NEW YORK, Nov 15 (Reuters Health) -- The key to keeping weight off?
Burn more than double the amount of calories recommended for weight loss,
study results suggest.
Three new studies show that people who lose weight and don't regain
it typically burn off 2,800 calories per week in physical activity, which
amounts to about 1 hour a day of walking, Dr. Rena Wing of the Brown
University School of Medicine in Providence, Rhode Island, told Reuters
Health in an interview.
Data from the three studies are being presented at the annual meeting
of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity, taking place
this week in Charleston, South Carolina.
"We're really underestimating the amount of physical activity people
need to do to maintain weight loss," Wing said. The current recommendation
of 1,000 calories per week, she said, is equivalent to "10 miles of walking
per week or 2 miles per day." Twenty-eight hundred calories would be "25 to
28 miles per week, 3 to 4 miles per day or about an hour a day" of walking,
she commented.
Wing noted that more intense activities could burn off the same
amount of calories in a shorter period of time.
When people are attempting to lose weight, healthcare professionals
usually advise them to monitor their diet and exercise more. However,
recent studies have demonstrated that the combination of exercise and diet
fails to produce better long-term weight loss results than modifying the
diet alone.
This, said Wing, suggests that higher levels of exercise might be
necessary for some people to lose weight.
In one study, Wing and colleagues reviewed data from the National
Weight Control Registry, a database of more than 2,500 people who have lost
an average of 60 pounds and kept it off for about 6 years. The researchers
found that these people reported burning an average of 2,800 calories per
week by walking, climbing stairs, and other activities.
In another study, Wing and colleagues found that the people who lost
the most weight burned 2,549 calories per week in walking, stair climbing,
and other activities.
In the final study, Wing's team found that people who exercised more
than 200 minutes per week lost more weight than people who exercised for
150 minutes or less per week. In addition, the 200-minute group burned
2,630 calories per week, while the 150-minute group burned only 1,318
calories per week.
These studies, Wing said, also showed that people successful at
losing weight and keeping it off participated in a variety of physical
activities, including aerobic exercise and weight lifting.
Wing added that if patients are to be successful at weight loss,
"they must be vigilant about (controlling) diet and being physically
active."
