What causes failure?

Human nature. Honestly.

We evolved over thousands of years to maximize survival. We seek out calorie dense food to pack on the pounds so that we can survive the long winter months and times of famine when food used to be scarce.

Unfortunately, we live in an age where calorie dense food is easy to find and afford. Famine doesn't exist... at least not in 1st world countries.

Add emotional and social eating to this problem... and... many of us (30% of the USA, at least) tend toward fatness.

It is relatively easy to be careful and diligent for a short period of time... but it is very hard to be diligent over a life-time. And for those of us who have an evolutionary advantage during times of famine >.> and.... well... its really easy to slip up, give in, stop counting (who wants to count calories forever????) and fall back on old habits and behaviors.

I think Acogg hit it right on the head. People think they are done. It's a life time change. You have to enjoy the new portions, food and exercise. I know I was lazy and didn't take into consideration how much I was eating. That's how I ended up at 317. I didn't eat really bad, although it wasn't good either. When I get lazy and don't watch portions, I usually blow it. But I've learned too that I pick myself up at that point and start over. I now know what works and when I'm lazy. I can' afford to be lazy any more.

I think Acogg hit it right on the head. People think they are done. It's a life time change.

Yep. I've been on maintenance since May of 2012 and in some ways, it's harder to maintain than to lose. It was exciting to lose weight and get all the compliments but I have to find new ways to keep my head in the game.

I'm not a yo-yoer by any means but I did lose once before and gained much of it back. Not all, but a lot of it. It's because when I hit my goal I thought I could quit tracking my food and I slacked off on exercise. I don't track as meticulously as I used to and will take entire days off from tracking but I'm always conscious of about how many calories I've had each day.

no discipline.

Lack of time, no strength training program, only "kind of" wanting it. Not wanting it as bad as going out, drinking, having cheat days... etc

In my case I didn't lose ALL the weight and then gain it back, but I did gain back quite a lot of what I had lost (over 20 pounds) (my ticker used to read 59 pounds lost :sad: ) due to illness. I was rendered basically immobile. I had zero appetite for over a month and barely ate, which was followed by medication that made me suddenly RAVENOUS. I've never been so out of control hungry in my life. The combo (being completely lethargic and not hungry, followed by extreme appetite) had a huge impact on my weight. I'm sure my metabolism has slowed to a crawl during my sickness, and then was assaulted by a ****load of calories.

Stuff happens.

It's hard to keep up with new days-old/weeks-old/months-old habits when trying to change years and years of bad habits.

Life happens. It's not a failure unless you stop trying.

Hi Jaycie and good question.

IMHO taking your eye off the ball and going back to bad habits can cause failure.

It is so, so easy to fall back into a bad routine.

I wasn't sure where to post this question, so I figure I would ask those that are trying to maintain. Lately I have seen several people posting things like "Back to MFP again". I've seen a lot of people on here talking about how they lost weight and then gained some or all of it back so they are back on MFP. Why do people fail? Right now I have the drive in me to lose weight. Once it is lost, I don't want it back. What makes maintaining hard? What can I do to prepare myself better?

I think it's not planning for lifelong maintenance that leads to falling off the wagon. It's great to reach all the target numbers but pointless if this doesn't become a sustainable way of living.

complacency.

losing focus

stop following the path that got you where you wanted to be

For me it was always about losing the weight as quickly as possible and ultimately ended when I just couldn't do it anymore either because I was hungry or craving my favourite foods.

I maintained my weight in my twenties and thirties by doing all sorts of stupid things. At 40, I stopped doing those things and gain weight. Dieted the first time two years ago and tried losing the weight exactly the same way as the PP described above. I was also very ignorant of calorie intakes and calorie burns and listened to too many opinions by too many people. Big mistake.

I am now much wiser this second time round. I know what to do to maintain and what NOT to do!

For myself, it was never learning good habits in the first place. I would gain the weight, then basically starve myself on a sub-1000kcal diet (well, I did start in the early nineties - that was the way you did it back then.) I wouldn't learn the good habits and when I eventually fell off the wagon due to being so hungry I could chew my own legs off, well the weight just piled back. And it always brought a few friends. Even up to this attempt, it was always about trying out a new diet - Atkins or Cabbage Soup (bleugh) or Slimfast. Not about learning what was sustainable. This time however, thanks to all the informative guys on the forum, I know I can get this weight off and keep it off. I'll have to be vigilant - weigh every week, once I'm in maintenance - but I'm eating food I enjoy, I know how to make a trade-off and I know what to watch out for.

Oh, and I'm really enjoying getting more active as well. I'm making small life changes, rather than unsustainable short-term fixes.

Statistically 95% of us here will fail at long term weight loss success (keeping the majority of lost weight off for at least five years). The weight loss phase is for a very short period of time-usually a few months to a couple years. Maintenance is for the rest of your life-20, 30, 40+ years. A LOT will happen in that time-

-life changes (moving, new jobs, pregnancies, new baby/kids, marriage/divorce, carrying for elderly parents etc)
-catastrophes (death in the family, illness, illness of loved ones, accidents etc)
-stressful and busy times, when we're out of our normal routines
-holidays, parties, get togethers etc
-loss of focus/laziness; not creating new goals to work towards
-loss of motivation (no one is complimenting us anymore, no new, smaller clothes)-ie. lots and lots of the same, easy to let the mundane day to day get us off track

Plus other factors that come into play like emotional eating, those who deal with binge eating etc etc etc.

And then one of my biggest pet peeves-there's almost NO information on maintenance out there. Even this sub-forum was just added a few months ago. There's no books, blogs/websites or experts out there giving us guidance on how to maintain successfully. We're bombarded with resources for losing the weight, but we're left on our own to figure out how to do the rest of it, which is the part that we'll be doing for years and years. Very frustrating when you're transitioning and are trying to figure out what comes next!

I've been maintaining for a little over 6 months now and I've found it much more difficult and challenging then the losing weight phase was. However, I'm determined to not go back to where I once was (in the pre-diabetic range), so I will make maintenance work, no matter what I have to do. For me that means weighing daily, hanging out here on MFP, being conscious of calories (though I no longer track every day), exercising (for the first time in my life), always making/working towards a new goal and always having my weight/calories on the forefront of my mind. This is my life now, but it's worth it.

Gaining it back .. caused by one thing, eating too much. Not too difficult of a concept.

Thank you so much Captain Obvious! :flowerforyou:

The HBO documentary clip the OP links to in this thread is worth a watch.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1115397-understanding-why-it-s-so-difficult-to-maintain-weight?hl=HBO+documentary+

Hey, I though you looked familiar. :flowerforyou: