Quick pep talks help with weight maintenance

Checking in with a nurse every couple of weeks is just as effective for helping people maintain weight loss as an intensive and much more expensive program involving longer sessions with dieticians and exercise trainers, New Zealand researchers report.

After two years of the program, 54% of people in the intensive support group and 84% in the nurse support group said the visits were frequent enough to help them manage their weight, while 70% of those in both groups said they would like to continue receiving support indefinitely. And the average weight loss the women had been able to maintain -- 2 kilograms, or about 4.4 pounds -- was the same in both groups.