The weight-loss programs often fail after a few years due basically to the maintenance diet that is personalized and based on the continuation of a regime that is often quite dramatic, so the patient gets bored and demotivated. And if not done maintenance diet, the results are even worse.

Based on the above, a group of researchers at the University of North Carolina (USA) conducted a study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine “, based on a strategy developed to prevent their patients regain the weight who had previously lost.

This strategy was tested with remarkable success, a group of 314 healthy women who had lost at least 10% of weight in the previous two years and came, therefore, at the critical stage in which the weight usually recovers. To monitor the effectiveness of his method, a portion of the 314 women remained as a control group, which sent only every three months, brochures reminders about the importance of maintaining weight.

The strategy used was to give some advice on nutrition and exercise, and some useful tips: Keep a notebook of calories and food intake, keep a food diary and physical activity, and track participants by specialists in nutrition, either through contact sessions or on-line. He also instructed the participants to do their own monitoring through weight charts.