Healthy Habits Associated with Successful Weight Loss Maintenance on a Commercial Program: Learnings from a Research Survey

Background: Maintenance of lost weight is a challenging aspect of weight management, therefore, an online survey of OPTAVIA (“the Program”) coaches and clients was conducted to understand the habits of successful maintainers. Methods: Coaches and clients who lost ≥ 10% body weight on the Program, had been trying to maintain their weight loss for ≥1 year, and maintained > 75% of their weight loss during that time were identified. Mean ± SD were calculated for continuous variables and categorical variables were quantified using frequencies and percentages. Results: The analysis included 590 respondents (342 coaches, 248 clients; 84% female, 52.6 ± 11.9 years). Average weight loss was 23.7% ± 8.6%; average time in maintenance was 24.5 ± 15.8 months. The most common maintenance strategies included self-monitoring, leveraging habits learned during weight loss, food-related strategies, physical activity, establishing a healthy environment, and becoming a coach. Coaches identified several beneficial factors: higher accountability, increased self-awareness, paying it forward, aligning maintenance with their identity as a coach, being a role model, and engagement with the Program. Conclusions: Successful coaches and clients use behaviors consistent with existing literature combined with several unique to the Program. The novel insights from this research rest primarily on the strategy of becoming a coach to help maintain weight loss.