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

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.

Because the body wants very badly to return to the higher weight and does everything it can to get there. Increased hunger signals, hormonal changes, lowered resting metabolism, you name it. Leptin, ghrelin, peptide YY all increase to levels that are actually higher than they were before you lost the weight (so appetite is even greater and metabolism is even slower than when you were fat). Until science comes up with some kind of pill to counteract these things, maintaining weight loss will be a daily struggle and very few people can keep up the fight forever.

I just wish the body tended toward a healthier weight and did things like increase metabolism and decrease appetite if the weight strayed too high. Why does it want to kill itself with obesity? It makes no sense, really.

It's strange, isn't it? I maintained my low, healthy weight for many years by just eating what I liked. My weight stayed with in a few pounds. Then for some reason, the system seemed to reset itself at almost double my original weight. And yet I maintained that higher weight within a few pounds without having to think about it. It would be interesting to know what exactly causes this "reset" and change in hormone levels, and how long it persists after losing weight. I have read that people tend to be successful if they can maintain for five years, so maybe that's the point when the body starts to accept the lower weight?

Fad diets I think. Lifestyle change is key. Maybe also lack of support for some people contributed to it!

Apparently all the people who maintained their goal weight did so by never slipping back into bad habits. They remained strict, focussed, and accepted that their eating habits and attitudes remained forever changed. The regimes they adopted to lose weight became their 'normal eating patterns' to be maintained for life.

I got lazy with exercise and started emotionally binge eating again.

Gotta get your head straight if you wanna keep it off for good!!

People who go on a "diet" instead of actually changing their lifestyle will inevitably put the weight back on when they stop dieting. Keeping the weight off should fundamentally be a life long endeavour.

It is because people do not make lifestyle changes, they just go on diets. Losing weight, keeping it off, and staying health is a long term lifestyle; I suggest making small changes until you get to where you want to be.

actually i watched a documentary on hbo by the leading expert researchers in weight loss/ weight gain and obesity. They said once you are overweight your body is like broken and can never burn calories as efficiently as it did. they further went on to say that their research indicates that if you were ever overweight you should eat 400 calories less than what your BMR says should be your daily calorie intake (for ex. BMR of 2000 calories, then you should only eat 1600 calories). basically you have to eat 400 calories less than a normal person because your metabolism actually gets permenantly slower because you were overweight. they said people regain the weight because their body still has a hunger drive that makes them want to eat the full 2000 calories. so they said you need to be conscientous and make sure not to eat those extra 400 calories or you will gradually regain the weight. i'm basing my maintenance plan on this. will either exercise it off of not eat it. i never want to regain the weight i've lost. so i hope this helps prevent it. it's amazing that after all our hard work that it can be regained so easily. the media should talk about this more. the researchers where impressive you should watch it if you can.

Did this account for people losing by eating less and doing only cardio (if any exercise) and losing tons of LBM and getting skinny fat? Because it would make sense in that context... two people at the same weight would have different caloric requirements if their LBM/body fat ratios were significantly different.

Thanks for posting this, it was an interesting read xx

People who obsess over weight, and drop to a target then stop and go back to what they were doing before.... those are the sort of people that put it back on.

Often the sort of people that "tried every diet there is," and for whom "nothing every works."

Basically, if you want to be fitter, healthier and usually as a consequence, be lighter, then you have to change things for life.

reasons people put weight back on -

1. they follow fad diets
2. they believed the "cleanse or detox" would actually work and keep it off.
3. no long term changes were made
4. no tracking of progress was done, so was unsure if it was actually working
5. addiction and will power issues.


Those are the main ones I think...


Jay

I think Jay is right. People believe in diets rather than long term changes. Sustainable long term changes will keep the weight off. I also think the ridiculous "goal/ideal weight" mentality is another huge problem! I have said before bf% and how you look in the mirror matters. Weight is irrelevant.