Safe & Successful Weight Loss
Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight requires a commitment to sustained lifestyle changes. It is essential to guide patients and clients away from the traps of an overly-restrictive “diet” mentality and help them to focus on small, simple changes that modify unhealthy behaviors and encourage healthy ones.
Safe and effective weight-loss programs should include:
- Healthy eating plans that reduce calories but do not forbid specific foods or food groups
- Tips to increase moderate-intensity physical activity
- Tips on healthy habits that also keep your cultural needs in mind, such as lower-fat versions of your favorite foods
- Slow and steady weight loss. Depending on your starting weight, experts recommend losing weight at a rate of 1/2 to 2 pounds per week. Weight loss may be faster at the start of a program
- Medical care if you are planning to lose weight by following a special formula diet, such as a very low-calorie diet (a program that requires careful monitoring from a doctor)
- A plan to keep the weight off after you have lost it
Source: Weight-control Information Network (WIN), a service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health
Weight Loss Goals
Help your patients and clients set realistic goals for weight loss:
- Research shows that reducing body weight by as little as 5-10% over a 6 month period can lower risk for heart disease and other obesity-related comorbidities
- Aim for 1-2 pounds of weight loss per week
Read about successful weight loss strategies from individuals who have maintained a weight loss of at least 30 pounds for over a year in the National Weight Control Registry.
