Does Anything Ever Last ? The Path to Weight Loss

In a report done by the Australian Psychological Society, they talk about unknown roots of unhelpful behaviour, which would stop people from losing weight and exercising more and healthy eating also. People do know that that they should eat healthier and exercise more but sometimes change can be very hard for some people, in the long term.

The APS study was centred around two things eating habits and exercise 1289 people took part in the survey of 751 females and a 129 males. Almost all those involved in the study had suggested that they had attempted at some time to change their eating habits their reasons were as follows 44 percent said change their physical appearance, closely followed by wanting to improve general health, the main ways that they described for changing eating habits was willpower, or joining a gym or sports club as the case maybe.

Surprisingly the results were quite mixed overall in this study around 97%, said they managed to change their eating behaviour, but 98% percent said they had had some degree of success in changing their eating habits, around 22% percent of the participants in this survey, there actual eating habits, didn't last more than a few weeks or months, until old habits re-emerged once again.

39% percent of participants claimed although they felt they had made some changes they to said it didn't last, but however 26% percent of them said that over a period of six months they had managed to maintain the change 12% percent commented that even though that they had only been trying for six months to maintain the changes, has managed to keep on track.

Now something very interesting starts to emerge from these results as you'll see soon,
the four to six month barrier is where things can get a bit wobbly, as to whether or not you may succeed or fail, studies have shown that people who do something for six months or longer are more likely to keep that behaviour over a longer period of time.
This report supports that theory, once the participants were across the six month barrier.

As we look deeper into this some other interesting points crop up, these relate to age the people who were 30 years old and over this age bracket did manage to stick to their plan over the six-month period, but those people under this age bracket were less likely to.

Physical activity was also closely related to the above statistics, the main reasons given for wanting to do the physical activity was to change their physical appearance, followed by improving their overall general health. The way the managed to keep their activity on track was by willpower alone, other strategies used were the same as the eating habits joining a gym or doing some other sport activity.

The participants said that they did not need to consult a professional as regards their exercise regime. As is consistent with the results for the eating habits the participants who kept the exercise programme up for over a period of six months, were far less likely to slip back rather than other people who didn't go past the six-month barrier, and in parallel with the food habits people in the 30 and over age bracket, consistent findings were noted again as in people below 30 years of age were far more likely to follow through their exercise programme rather than their younger counterparts.

Is it possible to keep the behaviour maintained over the six-month period ?

While research in this particular field suggests that what tends to happen is you tend to go through what is called a maintenance stage, it is at this stage that the person wants to bring lasting change to their life, however it is very important to note that even though you may have crossed the six-month barrier, you cannot just assume that now the behaviour is now permanent, some people found that they didn't need a support strategy at all where some did.

Most people in the survey didn't rely heavily on using support type strategies, but people who were in the earlier stages of behaviour change, did tend to use support, moreover those people who made the change were less likely to need any support type network, what this suggests is that people who have once made the change no longer need any kind of support, but nonetheless the findings were leaning towards more having moral support or someone you can share ideas with and exercise with and discuss diets and other things which may or may not work.

Coping strategies:

People's emotional responses and coping mechanisms were recorded to see how individuals coped with the changes, throughout the period.

Here in summary format:

• People who were obese showed that they were unable to cope less, but people who were in the normal or overweight category, had better coping strategies.

• People who were obese had more negative emotions, followed by the overweight group and the normal group.
  

• Also it was noted that people who where obese had lower self-esteem than the normal or overweight group when it came to doing more physical activity and changing their eating habits.

• The obese people expected a far less brighter outcome compared to the other two groups.
  

• So it would seem that if you're obese you may suffer from mental health problems also.

So to conclude this very interesting study, it would seem you need to do the following:

• Have support when first starting your eating and physical health programme change.

• Even after six months, still keep supporting each other, discuss eating habits, and any other ways of keeping motivated and focused on your goal.

In short keep at it for longer than six months, with support from family or friends it doesn't matter who. And ultimately you will succeed and reach your target weight.

You can download the report here Via the Australian Psychological Society

Article source Via diet blog.