How Much Exercise is Needed to Keep Weight Off? A Lot!!

By Anastacia Mott Austin

If you need to lose weight and want to keep it off, be prepared to work out…a lot.

A recent study has shown that overweight women who lost about 10% of their body weight (15 pounds for a woman who weighs 150) needed to exercise for about an hour a day, five days per week, in order to keep the weight off.

This exceeds previous recommendations that most people need to exercise about 30 minutes a day to maintain cardiovascular health and a proper weight.

The study, published in The Archives of Internal Medicine this week, followed 201 obese or overweight women between the ages of 21 and 45 from 1999 to 2003. The women were all told to follow a low calorie diet of about 1200 to 1500 calories per day. They were divided into four exercise groups. The first group exercised to burn 1,000 calories per week at a "moderate" pace. The second group burned the same number of calories, but at a more "vigorous" pace. The third and fourth groups were split into the same moderate versus vigorous groups, but told to exercise enough to burn 2,000 calories per week.

The women were also given support in the form of groups, and regular telephone contact with the researchers.

After the first six months, most of the women in the study had lost between 8% and 10% of their body weight, and there were no significant differences between the exercise groups. However, in the months to follow, all of the women except those who exercised about an hour a day, five days per week, began to regain the weight.

The hour-per-day exercisers maintained their weight loss over a period of at least two years, while the other groups did not.

The study is considered significant because it looks at fighting the very common – and frustrating – phenomenon of dieters’ lost weight creeping back on over time. With the higher amount of exercise, this can be avoided.

The study’s lead author, John Jakicic, head of the Department of Health and Physical Activity at the University of Pittsburgh, told reporters, "Somewhere between 50 to 60 minutes, five days a week is a target for people who have lost weight and are trying to keep that weight off."

Almost two-thirds of Americans are clinically overweight, and experts predict that number may loom closer to nine in ten by the year 2030, as our culture becomes increasingly sedentary.

But before people get too discouraged and think that there’s no way they could exercise that much, experts emphasize that it’s more important to get moving, even a little, to improve health. An older study, done in November of 2007, showed that achieving a level of vigorous exercise of about 30 minutes per day over one’s lifetime would help greatly with overall weight maintenance (though the subjects in that study were not overweight to begin with).

It’s possible that the women in Jakicic’s study had farther to go with their weight loss, or that they had not been active throughout life so they had to work harder to maintain weight.

Dr. Jakicic is not discouraged by the study’s results, and feels instead that insight has been gained into what creates an environment in which women across all socioeconomic lines could lose weight and maintain the loss through consistent exercise.

"I think the beauty of this study is that we now have a target," of how much exercise to strive for, said Jakicic to reporters. "The major outcome of this paper is the maintenance issue."