Diet Talk from the Doc
by Dr.Diet, Diet.com's Medical Director

Many diets work in the short run, but not in the long run, according to a new study, conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles. In fact, 2/3 of dieters regained the weight they lost – and more – within 4- 5 years.

This study, reported in this month’s issue of American Psychologist, is based on an analysis of 31 long-term dieting studies.

Researchers did discover that the people who managed to keep off the weight had one thing in common – they exercised regularly.

Dieters put on weight in the long run – US study
To read the full article, click here:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/print/news/fullstory_47345.html

Dr. Diet weighs in:

What this study tells us all is that if you want to keep off the weight you work so hard to lose you will need to change your lifestyle.

Lifestyle is about much more than just the foods on your plate and their proportion of carbs and protein. Lifestyle involves how you eat, when you eat, emotional eating, how active you are on a daily basis and how you deal with stress. All these factors together will impact your weight.

People regain their weight because they start to fall back into their old habits and patterns of behaviors that have fed their overweight lifestyle.

The key to getting control of your weight long-term is to understand and learn to mange the lifestyle patterns that have caused you to scale up your weight in the first place.

Another component that’s important if you want to be successful long-term is to build into your lifestyle support for your new healthier behaviors. Whether you attend a support group, see your healthcare provider regularly or get support from an online site, the key is that you are not alone and will get the needed encouragement from others when the going gets tough.

Life always throws us curveballs and the more prepared we are for them the better we will do. My philosophy is to forget the fad diets (that are in vogue today but out tomorrow) and instead work on changing your lifestyle and helping yourself over the long run.