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

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.

I think gaining weight and hanging onto it because I wanted to avoid male attention was/is the issue I have. It's a really long story but nasty things happened to me when I was younger. I found being 'bigger' stopped men wanting to come near me. I have spent the last two years gaining tonnes of confidence and now I am ready to shed the weight for a final time. I worked out last night I need to lose 50lb to get to my goal. I'm really excited that I can achieve this in 2014. I've given myself till the summer. I guess the real reason some of us have trouble with maintaining a healthy weight is a little deeper.

I'm sorry bad things have happened to you.

for me, it was the opposite though. When I was 15 years old, I was in my upper 130's and lower 140's. I was very curvy but I have never been overweight. I am 5'3.5" so I am just under 5'4". Men would always bother me when I was curvier but once I lost weight they stopped.

So when I became anorexic ( had an eating disorder for 5 years from 2005 to 2010 ) I found that being scarily thin would keep the men away too.

Nowadays that I have a boyfriend who loves me very much and wants to spend his life with me I just ignore any men that bother me. And honestly most men don't bother me; it just seemed like I was always bothered when I was 15.

Yes, I lost 50 gained 15...(due to bad eating habits) gained another 25 last year! ( It was all due to stress ) . I was going through a period of change and didn't know how to cope. My goal is to learn how to manage stress WITHOUT food!

I just jumped on the scale and realized I gained all PLUS of my 49 lbs BACK! UGGH. so mad, but it is what it is. Life lesson, just because you get a cold, flu, illness, doesn't mean you can slack off and eat alllll the comfort foods, and never work out again!!
I am back on the wagon .... started easing into it slowly on the 1st. Uggh...

I'm ready. good luck and get back to it.

Ibbone--I'd like to know more about this too. How did you do the calculations? What would make things better to not regain like that?

I initially lose 45lbs with MFP and gained most of it back. I had a relationship go bad and I tend to be an emotional eater. And since I hadn't corrected my relationship with food and lost it all by eating far too few calories, I ended up having to start over.

I lost 55 lbs 6 years ago before my wedding. As of Last May I had gained all of it back plus 22 lbs. I have been working hard since May and focusing on diet and exercise and now I am down 67 lbs. This time I will not let myself gain it back! This isn't a "diet" it is a new lifestyle.

Been here, done this! I've been some version of chubby to obese my entire life and in 2005-2006 I lost an estimated 130 pounds (100 that I know of, but I had been losing for awhile before I weighed in for the first time, so it's a guess). I kept the weight entirely off for 5 years and it was wonderful! Then I quit a job and got a new one, broke up a three year relationship, moved, got a promotion, got into a new relationship, and bought a house in the space of a year-and-a-half. In the midst of everything going on I got lazy and stupid and gained much of the weight back.

I saw someone else comment about how ashamed they feel about this, and I'm right there with you. I know better and have proved I can do better, now I just need to get off my behind and DO IT!

Last time I did it entirely on my own and got into some really bad practices by the end of the extreme dieting binge - this time I'm trying to reach out more and have some friends and support and stay healthy about it! Please reach out and friend me if you're so inclined!

Me too! I lost almost 100 pounds, kept it off for four years and then my Mom died (gained a little), I got into a new relationship (gained about 25), relationship broke up after 3 years (gained a little) and so on until now I gained it all back plus 40 pounds.

I'm working on gaining back my great eating and exercise habits. I got my eye on the ball!

I lost 15kg from December 2011 - August 2012 and stayed that size until November 2012 - June 2013 i gained back 10kg.. and i have currently lost 7kg again. I have a binge eating issue i tend to spend months slowly eating worse and worse telling myself "it's only one mcdonalds meal this week" until i am eating one mcdonalds meal every day until i decide to lose again .. it's exhausting haha

I lost 80 lbs in my mid 30's and kept it of for about 5 years. I made a lot of mistakes though and put it all back on. I didn't log, didn't strength train and even my cardio got spotty as I got bigger. I stopped weighing myself and was in total denial that I was so big again. This time just feels better with logging, weighing and measuring food and online support. I'm also strength training as well as cardio. I know not everyone agrees with weighing themselves but I need to since I can really deny my weight gain based on looks and clothes fit only. Thank goodness for smart phones and technology because it is so much easier to log than it used to be!