Practice makes perfect

A study has suggested that women who carried out a practice run before they started losing weight and dieting were better at keeping the pounds off.

The study looked at 267 overweight or obese women who either started a weight loss regime immediately or spent eight weeks learning ‘weight maintenance’ skills before starting. At the end of their weight loss period, all had lost on average 17 pounds. A year later, those who had learnt skills before dieting had regained only three pounds on average, compared to seven pounds for those who started dieting immediately.

The study research is released at a time when figures suggest that British women are the largest in Europe, with almost half over weight.