Over in this thread there were several people who impled they had lost weight and managed to keep it off for extended periods of time, usually several years.
My understanding is that losing weight isn’t ‘that’ hard but keeping it off long term is something people usually have trouble with.
So if you have lost weight and kept it off how much did you lose (both in pounds and as a % of your original bodyweight), how long have you kept it off and how did you do it?
Hi - I’m one of the people from the linked thread.
Three times in my life, I lost large amounts of weight and gained it back. I gained it back because simply, I stopped dieting.
In 2004, I said to myself “why can you lose weight, but why do you always gain it back?” My goal had always been to lose weight. I changed my goal to lose weight and keep it off. That was the difference - I realized finally, after 20 years, I could not diet and stop. I had to change.
For me, diets had always been short term, punitive things that were unpleasant and meant to be temporary. Sure, I lost weight, but I couldn’t stick to it. I was hungry and miserable and just couldn’t wait for the diet to be over so I could be thin and eat normally. Surprisingly, it took me 20 years to figure out that how I ate normally made me fat and I had to change normal. Forever.
So, in 2004 I said “what can I do and keep doing forever?” Which meant, no more 1000 calorie days and food I didn’t like. I hate to be hungry, so I knew that wouldn’t work. I adore food, love it. I am lucky enough I was able to focus my love of eating towards a love of eating well. I used to eat a big 500 calorie muffin for breakfast, now I eat fat free greek yogurt with honey and sliced berries. Do I like it AS MUCH as a muffin? Honestly, I don’t know. I know I like my breakfast and look forward to it every morning. The same for my lunches, snacks and dinners. I don’t eat fast food and I cook dinner almost every night. I avoid processed foods. I don’t eat the standard american diet anymore, which can be a HUGE inconvenient pain in the ass.
To answer the op, I weighed around 200+ lbs (actually not sure of my top weight, I was afraid of the scale). I am now 133 lbs (I have been as low as 127 lbs). I lost weight by changing how I ate forever. I now concentrate on eating healthy, whole foods and use portion control. My daily maintenance meals look almost identical to my “lose weight” meals. Except I eat about 200 more calories a day (of healthy calories, like cashews on salad) and one treat meal a week in a restaurant. When my pants get snug or I notice scale creep, I instantly go back to “lose weight” mode until I get back to comfy pants.
I consider calories a budget, I can only eat so many a day. For example, today…I thought about getting a 130 calorie biscotti with my non fat latte. I decided against it because I knew I wanted a glass of wine tonight. I can’t have ONE treat or the other, but not both. My other tricks are always ordering the small - I used to want a VENTI latte, now I am happy with a tall (for example), splitting dessert and avoiding my “trigger” foods that make me want to eat and eat and eat (crackers, pretzels, chips, packaged baked goods, baked goods, etc).
I get a lot of sympathetic clucking “oh, you poor thing, how can you LIVE like that?” Happy? Slender? Healthy? Food is just food. It might have tasted good, but it NEVER made me happy. I indulge in the occasional treat and I honestly rarely feel deprived.
In the mid 1990s I weighed about 90kg. Over a period of about two years I lost 15kg to bring my weight back down to about 75kg. Since then it hasn’t fluctuated by more than about 1kg either way.
I did it the usual way: I ate healthy food instead of rubbish and cut down on my serving sizes. And I exercised more. I’ve kept it off by doing the same thing ever since. I don’t consider myself on a perpetual diet. I’ve simply learned the correct way to eat.
My wife Bin-Gay who posts here occasionally has lost over 80 pounds and kept it off over 7 years now. But she eats very healthy and exercises on a regular basis and basically watches things. She has several triggers and if she gets near a certain weight she buckles down and gets to her comfort weight again. She eats what she wants but keeps away from certain foods as she now knows those are foods that cause trigger reactions and the temporary satisfaction won’t be sustained in the long term.
I know she is very happy with where she is and I am very happy too! She turned 50 last year and has a body that many women 30 years younger would desire. And let’s face it as her husband I am very VERY grateful for her dedication. For one I like her body, but more importantly it means she will be around for a long time as she is very healthy, and I sort of love that girl and want her around a long time!
I know she doesn’t treat it as a ‘diet’ but as a change of life and how she views food. She never deprives herself of something she really wants, but she realizes to have that treat it has a cost and she weighs it accordingly.
To be very honest–I am very proud of her. She lost the weight before I knew her and has kept it off. She drives me to keep in shape and I like think that I also drive her to do the same. She is my greatest support and I think I am hers as well.
Top weight 109kg, got down to 76, done so for 7 years, took two years to get down to 76. Was maintaining well in the 70’s till my knee gave out running, went up to the high 80’s over the last 2 years but seem to have stabilised and now dropping again.
Main thing that got me really going was riding to work, ie a near daily activity that involved a fair amount of calories without being really strenuous exercise and can be part of normal routine. I also try to take activity whenever I can, ie walk rather than drive to shops, take stairs instead of lift etc.
Running helped initially, but in hindsight was a bad move in the longer run for me, longer term injuries makes it very easy to go backwards and high levels of exercise let me make it easier to not really get my eating habits right. I also really worked on lunch in particular being a lower calorie meal and forced myself on to diet drinks as a starting point, as I used to chug coke like it was going to stop being sold. I saved $60 a fortnight from that alone. Tried the drinking water before meals thing but it made me feel nauseous.
The biggest thing that helped mentally was setting goals of 5kg loss at a time rather than aiming for getting back to where I was initially. Looking at the whole thing made it too easy to feel demotivated.
Otara
I went from 185 lbs in January (my peak weight) to 150 lbs in May, mostly by counting calories with the LoseIt app. At first, it was a bit of a struggle to limit my calories, but now my appetite has adjusted and I feel full after eating about 2/3 what I used to. My weight has stayed between 150 and 155 lbs ever since.
Well, define “long term.” I lost about 20% of my bodyweight (205->165) and I’ve kept it off for a year and a half. It actually hasn’t been all that difficult, but it does require some discipline. The stuff they say about “lifestyle change” is completely true. I no longer eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I don’t restrict my diet in the sense that certain foods are forbidden, but I do make smarter choices about my eating habits. I’m more aware of the energy content of food (i.e. calories) and am better able to estimate my intake. I will splurge once a week and eat whatever I want, but the rest of the time, I try to be conscientious about the food. I also exercise a hell of a lot more. (I run anywhere from 15-35 miles a week and ice skate about 2-3 hours a week.)
I honestly don’t feel like I’m making any big sacrifices, and I don’t ever feel hungry. I just have a better idea of what a proper portion size is and fill up on more veggies and the like to balance out my diet.
At my max when I was at Uni I was probably over 80kg (and I’m 5’4") - I never weighed myself. Over a period of 3-4 years I got this down to 60-63kg, and have stayed there for 5+ years, except for a recent pregnancy when I put on 5kg + baby, but I lost this in about 6 months. I’m now aiming for 58kg (I’m 35 this year).
90% of this was diet - not dieting, per ce, but watching what I was eating and being conscious about it - was I hungry, had I planned to eat it, that sort of thing. That got me down to around 72kg, then I did 7 months of Weight Watchers to get to 62-63kg which was good for identifying ‘value for money’ foods which would keep me full and offer lots of nutrition, while being relatively low in cal.
These days I eat a relatively high protein diet (pescatarian) - macros are 30/30/40 fat/protein/carbs. I’m breastfeeding, but aiming to keep cals around 1700 or so - should take 2-3 months to drop the weight I want to.
I also exercise regularly, and that’s also been a factor in keeping the weight off, although NEAT exercise has been key too (being active throughout the day, rather than sedentary plus a 1 hour workout). Combination of running, cycling, heavy weights and yoga/pilates for flexibilty.
30kg for me (98->68), 2 years so far. Just regular walking/cycling, and slightly better diet. Wasn’t in any way difficult.
Fifteen years ago I was nearly 50 lbs overweight. Corporate high life - lots of free dinners and lunches and buffets all filled with delicious food, and wine and beer with it.
I lost it thanks to two tropical diseases. In the following years - for lifestyle reasons (namely, pizzas and beer) - I have bounced upwards from my ideal weight, but never to such a degree. And each time I lose it again, the height of the bounce gets lower. Right now I’m 10 lbs over. The secret for me? Intermittent low carb dieting, and continual exercise. I aim to do at least one thing a day that gets me out of breath for 30 minutes minimum: cycling to and from work, yoga, running, or “horizontal jogging”. 
No, every time I’ve lost weight, I’ve then gained it back and then some. So years and years of yo-yo-ing have made me fatter and fatter.
I’m probably 70 pounds or so under my peak weight, and I’ve kept it off for years. I weigh a bit under 225 (6’ 2" male). It is the lifestyle thing–I eat only lean proteins and try to limit carbs to complex carbs. I just don’t eat certain things. Don’t eat between meals. I exercise regularly–run 4 times a week (I regularly run half-marathons and I’m running a full in November) and I lift weights twice a week. I have a 15-mile run scheduled for tomorrow. I can still bench 300 pounds. Neither of those are world records, to be sure, but it’s still only possible by working at it. There is some level of exercise everyone can realistically maintain, and they should, whatever that level is. It motivates and energizes you, makes you want to eat healthy.
For me, I have to keep it realistic though. I can’t feel like I’m “dieting,” it has to just feel like this is “what I do.” So,any level of eating where I feel like I’m always hungry ain’t gonna work, which might seem obvious, but I can’t tell you how many times I tried that sort of thing in the dim past, losing a ton of weight only to regain it after the “always starving” strategy inevitably collapsed. That said, I do accept the fact that it’s okay to sometimes feel hungry–i.e., you’re supposed to feel a bit hungry an hour before dinner time. So, I am at what I would call a realistic weight. I’d love to lose the last 10 or 15 pounds, but I just don’t think that’s sustainable. But I don’t care, because I’m in great shape (especially for a 49-year old guy, if I can crow a little) and feel great. Anyway, that’s what worked for me.
I’ve lost 72lbs. At my worst I was at 347, and now I’m down to 275. I’ve kept that weight off for going on 3 years now.
The first step for me to keep that weight off was to realize it wasn’t a diet I needed. Like others said, it wasn’t a diet I needed to lose weight, but a lifestyle change. Actually, a lot of changes were needed. I had to revamp everything about my life, from the food I ate, to the liquids I drank, to the amount of exercise I got. I even had to change my sleeping patterns and reading habits.
The second step was to realize that I couldn’t make a bunch of drastic changes at once. This was the major downfall of my weight loss plans for many years. I’d change a bunch of things at once, grow tired of being so strict, and would go back to my old ways.
The first thing I changed was the dairy products I was consuming. Like another poster on this board, I love dairy, to the point where I’ll drink a gallon of milk a day if I can. Instead of using whole milk, I switched to 2% milk. Once I got into the habit of drinking 2% milk, I switched to cheeses made with 2% milk, instead of whole milk. The next change I made was to switch from ice cream to yogurt, both regular and frozen. I don’t know why, but a single serving of yogurt is enough to satisfy me, where I need 3 or 4 scoops of ice cream for the same feeling.
After that was my sodas. I could drink a 12 pack a day and crave more. First, I cut down the number I was drinking a day, to 1 or less. The second was to switch to diet sodas. Now I might drink a regular soda once or twice a week, if that.
My next change was to start adding in veggies to my meals. A lettuce leaf on a burger, cucumber slices with my sandwich instead of chips, adding onions to anything that called for ground beef. Stuff like that.
After that, I started making healthier choices in my food, making sure to pick foods I’d enjoy that were still healthy. My biggest example is cereal. I went from eating stuff like cocoa puffs with marshmallows to eating raisin bran. I also started adding fruits to my cereal, like strawberries, or bananas, or blueberries. I did the same for my snacks. Instead of a twix, I’d eat some grapes. I just made sure to choose something I’d like as much or better than the snack I would’ve normally chosen.
Next was my sleeping pattern, and the one thing I couldn’t change. You see, I do things in my sleep. Walking, using the computer, talking, and eating. I never have memories of doing this stuff, but I’ve seen video and talked to enough people to know it’s true. What I ended up having to do is put all the food in the laundry room, and giving someone a key to the deadbolt so I can’t get to the food at night. It wasn’t just snacking at night, but full fledged meals. My mom once found me cooking sausage, eggs, bacon, biscuits, and grits on one of my sleep walking jaunts.
My next change was exercise. Here was something that was going to be hard, as I hate exercising for the sake of exercising. I think it’s pointless and a waste of time. What changed was finding stuff I enjoy doing, and changing what I do every day. One day I’ll go for a 6 mile walk with my sister. The next I might do an hour of yoga. Or lift weights. Or climb trees for an hour. Or play hide’n’seek. Getting into the attitude of not caring what other adults might think of me, and deciding it was ok to act like a kid sometimes, went a long way in helping me find stuff to do that was healthy and fun. (On an aside, the world would be a lot better if everyone would do this once in awhile. Kids are amazing in their ability to be carefree and not let things get to them.) I also started doing physical stuff in those spare minutes when I don’t have something else to do. Say I’m watching tv. I’ll hop up and do some squats during commercials, or use my dumb bells, or even just jog in place. Or if I’m reading a book, I’ll prop my legs against something and bounce them. Just do some little activity to keep my metabolism going while I’m doing other stuff.
The biggest change I made, was in how I think. To keep the weight off, to keep from giving up, I had to realize that I was going to slip from time to time, and that it was ok to do so. Used to if I slipped for a couple of days, I’d get discouraged and stop altogether. Realizing that a slip didn’t mean I’d completely failed went a long ways to keep the weight off.
Also, I never once tried to reduce what I was eating. I always eat until I’m satisfied. If I get hungry, I eat. I don’t starve myself. This has resulted in my eating more times a day, but less food overall. Used to I’d eat 3 meals a day, but eat a lot each meal. Now I’ll eat 8 to 12 times a day, but overall I’m eating about a 4th of what I used to eat.
Oh, water. I drink a lot of water. Anywhere from a gallon to 3 gallons a day, depending on how hot I am, and how active I am. I also take multivitamins, to make up for what I’m not getting due to being a picky eater. I found it helps curb cravings for food if I get all the vitamins I need.
At my heaviest, I was nearly 90 kg. I’m down to a pretty low weight; 72 kg right now.
Work had me going 50+ hours a week in early summer, I then had a newborn to take care of any free time I might have, and I sprained my ankle hopping a fence while walking the damn dog a few weeks ago, so I haven’t really been able to work out in about 2 months. I’ve lost weight lately, but not in a good way since it’s mostly muscle. I’d like to be at about 77–78 kg. I was at 75 before.
I lost weight by—primarily—exercising. After I started to work out for a couple of months and get back into some semblance of decent shape, I turned my attention to my diet. I tend to eat fairly healthy anyway, so all I did was tweak things. I did a baseline journal to find out what I was eating, without changing anything. Found out that I should up the protein, cut carbs a bit, and leave fat about where it was, but get a better balance of saturated to unsaturated. I don’t “diet,” I eat well. Calorie intake when I was losing was still around 2000 or higher. I did probably cut calories by about 300–500 calories a day just because a cut out junk, like sodas. I did spot-checks every couple of weeks to make sure my portions weren’t skewed for about two months, then spot checks after that.
I range from 2300 to 2800 calories, depending on the day. When I’m working out regularly, I do use all of that, and you usually do not gain significant fat if you’re eating about the right proportions of macronutrients. I eat Zone-ish (30% protein, 40% low GI carbohydrate, 30% fat) though I don’t weigh and measure portions except when I do periodic sanity checks. I haven’t done any weighing for a while now, probably about 6 months. Since I eat little processed food anymore, that’s not a big concern. I don’t worry a whole lot about my diet anyway, because it’s not that big of a deal if you eat right most of the time. You can indulge in junk periodically as long as it’s kept periodic and not habitual. Besides, I don’t need to be in elite body fat percentages. I’m fine with somewhere between 10% and low teens.
It’s been about 5+ years since I was fat. I went through one rebound between the time I started working out, doing standard weightlifting and aerobics, where I went back to about 82 kg from a low of 75 or 76 due to wedding planning. Then, I discovered Crossfit and the variation and challenge has kept me working out more consistently than I have since I was in high school. I’m probably stronger and almost as fast as I was then too.
I lost 50 pounds last year and have now kept it off (checks the calendar) for a year and a month.
My “secret” was to listen to my body and stop reading weight loss magazines. Turns out that my forcing myself to eat breakfast (because the magazines tell us how important it is and that people who eat breakfast are thinner*) was making me fat. If I force myself to eat breakfast (I’m almost never hungry in the morning) then I’m ravenous all day and eat accordingly. If I wait until I’m naturally hungry (about 11 if I’m active but bored, 1 if I’m relatively inactive and 2 if I’m active and interested in what I’m doing), then I eat less all day and I’m not hungry.
If I find myself, as I occassionally do, eating breakfast a few days in a row for social reasons, then my weight starts to creep up again, and it’s very noticeable during my morning weight check. If I’ve gained 5 pounds over 2-3 days, I cut out the breakfast routine again and lose the weight over the next week or so.
I’m never going to be thin again, but I don’t need to. I’ve already reduced my risk of a lot of bad stuff by losing weight and I’m healthy and active as I want to be. I’m happy being mildly obese, whereas being morbidly obese made me feel bad, physically and emotionally.
*I seriously wonder if this is a causation reversal on the part of weight loss researchers. I wonder if it’s really that thin people *need *to eat breakfast and so they do, not that eating breakfast makes one thinner.
I’m not at “long-term” yet, but I fully plan to be.
In April 2009 I joined Weight Watchers and weighed in at 220 pounds (though I know I’d weighed more than that; I’d lost a few by going to the gym).
On May 25, 2010, I made my goal of 150 pounds. Since then I’ve made Weight Watchers Lifetime status by maintaining that weight for 6 weeks (and then some), and I also dropped another 5 to win the silver 75-pound award charm (which I wear on a chain along with my silver goal star). SO about 3½ months so far.
I’ve changed how I deal with food and exercise. I was never a junk food junkie, the stereotypical “eats Big Macs and doughnuts all day long” type of fat person. I ate healthy food most of the time, just too much of it. And my job consists of sitting at a computer at home all day, so I didn’t have exercise built into my day.
Now I make a point of (1) keeping track of what I eat, and planning my week around “food events” – if there’s a party on Saturday or we’re going to be dining out, I hold back on the other days so I can splurge (a little) on the big day. And I still make better choices there too. I haven’t ordered any pasta or cream sauces since I started WW. I make that stuff for myself at home, if I want it, and it’s lighter and smaller. (I might steal a tiny taste from Mr. S’s plate in a restaurant, though!) I nearly always take half of my restaurant meals home. And so on.
And (2) I make a point of exercise. I’ve gone from walking a few miles to running a 5K and then a 10K. I’ve walked two half marathons and will run/walk one next Sunday. I hit the pavement several times a week, at least 5K.
I’ve given away all my fat clothes and don’t intend to go there again. Can’t believe I spent 10+ years of my life in that condition. Losing the weight was fairly easy, but it took a while. I think I’ll stay where I am now, thanks.
Female, 48 later this month!
I lost the bulk of 60 lbs I had gained in high school in the early 80s mainly by virtue of having no car and exercising like crazy. I calorie-counted to the point of obsession, but it still took me years after that to really get where I wanted to be, and that only happened after I discovered weight training and the wonders of ephedrine.
Now I don’t take the ephedrine anymore (although it IS available for those who want it) but I keep lean as long as I stick to a very low carbohydrate regimen. The higher the percentage of fatty meat in my diet the better I function, and the better my blood profile. I love cheese but I find it stalls me somewhat. I eat some non-starchy vegetables like spinach but next to no fruit. Some wine nightly. Bread is a treat only, and so is watermelon in the summer. And later on my birthday I will have a very sugary pomegranate martini. And at my age I still rip up the gym pushin’ the iron around.
Gotta agree with the statement upthread about women’s mags. Total BS! But they draw you in so…
yes. My weight fluctuates a little, but I am no where near the 330+ level I was in 2001;
I lost 65 pounds, which was about 30% of my starting weight.
How I did it was simply a lifestyle change. Instead of being completely sedentary, I now work out around 5 times a week for an hour or so. Instead of dinner being McD’s shake and fries, I make a point of eating lots of veggies and fruits. I started drinking water throughout the day, and at this point a 2 litre day is on the low end; I usually end up around 3 litres or so, not counting my morning coffee.
I gained 30 pounds from chemo a few years ago, and lost it again pretty much the same way (obviously I wasn’t exercising much while sick, although I tried for the first month). I ended up a couple pounds heavier, but two sizes smaller than where I’d started, so I called it good.
About 8 years ago, I weighed 281 (I just over 6’). I lost down to around 250, then went up to 259. Then the incipient diabetes became real and I started taking metformin six years ago. Within about two years with no dieting I was down to 231 (a known side-effect of metformin). I go up a few pounds whenever I visit one of my kids and down when I get home. This morning I was 232. Obviously, I could lose another 50 lb, but essentially I lost 50 lb and have kept it off for four years.