Why do people gain all their weight back so often?

Its because people think of MFP as a diet instead of a lifestyle change.

And obviously this is reflected in the statistics that 95% of people will regain all weight lost (often more) within five years of the initial loss. I assume this percentage gets closer to 100% the longer you are monitoring people for.

More recent studies I've read suggest it's more like 80% failure in long-term weight loss, not 95% and approaching 100% over time. You aren't looking at great odds with a 1 in 5 success rate, but it's not nearly as bleak as you're making it out to be. Regardless of what the statistics indicate though, there is no hard limit on how many people can succeed and it's 100% up to you as an individual whether you succeed or fail.

Probably because at some point they stop counting calories.

During the restrictive portion control style diet, they have still been eating the same sort of foods they would have been when they weren't counting calories.

Rather than try and change the types of food they eat, which will better control the hormones in their bodies, which in turn will control the cravings, they've just struggle through eating less of the (Moorish stuff).

When they stop the counting, they consume more calories and the weight goes back on.



I love food, I like the way it tastes and the way it makes me feel - but at the end of the day it's fuel for our bodies, pure and simple.

You can still get enjoyment out of eating a more limited range of food, but get past the emotional connection and you've cracked it.

Cracking by the way is the hard part!!!

Because the BLERCH demands it! DUH!

I find it's very easy to maintain (going on three years now). Not sure why people regain, except that maybe they were on restrictive diets that just weren't sustainable. Once they go back to their old habits all the weight comes back. I lost the weight really slowly on a modest deficit, while focusing on practicing healthy behaviors and I didn't starve myself, punish myself, or cut out my favorite foods (just ate less.) I've continued to log on MFP for maintenance. It's a simple habit, like brushing your teeth, and it only takes a few minutes a day. Totally worth it. I guess it comes down to priorities. Is it worth it to make the effort to keep it up? It is for me, but that's not true for everyone. Whatever it is that you do, make sure it's something you can live with doing forever...

Edited for typo.

I'm concerned about a new MFP friend who has been pretty seriously restricting calories for about a month. Can someone point me in the direction of any MFP posts that suggest how to move from eating under 1000 calories to a more realistic intake while still achieving weight loss? Not sure it will help but not sure what else I might offer to support this MFP friend. Thank you for any helpful suggestions.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1175494-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants?hl=your+guide+to+sexy+pants&page=1#posts-18362157

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.

The number of linkurl:fat cells;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54033/ in a person's body is determined during childhood and stays constant throughout life, with about 10 percent of fat cells dying and being replaced annually, according to study published in __Nature__ yesterday (May 4). Understanding the hitherto poorly characterized dynamics of fat cell production and turnover may help researchers target key processes in obesity and related diseases, such as diabetes. "We are generating quite a few fat cells," said linkurl:Kirsty Spalding,;http://www.narsad.org/research/grantee_lists/bios/yi2007spalding.html a biologist at Sweden's Karolinska Institute and first author on the study, "but it seems to be really tightly regulated." Spalding said that both the expansion of the fat cell population and the arrival at what will be the final number of fat cells, or linkurl:adipocytes,;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/daily/23356/ in the adult body occur at an earlier age in obese people.

Fatter people experience a period of rapid adipoctye production around age two and reach their adult number of fat cells when they are about 16.5 years old, she said. Lean people, however, recruit fat cells most rapidly at about age six, with their fat cell population reaching its adult size at about 18.5 years old. "The expansion is definitely going on at an earlier age in obese children and at an increased rate," Spalding said. The team of mostly Swedish researchers employed several methods to characterize adipoctye dynamics in the human body. To study how fat cell numbers differ in heftier or lighter people, Spalding and her team examined fat biopsies from about 680 lean and obese Swedish people. They found obese people can have as much as twice the number of adipocytes as do lean people. The researchers also followed 20 gastric bypass patients who lost weight after their operations. Over the course of two years, their fat cells shrunk in size, but the total number stayed constant.

To characterize the turnover of fat cells in adults, Spalding used a linkurl:^14^C dating method;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15802/ she developed. The researchers measured the radioactive signature in the DNA of fat cells, and modeled adipocyte death and replacement by comparing fat samples from 35 adult liposuction or reconstructive surgery patients to existing ^14^C data gathered from children.

Spalding said that knowing about the turnover of fat cells could help develop future obesity treatments. She cautioned, however, that dramatic weight reduction will not result solely from some "magic pill," and will likely require reduced calorie intake and exercise. She next plans to elucidate fat cell population dynamics in people who are lean as children and becomes obese adults; a scenario not explored in her study. "I would imagine that they're going to have an increase in [adipoctye] number, but having said that, it seems to be extremely tightly regulated," she said. "It's really an open question."