1. Start the day with a healthy morning meal.
Researchers continue to debate whether breakfast is the most important meal of the day. One thing is clear: For people who maintain a healthy weight, eating breakfast is non-negotiable. A whopping 96% of the registrants said they eat breakfast—and a healthy one at that. About a third of them listed eggs as their favorite breakfast food, and 51% included fruits and veggies with their AM meal.
2. Eat mindfully.
You won't catch a healthy weight maintainer single-fistedly scarfing down a chili dog while surfing social media. They report "non-restrictive" but effective mindful clean eating strategies that include eating whole, non-processed foods, cooking at home, and tuning into inner cues to determine when they're really hungry (not just bored) and when they're full.
3. Exercise nearly every day.
No surprise here. Weight maintainers are an active bunch. Forty-two percent of them exercise 5 to 7 days a week.
4. Serve up veggies for dinner daily.
If there is a more perfect food than a plant, it must be on another planet, because people who eat the most of them have the lowest rates of all kinds of chronic diseases and, according to the registry, maintain their weight. Sixty-five percent of the responders to this survey ate vegetables at dinner every single evening. You should be aiming for at least 2½ cups (a serving size is a cup) of a variety of vegetables each day based on a 2,000-calorie diet.
5. Don't diet.
Surprise: weight maintainers don't diet. Or rarely do. Seventy-four percent of the registrants said they never or rarely diet to maintain their weight. You know why? Because diets don't work. Don't do it. Follow all these other tips, instead.
6. Choose chicken.
Kind of interesting, but not surprising. Weight maintainers like chicken. Sixty-one percent of them list chicken as their favorite meat. It makes perfect sense. Four ounces of chicken has just 124 calories, a healthy 26 grams of satisfying protein, and goes well in soups, salads, stir-fries, and pretty much whatever. Unless you're a vegetarian, chicken is a smart staple.
7. Snack smart.
Sixty-five percent of weight maintainers listed fruit and/or nuts as their favorite snack go-tos. Bananas are a staple, and nuts like pistachios are brimming with muscle-mending protein and healthy inflammation-fighting fats, plus antioxidants that can fight cell damage.
The article 7 Habits of Successful Weight Maintainers originally ran on Bicycling.com.
