Diet, exercise and behaviour therapy, do they work?

The British Medical Journal reports on the answers that will help to sustain weight loss for those that are over-weight or obese.

By following a low-calorie diet and exercising every day can help you lose weight. Behaviour therapy can aid you to make changes to the way you eat and exercise. It gives you a greater chance of losing weight than just dieting.

“Losing even a small amount of weight (10 percent) reduces your risk of health problems such as heart disease and diabetes. You’re also likely to feel happier and more confident.”

But it’s not easy to keep the weight off. You’ll need to carry on eating healthily and exercising to stay at your new weight. Seeing your doctor or another health professional for advice and support may make this easier.

There are many types of weight loss programmes to help people who are obese. The most successful programmes usually include the following three elements:

A low-calorie diet: by eating fewer calories or having smaller portions or choosing foods with fewer calories, you’ll eat 500 to 1,000 fewer calories each day.

An exercise plan: Being active uses up the calories you get from food. The more exercise you do, the more calories you use. If you’re obese, you’ll probably need to do at least 30 minutes of physical activity on most days of the week. The goal is to use at least 1,000 to 2,000 extra calories a week.

Behaviour therapy: Behaviour therapy includes ways to help you change the way you eat and your exercise habits. You learn to think and act differently so that you can stick to your weight loss programme, and then sustain this new behaviour after you have achieved your goals.  It can also mean changing things in your life that have stopped you losing weight before.

You should join a weight loss programme for at least six months, having support from others in the same situation helps improve success rates, like Weight Watchers or a slimming club. After that you’ll need a plan to help you keep the weight off.

How can they help?

Losing weight

If you follow a good weight loss programme, you can expect to lose about 1 pound a week for about six months. The study found most people don’t lose much more weight after six months.

The best programmes include a calorie-controlled diet and exercise. One study showed people who did regular exercise as well as following a diet lost about 20 percent more weight than those who just followed a diet. After a year, people who did exercise lost on average 14 pounds, compared to 10 pounds for people who just dieted.

Some people try very-low-calorie diets, including meal replacement liquid diets. A very-low-calorie diet is one where you eat less than 800 calories a day. People can lose a lot of weight quite quickly with these diets. But research shows they’re no better than normal low-calorie diets in the long term.

The aim of a weight loss diet if you’re obese is usually to lose about 10 percent of your starting weight. Some people lose less, some more. This may not sound like very much. But it can improve or prevent health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Preventing these reduces your risk of heart disease.

Some people find that using a partial meal replacement plan can help them lose weight. You replace one or two meals a day with a low-calorie alternative. For example; Slim Fast shakes that you can drink instead of a meal, there are others to look out for, like smoothies, soups and snack bars. These usually contain a limited amount of calories and added vitamins and minerals. You can buy these products from chemists or supermarkets.

Keeping the weight off

Once you have lost weight, it’s difficult to keep it off over a long time. You’re more likely to be able to do this if you’re involved a weight loss programme that includes diet, exercise and behaviour therapy. The study found that the most important way to keep weight off in the long term is to keep in regular contact with a health professional. Seeing a health professional, a dietician or doctor and being able to talk to them about how things are going seems to work better than getting advice over the telephone or on the Internet.

Other things which help with weight loss include:

Having support from your family or partner
Joining a self-help group, so you get support from other people who are losing weight
Keeping track of your eating and exercise habits
Being weight-focused

One study found that a regular walking programme can help you keep your weight down. It doesn’t have to be too strenuous. It could be about two or three hours a week of brisk walking.

Why should they work?

Diets are designed to contain fewer calories than you normally eat each day. Exercise plans help you burn off calories. Combining the two means you burn off more than you take in and lose weight as a result.

Behaviour therapy helps you learn when and why you overeat. It teaches you how to avoid situations that encourage you to overeat.

View source

**Disclaimer** – We here at 100% People are not health care professionals. We have researched issues such as the one featured in the above article in detail to bring you the best of the information available to us at the time of print. We can not be held responsible for the health of our readers and would always urge someone to contact their G.P or a qualified specialist before making any change to their diet or lifestyle.