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FRIDAY, Feb. 23 (HealthDay News) -- About one in three American adults is trying to lose weight at any given time, and while their track record for trying is good, their track record for succeeding is not.
Within five years, most dieters will regain the weight they lost. And, after five years, they may even weigh more than when they started the original weight-loss effort, some studies have found.
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But weight-loss researchers have begun to uncover insights into what makes some dieters succeed while others fail. While there are no hard-and-fast rules that work for everyone, there are ways to maximize your success the next time you decide to drop those excess pounds -- maybe for good.
A strategy for success begins with getting realistic, experts say.
"Cause number-one [for failure] is setting too unrealistic of goals, losing too much too fast," said Barbel Knauper, an associate professor of psychology at McGill University in Montreal. Instead of trying to lose, say, 15 pounds in a month -- very unrealistic -- most experts suggest a slow, steady loss, about one or two pounds a week.
Another pitfall, Knauper said, is a lack of advance planning before social situations. "If people were making 'when, where, how' plans, they would be more likely to adhere to their goal," he said. For instance, you might say to yourself, 'When I go out for dinner tonight with friends, I won't order a large entree, but a smaller one. And I'll stick with my choice even if they pressure me to eat more.'"
Socializing is one of the top three reasons people eventually fail with a diet, said Dr. Michael Dansinger, an assistant professor of medicine at Tufts-New England Medical Center, in Boston.
The other two? "Feelings of deprivation or boredom with the current eating plan," Dansinger said, "and the healthy foods often seem to be less available, require more preparation or cost more than the unhealthy foods."
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