Adherence
Achieving clinically significant short-term weight loss (≥5%) within the first 12 weeks of a lifestyle intervention predicts successful weight maintenance at 15 months, whereas modest early loss predicts failure to maintain clinically significant loss.
Your early progress in a weight loss program is a strong indicator of your long-term success. If you lose at least 5% of your body weight in the first 3 months, you are much more likely to keep it off for a year. If you are losing weight slowly, don't give up; instead, talk to your provider about tailoring the program to your specific needs, such as addressing stress, social support dynamics, or physical activity levels.
Only participants with the latter two patterns [moderate-and-steady and substantial-and-early] achieved clinically significant (≥5%) short-term weight loss and maintained it at 15 months. The modest cluster did not achieve clinically important weight loss at any time point.
Why this rating
Randomized controlled trial design, but small sample size (n=72) and exploratory post-hoc cluster analysis limit generalizability.
Source
Short‐term weight loss patterns, baseline predictors, and longer‐term follow‐up within a randomized controlled trial
Veronica Yank et al. · Obesity · 2013
DOI 10.1002/oby.20510
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