The odds of long-term weight loss success

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  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
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    CSARdiver wrote: »
    Data is not destiny.

    It doesn't matter if X % of population A does B. What matters is what you do.

    I would hope that no one would take a statistical percentage and use it to decide their "destiny" as it pertains to weight management, just as I would hope a person with cancer wouldn't let mortality rates dictate whether they sought treatment or not. But we are usually still interested in the numbers, and often it can provide motivation.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
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    sijomial wrote: »
    try2again wrote: »
    NorthCascades wrote: »
    I don't think maintaining is very difficult. If you made it through the weight loss, now you get to eat more.

    Yes, but many approach weight loss as a short-term project and once the weight is gone, or they've achieved a significant amount of loss, they slowly (or quickly) ease back into the bad habits that got them there in the first place.

    But that's not universal.
    I got fat suddenly (major injury was the trigger) rather than through bad habits or a slow drift upwards but maintained my weight at an overweight level pretty easily.
    When I really made my mind up to lose weight it for me it was just a temporary phase of weight loss (or short term project as you describe it) and then switch back to my "normal" maintenance routine but at a good weight instead of overweight.
    Maintained for four years now and like @NorthCascades I find maintenance far easier simply because I can eat more.

    Still not as much as I would like to eat of course but that's also normal for me. :smiley:

    Yes if you have bad habits change, or at least a counter balance for those habits, is required long term.

    I was actually thinking about this in relation to @JerSchmare 's comment, that it has to be a virtually impossible subject to study, because people ended up overweight for different reasons and everyone comes to weight loss with a different set of mental, emotional, & physical circumstances. How does a study possibly account for all of those things? Yet the numbers still intrigue me.
  • dutchandkiwi
    dutchandkiwi Posts: 1,389 Member
    edited January 2018
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    To my knowledge the percentage of people that manage to maintain a healthy weight after weightloss has some issues due method difficulty. After all if you only follow those that have been under supervision during their loss then your group will not include people that do it on their own etc etc
    In the US there is a long term study going on this subject that recruits people that register als having lost and maintained iIt can be found here (US only I think) and here is an interesting meta study paper on the subject
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
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    sijomial wrote: »
    Personally I find the common success factors more interesting than the percentages of failed/successful dieters.

    Definitely more useful.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
    edited January 2018
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    try2again wrote: »
    CSARdiver wrote: »
    Data is not destiny.

    It doesn't matter if X % of population A does B. What matters is what you do.

    I would hope that no one would take a statistical percentage and use it to decide their "destiny" as it pertains to weight management, just as I would hope a person with cancer wouldn't let mortality rates dictate whether they sought treatment or not. But we are usually still interested in the numbers, and often it can provide motivation.

    Unfortunately, a lot of people do...I personally don't understand the mindset of "destiny"...we are all more or less in control of the way we choose to live our lives and thus the outcome.
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    try2again wrote: »
    CSARdiver wrote: »
    Data is not destiny.

    It doesn't matter if X % of population A does B. What matters is what you do.

    I would hope that no one would take a statistical percentage and use it to decide their "destiny" as it pertains to weight management, just as I would hope a person with cancer wouldn't let mortality rates dictate whether they sought treatment or not. But we are usually still interested in the numbers, and often it can provide motivation.

    Unfortunately, a lot of people do...I personally don't understand the mindset of "destiny"...we are all more or less in control of the way we choose to live our lives and thus the outcome.

    I guess I should have phrased it differently... I know some people are bound to do that. Just wondering if the implication was that it's a disservice to people to discuss the #s?
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    try2again wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    try2again wrote: »
    CSARdiver wrote: »
    Data is not destiny.

    It doesn't matter if X % of population A does B. What matters is what you do.

    I would hope that no one would take a statistical percentage and use it to decide their "destiny" as it pertains to weight management, just as I would hope a person with cancer wouldn't let mortality rates dictate whether they sought treatment or not. But we are usually still interested in the numbers, and often it can provide motivation.

    Unfortunately, a lot of people do...I personally don't understand the mindset of "destiny"...we are all more or less in control of the way we choose to live our lives and thus the outcome.

    I guess I should have phrased it differently... I know some people are bound to do that. Just wondering if the implication was that it's a disservice to people to discuss the #s?

    I don't think it's a disservice necessarily...but I also don't find those numbers to be particularly meaningful. As mentioned above, I think looking at the trends of long term successful people and what they typically do in their day to day lives to be more helpful and insightful.

    As a person going on 5 years maintenance I can pretty much tick off most if not all of the boxes of those trends or qualities of people who have maintained long term.
  • catherineg3
    catherineg3 Posts: 127 Member
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    "research has shown that approximately 20% of overweight individuals are successful at long-term weight loss when defined as losing at least 10% of initial body weight and maintaining the loss for at least 1 y. The National Weight Control Registry provides information about the strategies used by successful weight loss maintainers to achieve and maintain long-term weight loss. National Weight Control Registry members have lost an average of 33 kg (73#) and maintained the loss for more than 5 y. To maintain their weight loss, members report engaging in high levels of physical activity ( approximately 1 h/d), eating a low-calorie, low-fat diet, eating breakfast regularly, self-monitoring weight, and maintaining a consistent eating pattern across weekdays and weekends. Moreover, weight loss maintenance may get easier over time; after individuals have successfully maintained their weight loss for 2-5 y, the chance of longer-term success greatly increases."
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16002825
    This is at least better than <5% :)
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    try2again wrote: »
    NorthCascades wrote: »
    I don't think maintaining is very difficult. If you made it through the weight loss, now you get to eat more.

    Yes, but many approach weight loss as a short-term project and once the weight is gone, or they've achieved a significant amount of loss, they slowly (or quickly) ease back into the bad habits that got them there in the first place.

    I don't think it's always that. I think reward plays a significant role. When you are losing weight there are constant rewards. The scale going down, smaller sized clothes, compliments from others, etc. But that mostly goes away in maintenance.
  • LilFoxtrot
    LilFoxtrot Posts: 91 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    People are generally really bad at reinventing themselves and making long term changes to the way they go about their lives.

    I guess I'd like to believe more people are capable of doing it than the reality might be.

    Either way, I think using a statistic like this to gauge your own rate of success is demoralizing. I don't want to look at the odds and think 'well *kitten* why bother'. I'd rather believe everyone is capable than believe in only 20% of us.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    LilFoxtrot wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    People are generally really bad at reinventing themselves and making long term changes to the way they go about their lives.

    I guess I'd like to believe more people are capable of doing it than the reality might be.

    Either way, I think using a statistic like this to gauge your own rate of success is demoralizing. I don't want to look at the odds and think 'well *kitten* why bother'. I'd rather believe everyone is capable than believe in only 20% of us.

    Everyone is capable...being capable and actually doing what is necessary long term are two different things entirely.

    When I first started over 5 years ago I was obese, my diet was rubbish, I did nothing in the way of exercise, my general activity was very low due to sitting at a desk most of the day, I was a 2-3 PAD smoker and I could barely walk my dog around the block without feeling like I was going to die.

    I lost weight, but I also made a commitment to live a more healthful life...my diet is a far cry better than it used to be...I exercise regularly...I no longer smoke cigarettes...I don't spend all my free time sitting around drinking beer. A lot of time and effort went into developing healthier habits and dropping old bad habits and it wasn't particularly easy...it has also required discipline to maintain those healthy habits and not fall back into the lazy life I once lived.

    While everyone is capable, many people simply won't make that long term commitment...not to mention, a lot of people get to maintenance and it's kind of a "now what" kind of thing...there is no longer a goal of some particular weight...there's no longer the anticipation and excitement of watching the scale go down, etc...the compliments and accolades cease...it's just boring old maintenance...which is where fitness goals and whatnot come in pretty handy...
  • SueSueDio
    SueSueDio Posts: 4,796 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    NorthCascades wrote: »
    I don't think maintaining is very difficult. If you made it through the weight loss, now you get to eat more.

    Three people marked this woo. Who thinks eating more is harder than eating less?

    Maybe they're still thinking of it in the "woohoo!" sense?

    Although I will say that, on the very first "maintenance break" I took on my journey, I found it very stressful to eat more. While I was in a deficit I had a buffer that would absorb any logging errors or deliberate overeating, but once I was at maintenance calories that buffer was gone. It really scared me for a few days, until I realised I'd have to overeat for many days in a row to start gaining again.

    I would think that a lot of the failure to maintain that gets talked about in these studies and articles is due to the initial approach - a lot of people think of "a diet" as a short term, temporary thing, after which they go back to "eating normally". I had to learn that I can't ever do that again, and I guess everyone else has to come to the same realisation before they can be successful at long-term maintenance.
  • augustremulous
    augustremulous Posts: 378 Member
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    Family and friends have to play a role in it too. The same people who played a minor role in you gaining weight in the first places aren't necessarily making the changes along with you. And it's easy to work really hard to lose the weight for a short time and then slip into old habits when all the people around you are living in a less healthy way.

    And I really do think the culture of fat shaming does play a role. It's what gets fat people to lose weight as quickly as possible in an unsustainable way, which is hard to maintain. I myself have found that the weight comes off more easily when I'm feeling confident and happy.
  • MegaMooseEsq
    MegaMooseEsq Posts: 3,118 Member
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    I think the numbers are interesting, as is the public health question about how the results of studies like this are reported. Science reporting and literacy in the United States is abysmal, so it doesn’t surprise me that people would be discouraged by headlines like “95% of diets fail!” (or that misleading clickbait headlines like that are written in the first place). I spent a lot of time reading about successful weight loss and maintenance before I started trying to lose weight, because I couldn’t motivate myself to get started if I thought I would inevitably regain. The National Weight Control Registry was a big help in looking at how people actually succeed.

    As for the numbers themselves, so many questions come to mind. What counts as a diet? What counts as failure? Are we including people at a healthy weight trying to lose “vanity pounds”? It’s tempting to jump to simple conclusions, but you really do need to drill down before the data are at all useful.

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