Secrets From the REAL Biggest Losers

Liz Neporent is a diet and fitness expert and author of 12 fitness bestsellers. She regularly appears on national TV programs and is the president of Wellness 360, a New-York based wellness provider.

Last week I blogged about a study comparing bariatric surgery to lifestyle changes as a means to weight loss. The recent study, performed at the Miriam Hospital's Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine in Rhode Island, found that both methods worked about the same, though it took more commitment to drop poundage without undergoing the knife. Several of you wrote in to tell me what you had done to both lose and keep off a considerable amount of weight and as I read your comments, I was struck by how similar they sounded to the findings of the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR).

For those of you who don't know about the NWCR, it's a project run by Brown Medical School and the University of Colorado and has tracked more than 5,000 successful losers, e.g., people who have lost an average of 66 pounds and kept it off for more than five and a half years. People who sign up for the registry are asked all sorts of questions about their health habits, like what they've done to lose weight and what strategies they've used to keep it off. Their answers will be surprising to the many Americans who are looking for that secret formula to help them magically shed pounds.

• 45 percent of registry participants lost the weight on their own without the help of a formal program. Most report continuing to maintain a low calorie, low-fat diet and doing high levels of activity in order to keep the weight off.
• 98 percent of Registry participants report modifying their food intake in some way to lose weight.
• 94 percent increased their physical activity.
• 90 percent exercise, on average, about one hour per day, with walking the most-frequently reported form of activity.
• 78 percent eat breakfast every day.
• 75 percent weigh themselves once a week.
• 62 percent watch less than 10 hours of TV per week.

Would you look at that? I don't see any mention of blood type, some special way of combining food or anything resembling an s/c value (more about that little scam next week!). Could it be that common sense and reason actually do prevail when it comes to weight loss? Is the slow-and-steady approach really better than the I-need-to-wear-a-bikini-in-a-week approach? Hmmm.... What do you think?

If you want to learn more about the NWCR and get information about what really works, visit nwcr.ws.