Has anyone lost weight using mfp and gained it back

I have lost weight several times and gained it back again. (Last time I lost ~25kg with MFP and gained 9kg back.)

I find losing weight much easier than maintaining.

Usually I reach my goal. But after a while bad habbits return.

I have no time how to stop this process. But at least the intervals that I maintain my weight get longer and I start a proper diet earlier.

I've gone for stretches of time without using MFP and stayed at a normal weight. I haven't gone over 140 lbs and 145 is the overweight cutoff for me 5'4", 230 lbs to 117 lbs). I go through cycles of using it and not using it and have gained weight using it and lost weight not using it.

tl;dr For me there's no correlation between weight and MFP use :bigsmile:

I only have few pounds to lose until I reach my goal .It feels amazing being lighter and fit into my skinny jeans again. However, i am still going to track my calories when I reach my goal. Has anyone reach their goal and gained all back ? Was it because you stopped tracking and got too comfortable ?

Yes, I've lost weight using MFP.

Yes, I gained (most of) it back.

Yes, it was because I stopped tracking. Specifically, it was because I didn't retrain myself how to eat to maintain. When we lose weight, we learn to eat at a calorie deficit. When we hit our goal weight, we have to learn how to eat at maintenance. That's what I'm in the process of doing now - learning to eat at maintenance.

Me too. I lost a little over 40 pounds last go round with MFP and I got into a funk and quit logging and I gained most of it back. I know that I am not one of those people who is going to be able to reach a goal weight and stay there without serious work. So, I plan to keep using MFP long after I reach my goal weight.

Good luck with your journey and congrats on your progress!!

I only have few pounds to lose until I reach my goal .It feels amazing being lighter and fit into my skinny jeans again. However, i am still going to track my calories when I reach my goal. Has anyone reach their goal and gained all back ? Was it because you stopped tracking and got too comfortable ?

Regardless of the approach to losing weight, the vast majority put the pounds back on. This is due in large part to talking a good talk about lifestyle change, but really, ultimately failing to implement such a change.

I'm not talking about logging and keeping a diary either...that's not the lifestyle change in my book. The lifestyle change comes from developing healthful habits while you are using that you ultimately take into maintenance...and this is where people go wrong. They lose the weight and then just fall back into old eating habits, stop exercising, etc...and then they are surprised that they gained all the weight back.

Proper, solid nutrition doesn't stop just because you lost the weight...really, the difference between maintaining weight and losing weight is only a handful of calories...that's it. I don't log and have maintained for going on around a year and a half as such...but I'm always mindful of what I'm eating...I don't mindlessly eat...I don't eat a whole lot of "junk"...I keep a rough tally in my head...and I make sure I exercise regularly. Failing to do any of that would likely cause me to start putting the pounds back on.

I would also add that I continue to monitor my weight...I am generally anywhere from 180 - 185 Lbs with natural weight fluctuations with my average being around 182ish. If I start to see a little uptick in the trend and start to see my average go up by a pound or two I evaluate what I'm doing and I can usually pinpoint something either in my diet or exercise that I'm doing differently...so I just cut that out and drop those couple pounds no big deal. But you have to keep on top of it.

This, especially this part: "really, the difference between maintaining weight and losing weight is only a handful of calories." When I switched from a 500-calorie deficit to a 250-calorie deficit, I realized that the only difference between losing 1/2 pound a week and maintaining was a 1/2 cup serving of ice cream a day. And the difference between maintaining and slowly gaining is equally small. I plan to track on maintenance for a while, then taper off of tracking eventually, but I'm not in any hurry to stop.

Yes, I lost 20 lbs, and then gained 40 back. It's heartbreaking

The one thing that I didn't do. Was realize that if you have a few bad days, to not give up, but to get back on track.

This time, I'm going to lose it all, and properly increase my calories to maintain, while still tracking

I don't think I'll be a life tracker, but I will be more aware that if I want something not so healthy, I need to burn it off, or reduce calories else where

Good luck!

I don't trust myself to transfer to maintenance. This is it for me. I've lost 26 pounds on my way to 45, but at 71, I've never felt better, so why should I chance eating like a pig and feeling lousy? If work do the program religiously, there is no chance that you will gain the weight back. Exercising is the key. My dietician told me that diet is 70 percent and exercise is 30 percent, but you really need both to be dedicated.

I think a lot of it has to do with ones relationship with food, and ability to actually make a lifestyle change (ie learning to make better food choices, incorporating fitness into every day life and stick with it). For some, they have to keep themselves accountable at all times or else they will slip back into old habits. For others, the new lifestyle *becomes* the habit.

The reasons why the weight came on to begin with plays a big part. For some people, they were raised with not the best relationship with food, to eat everything on their plate / always have seconds / grew up on junk foods and fried foods etc. And then those who eat emotionally, whether they've had a horrible day turn to food, or celebrate everything with food...

Either of those, I think, would be a really hard habit to break! And I think that someone in that situation would definitely need to made do with knowing they will forever have to track everything they eat if they are not able to reverse this sort of thinking and be able to create a new lifestyle / new habits to totally replace the old one.

Personally, I don't plan to track what I eat, count calories and make thinking about food such a major priority for the rest of my life...my weight came on after a particularly bad breakup where I let him make me believe I was fat and gross looking, for part of the reason he cheated on me (I was a size 4 at the time) and that is when I first joined MFP, to get thin, and I was so discouraged I couldnt lose any weight, and now looking back, it was because I didn't need to!!!! Being discouraged led me to give up altogether, I went from being fairly active and eating well as I had done my whole life, to slumming on the couch and eating take out and McDs all day every day and now Im a size 12/14

But those horrible lifestyle choices were temporary (Id never gained any weight in previous breakups or my divorce...and know *much* better now that no guy or his opinion of my body is worth it), compared to my relationship with food and fitness throughout my life. So Im confident that I will not have to log forever... This is just something I need to do now, to get myself back on track.

YES! and it was EXACTLY because I stopped tracking. I think once you reach your goal weight/size... you have to find that balance. maybe that means tracking M-F and not so much on the weekends. Or upping your calories and tracking every day. The only answer is that you have to be accountable for the food you put in your mouth. If you don't track it you will most likely gain it right back.

^^
I am right there with you! We can do this!

I only have few pounds to lose until I reach my goal .It feels amazing being lighter and fit into my skinny jeans again. However, i am still going to track my calories when I reach my goal. Has anyone reach their goal and gained all back ? Was it because you stopped tracking and got too comfortable ?

Yes and no ... my weight gain has been done purposely to try and increase muscle mass.

YEP!! TWICE! Lost 30 lbs, stopped tracking, moved to a new town and gained it all back. Decided to get back on, tracked again, lost 40 lbs. Moved again, stopped tracking, gained it back and then got pregnant. I am now holding on to that weight I gained back, plus 15 lbs from pregnancy.

I get down to where I feel good and am comfortable and then just slowly letting out the reigns on exercising and eating well until eventually it all comes back. This time, I am hoping that my son is better motivation for me. Also, I am hoping that I have the willpower to continue to track my food, maybe not via MFP, but mentally, after I reach my goal weight.

I'm on this wagon as well. I stopped tracking religiously probably two years ago. I kept the weight off because I stayed active and kind of had a routine for breakfast and lunch. I had some health issues which brought me to the Whole30 for an elimination diet- a very restrictive autoimmune protocol. From there I had to completely revamp my eating habits. I found that most of the foods I ate on a regular basis with MFP, which are healthy options for most (egg whites and nuts to name a few) were things that were causing issues for me. I also went from eating only chicken and fish to all sorts of meats again because my body craved it (I had previously been vegetarian and then went to poultry and seafood) Whole30 preaches not to count calories- simply eat when you are hungry and try to only do 3 meals. I dropped a few more pounds (I think I was 125?) and was the smallest and healthiest I've ever been! But then I had some life stress (and I'm an emotional eater)- moved away from home, quit my active job and continued to eat like I was still a very active person.. A year later and I've put on all my weight again (147). I feel most comfortable/easy to maintain my weight at 130, so that is my goal. If I lose more, I am okay with that. But at 125, I had my family telling me I looked too skinny- and this was coming from a mother who never held back on telling me I was overweight!

So, this is why I am here. I have a very small calorie count compared to what I was used to and I'm just here to get back into a workout routine and my eating habits back in check. I don't think I'll need MFP forever, but it's a great motivator and way for me to stay on track when I start to go off.

Yes, I have lost the same 12-15 lbs not once, not twice, but three times since my daughter was born 7 years ago. The first time was on Weight Watchers and the last two times have been on MFP.

I think this time it will stay off though, as I plan to keep logging indefinitely. I find it's helpful not just for calorie counting but for tracking nutrients like protein and calcium that I have only recently started to care about as I get older.

Question for those who have regained when you went off the reservation - how much did you gain back, but how LONG were you off before realizing you were no longer on the right track?

Obviously everyone's answer will be different, but I find myself asking the what-ifs as I approach maintenance time. I expect to continue with this for the rest of my days, but wonder just how quickly the weight comes back on for those of us who have strayed.

As a comparison, before I wised up and took charge of my eating and workouts, I was gaining around five pounds a year following high school. I sure as all heck don't want to go back to THAT!

Mark

Yes, I lost weight in the spring on mfp while breastfeeding. I often wasn't quite meeting my calorie goals, but the calorie goals didn't account for breastfeeding calories so I still gradually lost some weight. I slacked off on mfp but the weight still stayed off for a few months.

Now my daughter is mostly weaned, though, and I've gained back 5 lbs in a month, so it's obvious to me the breastfeeding was what was tipping the balance. I'm back on mfp as of today, to re-learn how much to eat without that extra hidden calorie expenditure. This happened similarly to me with my first child also, but apparently it didn't sink in the first time around. It's true what previous posters have been saying, the line between weight loss and maintenance, and between maintenance and weight gain, is slim. If something changes in how much exercise you're getting, how often you eat out, etc., it's very easy to see all that laborious weight loss come zooming right back.