The Seven Secrets of Weight Loss Success

Jim Hill: Welcome to “Weight Loss And…”, where we delve into the world of weight loss. I'm Jim Hill.

Holly Wyatt: And I'm Holly Wyatt. We're both dedicated to helping you lose weight, keep it off, and live your best life while you're doing it.

Jim Hill: Indeed, we now realize successful weight loss combines the science and art of medicine, knowing what to do and why you will do it.

Holly Wyatt: Yes, the “And” allows us to talk about all the other stuff that makes your journey so much bigger, better, and exciting.

Jim Hill: Ready for the “And” factor?

Holly Wyatt: Let's dive in.

Jim Hill: Here we go. Welcome to another episode of Weight Loss And. Holly, today we're going to talk about the seven secrets of successful losers.

Holly Wyatt: I like it. I like it. People like secrets and they like success. This is good.

Jim Hill: These seven secrets, which are really seven behaviors, come from one of my favorite projects and that's the National Weight Control Registry. This is a project that I started in the early 1990s with Dr. Rena Wing, who's a behavioral psychologist, and Holly, you've been involved in this and lots of other people have been involved in it over the years.

Holly Wyatt: Jim, I was just thinking back when we were we decided to do this topic. I was looking back at all the papers that we've published on the National Weight Control Registry. The very first paper I ever published, my very first research project, used the National Weight Control Registry. If you remember, we measured resting metabolic rate and we compared it to people and we're going to talk about a minute, people who were successful at losing weight to people who had not lost weight. I love this group because it's how I started my research career.

Jim Hill: If I remember right, Holly, you found there were no differences in resting metabolic.

Holly Wyatt: I know. I so wanted to find a difference. You always want to find a difference, but no, that's actually really a good thing.

Jim Hill: Yes, it is.

Holly Wyatt: In that, it doesn't mean that that resting metabolic rate is broken or different. It was a great paper. I learned so much from it. But I think that this is an important topic because people really like to learn from success. I think sometimes people say, well, this is what people do that fail, but this allows you to have that positive mind state and say, okay, what are people that are succeeding doing? Which I think makes this a really important topic or a topic that people like to listen to.

Jim Hill: So Holly, before we get into the seven secrets, let me tell our listeners a little bit about the National Weight Control Registry.

Holly Wyatt: Don't forget the beer. The beer is the most important part.

Jim Hill: Well, that's usually the case.

Holly Wyatt: Okay. All right. Don't forget the beer in the story.

Jim Hill: So this project literally started over a beer with Dr. Wing and I were at a conference and I think we went and had lunch together. And there was probably an adult beverage involved. And we were talking about how the media at that time, this was the 1990s, the early 1990s, portrayed weight loss as something that very few people succeed at.

And we were sort of saying, do we really know? Do we know how many people succeed? Are there people out there that are doing what we suggest and they're losing weight and keeping it off?

Holly Wyatt: I think a general thought like I can remember writing Grant saying, no one succeeds, less than 5% succeeds. So I think we really thought no one was succeeding.

Jim Hill: So, Rena and I said, you know, somebody ought to look and see if people out there are succeeding. And we kind of looked at each other and thought, that's a pretty good idea. And that was the beginning of a project that's enrolled over 10,000 people. What we set out to do is to find people who were successful, not just in losing weight, but keeping it off. So to get into the registry, you had to have maintained at least a 30-pound weight loss for at least a year. It turns out that in the 10,000 people we've studied, the average weight loss, Holly, you want to guess what it was?

Holly Wyatt: Well, I know what it was.

Jim Hill: I was just testing you.

Holly Wyatt: I know what it was.

Jim Hill: It was about 75 pounds, 75 pounds. That's the average weight loss, some are more, and some are less. And people in the registry report keeping it off an average of about six years. Some kept it off 20, or 30 years, some a minimum of a year.

Holly Wyatt: I get asked this question all the time. So I know you know this, but what to pick 30 pounds for one year? Like, is that success? Is that the magic number for success? Or how did you and Rena over your adult beverage come up with 30 pounds in a year for success?

Jim Hill: Well, that took a lot more talking and many more adult beverages because we went round and round in what's the number. And we looked at the literature. There was actually very little to help there. And we started talking, well, maybe we should do a percent. And well, that makes it a little tougher. And we came up with 30 pounds as a number that we both felt like that was a success. If you had lost and kept off 30 pounds for most people, that would be 10% or more.

So it was a little bit arbitrary, but it's a number that we felt really would be a cutoff for success and non-success. So what we did is we studied these people. This was way before the internet was very popular, I guess. We sent out questionnaires in the mail. We mailed them out questionnaires, they filled them out and they returned them. We've published about 50 scientific papers on this group. We've learned so much from them on what they're doing to succeed. And that's what we're going to talk about today, Holly.

Holly Wyatt: Yeah. I think that this is a great topic. So let's get going. What's the first secret of success?

Jim Hill: Well, let's start with what they're eating. No, no, no, no. Let's back up. Let's start with one thing bigger than that. What we found is there was no commonality in how they lost the weight. They lost the weight on every diet imaginable.

Holly Wyatt: And I can remember, Jim, you and Rena were like, we're going to find the best way initially.

Jim Hill: Yeah. We thought we would find the diet that works.

Holly Wyatt: Right. The best way to lose weight. And it was all over the map. So you had to kind of adjust there a little bit.

Jim Hill: Turns out the only thing that was a commonality in how they lost the weight is they tended to use both diet and exercise.

Holly Wyatt: Which is important. That's important to know.

Jim Hill: But in terms of diet, no commonalities. Where we see the commonalities is when we look at how they're keeping it off. And it relates to something you and I have said over and over.

We're going to keep saying over and over on this podcast. Losing weight takes different behaviors and different skills than keeping weight off. We saw no commonalities in how they lost weight. A lot of commonalities in how they're keeping it off.

Holly Wyatt: Yeah. And I do think that's something we say all the time and is important because that's not out there. I think a lot of people think whatever I do to lose the weight, I have to do it forever. And that I think sets some people up for failure, for not succeeding. So thinking of them differently, I think is part of the success actually.

Jim Hill: So let's look at what they tell us they're eating while they're maintaining the weight. This is not to lose it.

Holly Wyatt: Secret number one.

Jim Hill: Secret number one. They follow a reasonably low-fat diet. They tell us that they take 26% of calories from fat.

You and I both think people underestimate and they certainly did at that time. Probably under 30%, which is not a terribly low-fat diet, but they tended to follow a lower-fat diet more than other diets. But here's the secret, Holly. They also paid attention to total calories. You know, remember back the SnackWell’s phenomenon where we told people to eat low fat and they weren't counting calories. So to make low-fat products look good, what do you have to do? You have to add sugar and there are a lot of calories. So these people got it. They ate generally low-fat, but they also watched calories.

Holly Wyatt: And I think that makes sense that low fat and lower calories make sense. May not been the only thing they were doing, but that kind of came out as a consistency because when you do watch fat, your calories tend to go down as long as you don't substitute something else in like when you were just talking about what the snack was, you don't start eating more sugar, but that fat has that energy density and that tends. So that kind of makes sense that that could be a tool they would use. And I think the important part once again is this is what they did to maintain. This is something that is a diet that they're going to have to eat longer term than the diet that they ate to lose weight. You don't lose weight forever, but you do try to maintain the weight loss for longer periods of time. And what else? I think there were a couple of things.

Jim Hill: Never consume calories in beverages. I think about that. And you know, throughout, I'm going to tell you some stories of some of the individuals we've talked to. And I remember one woman saying, why in the heck would I get my calories from a beverage? I want to get them from food. I love food. And so they do not consume caloric beverages. Now, interestingly, the majority of them use non-caloric sweeteners, the artificial sugars. And we're going to do an episode coming up where we have an expert to talk about that, but no calories in beverages. A lot of them drink water only. Others will flavor with non-caloric.

Holly Wyatt: But I think it's important to say some of them, they don't just drink water because some people think, oh, I should drink only water. This group drinks water, but a lot of them drink non-caloric beverages.

Jim Hill: Telling people just to drink water is good in theory, but now and then you want a little something sweet. And the good news is we have food technology to provide it. We'll talk more about that. The other thing they do, is they don't avoid fast food altogether, but they consume it less. Okay. Not too surprising, right? Because you tend to get a lot of calories.

Holly Wyatt: And I don't know that we ask a question exactly. We had lots of interactions with them. From talking to these, participants in the National Weight Control Registry, they almost, a lot of them became a little bit of a food snob. So it was like, “I have these calories and I am not going to eat something that I don't really enjoy or really want. I'm going to, I'm going to be careful. I'm going to be aware and I'm going to be a little bit of a food snob.” And for them, fast food wasn't where they wanted to spend their calories or what they wanted to eat.

Jim Hill: Or beverages.

Holly Wyatt: Yes, exactly.

Jim Hill: So the second one relates to that, Holly, that they spend time planning what they're going to eat. So they spend more time thinking about the next meal, thinking about food than people that aren't keeping weight off.

That's not shocking, right? These aren't people who say, “I'm just going to see what's for dinner. I'll figure it out later on.” They're planners. They think ahead saying, “Okay, here's tomorrow: I'm going to have this for breakfast, this for lunch, this for dinner. On Saturday, I've got dinner out. So I may have to eat a little bit less at breakfast and lunch.” They're simply planners, which is a good thing to do anyway.

Holly Wyatt: Yeah, they plan to succeed. Instead of flying by their seat or their pants and saying, “Let me see what happens.” They plan to succeed. They say, “You know what? I'm going out to dinner and I'm going to have pizza on Friday. Therefore, I'm going to, you know, change what I'm going to eat on Thursday a little bit and I'm going to make sure I am kind of managing that.” So I think it's that planning that allows them to keep those calories in that range that's associated with long-term success.

Jim Hill: Holly, the third one is self-monitoring. I'm going to let you tell our listeners what we mean by self-monitoring.

Holly Wyatt: Oh, you want me to give this news out. So people in the registry, the successful losers, weigh themselves. I know this is controversial and I know some people don't like to get on the scale and the scale can bring with it a lot of emotions. But successful people, self-monitor by getting on the scale every single day or most days, at least multiple times a week.

If it's not every single day, but it's not occasional. They make it something they do. They have, I think, got into a place where they do it often so it doesn't become as big a deal.

You know, the more you do something, first, it's uncomfortable, but the more you do it, the more normal it becomes and doesn't have as much power. So they get on and they think about it like data. And that to me makes sense because if you're a diabetic and I want to help you monitor and, you know, control your blood glucose. I have to know what your blood glucose is over time.

I have to look at the patterns. I have to understand it and weighing every day allows them to understand their own body's patterns. It allows them to understand when they've gained a few pounds before they've gained 20 pounds and it just allows them. But the key with this is they don't tie their self-worth to it. It's simply a data point.

Jim Hill: It's a tool. The scale is a tool. It's not an evaluation of you as a person. Holly, I remember I asked one woman and we did some focus groups. I said, why do you weigh yourself every day? And she looked at me like I had head to head. She said, well, how the heck am I going to know if I'm gaining weight if I don't weigh myself?

Holly Wyatt: Right. Well, that's how it becomes to them, right? That's kind of that mind state that they get in. The other thing they self-monitor is their weight. They also, a lot of them still do food logging, maybe not every day. And they may not do it all the time. Some of them do. Some of them say, “You know what? This is just a tool for me and I, this is what I do and I've gotten used to it.” Some of them do it episodically. Let's say they gain a few pounds. They may pull out the food log, but they do monitor their weight and they tend to try to have some type of tool to monitor what they're eating.

Jim Hill: You know, you say, well, gosh, we know what we're eating. What you find is occasionally when people keep records, it's like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize I had, you know, this food or ate this two or three times. So it sort of helps you understand your own pattern.

Holly Wyatt: Well, Jim, we know from science, from data, from studies, when you self-monitor, if you just give someone a log and say, write down your food and you don't even have them change anything, they tend to eat less, right? There's an impact on just logging. So that in and of itself may help you for the reasons you're saying just being more aware may actually decrease the, you know, the amount of food, the amount of calories that you're eating. So that can have an impact.

Jim Hill: And Holly, a lot of people in the registry reported sort of keeping exercise logs. But the good news today is you have all these devices that do it for you. You have a pedometer, you have a watch, you have a phone, you have a Fitbit. So it becomes really easy to monitor your physical activity. You don't have to write down records like diet. I wish we had something like that for food, but we don't.

Holly Wyatt: Well, they do. They have all these apps. We have all these apps where you,

Jim Hill: Yeah, but you still have to self-report.

Holly Wyatt: Well, you know, I have mixed feelings. I mean, I think it's great this, you know, that we can monitor activity and then we have these, even these food apps. But if you don't look at it, if you don't use it, there's something sometimes about writing it down that really makes you aware. If you just click a box, I'm sometimes not sure it's quite as good.

Jim Hill: I don't know. I love the wearables with physical activity. I think it's so easy to monitor what you're doing and set goals. And you can even on your phone, your phone will tell you if you meet your goal each day.

Holly Wyatt: I do. And the key is looking at it every day and adjusting your behavior to it.

Jim Hill: The deal here is you need to get some feedback on how you're doing, how you're doing on weight, how you're doing on diet, how you're doing on that.

Holly Wyatt: I agree.

Jim Hill: Okay. Number four is consistency. What we mean by this, is we did a study Holly to look and see if these people maybe were more consistent in their lifestyle plan during the week and they took weekends off or if they splurged and took holidays off. And what we found is they were surprisingly consistent. They basically kept this lifestyle day in and day out. Now that doesn't mean that they didn't splurge occasionally or go out to celebrate a birthday, but they were on plan most of the time. In other words, they incorporated this lifestyle. It's just the way they live their lives.

Holly Wyatt: Right. And we kind of get this question around should you take a cheat day? Should you, you know, all of that kind of thing? So interesting when we look at this group, they really don't report that. They really are pretty consistent. Weekdays and weekends are very, you know, consistent, even holidays consistent.

I think they probably may do something a little bit more than they reported, but I think in their mind, you're right. It's about this is what I do and I'm consistent with it.

Jim Hill: This is just the way I live my life. It's not something I do five days or three days a week.

Holly Wyatt: And I think they get to a place where they don't, they think of it like that. They don't, it's not something they have to do. It's just something they do. And that's how we're, what we're seeing in that consistency report.

Jim Hill: What we tell people is you need to change your life and they have changed their lives and they live that all the time.

Holly Wyatt: Yeah, I agree.

Jim Hill: So I'm going to let you take the next one, Holly. It's eating breakfast.

Holly Wyatt: So Jim, you give me all the controversial ones. Why is it? The getting on the scale, yeah. So the next one is eating breakfast. We published a paper on this. It was a really popular paper. We got lots of media attention from this paper. And when we looked at the national weight control registry

Jim Hill: 93 or 94 percent eat seven days a week.

Holly Wyatt: 94% eat most days of the week. The majority of the days of the week. And so that came out and that is what the data showed. Now it's a little bit controversial. There's been some data to say whether is breakfast associated with weight success or weight management success. And we don't know from the registry for sure that this causes that we are just looking at characteristics and associations. Yeah.

Jim Hill: One of the things Holly is you can't take any of these as the only thing. It's doing all these. I think that makes a difference. So if you want to lose weight and you say, I'm going to lose weight by starting to eat breakfast, that's probably not going to do it. It may be one behavior that's associated with successful people, but breakfast alone isn't going to do it. do it.

Holly Wyatt: Breakfast alone and it, you know, I always say behaviors cluster. So, you know, these individuals started changing behaviors and breakfast may have been one thing they heard about. So they added it and it. We see that they're doing it. It might be if they stopped breakfast, they would still be successful.

Or what I really think is probably more likely the case is there are some individuals for whom breakfast may be more important than others. We can't really tell that in the registry either, that kind of precision piece we're always talking about.

Jim Hill: Yep. Okay. The next one, Holly, is my favorite. They have found ways to incorporate physical activity as being a critical part of their lives. Now, you and I have done a lot of research on this. And the fact of the matter is you do not have to increase physical activity to lose weight, but I am convinced that it is the rare person who's going to keep weight off with diet alone. You have to add physical activity.

And these people have done it. They do a fair amount of physical activity. So the average is about an hour a day. And, you know, we tell people that they say, oh my gosh, an hour a day, 75 pounds off, can you give me an hour a day? And the other thing these people do is figure out a way to incorporate it and make it an important part of their life. Don't have to do it all at once.

They spread it out. So walking is the most popular activity, but usually it's walking coupled with something else, within an aerobic exercise class or a, you know, a workout. And the other thing we find, though, that's kind of interesting. Most of what they do is aerobic activity, but they also do weightlifting more than the average person. And we've always been intrigued by that, that there may be something about weightlifting that keeps the muscle mass that's important.

Holly Wyatt: But I want to go back to the amount, because some people, when they heard, Jim, you say, 60 minutes, seven days a week, 400, that's 420 minutes a week, they stopped listening to you right then, because that seems to some people, if you're not doing anything right now, if you're sedentary, Jim, that seems like I can't do that.

Jim Hill: You don't get there all at once. That's the other thing. They increase gradually, which is why we really recommend that people start increasing fixed activity while they're losing weight. It's not going to help so much in losing more weight, but it's going to be critical in keeping it off. And again, start slow. If you haven't been off the couch in six months, walk to the end of the driveway, and do it two times tomorrow.

Holly Wyatt: Right. And literally, you can have an impact on your health by just increasing your activity by 10 minutes. Now, when it gets to the weight, it's more, but 10 minutes, start with 10 minutes, and then keep increasing.

Jim Hill: And find things you like. If you hate it, you aren't going to do it. For most people, walking is good. Most people are okay with walking. The problem is, you have to do a lot of it. So generally, people will say, okay, I've started walking. Now, maybe I'll do something a little different. Maybe I'll go to an exercise class, or maybe I'll start cycling or other kinds of things. Look, try a lot of different things to find something you like.

Holly Wyatt: So I think that's important. And then the other big thing that I learned from the registry that I've put into my programs is they use their combination of lifestyles. So I am going to park further about, I'm going to take the stairs. I'm going to go a long way. When I go to the print to print something out, if I'm going to a printer, I'm going to walk the long way to go to work to get to where I need to go.

I'm going to be a little bit inefficient and put more steps in my day and little bits and have that add up. And they do a little, they do planned activities. So they hit it both ways. Yes.

Jim Hill: Well, it's like the food planning. You have to plan for the activity. If you go into the week, not knowing when you're going to exercise, you probably won't. If you go in saying, okay, today's Monday, tomorrow, I know I'm going to do from, I'm going to go for a walk here. I'm going to go to a class here on Thursday.

I'm going to go here. It takes some planning to do this, but these people do it and they incorporate it. So they're able to do it and make it a routine and they do it over the long term. Right.

Holly Wyatt: And I think a lot of them started, they weren't, they weren't exercises from the beginning. That's another thing.

Jim Hill: And they don't become these crazy people that just live to exercise. Well, some do, some do, it's okay. Some do, but not many, but most of them, will tell you that adding physical activity has enriched their daily lives.

Yeah. But get there slowly. If you look and you say, I do nothing, there's no way I can get to an hour a day, 10 minutes at a time, increase gradually.

Holly Wyatt: And the other thing, I think the other good message to get out to people who are just starting or feel that this is something that's not attainable is you don't have to worry about exactly what you're doing or even the intensity of the first, the most important thing is to try to get to the volume, to get moving and to get that volume, to get that energy through the system, that energy expenditure that we talk about up a little bit. And then once you get that going, we can talk about the types of exercise and the intensity of the exercise.

Jim Hill: Just do something, move your body. Your body works best when you move it.

Holly Wyatt: Or, you know, the time of the day, people like, do I shoot it in the morning or evening? I'm like, you know what? Let's not go there.

Jim Hill: I know we did a podcast on social support. And one of the things we recommend is to find some people that are exercises to hang out with. They're different groups. I mean, that's the beauty of the internet. You can go on and find exercise, and sports groups near you. Try out some things. If you find some people you like or exercise, it becomes a social thing.

Holly Wyatt: And the key, once again, is some people get so fixated on the details that they can't even start. I say the cake is moving more, building that up. And then you can put, you know, candles on the cake and icing on the cake, which may be, when do I exercise?

How hard do I exercise? But you don't need to do that to start. And it's so overwhelming, I think, to people. By far, I mean, I would think the data, the science shows the volume, the amount, is the most important thing.

Jim Hill: And the other thing that Will will tell you in the registry, decreasing your physical stopping exercising is associated with the likelihood of regaining weight. So it's important to find a routine that you can do, that you can like, that you do forever.

Holly Wyatt: I think that's important. So if people hear regain, and I know that's something they don't want. I think that is important. We did look specifically because some people in the registry, got in the registry, they had lost at least 30 pounds, kept it off for a year. And then we followed them over time. So it wasn't just once we got data points over time. And there was a group in the registry that did regain some weight. And we were able then to look at what behaviors were changing over time, not just at one point in time. And to see if we could predict based on retrospectively, you know, looking back, what was this, you know, what seemed to how that correlated basically.

And what I think, Jim, you just said was stopping decreasing that activity was associated with weight regained. So what does that mean? How do we translate that piece? I know we have another secret yet, but how do you translate that? Does that mean don't start?

Jim Hill: No, it means to find something you feel like you can do forever. If you're saying, look, I'm exercising, but I hate it. I hate what I'm doing. I hate running or I hate this. You aren't going to do it. You have to find something that fits your lifestyle. If you hate it, you won't do it. And for exercise, it's the long term. Find something you can do forever.

Holly Wyatt: That's the key. That is the perfect key because you don't want to set yourself up for the regain. And if you stop doing it, yeah, the data showed that.

Jim Hill: The last one relates to that because people say, well, how do you find time for physical activity? What these people have done is they've reduced the amount of time they spend in sedentary activities, screen time, and watching TV on the computer.

And so again, if you're saying my priority is to keep this weight off, I'm going to need some time for physical activity, you can watch one TV show list and you've got time to get your exercise or Holly, you can even exercise while you're watching that TV.

Holly Wyatt: Well, this is one of my favorite tools that I help people with because you can be strategic, you can be clever. And I always kind of put it out to them. I give them a homework assignment.

And even our listeners can do this. Think about a time when you're typically sedentary and can you add physical activity to it? You don't necessarily take the sedentary activity away. You could. You could just watch less TV or be on the screen less. That's one thing you could do. Or you could think about, can I be active?

Can I move during this typically sedentary activity and make it not sedentary? So the example I use that I now do, it's just what I do. I'm just used to it, whenever I'm on the phone chatting with my friends, I'm up walking around. So sitting on the phone, if I'm sitting, that's sedentary. But if I'm up walking, I'm moving during it. And kind of one of my rules is, if I'm chatting on the phone, I'm up moving around.

And so I'm not giving up talking on the phone, but I'm moving and I don't even realize it now. And that's what I like about kind of being clever. I don't even realize that I'm getting some activity in when I'm doing it. So I kind of challenge people to think about what is a sedentary activity at work, at home, anywhere, and can they be clever and figure out how they could move during it?

Jim Hill: So those are the seven behaviors that we've identified in the National Weight Control Registry. Now let's put it in perspective. We follow these people over time. So there's some good news and almost good news in that, over time they report that they still have to maintain these behaviors. In other words, they don't get to the point where I don't have to plan my diet anymore. I don't have to exercise anymore. But what they do, the longer they keep the weight off, the more confident they get that they can do it. The more this has become their natural lifestyle. And here's the big one, Holly. We asked them, has your quality of life improved after the weight loss? 95% say yes.

Holly Wyatt: And that's huge. That's huge that we actually even have that data because sometimes that data isn't collected. The way they were maintaining this weight loss was associated with an improvement in quality of life. That's really what it's all about. Yeah.

Jim Hill: They really tell us life is better now that I'm at a lower weight.

Holly Wyatt: Because you can see there could be other strategies to lose weight and keep it off. And they may or may not be associated with an increase in quality of life.

And so this group, and these activities, these secrets that are associated with success, correlate with a positive quality of life change, which really people come to me and they want to lose weight. They want to change something in their life. They want to be happy.

Jim Hill: I keep saying it's about health, but it's about happiness and health is a part of happiness.

Holly Wyatt: It's how they want to feel and be and engage in life. And I often say if you lost weight and nothing changed, would that be a success? And they say, well, no, I want to lose weight and this is what I'm going to be able to play with my kids. I'm going to be able to hike the Grand Canyon. I'm going to be able to fit into this dress and feel this way and do this and experience life the way I want to experience it.

Jim Hill: And the people in the National Weight Control Registry do that. So the good news is if you're able to keep the weight off for almost everybody, life is better. Holly, let's reiterate the seven behaviors and we'll talk a little bit about going forward. So one, they eat a low-fat diet, but they watch calories, reduce fast food, and no calories and beverages. Two, they spend time planning their meals and diets. They think about what they're going to eat. They plan for when they're going to indulge and so forth. Three, they self-monitor. They monitor their weight, their calories, and their activity.

Four, they're consistent. They keep this lifestyle day in and day out. It's become the way they live their lives and they like it. Five, they eat breakfast almost every single day. Six, they found a way to make regular physical activity a part of their lives. The average is an hour a day.

If you reduce sedentary activities or combine physical activity with being sedentary. Now Holly, one of the things I'm going to ask you, how many of these seven things do you do?

Holly Wyatt: I was just looking at that. I was just like, oh wow, and I just realized I do most of them. They've become kind of second nature to me. They're just something I do. So I do tend to eat a low-fat, low-calorie diet when I'm in weight loss maintenance, especially. I haven't been to a fast food restaurant in a very long time and I don't drink calories for sure. I do think about what I'm eating. I do self-monitor. I step on the scale every single morning. So I do that.

Fairly consistent. That may be the one that I have a little bit of wiggle room. I do have an indulgence meal. I do sometimes maybe, but basically, I do have things that I'm doing consistently. Now the one I'm not doing right now is eating breakfast. So I'm trying timed eating and intermittent fasting, and we have an episode on that. If you haven't listened to that episode with Dr. Courtney Peterson, you should.

It's a great episode about that. So I'm not necessarily eating when I first get up, which is typically what we think about as breakfast. I am breaking my fast with a meal, but it might be later in the day. And then physical activity, yes. I mean, that is just part of my life now. And I love to be clever about figuring out how to get all that physical activity and still get to watch TV and still get to have some screen time. But I try to make that less sedentary. So I guess I would say five or six for sure that I'm doing. What about you, Jim?

Jim Hill: About the same. I weigh myself every morning. I get up, I brush my teeth, and I weigh myself. I just part of my routine. I hate to monitor my food intake. I monitor my weight. I monitor my physical activity, but I just don't like diet records. But it's important.

Holly Wyatt: No, but you know what, Jim, for you, though, that may be all you need. Like, well, we talk about it's not one size fits all. It may be that you can do some of these and it works for you. So that's good.

Jim Hill: It is. I know if the scale goes up, I need to change something. And I keep my physical activity. I'm pretty good at physical activity. So if the scale goes up, it means I probably need to modify something on the diet side. And I'm doing the time-restricted eating too.

So I eat breakfast at about 10 o'clock every morning. So yeah, five or six of those. So the key is not everybody does all these things. No single one is going to be important. But together, you can see the kinds of behaviors it's going to take to keep weight off.

Holly Wyatt: Yeah, I think of it like an odds game, though, Jim. It's like, do these increase your odds? You know, the more you do, I think the more the odds go up.

I always say if I'm betting on people in Vegas, which I don't, obviously. But the more of these you can incorporate, I think the higher your chances are your odds of success.

Jim Hill: Holly, we have a new registry project. Do you want to tell our listeners about that?

Holly Wyatt: Oh, yes. So the National Weight Control Registry is what we've been talking about. But now we've expanded this really to something called the International Weight Control Registry. And, Jim, these are your ideas. So you tell them about it. Why did you decide to kind of expand?

Jim Hill: We decided to do this new project because now it's easier to collect information online. And the National Weight Control Registry, we did paper and pencil and mail things. Now we can collect information online. We can follow people who are successful, who are unsuccessful, and who are beginning weight loss. We can ask in the National Weight Control Registry, we learned about behaviors. We're going to still get that in the International Weight Control Registry, but we begin to understand why. How does the environment, how does the society, and how does the cultural stuff affect it?

Holly Wyatt: We expanded, right? The International Weight Control Registry isn't just for people who've been successful.

Jim Hill: No, it's for anybody interested in weight management, even if you're thinking about weight loss. And it's also international. So we're collaborating with people all around the world. I'm very excited about this.

Holly Wyatt: Bigger and includes everybody. So more inclusive and we can learn from, I think, you know, anywhere and anywhere now with technology. And we can learn from those who have been successful, those who are trying to be successful, and those who are thinking about being successful. And then also we're using some of the wearable devices. We're going to be able to collect even more information.

Jim Hill: So if you're interested, and we hope you will go to our website and it's International Weight Control Registry, all one word, [internationalweightcontrolregistry.org](http://internationalweightcontrolregistry.org/). You can sign up, that's all, you can sign an informed consent, and you can be part of our study.

And we would love to do that. Everything we told you about the National Weight Control Registry we published. So if you want to read the science, Google, me or Holly or the National Weight Control Registry, and we're beginning to publish from the International Weight Control Registry. So stay tuned as we learn more from that, we'll bring it to you.

But Holly, this has been a great episode. You've heard the seven secrets. These are things successful people do. So take a look at which of these you think you can incorporate as you're trying to keep weight off, not losing weight, keeping weight off.

Holly Wyatt: Love it. This has been great.

Jim Hill: Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time. Bye. And that's a wrap for today's episode of "Weight Loss And...", we hope you enjoy diving into the world of weight loss with us.

Holly Wyatt: If you want to stay connected and continue exploring the ands of weight loss, be sure to follow our podcast on your favorite platform.

Jim Hill: We'd also love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, or topic suggestions by reaching out at [weightlossand.com](http://weightlossand.com/). Your feedback helps us tailor future episodes to your needs.

Holly Wyatt: And remember, the journey doesn't end here. Keep applying the knowledge and strategies you've learned and embrace the power of the and in your own weight loss journey.