Anybody LOST a lot of weight then GAINED it all back?

I lost around 90 lbs between Feb 2007 and Jun 2008. It was a LOT of work to lose that weight (screwed up metabolism) - was working with a Dietitian and Exercise Physiologist to get there.

However, it was too much work to keep up ... and I just got to the point where I couldn't be bothered any more.

This time I'm trying to keep what I need to do to lose weight manageable (good news is now my metabolism isn't quite as screwed) so that it's more of a lifestyle that I can maintain rather than a daily struggle.

I lost about 30kg a few years ago, over about a 2 year period.
The crusher for me was returning to full time work with a 2 1/2 hr daily commute. I put on about 10kg, then fell pregnant with twins.

The babies turned 1 last month, and I am now as heavy as I was before I started losing weight the first time.

Time management is my biggest problem, with my days only being sort-of predictable. I am focusing on my diet again, as exercise is not always an option.

I did... Lost about 60 lbs and then had that plus another 15.5 lbs pile on. How?

Blew out a knee at 120 lbs and fit in 2007. Started to gain a little going from Very Active (running 20-30 miles a week) to "in a leg brace with a knee the size of a watermelon" and following surgery and a MRSA infection (hello steroids) the weight just slammed on me. I remember being thankful that I was NOT 200 lbs, although the scale did hit 199.

Recovery for me was really hard. It took about a year before I was walking without an aid since they had to transition from Zero weight bearing on crutches, to partial (very limited walking with crutches), to more weight bearing, then to 1 crutch and then to a cane. So I didn't lose a lot of the weight for a while. It maintained in the 190s.

Fast forward to Summer 2010... I've been running again (with Dr approval) and just did my 1st 5k back since my injury. Felt great, was 140lbs and hitting that "last 10 lbs" plateau... and then I got a pulmonary embolism in the end of July. Following that came panic attacks and I ended up agoraphobic and on anti-depressants by Jan 2011. I regained and did some yo-yo weight cycles. I was off all meds and even with trying to lose weight I wasn't. My Dr said sometimes it can take 6+ months of no meds before you start seeing a difference so I just let it go.

Oct 30,2013 was my "that's it" moment. I knew I was up in weight. Hadn't put batteries in my scale purposely. And something possessed me while dropping off stuff and watering plants for my aunt to weigh in. 209.5 hit me in the face. Decided I wasn't going to keep living like that and started tracking calories and getting things back under control. I'd never been overweight until injuries set in so I'm really not willing to settle for being the person I am now when I Know who I really am inside. So that's my story.

Biggest thing in this is I can forgive myself for the regain and know that a good bit of my problem was outside my control. I stress eat, always have, but I used to have the activity level to combat the extra calories. I had a "on the go" on your feet job.... then started a desk one. That changes a lot. It happens little by little so making those little changes is how I'm going to get my life back.

I lost 120pds and gained it all back with a miscarriage and then a pregnancy I was afraid to move with. I started eating too many carbs and not exercising. I find it harder this time because I know how easy it came back.

Four years ago, give or take, I weighed 157. Six months ago I weighed 197. And that was just the last time I lost and gained. I've been doing it since I was in my teens. Today I weighed 157 and am going on to my goal weight of 150 and won't be putting it back on. I can't afford bilateral knee replacements and I don't want to have to afford them. I truly believe that by using MFP and changing my lifestyle, not just going on a diet until the weight is gone, I've found the key to keeping it off. :drinker:

I lost 12lb a couple of years ago (which I realise isn't a huge amount)... but then gained that back plus another 13lb... so now I have 25lb to lose.

I didn't enjoy maintenance at all. I survived about 3 months still logging calories on here at my new maintenance amount, but I found it quite traumatic realising how much I now had to eat to maintain - after being so used to eating 1200 a day, 1800 seemed like so much food! So I stopped logging, and gradually got used to eating more and more without a way of monitoring it. Oh, and I made alcohol my emotional crutch.

I lost 50 a couple years ago, and then just slowly seeped back into my comfort zone, eating just kind of whatever, and I'm right back where I started. But I am doing things different this time, and I'm so glad mfp added a discussion board for maintaining! That will help if I start to lose track, maybe take a break and maintain for a while and then keep going.

I've lost and gained many times, but the two that stand out the most:

When I was in my early 20's I lost 86lbs by eating 300-500 calories a day. The first 60 I lost in 3 months and the last 26 were very difficult because I was starving my body so my weight fluctuated very wildly anytime I'd break and eat normally for a day. I also lost a lot of hair, couldn't think clearly, I was tired, dizzy and fainted a couple of times. I knew that people who lost weight very quickly through unsustainable methods were prone to gaining it back and I wasn't going to be one of them. I gained it all back within a year.

The other time was right after I got engaged in December 2009. I was 240lbs and didn't want to be overweight for my April 2011 wedding so for the next 4 months I went hard, lost about 50lbs and then stalled through the summer and gained back about 10 between then and January 2011. Because my dress had already been ordered in a much smaller size, I went hard AGAIN, limited everything that I ate (no carbs, no eating after 5pm - it was ridiculous), very low calories, exercised off every calorie I ate and lost about 30lbs in the next 2 1/2 months (for my final dress fitting in mid-March). I'll never forgot the moment I put on my dress; it fit perfectly and all I could think was "finally I can eat again". After my wedding I struggled to keep the weight off through the summer but between April 2011 - September 2012 I spiraled out of control and gained back all but a few pounds. That's when I started MFP!

Between those 2 experiences there were many other times where I'd try to lose again, drop 20-30lbs and quit after I got hungry and 'fell off the wagon'.

So what did I learn?

It doesn't have to be starving or binging, there actually is a happy medium in between there. The amount I can eat and still lose weight is MUCH higher than I ever realized but I just never gave myself a chance to realize it. By regularly eating a higher number of calories, I've lost the urge to binge.

It doesn't matter what you eat, it really is about the number of calories consumed. Out of my 94lbs lost, some of those pounds were lost eating very healthy unprocessed food, some were lost eating fast food and cookies.

I love food. I don't want to live a life where I can't eat foods that I love.

Even though there will be lots of ups and downs, it shouldn't feel difficult day in and day out. If you feel like you're struggling every single day and hungry all the time (especially beyond those first few weeks/month), you likely need to re-examine what you're doing.

I wasn't always obese. I stayed within a healthy range most of my life. Weight gains always came from either pregnancies or injuries/surgeries that took me off of work for awhile. Since I worked a physical job, as soon as I went back to work, the weight would come off. Ah, the benefits of being young and healthy.

I was always baffled at how people could be so severely overweight, and even more so, how they could lose 100+ lbs and then quickly regain it. It just didn't make sense to me. I didn't think I was judging them, I just couldn't understand it.

Then I ended up with a seriously disabling spinal cord disease and was in a wheelchair at 37, 6 months after my third child was born. By the time I was 40, I was over 200 lbs. 4 years later I hit my highest weight of 237. I managed to change my diet enough to 'stop the bleeding', but actually being able to lose the extra weight without being able to exercise, proved much harder than I ever imagined. And it was so depressing to see the scale stop moving after only a short time. SO many times I asked myself why I was working so hard to only maintain my weight. Heck I could do that without the hassle (or so I thought).

People gain weight for so many reasons. Emotional ones are the most common. I have learned to empathize with many people since being on this site, and seeing who they really are inside, behind the weight.
The world tells us, (and I believed it as well), that if you just eat less and move more, you will lose weight. That sounds simple in theory, but in life, it is much more complicated. Medical and emotional issues come into play. Life is sometimes messy. Etc.

The simple answer of why people regain their weight, is because for most of them, they lost the weight as a 'quick-fix' and didn't make permanent changes in their thinking and lifestyle. Even if they lost it slowly, and in the 'healthy' way, if they go back to their old ways, the weight will come back.
Some people have had their identity as the 'fat person' for so long, they don't know how to live any other way, so they go back to what is comfortable for them.
And as someone else said, some people hide behind their weight. It can protect us from all sorts of dangerous situations.

For me, I have come to the conclusion that I will have to continue logging my food in some capacity for the rest of my life, if I wish to continue losing weight and keep it off.
I simply do not burn as many calories as I think I did, hoped I did, or what the calculators told me I should be. I have to accept that, and do what it takes to make myself as healthy as I can be. The sacrifices I choose to make are worth it, to have a better life.

I'm not proud of this by any means, but for 5 years I had anorexia and bulimia. In summer 2005 at 16, I went from 145 lbs ( a size 8/10 ) down to the upper 80's ( size 00 and most size 0s were falling off me ). I am 5'3.5". That summer I basically ate less than 800 calories most days. There were a few I had over 800 calories but would feel guilty about it. Finally when my weight got so low my family had me put in a treatment center in winter 2006. I only put on a few lbs there and it was mostly water weight. When I got on my own, I was so deprived from starving myself that started binging and then purging. The purging didn't help that much because I still put on weight. Eventually by Fall 2006 I was at 138 lbs, almost at where I started.

Feeling bad about that in Jan 2007 I began starving myself again for a month, under 500 calories. I got down to 127 lbs in one month from 138 lbs. Dropped a jean size or two. Then I upped my calories to 1200 for a few months and got down to 118 and decided to stop losing weight. Luckily I maintained that and my weight fluctuated between 118 to the lower 120's.

Towards summer/fall 2007 my weight got up towards the upper 120's and decided to lose weight ( again ) in 2008 but this was a very slow gradual weight loss till I got down to 110 lbs when I graduated high school in 2008.

Some of my weight loss has been fast and unhealthy, and other times gradual and healthy. Whenever I lose weight gradually I have better outcomes and tend to not put on as much.

In the past year I have put on weight because I have not been paying attention to what I eat. I still eat good at home but when I eat out I would just eat what I wanted. And I was eating out too much and put on 10 lbs this past year. I am losing the weight gradually and exercising and eating enough calories but still having a deficit.