why do 95%of people put weight back on, ugh

I have definitely thought about this. I have heard you have to work on the "mental" side of things as well...why did you become obese in the first place? was it because you were eating your emotions? then a person would need to figure out a way to express feelings without food...as example.

I understand needing to be realistic long term. My plan is once I get down to my goal weight - I plan to maintain that weight within 5 lbs, and my measurements within 2 inches. So if there is a month weigh in - measurements...and i see I'm slipping - its time to start logging again, exercising to work it off, and figure out what was going wrong.

If one loses weight by reducing calories and exercising without paying attention to where the calories come from and how their diet affects their hormones, they are not training/ preparing their bodies to continue burning fat. If you do a Google search for a site called Peertrainer, they provide a lot of good information on the role of hormones and weight loss.

I can only answer as to why every other time I put on all the weight I lost in the past.

1) I saw myself as being "on a diet" - A diet implies it has a start and an end date. A diet is unsustainable. A diet is restrictive and full of "no" foods that you have to avoid (and if you eat them that implies you've cheated on your diet). A diet is something you don't have to worry about once you've reached goal and you can go back to eating normally once the diet it finished. This time around I actually see myself "changing my life and my lifestyle" - the changes I have made are sustainable because they are really no effort at all. They have become my go-to solution. There are no "no" foods on mfp. I can have whatever I want to eat, as long as I can fit it in to my day or I work it off.

2) Exercise used to be done so I could eat more, not to be healthy or fit - When I was doing weight watchers, they always told us we could "cheat" and get 2 more points to eat by doing 30 minutes of exercise. Almost every week we were told we could use those 2 points for the naughty foods we'd been avoiding on our diet (see point 1). Once I gave up on my diet, I gave up on exercise because there was no more point as I was no longer restricting myself. Vicious cycle. This time around, exercise has become a part of my daily activities. I see exercise as keeping me healthy, helping my mental health, stress-relief, time-filler (as opposed to eating to fill time), body sculpting (in terms of strength training) and just damned good fun. If I don't do exercise on any given day, I get antsy, I get fidgety, I get stressed. I am still shocked every day about this change in my relationship to moving my body. I don't see exercise as a way to eat more food, I eat food to fuel my exercise now.

3) Pre-packaged/pre-prepared food does not teach you how to eat healthily - Things like Lite n Easy, Lean Cuisine, Weight Watchers frozen meals, etc...anything that delivers the exact quantities they say you need to eat and you don't have to actually choose anything or cook anything...that doesn't teach you how to eat healthily after you stop buying their food because you've never had to choose the size of your bread roll, the amount of pasta, the weight of your protein, the amount of sauce, etc. You've only ever been told "eat this and you will lose weight". You've learned nothing. The exact same thing goes for shake diets or meal replacement diets.

4) Magic formulas don't teach you about nutrition - Weight watchers points, SureSlim's no carbs, protein:vegetables ratios, shakes, VLCD, etc - they don't teach you about the food you're putting in your mouth - WW has some magic formula that works out your food - you can't tell by just looking at the packet how good or bad it is for you - you need to use their points book, or their points calculator...basically you never really know what's going in your mouth without them. SureSlim - You're not allowed to eat carbs at all (why not? Why am I allowed to eat THESE carbs, but not THOSE carbs? Why am I allowed to eat THESE vegetables, but not THOSE vegetables - oh...that's right...because it's not on your highly restrictive allowable foods list - and there is practically NOTHING on those lists - and why am I not allowed to eat outside of every 5 hours?). Add to it WW's "free foods" lists...it doesn't make any sense because food is food...it's still going in your mouth...it's still going to have an impact on your body. MFP and calorie counting is easy and highly accessible. I understand calories in vs calories out. The information is readily found on every packet or easily found out (in the case of fresh fruit and veg). There is nothing hidden. It's all out there in the open. It totally makes sense.

These are the things that come to my mind. This is the first time that I've maintained losing weight for so long (nearly 12 months) - all the other times I've tried I've lasted a couple of months or even just a couple of weeks before I couldn't stick it out any longer. I don't feel restricted. I eat what I want when I want it. I now understand what food does to my body - I understand that sodium can cause a temporary blip on the scales (When I was on WW - NONE of this was explained to me. I have a very vivid memory of being called out by the leader for putting ON weight that week, despite following their points plan exactly). I understand that eating too little is bad for me in the long run. I understand that food = fuel, and not a means to satisfy my urges. I feel in control of my life for the first time. I have support for the first time. I understand caloric deficits and the amount I have to eat to maintain (and the amount I have to eat to gain) for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE. With everything that I have learned on MFP, there is no way I can put weight on. I have completely changed my life.

Eat more calories than you burn, gain weight. Seems simple enough unless I am missing something.

I gained again after losing because I stopped working out, and I started eating more / unhealthy

why do 95% of people put weight back on, ugh

This is the most significant question that can be asked on this web site. I don't have "the answer" but I have some thoughts.

Losing weight is hard, and few will do it with significant success. Keeping it off is harder and fewer still will achieve that.

But though many have failed, many have also succeeded. Our job is to learn from them. More on that later.

Though I've had some success using calorie budgeting, I don't consider myself a true success story yet because I haven't reached five years of maintenance (only a year and a half so far). I've lost weight a number of times in the past only to regain it and so I don't trust what I've achieved by this point.

Maybe repeated failure is the only way to learn... for me it was. Hopefully the statistic you quote is an alarm bell for everyone in the fat countries. Maybe we can learn from the failures of others and not just our own.

I think a lot of people re-gain their weight after successful loss because they do not know the strength of their enemy. If you've been significantly overweight, obesity stalks you like booze stalks an alcoholic, and everywhere Everywhere EVERYWHERE food is crouching to pounce into your mouth.

One of the things that haunts me is the fact that maintaining a healthy weight is not really central to the meaning of life, and so its significance can be, over time, something to dismiss. By this I mean once you've been obese and then through tremendous daily or even hourly meticulous effort have lost a significant amount of weight, fought off the tsunami of food, learned to incorporate exercise, gotten the attaboys and celebrated your success for a while, you may keep at it for another few months or so and then realize that...

HEY! This business is requiring a GREAT DEAL of attention and effort and WHAT IS THE POINT? You may start asking questions like.. Can't I focus on OTHER THINGS now? Aren't there more significant issues in life? Am I continuing to do this because I've developed an UNHEALTHY OBSESSION with heath and fitness? Am I being too VAIN and SELF-CENTERED? And what about the other people around me? ... they don't seem to be having too many problems in life... sure they're a bit paunchy but they're having a grand old time at barbeque cookouts, beer pong, pizza buffets, etc. Plus my friends and family are all dogging me for not joining in the party full-tilt. Aren't I allowed to have ANY FUN with eating? Is this going to be a nagging responsibility the REST OF MY %#$&@ LIFE?

Honestly I can't recall if these are the thoughts that caused me to backslide in the past. Most of the problem I'm sure is just the nature of what we unconsciously accept as "normal" ... if eating a lot and being inactive has been the norm most of your life it will take a permanent revolution, not just a year of weight loss effort, to avoid slipping back to the old ways.

New norms are hard. Some people say it takes 30 days to break and old, or establish a new, habit. But significant weight loss for someone who's norm is obesity is more than that -- it is truly at least a dozen new habits and the crucifixion of at least a dozen bad ones. My judgement is that food-related habits are harder to break and establish than other kinds (for example, nail-biting), because food is more deeply ingrained our biology, emotions, cultures, families, etc. And in addition to new things to do and old things not to do, there is a lot to learn -- which is also outside of many folks' comfort zones.

And then -- after the weight loss -- comes the maintenance, which in my opinion requires continuing to learn new stuff and the creation of even more new habits.

Basically it's a war. It's a war to lose it and it's an on-going war to keep it off. Hopefully that's not too depressing.

On the bright side, there IS something called the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), which is an on-going database of people who have lost weight and kept it off, and some studies have been done to determine what makes them successful.

See these site for articles about findings from the NWCR:

http://www.fitnessforweightloss.com/terms/national-weight-control-registry-nwcr/

All the best!

95% is not an accurate number and spreading this false statistic is dangerous for people. Small seeds planted grow trees of doubt or something.

You're right....

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/25/health/95-regain-lost-weight-or-do-they.html

The actual statistic is hard to come by because it's hard to determine the boundaries of what the question means and to get good data to answer it. So there will be different studies & results out there based on how the question is framed (e.g., how much weight is considered weight loss, how much time after the weight loss do we check back on the participants, etc) and how much data can be reliably captured (do we rely on self-reporting, have people check in to be weighed, do a control-group vs. test group, etc).

... but it almost doesn't matter. However you slice it, there is still a large chunk of those who've lost it who will regain it.

So it's bad news anyway.

They haven't learned to live a new lifestyle. I have maintained my loss for more than 6 months and I STILL count my calories, exercise everyday, and live a new healthy lifestyle.I have all new clothes size 28 down to 8 and am NEVER" going back". It is just as hard today as it was the day I "started my diet". I want to be fit more than I want to satisfy my food addiction. A choice. There is a group called The National Weight Control Registry and they have been tracking successful weight loss cases and have information as to what those who have been successful are doing.

Is that the real statistic? 95%? It seems kind of high. I know putting weight back on is a risk but I don't know if it's the norm. By the time you lose lots of weight I don't think you have to eat exactly diet style. I think you can eat healthier than you were but following your urges and be okay. If you had healthy habits to begin with and only gained weight as the result of some real reason then you should be able to keep it off. If you had terrible eating habits, you might not be able to go back to that kind of eating, but you should be able to relax a little from diet mode and just feel comfortable and okay with your eating style and weight maintenance. I'd just hate for you to be discouraged thinking weight loss mode is something you will have to do forever because it's not always the case. Why don't you have high hopes lose all the weight and then see if it's easier for you to maintain than you predict.

For me, I found it fairly easy to maintain when my life was relatively the same as during the weight loss period. I leaned an important lesson. When life changes, I need to monitor. Since we are a military family, this means transition will come again. Changes doesn't just apply to moving though.