Join the Losers in the Winners’ Circle: Keeping the Weight Off for Improved Diabetes Control

This is your final Healthy Eating article in this series. Its inspiration is a book, Thin for Life: 10 Keys to Success From People Who Have Lost Weight and Kept It Off, by Anne M. Fletcher.

Anne Fletcher is a dietitian and writer who was impressed by people who had lost weight and kept it off despite the disappointing statistic that 95 percent of people who lose weight regain it. She located people she called “masters at weight control” — people who had lost at least 9 kilograms and kept the weight off for at least three years. Then she interviewed them and collected their strategies for success.

This Healthy Eating article provides you with tips and strategies so that you, too, can be a master in the weight control game:

• It describes how to make Glucerna SR™ products a part of your action plan.
• It details keys to success reported by Anne Fletcher in the book Thin for Life.

Keep Glucerna SR Within Arm’s Reach

Your Glucerna SR products have been extremely handy while you were losing weight. They provided you with automatic portion control, made your food decisions easy, helped with weight loss, improved your nutrition, and fit today’s hectic, on-the-go lifestyle. Glucerna SR products are excellent tools to help people manage their weight and control their diabetes.

Whether you wish to continue losing weight, or are at your goal weight and are looking to maintain your new weight and control your diabetes, meal and snack replacement products can make your life a little easier.

• If your goal is to lose more weight, follow your Diabetes Control for Life™ Program and use Glucerna SR products. Aim to stay within your target calorie range until you reach your weight goal. Your health care professional can help you determine your target calorie range.
• If you are ready to maintain your weight, use Glucerna SR products to replace one meal a day. Try:
  • A Glucerna SR Shake and piece of fresh fruit for breakfast
  • A Glucerna SR Shake, tossed salad with measured salad dressing, and a calorie-free carbonated drink for lunch
  • A Glucerna SR Shake and a piece of fruit for dinner if this is a meal where you find yourself overeating, or if you live alone
• Keep your calories in check. Use your food journal to keep track of what you eat from time to time.
• Maintain the healthy eating habits you’ve worked so hard to establish through the Diabetes Control for Life Program. Continue to include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, moderate portions of lean meats, and low-fat dairy products daily.

Learning From the Losers

Anne Fletcher discovered several keys to success from the weight control masters. Here they are:

1. Believe that you can attain and maintain a healthy weight and control your diabetes for life. Pay no attention to commonly held myths. Here are 10 myths you can put out of your mind forever:
   • If you were overweight as a child, you will always be overweight as an adult.
   • If you’ve tried every diet under the sun and failed, you’ll never be able to manage your weight.
   • People who lose weight and keep it off do so by living on rabbit food for the rest of their lives.
   • You have to become a crazed exercise fanatic.
   • Once you hit 40, weight loss is nearly impossible.
   • You can’t do it alone.
   • Diets don’t work.
   • You’ll inevitably hit a weight loss plateau and get stuck there.
   • If you regain even a couple grams, you’ll regain all the weight you’ve lost.
   • If you don’t stay at your original weight goal, you’re an utter failure.
   None of these things are true for everyone. They aren’t based on science and are not supported by the experiences of the weight control masters.
2. Do it for you, and do it only when you’re ready.
   • Desire, willingness, and motivation have to come from inside you. Nobody else can give it to you. The masters all said they had to reach a point of readiness at which they were willing to plan and execute crucial lifestyle changes.
3. Face the facts: You can’t change laws of nature:
   • If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight.
   • Fat provides important nutrients and adds flavor: It also provides more than twice the number of calories in a gram of food than protein and carbohydrates.
   • Weight maintenance requires a life-long lifestyle change, not a temporary “diet” that has a beginning and an end.
   • Weight maintenance gets easier with time.
4. A relapse is only temporary.
   • Monitor your weight. You don’t have to climb on the scale every day; you can use your waistband, if you prefer. When it starts to tighten, put your action plan to work.
   • Create an action plan that works for you. Keeping Glucerna SR products handy is an excellent strategy. Most of the masters had tactics for reducing fat and calories and for burning more and used them when they picked up a few extra kilograms. Some skipped peanut butter; others increased the amount of water and “free foods” they ate; others added another physical activity session to their week. One master said he stopped drinking beer because it just wasn’t worth it.
   • Be proactive. Be aware of situations that are high risk for your weight. This doesn’t mean just party and holiday time. it means knowing when, why, and where you eat — your “triggers.”
5. Watch those comfort foods — or any food for that matter — if you’re eating in response to emotions rather than hunger. Did you know that 75 percent of overeating results from emotional eating? Make use of other outlets to respond to anger, loneliness, boredom, depression, or stress.

Create Your Own “Master” Plan

At this point, you’ve reached or are on your way to reaching your diabetes control goal. Congratulations!

Use the Glucerna SR articles on healthy eating, well-being, and active living — refresh your memory about what worked for you. Armed with those strategies and tools — and the guidance of the “winners at losing” you just read about — write down the list of plans you’ll use to maintain your diabetes control.

You, too, can become a master!

My Maintenance Plans

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Summary

• Including Glucerna SR products in your action plan is a great way to keep your calories in check so you can maintain your new weight.
• Weight maintenance and diabetes control come from making lifestyle changes, not following a “temporary” diet plan.
• It isn’t true that everyone regains the weight they’ve lost.
• Successful people have a number of strategies for maintaining control of their diabetes. Gather as much information as you can. Some of the resources used in developing this article are from Anne M. Fletcher’s book, Thin for Life: 10 Keys to Success From People Who Have Lost Weight and Kept It Off.