more exercise. An average man then ends up on a diet of about 1700 kilocalories, an average woman can eat 1500 kilocalories. Eating less is not smart, because then you have a greater chance of the yo-yo effect. That also applies to the so popular Sonja Bakker diet, because it contains only 1200 kilocalories per day.”
Key 2: move a lot
Losing weight requires a lot of exercise, says Jaap Seidell. “And I mean a lot. At least one to one and a half hours a day.” According to Rutger Simons, personal trainer, any activity is good. “Cleaning windows can be many times more intensive than a short walk. Variation is the magic word to keep moving, otherwise it will become boring and you will drop out,” says Simons. “And challenge yourself every now and then, for example by accelerating on the bike, by taking hand weights on a walk or by doing interval training. When you exercise more intensively, the combustion increases to a higher level and that effect remains measurable for several hours afterwards. It is good for every ex-dieter to keep stimulating the metabolism.”
Key 3: eat tasty and healthy
The third key to successful weight loss is to permanently change eating habits. Happiness is just around the corner! It is precisely small changes that are successful in the long term, because they are easy to maintain. Breakfast every day, no sugar in the coffee, no fruit juice but fruit tea, light soft drinks instead of a beer, lean ham instead of sausage. Compare it with closing the curtains in the evening or choosing an energy-saving lamp. It is precisely those small changes that lead to major savings on your energy bill in the long term. The same goes for your weight.
Dietitian Jellie Cazemier emphasizes that enjoyment is also part of it. “You shouldn’t feel like you’ve been on a diet all your life, making healthy, but annoying choices all the time. Many ex-dieters feel that they now eat ‘sensibly’ but a bit ‘boring’. Avoid that feeling of rut and make sure you eat well, every meal. Vary, with the hot meal of course, but also switch with types of bread and toppings, for example. Have fresh fruit or juice with breakfast. And eat raw vegetables or soup at lunch, that brightens things up and also fills the stomach in a healthy way.”
Key 4: healthy between the ears
Do you know that you mainly eat when you are not feeling well? That food is a way for you to handle feelings of dissatisfaction, anger or stress? Then it can be useful to go to therapy, to form a support group with like-minded people or to follow assertiveness training, thinks Tatjana van Strien, psychologist and author of ‘Losing weight’ (published by Boom, €19.95). “More than 40 percent of overweight people are so-called emotional eaters. It is difficult, but if you manage to tackle this mechanism, it is much easier to maintain your weight.”
You should always remain alert and intervene in time if your weight threatens to increase again. But that will cost you less and less effort. After all, you are stimulated by your weight loss success, which makes you feel fitter, sleep better and have more air. The four keys to success can help you maintain your weight and prevent the yo-yo effect. At a certain point you have mastered it and the habits have become ingrained, as evidenced by the stories of the Plus readers accompanying this article.
Sources):
- Plus Magazine