Having trouble sticking to your diet and exercise program? Results of a new study suggest that telephone-based weight-loss counselling can help people shed pounds just as well as face-to-face counseling sessions. It's also more convenient and less expensive.

Early results from a 26-week study show that overweight adults randomly assigned to weight-loss counseling by telephone lost almost as much weight as those receiving weight-loss services by going to meetings.

Subjects in the phone-based program lost an average of 23 pounds over 12 weeks and 28 pounds over 26 weeks, while those attending the clinic-based program lost 28 pounds in 12 weeks and no more by 26 weeks.

These results show "promise for weight loss interventions delivered entirely over the phone as a viable alternative to the usual clinic method," study leader Joe Donnelly, director of the center for physical activity and weight management at the University of Kansas said in a statement.

Copyright Reuters, 2005