Why do people gain all their weight back so often?

It is hard work keeping the weight off. Someone on here mentioned complacency, so true. It is easier for me to sit on the couch and munch than focus and get myself up and go for a walk or go to the gym. You have to be willing to do the work and at times I get lazy. You would think these habits would take hold and you would not have to work hard at it but no, something distracts you and you lose focus and do what is easy. Quote- no one say it would be easy but it will be worth it (has helped me a lot)

I commonly hear that the vast majority of people who lose weight end up gaining it all back again. Why is that?

One possibility of many: Because it is very hard to maintain a restricted-calorie, low-fat diet, with 60 to 90 minutes of daily cardio (which is what "successful losers" on the National Weight Loss Registry do), for the rest of one's life. It requires something close to an obsession with one's food choices and exercise, which gets old for most of us. A low-fat diet is almost by definition a high-carbohydrate diet, as most people tend to keep the amount of protein in the 15% to 20% range. Depending on one's carb choices and genetic susceptibility to diabetes, it's possible to develop insulin resistance and gain weight without changing diet or exercise habits--calories are stored as fat and the body won't release them; calories expended decrease.

There has to be some other way. Many people don't log every calorie they eat or exercise 5 to 10 hours a week, yet they maintain a stable weight. My late father-in-law didn't do formal exercise or "watch what he ate," yet at 5'9", he maintained a healthy 155 lbs. his entire adult life.

Perhaps one reason is because you don't ever lose fat cells once they have been created, the cells just shrink with weight loss. Now, it takes less energy for cells to expand than to conduct mitosis and create new fat cells. So, once the cells have been created, or once you gain a significant amount of weight, you will always have those same fat cells from when you were bigger. The only way that I know of to remove fat cells is by surgery, which is dangerous and can damage your body.

Further reading: http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20080505/fat-cells-slim-up-but-dont-ship-out

Yes!! This, too, is a big part of it.

I yo-yo. It had nothing to do with health issues, or babies, or not understanding the difference between "diet" and "lifestyle change". I've maintained at a healthy weight for 2, 4, 8 years at a time before gaining again.

Why do I regain? Because Every. Single. Goddamn. Day. is a struggle. Every day, I want homemade buttermilk waffles with fresh butter and syrup. Every day, I want a cheeseburger, 2 beers, and some cookies. Every single day, every single workout, I would rather be sitting on the couch watching a movie. It just gets exhausting after a while, driving home from work, thinking about the sad little healthy meal I have prepared. No matter how tasty it is, it is NOT fried chicken and cornbread. It is NOT a Peanut Buster Parfait(TM). Every meal, every snack is a battle I have with myself. Every visit to the gym happens because I've spent 15 minutes arguing with myself about why I should go instead of hanging out with my husband and pets, or instead of going out with friends, or instead of practicing guitar or playing games or any one of the zillion things I'd rather do than go get sweaty.

I often debate - is being unhappy because I'm overweight better or worse than being unhappy because I'm not really enjoying food and alcohol except for once a week? (If I didn't have a weekly cheat meal, I'd lose my mind).

It's completely exhausting. I've been in maintenance for 8 months this time through. How long will I make it before I just say, "$%^# it, this sucks", and start enjoying the rest of my life again? Time will tell.

People who keep the weight off are "learners."

People who gain it back are short-sighted "followers," not concerned to learn through the process. It's easy to follow a simple principle (say, 1200 calorie diet) for a time. It will work, weight will come off, but people who do this haven't learned anything in the process that will help them long term. And so, the weight will return.

Take pleasure in what you are learning about food, your body, and exercise through your weight loss journey. When you are really invested in learning, it's easy to keep the weight off!

The main reason is simple. Weight is a lot easier to shed than bad habits. One slows, and the other resurfaces.

I am one of the people that lost a lot of weight and then gained it all back again and now losing it again. Back in 2005 my SW was 232. I got down to 165 by exercising twice a day and eating 1500 calories a day but those calories still consisted of Diet Pepsi and Krispy Cremes. I exercised a lot and then I got burned out from exercising. Instead of finding something different to do, I just quit. Then I quit counting calories too and the pounds started to pile back on. As the pounds starting coming back on, I got depressed. The more depressed I got, the more I ate unhealthy foods to make me feel better until finally in August of 2012 I am sitting in a doctor's office weighing 284 lbs and being told I am pre-diabetic.

That was a year and half ago. I am down 75 lbs in that time and no longer pre-diabetic but my CW is still 209. I have learned a lot in the last year and a half. Exercise is a part of my life. It has to be because it keep my depression in check. Even if it's just a short walk vs a 5 mile run, I have to exercise. I should be down more than 75 lbs now because I don't have my eating totally controlled yet, but I'm working on it. I have good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks but it's always a work in progress. .

I also believe that society today does not taylor to a healthy lifestyle. We are on the go, grab something quick and easy people and we have been raised that way since we were kids. We spend hours sitting in a car, then more hours sitting at a desk and then take home pizza or take out for supper to the kids who are playing their video games. Of course not everyone does that, and most people here on MFP won't do that because we are here to make our lives healthier but many people have not made the choice to make the change. Heck, I'm doing that tonight. My daughter has an eye apt after school and I'm bringing pizza home for supper because it will be late. The difference is that I have been home and cooked supper every other night this week and I have planned for this in my calories allowance.

I was not "taught" how to eat healthy and stay active, but I am learning it and teaching it to my kids now so they hopefully won't go through what I am going through now at almost 40. We have to also be good role models to the next generation so they don't have the battles that we do.

Perhaps one reason is because you don't ever lose fat cells once they have been created, the cells just shrink with weight loss. Now, it takes less energy for cells to expand than to conduct mitosis and create new fat cells. So, once the cells have been created, or once you gain a significant amount of weight, you will always have those same fat cells from when you were bigger. The only way that I know of to remove fat cells is by surgery, which is dangerous and can damage your body.

Further reading: http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20080505/fat-cells-slim-up-but-dont-ship-out

Yes!! This, too, is a big part of it.

I agree.

It has nothing to do with "restrictions" in my opinion and rather has to do with a lack of focus on the long-term. People hit their goal and then rest on their laurels. They stop doing what they did to lose weight and instead fall back into their old habits. If you previously gained weight with those old habits, odds are you will gain weight again when you revert to your old ways. It's really as simple as that. It doesn't matter whether you ate pop tarts while losing weight or whether you ate whole foods while losing weight; it comes down to what you do at maintenance.

Agreed!

I've been maintaining a year and that's mainly because I've changed almost nothing from when in wt loss apart from eating more at w/e. You HAVE to change for life.

Perhaps one reason is because you don't ever lose fat cells once they have been created, the cells just shrink with weight loss. Now, it takes less energy for cells to expand than to conduct mitosis and create new fat cells. So, once the cells have been created, or once you gain a significant amount of weight, you will always have those same fat cells from when you were bigger. The only way that I know of to remove fat cells is by surgery, which is dangerous and can damage your body.

Further reading: http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20080505/fat-cells-slim-up-but-dont-ship-out

Yes!! This, too, is a big part of it.

I agree.

i seem to recall somebody posting a few weeks ago that you can actually lose fat cells. cells die and are replaced. this includes fat cells. so, over time, after losing a lot of weight and maintaining the loss, you actually could get rid of the extra fat cells created while overweight. that poster said it took something like 5 years for all of your fat cells to be fully replaced as part of this normal process.