APPROACHES TO OVERCOMING A WEIGHT PROBLEM
Each year, Americans spend approximately $62 billion on various weight-loss plans and products. If you are overweight, you may already be creating a plan to lose weight and keep it off. You have many options.
Doing It Yourself
If you need to lose weight, focus on adopting the healthy lifestyle described throughout this book. The “right” weight for you will evolve naturally, and you won’t have to diet. Combine modest cuts in energy intake with exercise, and avoid very-low-calorie diets. (In general, a low-calorie diet provides 1200-1500 calories per day, whereas an average adult calorie diet provides 1800-3000 calories.) By achieving a negative energy balance of 250-1000 calories per day, you’ll produce the recommended weight loss of /-2 pounds per week.
APPROACHES TO OVERCOMING A WEIGHT PROBLEM Photo Gallery
Most low-calorie diets cause a rapid loss of body water at first. When this phase passes, weight loss declines. As a result,
Many plans and supplements claim to promote weight loss, but few have any research supporting their effectiveness for long-term weight management.
dieters are often misled into believing that their efforts are not working. They give up, not realizing that smaller losses later in the diet are actually more significant than the initial big losses because later loss is mostly fat loss, whereas initial loss is primarily fluid. For someone who is overweight, reasonable weight loss is 8-10% of body weight over six months.
For many Americans, maintaining weight loss is a bigger challenge than losing weight. Most weight lost during a period of dieting is regained. When planning a weight-management program, you need to include strategies that you can maintain over the long term, both for food choices and for physical activity. Weight management is a lifelong project. A registered dietitian or nutritionist can recommend an appropriate plan for you when you want to lose weight on your own. For more tips on losing weight on your own, refer to the section later in the chapter on creating an individual weight-management plan.
