The Key to Keeping Lost Pounds Off is...

...daily weighing! It seems a study has just been published in the New England Journal of Medicine in which successful female dieters were separated into a control group and two intervention groups. Women in the intervention groups were given advice either face-to-face or online while the control simply received a mailing four times a year. It turns out that daily weighing by the intervention groups was key, as long as the weight information was used to make changes in eating habits. (Daily weighing alone did nothing.)

To lightweights experienced in weight management this may seem like an obvious result, but for many people nothing is more natural than avoiding scales at all costs. My favorite part of the study, however, is learning that "Women who remained within three pounds of their starting weight after the weekly check-in fell into the "green zone," and received encouraging phone messages and green rewards, such as mint gum." Maybe those of you who are having a bit of weight trouble could ask your coach to give you encouraging phone messages when you hit weight. Better yet, maybe even a surprise piece of mint gum slipped into your foot stretcher before the next day's row!

Next, before everyone leaves for Boston, we'll take a quick look at the light eight and light four races at the Chuck.