Getting Thinner Takes Time
Tips for Achieving Real, Long-Term Weight Loss
Quick weight-loss plans and fad diets may show exciting results, but it takes slow progress over years to make lasting change.
When you are overweight by more than five or ten pounds, it’s a mistake to think you can lose weight quickly and maintain your new shape for the rest of your life. In most cases, it takes years for a body to gain weight, so why is it likely that a body will lose weight faster? Few average-weight people gain 25 pounds in six months; it is much more common to gain four or five pounds a year over five or six years; one day, you realize that you’re 25 pounds heavier than you used to be and can’t think how it happened. You need to think about losing weight the same way.
It takes about 3,500 extra calories to gain a pound. To lose a pound, you need to burn 3,500 calories. Most North Americans burn between about 2,000 and 3,000 calories a day; roughly 100 calories per average hour. A quick-fix diet may call for only 1,000 calories per day. Pounds drop off, but the pace isn’t sustainable and habits don’t change, so in six weeks (or six months), you revert to previous habits and start gaining weight again.
Tip #1: Make A One-Calorie Change… And Repeat It 3,500 Times
Sound crazy? If you make a change and do it twice a day for five years, that’s 3,650 times. So if your weight has been stable for a while and you want to lose 25 pounds in five years, just make a change of 50 calories a day. (If you switch from 4 tbsp of Half-and-Half to 4 tbsp of skim milk in coffee every day, that’s 60 calories right there!)
Tip #2: Focus on Changes You Can Make for Life
If you can’t imagine doing three spin classes a week forever, don’t despair. Concentrate on making more modest exercise changes you can stick to indefinitely:
- Get off the bus a few stops early, or park your car farther away and walk a few blocks to work (Walking at a pace of two miles per hour uses 160 to 205 calories per hour; you’ll burn more if you weigh more, and if you walk more briskly.)
- Walk up the stairs to your office instead of taking the elevator. (576 to 738 calories per hour).
- Use a bike instead of a car or public transit to do errands (512 to 656 calories per hour).
Even 15 minutes of an activity like biking every day can add up to another 25-pound loss over five years. The Mayo Clinic has a handy chart of calories burned per hour of exercise; not only for sports, but for things like studying and writing too.
Tip #3: Maintaining the Same Weight is a Victory
When you make small changes and stay the same weight for a year, don't be disappointed; that’s a victory! If you gained five pounds in 2005 and 2006, but not 2007, you’ve made a 17,500-calorie change in your lifestyle: about 350 calories a week.
Tip #4: Never Beat Yourself Up
When you’re in for the long haul, it doesn’t matter if you have an indulgent day – or even quite a few. Take the coffee-cream example given above. If you’re aiming for 25 pounds, you can still afford to have your old Half-and-Half 75 times in five years – more than once a month – so you don't need to feel upset if there's no skim milk at the conference coffee bar. Give yourself some treats and feel good about it, knowing you’re still on track, rather than seeing each indulgence as a failure and a mark of the inability to lose weight.
