The odds of long-term weight loss success

I have long been under the impression that the percentage of those who lose a significant amount of body weight and maintain it was extremely low... like <5%. I'm sure I've seen other posters use statistics like this in the forums. But today I was looking for the data, and though it sounds like it hasn't been widely studied, the info I found points to about 1 in 6 (>15%) being able to maintain at least a 10% loss long-term. I know it's still basically small, but I think it's a big difference and find it encouraging. :)
But why the discrepancy? Or was it just me and my own mistaken idea to begin with?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3671378/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4777230/
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Replies

  • riffraff2112
    riffraff2112 Posts: 1,757 Member
    maintaining is very tough. I knew the % of people who are able to maintain was low, but didn't think it was quite that low.
    Not a surprising result to be honest but I am a little shocked that only 15% in the best case are able to do it!
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    maintaining is very tough. I knew the % of people who are able to maintain was low, but didn't think it was quite that low.
    Not a surprising result to be honest but I am a little shocked that only 15% in the best case are able to do it!

    It sounded great compared to the 2% figure I had in my head! ;)
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,907 Member
    edited January 2018
    try2again wrote: »
    #Iamthe15

    Even though I am still not at my goal, I've lost a total of 25%+ of my body weight & have kept it off off (with a few wobbles) or moving downward for nearly a decade :)

    Yeah, I don't count wobbles of five pounds or less.

    When I first lost my weight in 2007-08, I gained back about 15 pounds immediately after that big loss.

    I'm not doing that again. That's really demoralizing. But, there have been a couple winters where I gain about five pounds - that's just climate/winter and lifestyle in the NW. It's always gone by April.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member

    I'm actually more skeptical to the other number, and the definition of success. "15% being able to maintain at least a 10% loss long-term" and self-reported weight, is bordering bad science IMO; and a 10% loss when you're morbidly obese, leaves you still obese.

    I'm skeptical as well and agree that it doesn't seem terribly scientific, but at the same time, I can't imagine a way to get reliable numbers. As for the 10% loss, the study noted it was chosen "on the basis of the evidence that a loss of at least 10% consistently produce beneficial changes to health-risk factors".