Browse the evidence

Successful long-term weight loss maintainers achieve significantly higher levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) compared to individuals with overweight/obesity, suggesting that high MVPA is a critical behavioral marker for maintaining weight loss.

If you have lost weight, maintaining that loss likely requires a significant amount of moderate-to-vigorous exercise (like brisk walking, jogging, or cycling) accumulated over the week. While this is challenging, you can support your efforts by increasing light activity (like standing or slow walking) and breaking up long periods of sitting, as these are also associated with successful weight maintenance.

Sustained, substantial long-term weight loss maintenance is achieved through continuous self-monitoring (internal and external), sustained intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and structured goal setting, while actively managing enduring intrinsic and extrinsic challenges.

To maintain weight loss long-term, you must adopt a lifestyle of continuous self-monitoring (weighing, tracking food) and clear goal setting. Rely on both internal drive (health, self-image) and external support (groups, healthcare providers). Expect challenges like stress or social events, and have pre-planned strategies for them. Do not rely on short-term fixes; maintenance is an active, ongoing process.

Phenotype-tailored lifestyle interventions (PLI) result in significantly greater weight loss (-7.4 kg) compared to standard lifestyle interventions (SLI, -4.3 kg) in adults with obesity over a 12-week period.

To maximize weight loss, identify your specific obesity phenotype (e.g., abnormal satiation, emotional eating, or low energy expenditure) through professional assessment. Then, follow a tailored plan that combines a 500-calorie daily deficit with specific behavioral or exercise strategies (like pre-meal protein or HIIT) designed for your phenotype, rather than a generic diet.

Low-carbohydrate diets (5-25% energy from carbs) improve cardiometabolic markers (weight, waist circumference, HDL, triglycerides) in healthy adults, with greater carbohydrate restriction yielding larger improvements in lipid profiles despite similar weight loss.

Adopting a low-carbohydrate diet (15-25% of calories from carbs) for 12 weeks can significantly improve your metabolic health markers, including weight, waist size, and blood lipids (specifically raising good HDL cholesterol and lowering triglycerides). You do not need to go to extreme ketosis (5% carbs) to see benefits; moderate restriction is easier to maintain and still yields superior lipid improvements compared to higher carb intakes, all while eating enough calories to maintain your usual energy levels.

Older ICU patients (>60 years) require higher protein intakes (approaching 2.0–2.5 g/kg/day) to achieve positive nitrogen balance and stimulate muscle protein synthesis, due to age-related anabolic resistance.

If you are over 60 and in the ICU, your body needs significantly more protein than the standard recommendation to stop muscle loss. Aim for 2.0 to 2.5 grams of protein per kilogram of your usual body weight daily, prioritizing high-quality proteins rich in leucine. This is safe unless you have severe kidney failure. Combine this nutrition with early physical therapy or movement to maximize muscle retention.

Ingesting 30g of protein from whole food sources (e.g., beef, eggs, milk) post-exercise effectively stimulates muscle protein synthesis rates, providing a viable alternative to isolated protein supplements.

Eat 30g of protein from whole foods (like 4.5oz of chicken/beef, 3 cups of milk, or 5 eggs) after your workout. You don't need a shake; whole foods work just as well for building muscle and give you extra vitamins and fullness.

Precision nutrition (PN) interventions, which tailor dietary recommendations based on individual genetic profiles, gut microbiota composition, and lifestyle factors, are more effective at improving diet quality, adherence, and metabolic outcomes in obesity management than generalized dietary guidelines.

Instead of following generic diet trends, seek a precision nutrition approach that considers your unique genetic markers and gut health. This may involve specific testing to tailor your macronutrient intake (e.g., high-protein for certain genotypes, specific fiber types for microbiota balance) to your body's actual metabolic response, rather than a one-size-fits-all restriction.

The 'If It Fits Your Macros' (IIFYM) approach, which allows food variety within macronutrient targets, is more adaptive and sustainable than rigid meal plans, potentially reducing the risk of disordered eating.

Consider using the IIFYM approach: focus on hitting macronutrient targets rather than restricting food types. This allows for food variety and may reduce the psychological rigidity that leads to disordered eating.

A team-based lifestyle intervention combining individualized diet modification (emphasizing Mediterranean patterns) and supervised exercise (aerobic, resistance, flexibility) leads to the reversal of metabolic syndrome and significant improvements in cardiovascular risk factors in primary care patients.

If you have metabolic syndrome, a structured program involving a dietitian, a kinesiologist, and your family doctor can help reverse the condition. The key is individualized Mediterranean-style eating and a mix of aerobic and resistance exercise, supported by regular visits. This approach addresses risk factors that medications alone often miss, such as abdominal obesity and low HDL.

Culinary medicine education, which integrates nutrition science with practical cooking skills and motivational interviewing, improves health professionals' ability to support patients in adopting predominantly whole-food, plant-based diets.

Health professionals should seek out or implement culinary medicine training that goes beyond theory. This involves learning to teach patients how to cook healthy, affordable meals and using motivational interviewing to support gradual dietary changes. For patients, this means focusing on practical skills like preparing whole foods quickly and inexpensively, rather than just knowing nutritional facts.

High attendance of expert-led coaching sessions (≥80%), live web-based classes (≥60%), and receiving food log feedback (≥1 day/week) significantly predicts clinically significant weight loss (≥5%) in a 6-month weight management program.

To maximize your weight loss in this program, prioritize attendance. Aim to attend at least 80% of your one-on-one coaching sessions and 60% of the weekly web classes. Additionally, ensure you receive feedback on your food logs at least one day per week. These specific engagement levels are the strongest predictors of losing 5% or more of your body weight.

Adjunct treatment with once-weekly semaglutide (up to 1.0 mg) produces sustained, clinically significant weight loss (mean 14.7% total weight loss) in post-bariatric patients with weight regain or insufficient weight loss over 12 months, regardless of sex or initial surgery type.

If you have regained weight or lost insufficient weight after bariatric surgery, semaglutide (a GLP-1 medication) can help you lose more weight, even if you don't have diabetes. In this study, patients lost an average of 14.7% of their body weight over a year using a dose lower than the maximum approved for obesity. This offers a medical option when lifestyle changes alone are not enough, potentially avoiding the need for revision surgery.

Sustained weight loss of 10% or more through combinatorial lifestyle, medical, or surgical interventions is the most effective strategy for preventing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by reversing or halting the progression of metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD).

To lower your risk of liver cancer, you need to reduce your body weight by at least 10%. This is best achieved by combining a calorie-restricted diet (focusing on plants and limiting sugars/fats) with regular exercise (150 minutes/week). If lifestyle changes aren't enough, medical therapies or bariatric surgery are highly effective options that provide durable weight loss and reverse liver disease. The goal is sustained weight reduction, not just short-term dieting.

Resistance exercise training (RET) significantly improves lean body mass (LBM) retention during very-low-energy diets (VLEDs) compared to diet-only interventions, whereas aerobic exercise training (AET) yields conflicting or negligible results.

If you are on a very low-calorie diet, prioritize resistance training over cardio if your goal is to keep your muscle. Cardio might not help preserve muscle and results vary. Resistance training is the best tool available to stop muscle loss during rapid weight loss, even if you feel tired.

An interactive smartphone app-based lifestyle intervention combining wearable activity tracking, smart scales, food photography logs, and physician coaching produces statistically significant and clinically meaningful weight loss (-7.16 kg) and improved metabolic health (waist circumference, HbA1c) compared to conventional outpatient visits alone.

Use a smartphone app that integrates a smart scale and activity tracker. Log your meals with photos rather than manual entries. Engage with a coach and peers through the app. Attend regular check-ins. This combination of automated tracking and human support can lead to significant weight loss and improved metabolic health.

Concentrated Whey Protein (WPC) with 51-80% protein content is specifically effective for fat mass loss, whereas Hydrolyzed (WPH) and Isolated (WPI) forms did not show statistically significant fat loss effects in subgroup analyses.

If you are using whey for fat loss, Concentrated Whey (WPC) with 51-80% protein content appears to be the most effective form. Isolated or Hydrolyzed whey did not show significant fat loss benefits in this specific subgroup analysis.

A remotely-delivered behavioral health coaching intervention using self-monitoring tools (weight, calories, exercise) and weekly phone counseling significantly improves adherence to Institute of Medicine (IOM) gestational weight gain guidelines compared to standard health education alone.

To manage weight gain during pregnancy, use a free app to track your weight weekly, daily calories, and exercise minutes. Engage in weekly phone coaching sessions with a health coach who helps you set goals and review your tracking data. This behavioral approach is more effective than standard health education alone for staying within recommended weight gain guidelines.

A blended lifestyle intervention combining one face-to-face session, monthly telephone coaching, and a mobile app (MELINDA) improves weight goal achievement in women with glucose intolerance after gestational diabetes mellitus compared to standard care.

If you had gestational diabetes and currently have high blood sugar levels after birth, this program offers a structured way to lose weight and prevent type 2 diabetes. It involves one initial meeting with a health coach, followed by monthly phone calls and using a specific app to track your diet, activity, and weight. The goal is to lose 5% of your body weight if you were overweight before pregnancy, or return to your pre-pregnancy weight if you were not. This approach is designed to be flexible and address the specific challenges of being a new mother, such as lack of time and childcare issues.

Personalized nutrition delivered via mobile health applications is more effective at improving dietary quality (higher fruit/vegetable intake, lower saturated fat) than generalized 'one-size-fits-all' population-based advice.

Use a mobile app that tracks your food intake to get personalized advice. You do not need to provide genetic or detailed body composition data for the advice to be more effective than generic guidelines. Focus on increasing fruits/vegetables and reducing saturated fats, as the app tailors these targets to your current habits.

Mobile health (m-Health) interventions using push notifications and real-time data capture can significantly increase daily step counts compared to control groups without such interventions.

Use a fitness tracker with push notifications to increase your daily steps. Be aware that while this works for short-term increases in activity, long-term adherence may be difficult without additional support systems like gamification or social features.

A well-designed vegan diet is compatible with peak athletic performance, including aerobic capacity, anaerobic performance, and muscle strength, when properly supplemented.

If you are an athlete, a well-designed vegan diet can support peak performance. Ensure you supplement with Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, EPA/DHA, creatine, and vegan protein. This combination, along with resistance training, can preserve and increase muscle mass.

In patients with Class 3 obesity and Type 2 Diabetes, switching to weight-neutral or weight-losing diabetes medications (SGLT-2 inhibitors, GLP-1 agonists, DPP-4 inhibitors) during a multidisciplinary weight management program results in significantly greater weight loss compared to switching to weight-gaining medications (sulphonylureas, insulin).

If you have severe obesity (BMI 40+) and Type 2 Diabetes, ask your doctor about switching your diabetes medications to 'weight-neutral' or 'weight-losing' types (like SGLT-2 inhibitors or GLP-1 agonists) instead of older 'weight-gaining' ones (like insulin or sulphonylureas). In this program, patients who made this switch lost nearly 8% of their body weight in 6 months, compared to only 2.4% for those who switched to weight-gaining drugs. This change also helped reduce their overall diabetes medication load and improved blood sugar control.

Adherence to a Mediterranean Diet, improved through nutritional counseling, significantly improves lipid profiles (lower TC, LDL-C, TG) and reduces BMI in dyslipidemic patients.

Work with a nutritionist to adopt a Mediterranean Diet. This involves eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and olive oil, and less meat and dairy. This approach has been shown to improve cholesterol levels and weight loss in people with high cholesterol.

Combining GLP-1 receptor agonists (specifically liraglutide) with bariatric surgery (BS) or endoscopic bariatric therapy (EBT) significantly enhances weight loss and metabolic improvements compared to BS or EBT alone, particularly in patients experiencing weight regain or insufficient loss.

If you have had bariatric surgery or an endoscopic procedure but are regaining weight or hitting a plateau, adding a GLP-1 receptor agonist like liraglutide (titrated to 3mg daily) can significantly boost weight loss and metabolic health compared to the procedure alone. This is particularly effective for those who have regained weight after surgery. Expect potential gastrointestinal side effects like nausea, which often subside with dose titration. This approach is not a replacement for lifestyle changes but a powerful adjunct to them.