How Do I Get The Best Results?

The three biggest keys to getting the best body composition results are:

1. Being in a consistent calorie deficit. It looks like higher protein pre-portioned meals and/or shakes are one of, if not the most effective and efficient way get into and stay in a calorie deficit. For more on this click HERE and HERE.

2. High levels of physical activity is critical for getting and maintaining results, Increasing movement can also help to regulate appetite and potentially allow people to diet on more calories. For more on this click HERE.

3. Resistance training at least twice a week is pivotal because without it 22-46% of the weight we lose will very likely be muscle and diets combined with exercise outperform diets alone. For more on this click HERE and HERE.

In a recent study by Longland and colleagues [1] they put individuals on a 40% energy deficit for four weeks. The participants also averaged 11,915 steps per day and completed six supervised training sessions per week (2 resistance-training circuits, 2 HIIT sessions, and 2 cardio workouts per week).

At the end of four weeks, the higher protein group lost 10.5 lbs of body fat and gained 2.6 lbs of lean body mass!

These are some of the most amazing results in the literature when it comes to effective weight loss and muscle gain and it speaks to what is possible in short time frames if people can crush the big three above.

The rub is that this study only lasted four weeks and although these individuals were metabolically healthier at the end of the study their testosterone went down by 75% and IGF-1 decreased by 66%.

An active fat loss by definition is not sustainable and that’s OK.

Yet, fat loss sprints are something that I can absolutely get behind in many circumstances and we have talked about that HERE.

We can guess that when these individuals came back up to energy balance or a new calorie maintenance their hormonal profile would recover and that is the exact study that people who take part in an active fat loss need to run because most people can’t and wouldn’t want to live in a long-term low calorie or low energy availability state.

It is also looks like it is really important for people who want to get results to lose fat in the initial diet period [2, 3], but the most important diet is the diet AFTER the diet.

The allure of the big three above is that it all sounds so simple, but as many people know doing these things consistently in our current environment is quite difficult and it’s hard to be hungry forever [4, 5].

Long-term weight loss success is surprisingly low with only 20-30% of people maintaining greater than 10% weight loss after two years and these percentages are from very intense lifestyle interventions with multiple check-ins and support for at least a year [6-10].

It does look like those who get the best results at one month and two months are more likely to maintain significant weight loss at year 2 and even year 8 [2], and there are some critical behaviors that are related to long-term success that I would advise working on from the start.

Below are five pivotal behaviors that are related to long-term weight loss success from the National Weight Loss Registries [9, 11] and recent systematic reviews [7, 12, 13].

1. High amounts of physical activity – As we have discussed before this is far and away the most consistent behavior related to long-term weight loss success.

2. Improved diet quality, portion control, and planning ahead – Eating more real food in pre-portioned amounts and having a plan are all powerful.

3. Consistent routines – Having to think about all of this and micromanage things forever could work, but it is likely very helpful to form more automatic patterns so movement and a new way of eating just becomes more normal.

4. Self-efficacy for weight management - People feel confident in their abilities to maintain their weight. They feel like, “I can do this!”

5. Consistent self-monitoring practices – This doesn’t necessarily have to be numbers like body weight or macros, but regular check-ins in some form do look to be important for maintaining results.

There is another tool that may make long-term weight loss more successful and that is having access to pre-portioned pre-packaged meals. In a recent study, roughly 80% of people were able to maintain the vast majority of their weight loss at three years by continuing to consume 1 to 2 pre-portioned meals per day [14].

We know long-term weight loss is hard and our goal is to make getting those initial results and keeping them “easier”. We also want to help people focus on the strategies and behaviors that actually matter!

#GIVEAFIT

REFERENCES:

1. Longland, T.M., et al., Higher compared with lower dietary protein during an energy deficit combined with intense exercise promotes greater lean mass gain and fat mass loss: a randomized trial. Am J Clin Nutr, 2016. 103(3): p. 738-46.

2. Unick, J.L., et al., Weight change in the first 2 months of a lifestyle intervention predicts weight changes 8 years later. Obesity (Silver Spring), 2015. 23(7): p. 1353-6.

3. Thomas, J.G., et al., Weight-loss maintenance for 10 years in the National Weight Control Registry. Am J Prev Med, 2014. 46(1): p. 17-23.

4. Hall, K.D. and S. Kahan, Maintenance of Lost Weight and Long-Term Management of Obesity. Med Clin North Am, 2018. 102(1): p. 183-197.

5. Fischer, M., N. Oberander, and A. Weimann, Four main barriers to weight loss maintenance? A quantitative analysis of difficulties experienced by obese patients after successful weight reduction. Eur J Clin Nutr, 2020. 74(8): p. 1192-1200.

6. Look, A.R.G., Eight-year weight losses with an intensive lifestyle intervention: the look AHEAD study. Obesity (Silver Spring), 2014. 22(1): p. 5-13.

7. Varkevisser, R.D.M., et al., Determinants of weight loss maintenance: a systematic review. Obes Rev, 2019. 20(2): p. 171-211.

8. Forman, E.M., et al., Long-Term Follow-up of the Mind Your Health Project: Acceptance-Based versus Standard Behavioral Treatment for Obesity. Obesity (Silver Spring), 2019. 27(4): p. 565-571.

9. Wing, R.R. and S. Phelan, Long-term weight loss maintenance. Am J Clin Nutr, 2005. 82(1 Suppl): p. 222S-225S.

10. Dombrowski, S.U., et al., Long term maintenance of weight loss with non-surgical interventions in obese adults: systematic review and meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials. BMJ, 2014. 348: p. g2646.

11. Paixao, C., et al., Successful weight loss maintenance: A systematic review of weight control registries. Obes Rev, 2020. 21(5): p. e13003.

12. Teixeira, P.J., et al., Successful behavior change in obesity interventions in adults: a systematic review of self-regulation mediators. BMC Med, 2015. 13: p. 84.

13. Montesi, L., et al., Long-term weight loss maintenance for obesity: a multidisciplinary approach. Diabetes Metab Syndr Obes, 2016. 9: p. 37-46.

14. Christensen, P., et al., Long-term weight-loss maintenance in obese patients with knee osteoarthritis: a randomized trial. Am J Clin Nutr, 2017. 106(3): p. 755-763.