Leah:

Welcome to the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. I’m Leah Higl and I’m here with my co-host Aidan Muir. And today’s episode is going to be science-backed tips for beating the odds and maintaining weight loss long term. To start off with, weight loss and maintaining weight loss are both hard things. They are hard things to do. Particularly when we do look at the stats around maintaining weight loss long term, they get pretty grim.

We know on an individual level that it’s definitely possible. We both work with a lot of people who we go through a weight loss process with, and then they stay with us for a decent amount of time, and they actually have really got good long-term weight maintenance post weight loss. Even checking in with some of my clients years down the track, it’s like, I know it’s absolutely possible for people on an individual level.

But when we look at the research in this space and look at it on a kind of broader population level. It’s look, yeah, the stats are, like I said, pretty grim and there’s no like single intervention applied across a large sample size outside of things like surgery and weight loss medication that has actually resulted in long-term success for a majority of the people involved.

Aidan:

This was a topic that I personally was pretty obsessed with in my first one to two years as a dietitian. Because before having like two years of experience, how could I know? Like how could I know that people were going to maintain weight loss? So I was doing all these things like looking at the research, listening to smart people, seeing that no single intervention had resulted in that and being like, am I delusional by thinking that we can do better?

And a bit of a line I say is like, I don’t think I probably would have stayed as a dietitian, especially in the weight loss space. If my clients on average were not maintaining weight loss at a way higher frequency than those grim stats. So obviously by the fact that I’m still doing this, we’re massively outperforming those things. But it did actually also make me think about how if we just look at it from a stats perspective, a lot of those smart people were kind of concluding that it was almost as if it’s biologically impossible for people to maintain weight loss for so many reasons.

Simple explanation for that is that our appetite and our desire to eat increase when we’re in a calorie deficit, our metabolic rate might slow down, our incidental movement like… It’s like the body is fighting back in certain ways. So you could see how somebody could come to that conclusion that it’s biologically very, very difficult to maintain weight loss. I know this will be a bit of a side note and I might take this analogy too far, but there’s many other areas in life that are very hard to achieve success and we don’t look at them as biologically practically impossible.

One analogy I’m going to point to is like in the business space, like there are so many people who want to build massive businesses and make a lot of money who don’t succeed. And in those cases, we don’t look at that and be like, it’s almost biologically impossible to get rich. It is interesting that we do that in nutrition. I’m curious how much of like my obsession with this topic was just by like being like super close to the topic. Cause I remember the first time I saw people in the exercise space saying similar types of things about how it’s practically impossible to exercise consistently.

I was like, no, it’s not like you just over thinking this. And I was wondering about that nutrition space. And then the final bit where I’m like, Oh, maybe I’ll take this analogy a bit too far, but I’ve done quite a bit of like dietitian mentoring over the last two years. And one of the aspects of my mentoring is helping people with Instagram. And there are a few kinds of basic rules that I have in place. So it’s like, Oh, if you’re going to succeed on Instagram, you probably need to post at least three times per week. And from what I’ve seen with people in that space, everyone who posts three times per week that I’ve been mentoring has done really well.

And the people who don’t post three times a week tend not to do that well. And in the cases of the people who don’t post three plus times a week or succeed on Instagram, once again, I never look at them and be like, it’s biologically impossible for them to succeed on Instagram. I kind of think either one, they haven’t allocated the time to this or created the space that they need to do this or two, I haven’t made it easy enough. Using the easy enough example, almost every time where I find something that I’m like, this is the idea, I need all of the people I’m mentoring to go do this.

It almost always works and almost all of them go and do it and have success with that. So it’s like, if I make it really easy for them, they go and do it. And I see so much overlap with that in the weight loss space about being like, if somebody allocates time, space, et cetera, the odds of success probably improve. But then also we can look at it through, like, if I make this easier for them, their odds also improve. That is an analogy that did probably go too far on, but what I do want to talk about, or what we do want to talk about is looking at through the opposite angle of those grim starts.

Let’s look at the people who succeed. What do they have in common? And let’s look at that not from our personal perspectives of what we do with clients. Let’s literally look at what the research has in common for people who succeed. And we’re going to be talking about eight common themes that are very common in the research amongst people who maintain weight loss.

Leah:

The first one we’re going to chat about is self monitoring. So this is a very common theme for those that do maintain weight loss long term, that they have some form of self monitoring in place. And this can show up in a variety of ways. One that’s quite common is just continuing to have a focus on monitoring things like food portions or you’re tracking calories or using a food diary, or you’re just kind of measuring your intake in some way. It may not be as stringent or rigid as what you did on the way down in terms of losing the weight But there is some level of monitoring still involved some level of mindfulness.

Another angle to take this from is also just tracking weight over time So tracking weight consistently and and seeing if it’s going up if it’s maintaining Obviously we when we when we talk about weighing very frequently for a very long period of time the it’s a controversial topic because it could fall into a disordered place. There are people that track very frequently who have a very poor relationship with a scale and for them it’s very disordered.

So we’re not talking about doing that but for some people it’s just they keep an eye on their weight and maybe they also have like a trigger point of like when I reach this weight that probably means I’m on like some kind of upward trajectory so maybe I need to stop analyse my habits and put things in place to continue maintaining my weight, where if we don’t ever check in on what our weight is doing, it’s very easy for it to just creep up very slowly over time. And then we only realise once we’ve regained a significant amount of weight. So self monitoring in some way, shape or form in a way that is not disordered for you would likely improve outcomes long-term.

Aidan:

Yeah, I rate that wording as well. Cause I think it’s so important to have a bit of nuance about both of those being like the research really does clearly show self monitoring plays a role. But if I was working with somebody who that seemed to sort it, I guess that’s not what we’re to do. But it does clearly show that. like, found it interesting, like there’s people I work with who are very far away from being disordered to the point of almost like apathy about like, they’re not, they’re not too concerned with this stuff.

And I have heard them say stuff like, Oh, I know it’s bad to weigh yourself frequently. And it’s like, they don’t even really care that deeply about this. And it’s like, this could be an easy win. maybe we could actually get a little bit more from this. The next one I’m going talk about is meal planning and or prepping meals in advance. It’s just another very common theme that researchers found in people who maintain weight loss. There’s not too much to say here because it’s quite a simple one. It’s probably the last time I’ll go back to the analogy of that like mentoring thing and the Instagram content stuff.

But the example I do want to point to is if I ask these people, when do you plan to create your content? And they actually have an answer like they’ll be like on Mondays, I’ll do this Tuesdays, I’ll do this almost every single time they succeed. If I ask that question and they don’t actually have an answer to that question, the odds of them posting three plus times per week is so low.

Doing the same thing with the whole meal prep thing and planning. If I ask a client, when do you plan your meals? And they don’t have an answer. The odds of success are so much lower than if I asked that question. They’re like, on Sundays, what I do is I plan my blah, blah, blah. Like you can see the point there. Like you can see why it leads to success.

Leah:

The third one we’re to talk about is planning for events in advance. So people that plan for things like traveling, eating out at restaurants, doing things that are outside their normal kind of day-to-day structure and having some level of mindfulness about this tend to have, again, better long-term outcomes.

Obviously, we don’t want to take this so far that, again, it’s going into that disordered kind of spectrum, but some level of planning, especially if we’re eating out or we’re traveling a fair bit, then okay, there’s a certain percentage of that that should probably be mindful choices, some level of portion size control, et cetera. Or we also think about maybe reducing or minimising the amount that we are doing that or eating quote on quote freely on these kind of more energy dense foods. So again, not in a disordered way, but having some level of planning around it can be helpful.

Aidan:

Home cooking more frequently is another common theme as well. So on average, people who succeed with weight loss clearly tend to have a larger percentage of meals as home cooked meals. Without thinking deeply about that, that’s obvious. Like if you went back to that point about like more calorie dense foods, like if you’re eating out at restaurants and or takeaway, it’s almost always going to be more calorie dense and in many cases more nutrient poor as well. It is an interesting one though for me, because there’s a lot of other aspects to think about, because there’s so many ways you can succeed as well.

For example, if somebody told me that they have know, let’s say muscle chef meals all the time. And that just works for them. It’s like, should I go out of my way to tell that person to like, more frequently? I don’t know. There’s so many ways you can succeed. I’m just sharing what is a common theme. People who cook at home more frequently tend to succeed with maintaining weight loss a little bit more often or noticeably more often.

Leah:

And it’s also often people that succeed with long term weight loss, they have some kind of consistent routine. So not only just talking about kind of meal planning and doing like planning things in advance, but having some level of consistent routine. For us, when working with people, this is one of the biggest things that stands out. Like not only are people that lose the weight tend to have consistent routines, but also the people that maintain it long-term. They maintain these like general routines that they had potentially during the way down, but it’s just they’re no longer in a deficit. They’re aiming for maintenance.

So this could look, I guess it could apply to multiple angles like you could think about all right I meal plan on this day I meal prep on this day I do this but also I Roughly have four meals a day. They’re roughly at these particular times there and from an exercise perspective I train on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays and I go for a 20-minute walk in the morning It’s like having these levels of consistency in your routine around these habits It can be an incredibly helpful for long-term weight maintenance.

Aidan:

And I’ve shared this on the podcast before, but anecdotally that is such a common theme that I see. Like to the point that it’s really surprised me how common that is amongst people who have maintained a decent amount of weight loss. On this topic as well, we have got the main review that this research has come from in the show notes as well. Just making it clear that we’re not just kind of like making this up.

You can go check this yourself. The sixth common theme is that people tend to have a clear plan for what to do if their body weight starts to increase again. And after seeing this in the research, I was kind of like, that’s so obvious, but I can see why a lot of people wouldn’t have that. And this is actually a really cool part of when I’m consulting with people, when we get towards their end goal, I have a session where I’d actually do spend like a small portion or a moderate portion of the session talking about this one thing.

Because I think it improves the odds of success so much. So these people typically have a clear trigger point where they identify if X happens, I’ll do Y. And in these consults, what I will talk about is what is X and what is Y. So there’s two parts to this. The first part is that if X happens, part. So this is part of why either weighing yourself or having some form of self monitoring in place makes sense. That way they can identify the change a bit earlier.

Let’s just use scale weight as an example, because there can be many other different ways you can do this. But using scale weight, somebody could have an end goal or range of what they would like to weigh after they’ve lost weight. And they could weigh themselves at whatever frequency, whether it’s daily, weekly, whatever they want. And they might have a number that they view as a trigger point. It should not be a number that is within their range of normal weight fluctuations. It should be a number that’s a bit above that, but not massively above that. Because if it’s massively above it, then you’ve got a lot of work to do. Whereas if it’s a bit above it,

it wouldn’t take that much to get back to where you want to be. So having some form of trigger point and usually like setting it, like you don’t need to like write it down or anything, but you need to kind of know what it is. And that’s bit I was getting at where it’s like, I can see how it’s easy to like not necessarily think about that too deeply, but actually having two seconds to think about it makes it a lot easier. The other part is the I’ll do why part. if this trigger point happens, what will I do? And this is actually part of why I do the consult because

My advice is that in most cases, you should do the thing that worked the first time. And I know how simple that sounds. And when I am talking to people, because I believe I’m talking to very intelligent people there on the same page as me. Like I’m not like trying to be super simple, but I’m kind of like, I can see why you would do something different. food nutrition comes very easily to me. But the story I tell a lot of people is I once had a knee injury that I did 12 weeks of rehab on and it went great. And then in the 13th week, I did something done that flattered up.

And instead of just going back and doing the same 12 weeks of rehab and then fixing up what I did in the 13th week, I did a completely different rehab process. And I’m like, I get it. Like I get why some people will have so much success with one thing and then something would go wrong 12 plus weeks down the line. And then they’ll do a different thing on the way down.

Like I can actually relate to that so much, but that’s why I have this session where I go through being like, if X happens, I’ll do Y and Y is typically the same thing on the way down. Cause if somebody’s thought about that and kind of made a mental note of that they probably won’t fall for that kind of shiny object syndrome problem. They probably will do the thing that’s more likely to improve their odds of success.

Leah:

Now let’s talk a little bit about physical activity, because this is something that definitely can play a role in maintaining long-term weight loss, and particularly in regards to having higher levels of physical activity than prior to weight loss itself. So whilst exercise is not a great tool for just short-term weight loss, it obviously has a bunch of benefits. It’s obviously very good for us.

For long-term weight loss and maintenance of a lower body weight, it is hugely beneficial. And there are some pretty crazy stats out there showing that keeping exercise up during and post weight loss just massively improves odds of weight loss maintenance. So again, having some mindfulness around keeping these habits that you had on the way down that had shifted prior to the weight loss or during the weight loss that you want to keep around, whether that’s your structured movement, whether that’s incidental movement, things like steps or a mix of both, we want to have engaged in some level of physical activity long-term.

Aidan:

And this won’t be in the show notes because it’s research I saw literally almost a decade ago now. And I never like noted it down. I wish I had in hindsight because I do quote this quite a bit, but there was research I saw that made the point that if you exercise on the way down, at least at a decent frequency, more than just walking,

And obviously walking will help as well, like more than just walking at least two times a week. If you continue exercising at that same frequency, duration, volume, whatever, or increase it, as long as you don’t decrease it, your odds of maintaining weight loss over a two to five year period get to better than 50%. That crazy stat was one of the things that absolutely changed my perspective on all of this.

I was talking about how early in my career, was like kind of obsessed with this problem being like, am I really helping people by trying to help people lose weight? Or is this something that might be potentially nearly biologically impossible? And then I saw that start. I was like, nah, I’m just over thinking this. Like you tweak one variable and the odds have gone from an 80 to 95% quote on quote failure rate to a better than 50% success rate with one variable.

Imagine if you tweaked a lot of these other odds, like going through all the things we talked about, like more home cooked meals, more planning what you’re having having like so many things and even going back to that last one that just spoke about with the whole trigger point thing. The deeper down the rabbit hole of this research you go, the more you start going well, what do we consider maintaining weight loss? Like if somebody lost 20 kilos and regained 10, do we call them a weight loss maintainer? Like it starts to get kind of murky and everything like that. But one thing that’s very clear is people we classify as weight loss maintainers, if you do look at over a five year period,

Typically there will be a phase where they regain some weight, which is therefore like an important part of maintaining weight loss is having some of these steps in place for what you do if you do regain some weight. The final thing, the final common theme, and this is from the research as well, is external support and accountability from professionals. I promise you, this is not meant as a shameless plug. I just try to put out free content where I can. I’m not really trying to promote us too hard, but it’s just obvious that working with professionals helps.

This could be due to helpful knowledge, experience and structure. Like you kind of hear how, as I was talking about how kind of obsessed I have been with this topic. It’s like, well, obviously I have a few things that could maybe help someone. Like I’d hope so after all this work. So like, obviously there’s a bit of that, but then there’s also just the accountability and support, like having that accountability and support helps so much. It could also be partly due to investing in the process. I had a mentor early on in my dietetics career who, she talked about how she used to work in a government role where people would see her for free.

And then she stepped out into the private space and she was talking about how there was people who used to see her and not get very good results. And then the second they started paying her, they got really good results. So that’s another valid thing as well. But although it’s not meant as a shameless plug, it’s really cool to see the research has identified this as a common theme that plays a role in weight loss maintenance too.

Leah:

So overall, there are actually so many things that you can do an action on to improve your chances of success when it comes to long-term weight maintenance post weight loss. If you were to do all eight of these things as opposed to zero of them, I would bet that your chances just are phenomenally better. But even if you just took the few things that really work for you instead of all eight, know, again, you’d still probably see a huge improvement in long-term success.

Technically the main thing you need to do is just keep eating at maintenance calories on average after weight loss occurs. But doing all these things will help you do that. I think the biggest point of contention or the biggest misconception in this space is that you shouldn’t need to do anything in particular to maintain long-term weight loss. But at the end of the day, weight maintenance after weight loss, takes a bit of work and mindfulness just as weight loss takes work and mindfulness. It’s just in a slightly different way.

Aidan:

I will chuck a shameless plug in there. If you’ve listened this far and you are interested in working with our team, me a DM on Instagram and I’ll offer you a special deal. But apart from that, this has been episode 199 of the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. As always, if you haven’t already, if you could please leave a rating or review, it means the absolute world to us and we would really appreciate that.