Examples of moderate-intensity activities include brisk walking faster than 2. Doing so slowly can help prevent injuries. Even light activity burns more calories than being sedentary.

Start small. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Break up your day with short walks. You can also break up moderate-intensity activity into short sessions.

Every minute counts toward your weekly goal! Experts recommend adults do them at least two days a week. Creating new habits can help you lose and maintain your weight. You can use an app or journal to track your physical activity and food intake.

Some devices can automatically track and record your activity. Getting social support can help keep you motivated. Apps and social media sites may connect you with other people who support your goals.

Laurie Friedman Donze, a clinical psychologist at NIH. Often, people will eat to reduce stress or as a way to comfort themselves. Not getting enough sleep may also increase your appetite or cravings for high-fat foods. Be patient with the process. It can be difficult to lose or keep weight off. Some people may benefit from medication or surgery in addition to lifestyle changes.

Dejunking Your Diet. Helping a Child Who Is Overweight. Breaking Down Food. Show Your Heart Some Love! NIH Office of Communications and Public Liaison Building 31, Room 5B52 Bethesda, MD nihnewsinhealth od.

gov Tel: Editor: Harrison Wein, Ph. Managing Editor: Tianna Hicklin, Ph. Illustrator: Alan Defibaugh. Attention Editors: Reprint our articles and illustrations in your own publication.

Our material is not copyrighted. Please acknowledge NIH News in Health as the source and send us a copy. For more consumer health news and information, visit health.

For wellness toolkits, visit www. Site Menu Home. December Print this issue. En español Send us your comments. Related Stories.

Back to Top. This explains why restrictive dieters tend to gain the weight they lost back and then some. It's just too hard to maintain those restrictive eating habits. On the other hand, healthy habits like the ones Younkin outlined above—eating smaller portions, increasing vegetable and protein intake and reducing intake of simple carbohydrates, sugar and alcohol—are much more realistic to maintain.

Youkin says, "Once those changes are habitual, focusing on exercise can help you continue to get results. If you are restricting food intake, over-exercising or thinking about food and your body all the time in order to maintain a certain number on the scale, then that is not the healthiest weight for you," says Younkin.

Any changes you make in an effort to lose weight should be habits you can keep up for the long haul. Luckily for us, little changes that you enjoy can add up to big accomplishments over time.

Younkin has specific tips for those trying to eat in a way that aligns with their weight loss goals: "Aim to eat every 3 to 4 hours to keep blood sugar balanced, plan healthy snacks and don't feel guilty when you eat something you feel like you shouldn't.

The healthy plate method refers to filling half your plate veggies, a quarter with whole grains and the last quarter with lean protein. This strategy makes portion control easy, without tediously measuring everything.

And, adds Younkin, "Be conscious of sugar and alcohol intake can help too, as those 'empty' calories can add up over time". When it comes to exercising, find something you actually enjoy. It will make it easier to be consistent. Something is better than nothing," encourages Younkin.

If you don't have 45 minutes for a long workout, do 20 minutes or even a minute walk and try to build in more active time later. If you feel stuck or at a plateau, try mixing up what you're doing or try something new.

Lastly, accountability can help when sticking to your healthy lifestyle changes. Younkin suggests including a friend, hiring a dietitian or working with a personal trainer, so you don't have to do it all on your own. Weight loss can be hard, but small lifestyle changes that you can keep up with will help you find success.

Even if you only lose one pound per month, that's 12 pounds down at the end of the year! Use limited data to select advertising. Create profiles for personalised advertising. Use profiles to select personalised advertising. Create profiles to personalise content. Use profiles to select personalised content.

Measure advertising performance. Measure content performance. Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources. Develop and improve services. Use limited data to select content. List of Partners vendors. Special Diets Weight Loss. By EatingWell. She is a registered dietitian with a master's in food, nutrition and sustainability.

Jessica Ball, M. EatingWell's Editorial Guidelines. Reviewed by Dietitian Novella Lui is a registered dietitian and a nutrition and health writer. Reviewed by Dietitian Novella Lui, RD, M. Was this page helpful?

Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Related Articles. Newsletter Sign Up. You may accept or manage your choices by clicking below, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, or at any time in the privacy policy page.

These choices will be signaled to our partners and will not affect browsing data.

This modest weight loss can decrease your risk for chronic diseases related to obesity. Find family members or friends who will support your weight loss efforts.

Coworkers or neighbors with similar goals might share healthy recipes and plan group physical activities. Joining a weight loss group or visiting a health care professional such as a registered dietitian may also help. Revisit the goals you set in Step 3 and evaluate your progress regularly.

Evaluate which parts of your plan are working well and which ones need tweaking. Then rewrite your goals and plan accordingly. If you consistently achieve a particular goal, add a new goal to help you continue your pathway to success.

Reward yourself for your successes! Use non-food rewards, such as a bouquet of fresh flowers, a sports outing with friends, or a relaxing bath.

Rewards help keep you motivated on the path to better health. Treatment for overweight and obesity Common treatments for overweight and obesity include losing weight through healthy eating, being more physically active, and making other changes to your usual habits.

Choosing a safe and successful weight-loss program Tips on how to choose a program that may help you lose weight safely and keep it off over time. Prescription medications to treat overweight and obesity If lifestyle changes do not help you lose weight or maintain your weight loss, your health care professional may prescribe medications as part of your weight-control program.

Bariatric surgery Weight-loss surgery, also known as bariatric surgery, is an operation that makes changes to the digestive system. Body Image Creating a positive body image through healthy eating habits. Strategies for Success Find resources to help you lose or gain weight safely and effectively.

Weight Management for Youth Address weight issues in children and teens with healthy guidelines, links to interactive and skill-building tools, and more. What you should know about popular diets Learn how to evaluate claims made by weight loss products and diets.

Find information to choose weight loss strategies that are healthy, effective, and safe for you. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to search.

Español Other Languages. Losing Weight. Español Spanish. Minus Related Pages. Getting Started Losing weight takes a well-thought-out plan. Step 1: Make a commitment Whether you have a family history of heart disease, want to see your kids get married, or want to feel better in your clothes, write down why you want to lose weight.

Social support means a lot. Programs like Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers use group support to impact weight loss and lifelong healthy eating. Seek out support—whether in the form of family, friends, or a support group—to get the encouragement you need. Slow and steady wins the race.

Losing weight too fast can take a toll on your mind and body, making you feel sluggish, drained, and sick. Aim to lose one to two pounds a week so you're losing fat rather than water and muscle. Set goals to keep you motivated. Short-term goals, like wanting to fit into a bikini for the summer, usually don't work as well as wanting to feel more confident or become healthier for your children's sakes.

When temptation strikes, focus on the benefits you'll reap from being healthier. Use tools to track your progress. Smartphone apps, fitness trackers, or simply keeping a journal can help you keep track of the food you eat, the calories you burn, and the weight you lose.

Seeing the results in black and white can help you stay motivated. Get plenty of sleep. Lack of sleep stimulates your appetite so you want more food than normal; at the same time, it stops you feeling satisfied, making you want to keep eating. Sleep deprivation can also affect your motivation, so aim for eight hours of quality sleep a night.

Whether or not you're specifically aiming to cut carbs, most of us consume unhealthy amounts of sugar and refined carbohydrates such as white bread, pizza dough, pasta, pastries, white flour, white rice, and sweetened breakfast cereals. Replacing refined carbs with their whole-grain counterparts and eliminating candy and desserts is only part of the solution, though.

Sugar is hidden in foods as diverse as canned soups and vegetables, pasta sauce, margarine, and many reduced fat foods. Since your body gets all it needs from sugar naturally occurring in food, all this added sugar amounts to nothing but a lot of empty calories and unhealthy spikes in your blood glucose.

Calories obtained from fructose found in sugary beverages such as soda and processed foods like doughnuts, muffins, and candy are more likely to add to fat around your belly. Cutting back on sugary foods can mean a slimmer waistline as well as a lower risk of diabetes.

Even if you're cutting calories, that doesn't necessarily mean you have to eat less food. High-fiber foods such as fruit, vegetables, beans, and whole grains are higher in volume and take longer to digest, making them filling—and great for weight-loss. It's generally okay to eat as much fresh fruit and non-starchy vegetables as you want—you'll feel full before you've overdone it on the calories.

Eat vegetables raw or steamed , not fried or breaded, and dress them with herbs and spices or a little olive oil for flavor. Add fruit to low sugar cereal —blueberries, strawberries, sliced bananas.

You'll still enjoy lots of sweetness, but with fewer calories, less sugar, and more fiber. Bulk out sandwiches by adding healthy veggie choices like lettuce, tomatoes, sprouts, cucumbers, and avocado.

Add more veggies to your favorite main courses to make your dish more substantial. Even pasta and stir-fries can be diet-friendly if you use less noodles and more vegetables.

Start your meal with salad or vegetable soup to help fill you up so you eat less of your entrée. Set yourself up for weight-loss success by taking charge of your food environment: when you eat, how much you eat, and what foods you make easily available.

Cook your own meals at home. This allows you to control both portion size and what goes in to the food. Restaurant and packaged foods generally contain a lot more sugar, unhealthy fat, and calories than food cooked at home —plus the portion sizes tend to be larger. Serve yourself smaller portions.

Use small plates, bowls, and cups to make your portions appear larger. Don't eat out of large bowls or directly from food containers, which makes it difficult to assess how much you've eaten. Eat early. Studies suggest that consuming more of your daily calories at breakfast and fewer at dinner can help you drop more pounds.

Eating a larger, healthy breakfast can jump-start your metabolism, stop you feeling hungry during the day, and give you more time to burn off the calories. Fast for 14 hours a day. Try to eat dinner earlier in the day and then fast until breakfast the next morning.

Eating only when you're most active and giving your digestion a long break may aid weight loss. Plan your meals and snacks ahead of time.

You can create your own small portion snacks in plastic bags or containers. Eating on a schedule will help you avoid eating when you aren't truly hungry. Drink more water. Thirst can often be confused with hunger, so by drinking water you can avoid extra calories. Limit the amount of tempting foods you have at home.

If you share a kitchen with non-dieters, store indulgent foods out of sight. The degree to which exercise aids weight loss is open to debate, but the benefits go way beyond burning calories. Exercise can increase your metabolism and improve your outlook—and it's something you can benefit from right now.

Go for a walk, stretch, move around and you'll have more energy and motivation to tackle the other steps in your weight-loss program.

Lack time for a long workout? Three minute spurts of exercise per day can be just as good as one minute workout. Remember: anything is better than nothing. Start off slowly with small amounts of physical activity each day. Then, as you start to lose weight and have more energy, you'll find it easier to become more physically active.

Find exercise you enjoy. Try walking with a friend, dancing, hiking, cycling, playing Frisbee with a dog, enjoying a pickup game of basketball, or playing activity-based video games with your kids. Far from it. Since it was established in , The National Weight Control Registry NWCR in the United States, has tracked over 10, individuals who have lost significant amounts of weight and kept it off for long periods of time.

Whatever diet you use to lose weight in the first place, adopting these habits may help you to keep it off:.

How choosing healthier carbs can improve your health and waistline. This diet can help fight heart disease, diabetes, cognitive decline, and more. How focusing on the experience of eating can improve your diet. Tips for building a fitness plan, and finding the best exercises for you.

BetterHelp makes starting therapy easy. Take the assessment and get matched with a professional, licensed therapist. Millions of readers rely on HelpGuide. Or both? Here, we dive into the research and talk with a dietitian about how to lose weight and keep it off long term.

Novella Lui is a registered dietitian and a nutrition and health writer. She is passionate about supporting others in building healthy relationships with food by sharing practical and easy-to-follow tips.

Novella combines her interest in providing evidence-based nutrition and health education with food and culture through creating consumer-focused content for brands and publications. As a foodie and a globetrotter, she loves to seek new flavors and explore different cuisines.

In her spare time, you can find her looking for hidden food gems and spending time outdoors hiking local trails. There are many indicators of health, and weight is just one of them. That said, weight loss is a popular goal for many people trying to improve their health.

There are several benefits associated with losing a few pounds through healthy methods, like better blood sugar control, healthier blood pressure and lower chronic disease risk. And even though you've probably heard that good nutrition and physical activity can lead to weight loss, it's easier said than done.

Your whole lifestyle plays a part in getting to and maintaining a healthy weight. Diet and exercise go hand in hand; you can't only depend on one without the other. But they might be more valuable at different times in your weight loss journey.

So what's the best formula to lose weight and keep it off? We took a look at the research and spoke with weight loss dietitian, Lainey Younkin, M. Weight loss is often thought of as "calories in, calories out", but it's not quite that simple. How many calories you need in a day is influenced by many factors, including age, activity level, body composition, illness, injury and more.

The amount of energy aka calories our body uses each day is also known as our metabolism. Aside from the calories we burn during exercise, there are three ways our body burns calories:.

The vast majority of our body's energy is spent on our basal metabolic rate. Losing weight can actually slow down our metabolism a bit think: a smaller body requires less energy to heat than a larger one.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean you might need to be a little more strategic when trying to lose weight. Let's break down your primary focus for weight loss and weight maintenance, and how they differ.

There are many ways to lose weight, but one of the most common methods is establishing a calorie deficit, meaning consuming fewer calories than your body burns per day. A calorie deficit is required for weight loss, but studies show it is easier to create and maintain a calorie deficit through changing your diet rather than exercising ," advises Younkin.

So, when you're first starting out, try to focus on what's on your plate rather than constantly hitting the gym. Lucky for you, we have a variety of weight-loss meal plans that please any palate. However, going on a restrictive diet is not a way to lose weight for good.

Instead of drastically cutting calories and dropping a bunch of weight quickly, you want to create a small calorie deficit that you can keep up with over time," shares Younkin.