If so, how did you do it? I want to lose about 25 lbs and keep it off but even though 99% of people lose weight at one time or another in their life, only about 3% keep it off. So if you did do it how did you do it? Not including bariatric surgery.
I know my brother lost about 30 lbs 8 years ago & kept it off. However he does cardio about 6-7 hours a week and 70% of his diet is low fat like chicken breasts & Rice a roni.
Lifestyle changes wouldn’t be bad for me and i could probably uphold them. I could do 4-5 hours of cardio a week, weight train another 1-2 hours a week, eat a low fat diet (most of the time), keep a food journal guaging caloric intake, go on a stricter diet whenever i went up more than 5 pounds, join an internet support group, take legal drugs for weight loss. I assume that might up the failure rate from 95% to maybe 50% which is better but not perfect. what else?
I lost a 65 pounds and kept it off for about 8 years. I’d do some calesthenics every morning (sit-ups, push-ups, jogging). I drank Slim Fast for breakfast and lunch, and then whatever I felt like for dinner. After the weight was lost, I ate normally. I started gaining weight again when A) I got a computer and played on it in the mornings instead of working out; B) Lost my girlfriend, which took away some incentive; and C) Started working an hour’s drive from my apartment, which gave me less time to work out if I did pull myself away from the Internet.
FWIW after I lost the weight a McDonald’s burger, fries and a Coke would fill me up. I’ve kept an eye on the amount of food I’ve been eating, and I actually consume less than my co-workers. (They make fun of me because I only eat half of my lunches and take the rest home for dinner – and especially at one place, I could get four meals out of one lunch: Salad, two half-slices of garlic bread, three onion rings and a few fries for lunch; a prime rib sandwich with four half-slices of garlic bread that was good for two meals; and the small apple, coleslaw and dill pickle for another meal – plus the fries in the freezer for later.) Since I got fat again anyway, I must conclude that A) I’m eating the wrong kind of foods; and B) I need to exercise. I’m on the Atkins plan right now and I’m losing weight by being aware of, and strictly limiting, my carbohydrate intake; but I think the more important thing is to get more exercise. (About the only exercise I get nowadays is kayaking up to 11 miles, and the occasional 1-1/2 mile walk around the block.)
Losing weight is not hard by and large but the human body isn’t designed to keep it off. That thread was mainly about losing weight, not maintaining the loss. I am looking for stories about keeping the weight off.
My wife has lost 80+ pounds and kept it off for 3 years now. She went on an Atkins diet w/glucophage (she is not diabetic but has another problem called PCOS). Prior to that she had spent YEARS dieting rigorously on the standard low-fat diet with next to no results.
My personal impression is that nutritionists and dieticians have much to learn about how the human body works, but that doesn’t keep them from making pronouncements as if they know it all.
i lost weight on the atkins diet about 7 years ago. i was on for 5 days, off (where i ate what i wanted) for 2, then on for 5, off for 2, etc. It made it easier to stay on when you knew you could go off. I kept the weight off for 2 years but the second i went off i gained like 50 lbs in 2 months.
I lost weight about 7 years ago and have kept it off by changing my lifestyle. No non-diet sodas, got aware of fat content—my favorite snacks were Cheetos and sunflower seeds and I rarely eat either now that I know how fat laden they are. Didn’t go all fruits and fish but did change my habits. No fast food while driving to or from work when I commuted 40 miles one way.
I have to agree with Evil Captor—my physiology teacher was huge on how our bodies think we’re still living in caves and fats and sugars are hard to come by. Our bodies don’t know there’s a McDonald’s or a Starbuck’s on every street corner, that we don’t have to hoard those fats for lean times. We still crave certain foods and want to binge and who thought of the 3 meals a day thing? We’re grazers who are built to walk for hours!
When I was 20 I started karate and went from 235 lbs to 168. I stayed at that weight for about three years, then I went to college, stopped training, and slowly crept up to 210 over a period of another three years. Then I started jogging again, and got back down to 190 (which is actually my ideal weight - at 168 I was a beanpole).
Then I got married, and it’s taken me 13 years since to slowly climb back up to 220 again. Now I’m dropping it once more. But I never did go back up to the peak weight I was at when I was 20.
I droppped from 88kg to 78kg in 1988 (at 31), and managed to keep that level until 1999. It slowly crept up until 82 in 2002. Then we moved to France. The scales nowadays keep trying to tell me I weigh 90 kg.
I think Leptin research is still where it’s at in explaining why keeping the weight off is so hard and providing an eventual “cure” for this problem.
The studies they’ve done on humans relate to injecting Leptin to lose weight, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that if you have a normal Leptin level you won’t be starving but if you’re already fat it won’t make you lose weight.
The problem is that your Leptin levels may be normal and when you start to diet THEN they go down. If you get injections WHILE dieting or exercising and Leptin levels are normal at that point, you won’t get the craving “during a weak moment” and be able to have your body create a new “setpoint”, or that’s the hope.
Because right now, no matter how you lose the weight, at your bodyweight below where your body “wants” to be, you will be in starvation mode 24/7 until you get a “Weak moment” and eat yourself back to “normal”.
I read something online that basically criticized how the leptin trials were done and said new trials need to be done on the basis of studying human response WHILE DIETING. The article has disappeared off the face of Google unfortunately, but maybe someone here will be able to dig it up.
I think the key to keeping weight off is to find a plan that works and stay on it forever.
Forever. It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change.
I lost 30 lbs. last year and have (so far) kept it off. I’m at a decent weight for me now, but I wouldn’t mind a) losing about 5 more lbs. or b) losing a few more inches. I’ve started adding some more exercise to try to accomplish that goal.
I did gain about 5 lbs. last Christmas (couldn’t resist the holiday treats), but I’ve lost it again. If I went back to eating like I used to, I’d gain my weight back. And I’d be heartburned all the time again, and I Ain’t Goin’ There Again, Thanks.
50 lbs about 1.5 years ago. Kept it off. 225 down to 175.
General lifestyle change (really reversing the trends of marriage/kids and what it does to a guy’s gut).
Went back to lifting weights, riding my bike, etc. Generally, I eat 1500-1800 cals daily to trim a couple of pounds and eat about 2200-2500 to maintain.
I believe the National Weight Loss Maintenance Registry/Foundation (or something like that) records indicate that almost all known long term weight loss success stories on record with them are from lifestyle changes, and not any specific diet. Highest success rates include a balance of all foods, moderation, portion control, exercise and a general change of lifestyle with calorie control as the emphasis. (will try to cite).
I also lost 30 pounds last year on Weight Watchers and have kept it off for a year. I exercise every day - nothing strenuous, but enough to keep myself toned.
I know if I go back to the way I was eating and sitting around it will all come back, and I am so not going there.
I’ve lost almost 50 pounds since December and I haven’t gained a bit of it back. I’m still losing more. Of course, I started at 315 lbs and it’s easy to lose weight when you’re that far overweight (my ideal weight is 175 or so). I basically had to do the “lifestyle change” thing - eat less, eat differently (cut out almost all the junk food and crap I lived on for years) and start going to the gym. I don’t even work out hardcore - a half hour of treadmill 3-5 times a week is about what I’m doing now, although I’m going to start strength training soon.
ghrelin is another hormone scientists are looking at. The more weight you lose the more ghrelin you produce. Ghrelin controls appetite & metabolism. Im sure there are alot of other hormones that go into action when people lose weight.
A third on this. I lost 50+ pound on WW, and have kept it off for over a year. May not seem like a long time, but believe me, I am very aware of what I need to do to keep it off. I can’t go back to the way I used to eat before I lost the weight - and for me, that requires keeping track of my food intake every day by journalling. May seem obsessive to some - but it works for me.
