Weight loss that lasts: how can you keep "rebound pounds" at bay after you stop counting calories? Here are six sure-fire strategies for long-term success

Shape, March, 2003 by Jenna Schnuer

It was such an odd moment for me: was at a bar a few months ago with some friends and, for whatever reason, the subject turned to weight issues. (Not, by the way, a subject usually choose to chat about over drinks.) I told some story about my chunky childhood and this guy I hadn't met before, a friend of a friend, said he never would have pegged me as a person with a weight problem. That definitely threw me.

Here's the skinny: Since I was 9, weight has been an issue for me. Over the last 23 years, I've become quite the expert at shedding pounds. In fact, I've done it more times than I care to mention through methods ranging from the sensible to the utterly ridiculous. (Let's just say a weeklong banana-and-vanilla-ice-cream-only diet is not as much fun as it sounds.)

As for keeping the weight off? In that arena, I was a fumbling amateur. I would get bored. I would get frustrated. I would, well, give up, and my weight would creep up. Then, in 1999, I joined the weight-loss program at the (now-defunct) Theodore B. Vanltallie Center for Nutrition and Weight Management at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City. The dietitians there helped me realize that it was time to stop futzing around (and making myself miserable) with one-size-fits-all weight-loss plans; I needed an approach that allows a custom fit.

Now 45 pounds lighter, I'm confident (on most days) that I'll be able to maintain that weight loss for the long haul. But I also realize that can never really let my guard down.

"It's hard, hard work in a society that gives this kind of work short shrift," says former Vanltallie Center director Cathy Non as, R.D., author of Outwit Your Weight: Fat-Proof Your Life With More Than 200 Tips, Tools & Techniques to Help You Defeat Your Dan er Zones (Rodale Press, 2002).

Following are a variety of tips and tactics you can put into play to help you get to -- and maintain -- your goal. Oh, just one big (and heavy) thing you need to keep in mind:

"When people will not acknowledge their responsibility, no other tool will be helpful," says Madelyn Fernstrom, Ph.D., director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Health System Weight Management Center.

Weight-loss success really begins when you are willing to take an honest look at your eating and exercise patterns and vow to make the necessary changes. If you have confidence that you can do it, you're on your way.

6 tricks for slashing pounds (and keeping them off!)

1. Play by the numbers.

No matter where it comes from, a calorie is a calorie, and it takes 3,500 calories to gain or lose a pound. Want to shed a perfectly respectable 1 pound per week? Carve 500 calories off your day by thinking through your food choices and upping your exercise. "It's easier both to walk for an hour and burn off 300-400 calories and to cut out 100-200 food calories than to focus on food restriction alone," Fernstrom says. If you want to add ingredients like soy or olive oil to your diet, you have to make substitutions and fit them into your food plan. Don't just tack on extra calories, she says.

2. Don't cheat your body.

When deciding how to spend your calories, experts agree your body performs best when you include all of the macronutrients -- protein, carbohydrates and fats in your diet. The American Dietetic Association recommends a diet that contains 30 percent calories from fat, 55 percent from carbs and 15 percent from protein.

3. Learn how to control food cravings.

"Cut out the specific items in the category [for example, carbs] that are giving you difficulty without cutting out the nutrition," Nonas says. Give pretzels the heave-ho but don't dismiss whole-grain breads. Has ice cream become a problem? Instead, snack on single-serving portions of yogurt. "Spice up meals by adding a new vegetable, trying a new recipe each week or adding a new color fruit," suggests Danae Blair, R.D., a nutritionist based in New York City.

4. Keep careful track.

Carefully monitor what you eat and how much you exercise. "So many people tell me they walk all over the place," Nonas says. "Then you put a pedometer on them, and they do an average of 4000 steps a day when it's suggested that we do no less than 10,000 steps daily."

When it comes to food, it's not the drinks or desserts that do you in as much as mindless eating, Nonas says. To help account for all those calories (and to keep yourself honest), measure your portions, write down what you eat in a food record after each meal, and track your daily steps using a pedometer. If you don't want to track everything every day, try keeping records one week out of every month just so things don't get fuzzy.

5. Set your own rules.

Think of it this way: "If you're a vegetarian, you're not going to eat the meat no matter where you go -- to a party, restaurant or a buffet," Nonas says. The best way to achieve that same clarity when you're trying to lose weight is to set some rules. Find yourself snacking on cereal at night? Make an only-for-breakfast rule. If you slip, no cereal in your house for a month! Tend to dive into the breadbasket as soon as the waiter brings it around? Set a one-starchy-carb-per-restaurant-meal rule. If you want the bread, tell yourself before you head out that you'll skip the potato or pasta that comes with your meal.