You've probably heard that 95 percent of all diets fail. In other words, almost everyone who loses weight eventually regains it. This isn't true, but it's easy to understand why so many of us believe it.



The problem isn't really with diets. It's with a lack of guidance after your diet. Christopher Sciamanna, M.D., discovered this the hard way. After losing 30 pounds, he described his new, lower weight as "shockingly challenging" to maintain.



Luckily for him—and for the rest of us—Dr. Sciamanna had the perfect job for learning how to deal with this challenge. He's a physician and research scientist at Penn State University's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. He and his colleagues decided to study weight-loss maintenance.



For the past two decades, this field of research has focused on a single group of people: those who choose to join the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR). To qualify, they have to lose at least 30 pounds and keep the weight off for at least a year.