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Successful Long‐term Weight Maintenance: A 2‐year Follow‐up
Author(s) -
Vogels Neeltje,
WesterterpPlantenga Margriet S.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
obesity
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.438
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1930-739X
pISSN - 1930-7381
DOI - 10.1038/oby.2007.147
Subject(s) - medicine , very low calorie diet , weight loss , overweight , obesity , zoology , body weight , leptin , calorie , biology
Objective: To find factors associated with successful weight maintenance (WM) in overweight and obese subjects after a very low‐calorie diet (VLCD). Research Methods and Procedures: Subjects (133) followed a VLCD (2.1 MJ/d) for 6 weeks in a free‐living situation. Of these, 103 subjects (age, 49.6 ± 9.7 years; BMI, 30.9 ± 3.8 kg/m 2 ) completed the following 2‐year WM period. Body weight (BW), body composition, leptin concentration, attitude toward eating, and physical activity were determined right before (t0) and after (t1) the VLCD, after 3 months (t2), after 1 year (t3), after 1.5 years (t4), and after 2 years (t5). Results: BW loss during VLCD was 7.2 ± 3.1 kg. After 2 years, follow‐up BW regain was 69.0 ± 98.4%. After 2 years of WM, 13 subjects were successful (<10% BW regain), and 90 were unsuccessful (>10% BW regain). At baseline, these groups were significantly different in BMI (33.7 ± 4.7 vs. 30.5 ± 3.5 kg/m 2 , respectively; p < 0.05) and fat mass (38.3 ± 9.8 vs. 32.1 ± 8.3 kg, p < 0.05). Successful subjects increased their dietary restraint significantly more during the whole study period (dietary restraint score, −4.9 ± 4.4 vs. −2.1 ± 3.8). Furthermore, %BW regain was associated with the amount of percentage body fat lost during VLCD, which indicates that the more fat lost, the better the WM, suggesting a fat free mass‐sparing effect. Discussion: Characteristics such as the ability to increase dietary restraint and maintain this high level of restraint, fat free mass sparing, and a relatively high baseline BMI and fat mass were associated with successful long‐term WM (<10% regain after 2 years).