How Long Before a Diet Change Leads to Weight Loss?

Do you want to make that New Year’s Resolution “stick” this year? The key might be as simply as making sure you do it for at least 25 days.

In our National Mindless Eating Challenge study, people were asked to make one small change –such as not eating with the TV on or eating off a small dinner plate –for as many days as they could for one month. Those who made their change for25 or more days were three times more likely to lose weight than those who did it for only 20.

​Just “doing it” works better than thinking about it. It’s too easy for today to the an exception.

Source: Presented at the Experimental Biology Conference in Anaheim, CA in April 25. The forthcoming abstract will be published as: Patterson, Richard Wells and Brian Wansink (2011), “Decoupling the Independent Effects of Multiple Simultaneous Behaviors,” FASEB Journal, 2:878.7, forthcoming.