Contrary to widely-held opinions, many Americans do manage to keep off some of the weight they lose, according to a national survey reported by Reuters Health.

Government researchers found that 59 percent of 1,310 U.S. adults who'd ever lost a substantial amount of weight were still close to their weight of a year before -- which in all cases was at least 10 percent lower than their heaviest all-time weight.

However, one third of the subjects had regained a significant amount of weight over the year, the researchers report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

-- Amanda Barrett, amNY.com