Recommended Weight Loss Methods

The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) recently issued guidelines to help doctors identify, evaluate, and treat their patients who are overweight or obese. In formulating their recommendations, the NIH panel reviewed hundreds of articles that have been published in the medical literature to evaluate what methods of weight control work the best. They concluded that a combination of methods, including dietary therapy, physical activity, and behavior therapy are the most effective.

Reviewing the research on diets, the panel found:

• Eating a low calorie diet leads to an average weight loss of 8% over 3 to 12 months.
• Reducing fat in the diet without reducing calories is not sufficient for weight loss.
• Very low calorie diets create greater initial weight loss, but over the longer term of more than a year, weight loss is not different from that obtained with a low calorie diet.
• A diet that creates a deficit of 500 - 1000 calories/day is ideal for achieving a weight loss of 1 - 2 pounds/week.

Research studies on the effect of physical activity on weight loss showed:

• Physical activity alone, such as aerobic exercise, results in modest weight loss in overweight and obese individuals.
• A combination of physical activity and a reduced calorie diet produces greater weight loss than either one alone.
• A combination of a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity also leads to decreases in abdominal fat and increased cardiorespiratory fitness.

The panel also recommended behavior therapy as a useful adjunct to a program for weight loss and weight maintenance. Research studies showed that behavioral strategies reinforce changes in diet and physical activity and help in weight loss over a period of a year. Long-term follow-up found that patients who did not have continued behavioral intervention regained the lost weight. Click here for more information on recommended weight loss strategies.