Anyone Lost Over 30 and kept it off for more than 5 years, who doesn't work in the fitness industry

jeannemarie333

Yes, and now I'm hitting a 40 lb loss, it's been close to 8 years, slow but steady - I'm the turtle good luck!!! you can do this!!

Lynnda7

I lost over 50 lbs that I had only on me for about five years after baby but still joined every weight loss group and fitness center cried couldn't lose it until I got really sick with ulcerative colitis or celiac disease they never knew for sure.im glad it came off and never came back (except up to 10- 15 lbs) but in a painful hard way ......

Go_Gal_Grow

I've kept 100 lbs off for over 5 years. It's challenging.

Lynnda7

Go_Gal_Grow wrote: »

I've kept 100 lbs off for over 5 years. It's challenging.

I bet your awesome! I couldn't even lose 50 without being medically sick, you go girl🙌

Retroguy2000

As I was about to turn 50 I made changes. Largely thanks to MFP and working out I dropped about 60 pounds in 16 months. In the 16 months since I've stabilized at about 10 pounds above that low. Definitely no connection to fitness industry or any other reason to be motivated other than for my own reasons.

tomstroh77

Gosh, I hope so!
I just lost 100lbs in a year, and I'm hoping I can keep it off

RoguePisigit

I yoyo a little bit, but I've kept off between 150-170 pounds for going on 7 years now. Started that journey working in sleep medicine; now working in health IT.

nslouka90

I lost 60 pounds in just over 2 years and gained it all back in 4 years

berwicksue

I have lost 120 pounds and kept it off for nearly 10 years. Using My Fitness Pal has made it so easy to keep track of what I'm eating. I have found that once you lose the kind of weight I've lost, you have to make yourself stop referring to your daily food plan as a "diet." It just becomes the way you eat.

etraderpaul

I started at 429 lbs and am now at 269 after 56 months (not quite 5 years). The first 4 years were a seesaw - up down up down ... Each year I ended lower than the year before, but erratic and frustrating. However, starting last October, I transitioned to a focus on stabilized my weight loss rather than fast weight loss. I had developed confidence in my ability to lose weight - now I just needed for focus on keeping it off. Since then, I have gone 10 straight months with same or lower weight each month. I have come up with a plan that gives me flexibility for travel, vacation and holidays without feeling like I "messed up" my diet. I am now confident I can reach and stabilize at my goal of under 230 - with a total of 200+ lost lbs.

justanotherloser007

delen4000 wrote: »

All that being said losing the weight was easier than keeping it off.

@delen4000 Why was losing the weight easier than keeping it off? I would like to know what you mean by that.

ExistingFish

I lost ~37lbs 4.5 years ago, from 165 to 128 ("healthy" weight range). In that 4.5 years I've been as low as 111 and as high as 131, but I think that still keeps it more than 30lbs lost from my "peak" weight.

I have a desk job (accountant), I work from home (generally burns fewer calories than away from home) and my kids homeschool (so no school shuffle). Exercise is intentional, I don't get a lot of NEAT.

v8maro

135lbs / 7yrs

ninerbuff

Letsdothis749 wrote: »

Is there anyone here who has lost over 30 pounds and kept it off for more than 5 years, who doesn't work in the fitness industry, or a heavily appearance-biased field?

It seems like most of the people who keep it off work in fitness. I hope I'm wrong.

Other people can reply too, I'm just particularly interested in that group.

I have lots and lots of clients who've achieved it. I know because though I no longer train them, I see them in the gym consistently.


A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

wprestong

Yes - I am 64 and I lost 55 pounds 2013-2015, mostly by counting calories and being careful. It was not for appearance reasons, but to take weight off my joints, which are very bad.

cpereyra831

From 220 to 178 in 10 months (2013) and maintaining 177 for the last 9 years.

elothen

One more here. I'm a 6'4" tall male and 12 years ago I was 260lbs. I got down to 185 in about 9 months. Ever since then I've been between 185 and 215. (75lb to 55lb weight loss). No one would want to see me on YouTube or leading a gym class. I'm a programmer and I sit for a ridiculous amount of my life.

dn0pes

Me

pmbach1

I lost about 62 pounds somewhere around 2000. Then between Jan. 2015 and Jan. 2016 I lost another 100 or so. I have kept it off with some little slip ups. Quickly taken care of and never more than 20 pounds. Thank you COVID. I will be turning sixty three in November. Logging is of supreme importance. I also stick with the 5% challenge for accountability. Plenty of water.

aCountryVegan

64 years young and 10 years ago I was 305lbs at 6'1" and was most likely heading for my first heart attack. I got winded getting off the couch. My daughter eats a whole foods, plant based diet and I was visiting with her for a week and she had me try it and I never went back to the Standard American Diet. I lost 60lbs in the first year just by changing the food I was putting into my body. Then I started walking 20 mins a day and now I run 20+ miles a week. I ran so much that I was actually causing a huge calorie deficiency and one day at work I hit the wall and nearly passed out from what I later determined was just a lack of fuel. So I started here at MFP to track my calories so I could ensure I was eating enough. Depending on my training schedule I HAVE to eat between 2000 and 3500 calories a day. I always say, if you like to eat, take up distance running. LOL So its been at least 9 years I have kept it off, but I will say, its a struggle everyday.

spiriteagle99

I lost 50+ about 10 years ago. Because I had a lot of experience at yoyo dieting, I decided to keep tracking my food and exercise after I was satisfied with my weight. I know how easy it is to start eating more without realizing it. I also became a runner and we adopted a dog, so I get a lot of exercise. I am retired and have the time and schedule flexibility to get an hour or two of exercise most days. I don't think I've been more than 5 lbs. from my goal weight in the last 10 years.

milkywaymfp

ive been maintaining a 24lb weight loss since 2015 ! I walk everywhere and eat differently than i used to

obriencfc

Back in 2011, I was in my second year of college and weighed around 260 lbs. After committing to OMAD for half a school year, I dropped down to 220 pounds. By the end of 2013, I was 215 pounds. From 2014-2022, I lost an additional 20 pounds and weighed between 195-205 regularly. My goal is to sit comfortably at 185! After trying EVERY quick fix in the dieting world, I have finally understood the importance of simply tracking food every day, even if I know I will be overeating!

BartBVanBockstaele

Letsdothis749 wrote: »

Is there anyone here who has lost over 30 pounds and kept it off for more than 5 years, who doesn't work in the fitness industry, or a heavily appearance-biased field?

It seems like most of the people who keep it off work in fitness. I hope I'm wrong.

Other people can reply too, I'm just particularly interested in that group.

I work as a freelance translator, specialised in medicine, i.o.w. not even remotely appearance-biased.

I was on my heaviest in 2012 when I weighed approximately 127 kg. I started a weight loss diet, which was pure torture. Some time in 2018 I could not hold it anymore and was actively contemplating euthanasia, that's how terrible it was. I essentially gave up and started ballooning up. Then, around the end of 2018, I got a tip that was not intended for weight loss, but it turned out that it removed most, but not all, of the extreme discomfort I had experienced and I discovered to my delight that except for relatively tolerable but still incessant hunger, I was able to start my weight loss diet again.

I have kept going and after stalling for about two years at around 72 kg, I made a decision and have now finally started losing again, albeit very slowly at around 20 g a day, i.e. about 600 g a month. That is fine. At 69 kg today, I am officially of normal weight according to the BMI standards used in North America (but overweight according to the Asian standards) and I am of subnormal weight according to the old Broca Index, but have a few kg to reach ideal weight according to Broca while I am also within 200 g of Hamwi ideal weight, as far as I know the highest of all ideal weight indexes that have been proposed. So, one could say, and I essentially do, that I am in maintenance while still inching closer to an even more ideal weight for me, which I have not reached yet. Unless I really am an outlier where ideal weight is concerned, I expect to reach it some time in 2023.

There are 0 reasons to not keep the weight off until I snuff it. Hunger, while persistent, is tolerable and more bearable than the discomfort caused by higher weight. In other words, keeping it off is no longer a genuine choice, it is automatic and I don't even really think about changing anything anymore. There are good reasons to think I will never have to change and even if I do, it would easily be fixed by adding a tiny amount of vegetables to every meal, or a few grams of beans or a small portion of nuts every week or so, in other words, something that is really negligible in the grand scheme of things.

As Robert Baron has said, the diet you have when you lost the weight is pretty much the diet you have for the rest of your life which is why he calls it the "forever diet". At least for me, he is spot on.

Hence, the first part of my weightloss journey is an experience I don't even wish on my worst enemies, in case I should have those. The second part, also about 30 kg, is something I hope everyone who needs to lose weight could experience. All it took was resistance to temptation, something that I now don't even think about anymore, it is automatic.

I am hardly an exception. As Chef_Barbell said, "It's not that rare".

CaroWalks

Yes, I started on in 2016, aged almost 73. At that time I weighed 87kg (201lbs). I walked up to 2 hours per day over hilly terrain and limited my food intake to 1200 calories per day. I reached my goal weight (133lbs) in 12 months and have maintained it since 2017. I will be 78 next month, and am still walking for 120 minutes, or more, daily. My best wight loss tips are 1) sleep well - I aim for 8 hours per night; 2) hydrate - that means drink LOTS of water; and 3) weigh EVERY morning. I don't think I would have been as successful without MFP and Fitbit - the original Alta is still going strong. As an author, I have quite a sedentary work routine, but with perseverance and self-discipline the pounds WILL come off and stay off. Good luck from Australia. cb

mjc614900

Update: I still weigh 130. I am only 5'1. It's been two years. But every day I am mindful of what I eat and how much walking or physicial activity I get. I am 65 now. And I don't want to end up on the miserable end of aging. Everyday my top priority is my health - what I eat - and why. And I evaluate - and evaluate again.

willboywonder

I did. I began losing back around 2003. I lost about 60 pounds and it's still gone, thankfully. I have cheated from time to time, but I'm glad I haven't gone back to that weight. It's hard, no doubt. But it gets a littler easier as time goes by.

kpolleck

I lost 30+ pounds and overshot my goal--where friends and family members who hadn't seen me for awhile assumed I had some disease. It wasn't an unhealthy weight...although it was probably getting close, yet it certainly was a significant change.

That was almost 10 years ago, and I've deliberately added a few pounds, still 30 less than my maximum weight.

I don't eat healthfully, but I run...and I use MyFitnessPal to remind me to stop eating for the day, even if it's only 11:00am.

34blast

An interesting note, I really like this thread
Experts think as many as 80 to 95% of dieters gain back the weight they've worked so hard to lose within 5 years

https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5764193/

I am reading this for some inspiration. Lot's of dedicated people on here.
I spent most of my 20s and 30s very active outside of work.
I spent time running, playing soccer, playing basketball, hiking and weight training
I was not a model, but a mostly normal guy a little bit stronger than average at
6' 1" 192lbs


In my 40s somehow I quit exercising so much and kept eating the same. I continued to weight train, but quit playing so many sports (time with kids). I gained a lot of weight by my standards. I ballooned up to 240 pounds and decided to do something about it. I joined MyFitnessPal, continued to lift and started adding in more cardio (Elliptical, running, hiking). I tracked everything religiously. I got back down to about 198lbs in about 9 months or so. I maintained that weight and my strength levels for 3 years or so.

I don't know why, I fell off the wagon. I quit exercising so much. I still tracked all my food and strength trained. However, I just simply ignored that I had a positive caloric intake daily. I avoided weighting for almost 2 years. Mentally, I kept thinking, I'm a little bit heavier than ideal, but not that far off. I had to get a physical for life insurance and guess what? I ended up back where I started

The good news is I know how to lose the weight and keep it off. I just have to be determined to do it.

Several good tips here, I think if I kept my scales in the way and forced myself to weight at least once a week, I would have been okay. Not weighing yourself makes it much easier to be in denial. Or for me also excepting okay, a little bit heavier is okay, I'll go on a cut soon, but obviously I let things escalate out of control

sunshineyourway

Yes, I lost 41 lbs. 10-19-2014 and have kept it within a 3% range. Two years ago I lost another 5-10 lbs. fluctuating. I am not in the fitness field.