People who have lost weight and kept it off for more than a year: would you answer some questions?

In My Humble Opinion
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  1. What percentage of your body weight did you lose?
  • about 15%
  1. Did you have a particular diet, or was it just fewer calories, more exercise?
  • Latter
  1. Male or female?
  • Male

  1. How much of the food you consume do you make at home?
    ~ 95%+

  2. How much did this change?

  • Quite a bit. Cut out takeaways completely.
  1. Are there any foods that you just can never eat again because you don’t want to gain weight back?
  • Coincidentally, after I lost weight I was obliged to give up red meat for medical reasons. That probably helps. Aside from that I pretty much gave up nuts. And crisps/chips. And French fries. (Mostly. There is a chip (French fry) fork attached to the calendar; every time we indulge, it gets moved forwards by one month. The fork is currently at January 2019.)
    If I could give up cheese as well, I’d be on easy street.
  1. On a scale of 0 to 10, how much mental and emotional effort do you put into your diet on a regular basis, with 0 being “about as much as I put into breathing” and 10 being “I spend every waking moment fighting against my desire for food”
  • 3-ish. Late at night is a problem, when I have a drink or two to wind down.

Abstainer for some foods, moderator for others. Incidentally, there are a lot of “bad” foods that I’m not particularly fond of, so I just don’t eat them (never really have) - cookies, cake, desserts, ice cream, chocolate - I don’t much like sweet things or rich things.

Additional: My weight has been all over the place over the years, for all sorts of reasons. This time I lost weight when I retired. For a start, I wasn’t flying a desk all day, so I could exercise more. Also, I wasn’t as stressed, so I reasoned there was no excuse for drinking-to-wind-down to the extent that I had been doing. That started the weight loss, and gave me an incentive to further modify lifestyle. Mrs Trep joined in and we lost weight together, which I think helps.

j

22
  1. From ~185 to 150 lbs, so approximately 35 lbs and 20%.
  2. No diet, just calories in/calories out. Exercise calories help a little, but it’s still like 90% due to eating less. Exercise is mainly for other health/fitness benefits.
  3. Male.
  4. Most, though not necessarily all from scratch. There’s a good chunk of frozen foods in there as well. I rarely ate at restaurants anyway.
  5. Not much deliberate change, but over time I found that certain foods were more filling for me, while others weren’t worth the calories.
  6. No, no foods are so bad that they’re completely off-limits. I can eat whatever I want, just maybe not as much as I want.
  7. Maybe 3. I lost relatively slowly, about a pound a week, so it wasn’t too bad.

Bonus: Moderator.

If you really want to lose weight, you have to be honest with yourself. For me that meant logging everything at MyFitnessPal, weighing solids on a scale and liquids in measuring cups. That was eye-opening. What you may think of as a serving is really a lot more. My experience in the MFP forums (which I highly recommend, BTW) is that people who struggle tend to either way underestimate what their eating, way overestimate their calorie burn, or (usually) both.

Also, if you want to keep the weight off then changes have to be permanent and sustainable. Don’t jump on the latest trendy diet unless you can eat that way for the rest of your life. A lot of yo-yo dieters get the mindset that once they reach their target then they’re done, and they slip back into their old habits that got them fat in the first place. You have to think of your goal weight not as the finish line, but as the start of phase 2.

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  1. What percentage of your body weight did you lose? 25% - 240 down to 180
  2. Did you have a particular diet, or was it just fewer calories, more exercise? I used Weight Watchers
  3. Male or female? Male
  4. How much of the food you consume do you make at home? Make breakfast at home, bring lunch to work, cook most dinners. Eat out once a week or so.
  5. How much did this change? A good amount, mainly lunches.
  6. Are there any foods that you just can never eat again because you don’t want to gain weight back? No, but there are foods that we don’t keep in the house.
  7. On a scale of 0 to 10, how much mental and emotional effort do you put into your diet on a regular basis, with 0 being “about as much as I put into breathing” and 10 being “I spend every waking moment fighting against my desire for food” 5-6

Bonus: From here, would you say that you are a moderator or an abstainer? Moderator

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I didn’t realize the importance of the numbered list, so let me redo this and fill that in:

  1. What percentage of your body weight did you lose? 20%
  2. Did you have a particular diet, or was it just fewer calories, more exercise? Move more, eat less.
  3. Male or female? Male.
  4. How much of the food you consume do you make at home? 100%
  5. How much did this change? 0%
  6. Are there any foods that you just can never eat again because you don’t want to gain weight back? Never say never. But ice cream, donuts, etc. are on the “couple times a year” list.
  7. On a scale of 0 to 10, how much mental and emotional effort do you put into your diet on a regular basis, with 0 being “about as much as I put into breathing” and 10 being “I spend every waking moment fighting against my desire for food” Maybe a 2.
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Me, from an earlier thread Feb. 2019:

*Diagnosed with “Metabolic Syndrome” so I decided to lose weight by not being a compulsive overeater for the first time in my life. Stopped eating/drinking some of the worst things, but for the most part I “simply” exercised more than I felt like while eating less than I felt like. Forever.
Lost 60 pounds in less than a year, got my levels down to normal/acceptable. Without feeling particularly deprived of eating pleasure, I’ve kept 50 of those 60 pounds off for four years now. I’m 68. It’s required a lot of attention, but hasn’t been difficult, much to my continuing surprise.

It can be done.

*Today, age 69, no change. FWIW I understood the odds to be: 98% probabilty of regaining all the lost weight plus more, within 5 years.

Summary-
Male 5’7" weight 236 pounds. Lost 60 in one year (down to 176), relaxed my regimen a little, immediately regained 5 lbs. Four and a half years since then I’ve regained only another 5. (186 this morning.)

Gotta run, I’ll answer the other questions later.

26
  1. What percentage of your body weight did you lose? I went from 145 to 120. In women’s clothing it was size 14 to size 6.
  2. Did you have a particular diet, or was it just fewer calories, more exercise? Neither and both. I never counted calories nor exercised specifically. I just changed how I ate. I also acquired a horse, which caused me to move around a lot more.
  3. Male or female? Female
  4. How much of the food you consume do you make at home? Virtually all. I very rarely eat out or buy anything pre-made.
  5. How much did this change? Not at all.
  6. Are there any foods that you just can never eat again because you don’t want to gain weight back? There are foods I won’t have in the house because I will eat the whole box. I could eat them away from home though. I mostly overeat alone.
  7. On a scale of 0 to 10, how much mental and emotional effort do you put into your diet on a regular basis, with 0 being “about as much as I put into breathing” and 10 being “I spend every waking moment fighting against my desire for food” Maybe four when I am trying to lose a few pounds I gained, otherwise about 2.

I’ve been trying to lose weight since I was fifteen, so I’ve been mostly unhappy about my weight, with a few respites usually because of a major life change of some kind, for almost fifty years. This is the first time I have lost it and kept it off for more than a few months – it’s been more than four years now.

27

finishing my earlier post:

  1. What percentage of your body weight did you lose? Greatest amount, 25%; Amount 4.5 years later (today), 21%

  2. Male or female? Male.

  3. How much of the food you consume do you make at home? 98%

  4. How much did this change? 0%

  5. Are there any foods that you just can never eat again because you don’t want to gain weight back? Never say never. But ice cream, donuts, etc. are on the “couple times a year” list.

Effectively never: White Bread.
Seldom, and usually in smaller amounts than I would have eaten in my fat years: PIZZA, ice cream, pastries.

  1. On a scale of 0 to 10, how much mental and emotional effort do you put into your diet on a regular basis, with 0 being “about as much as I put into breathing” and 10 being “I spend every waking moment fighting against my desire for food” 3
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  1. 80/280, that is 28%
  2. It started with the Zone, essentially a balanced portion control diet; helped when I was prescribed metformin and finally I just stopped eating between meals. The process took about ten years.
  3. Male
  4. Between my wife and me (mostly her) about 6 dinners a week.
  5. That was always the case.
  6. Can’t think of any.
  7. My best guess is maybe 3 or 4. That’s now; it was much harder at the beginning, especially the bit about cutting out all between meal snacking.

I haven’t looked at the link but it seems obvious that I am a moderator (see my answer for 6).

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  1. Even going by my lowest pre-diet weight to my “a few pounds more than usual” current weight, 20%.

  2. Low carb - as in, very little pasta, very little bread (I replaced hamburger and hot dog buns with low-carb tortillas), very little pizza, and pretty much no rice or beans. To be fair, I’ve slowly been reintroducing carbs, but keep in mind that my pre-diet eating didn’t result in my gaining weight.

  3. Male.

  4. Almost all of it.

  5. None. I usually eat out twice a week, and this includes lunch while I’m at work. (My work lunch is usually a cup of yogurt, an apple, and a diet soda.)

  6. It’s not so much weight - I changed my diet to reduce my A1C - but if there’s one food I’ll pretty much not touch now, it’s non-diet drinks, with pancakes a close second.

  7. I’d say, around a 7; it was close to 10 when I started the diet, as I was always afraid that I was eating “the wrong things.”

  8. I started as an abstainer, but have slowly been creeping toward moderator. Just last week I had a hamburger…with a bun.

30
  1. 30%
  2. Keto, no exercise.
  3. Male
  4. 50-60%
  5. Not much
  6. Carbs in general. I’d say rice and bread.
  7. 2 or 3.
    Severe moderator.
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What percentage of your body weight did you lose?

About 30%, over a couple of years. Slow process.

Did you have a particular diet, or was it just fewer calories, more exercise?

Not a particular diet as such - but I concentrated on more freshly prepared food, less processed food as a rule, tracked calories pretty intensely, and significantly upped the amount of movement I was getting in. I also tried to think before eating - a lot of my consumption was habit or boredom, and thinking “do I really actually want this or am I just bored or is it habit?” helped a lot. I unintentionally ended up eating a very low carb diet for a while, and it made me miserable for months, as well as stalled my weight loss - talked to a dietitian and she pointed it out. I switched a few things around, swapped some protein for carbs, and rearranged some scheduling, and lo, started losing weight and stopped feeling miserable.

Male or female?

Female.

How much of the food you consume do you make at home?

Probably 80/20 home and “out”, but it varies from week to week.

5. How much did this change?

A fair amount. It’s much easier to track calories when you know what you’re taking in, and it’s harder to know what’s involved in food at restaurants or other external places.

Are there any foods that you just can never eat again because you don’t want to gain weight back?

I try not to be an absolutist about things. I’m the sort of person who, if something’s off limits absolutely, I’ll want it - the restriction fucks about with my sense of what I really want.

That said, my tastes have changed. There are things I eat much less of (in some cases, down to about zero) because I no longer want them as much, or I’m happy with smaller serves of them. They’re not off limits or anything, I just don’t want 'em.

I’m pretty sure that, if I talked honestly about my relationship with food with a therapist or something, I’d end up with a diagnosis of some pretty disordered eating/food relationship in the past. I’m better, but it’s a lifelong process.

On a scale of 0 to 10, how much mental and emotional effort do you put into your diet on a regular basis, with 0 being “about as much as I put into breathing” and 10 being "I spend every waking moment fighting against my desire for food"

It varies. Sometimes it’s easy; sometimes, less so and I catch myself sliding back into old habits.

I’ve regained some weight over a fairly stressful 12 to 18 months - nowhere near where I was before, about 8kg over the last year. But I haven’t lost the fitness I’ve gained, it’s just been undisciplined comfort eating - losing that mindfulness, basically. It’s just going to be a case of going back to basics for a while and being more conscious about what and how much I’m eating.

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  1. 24% (92kg down to 68kg)
  2. Specific eating plan, but based around calorie restriction, amongst other things
  3. female
  4. 80%
  5. I don’t remember.
  6. A lot of foods that aren’t worth it to eat regularly, but I can have anything once in a while. Also my tastes changed a lot.
  7. The whole point was to explore and adjust my mental and emotional attachments to food, so 8 out of 10 for effort, but it wasn’t necessarily unpleasant

bonus question: abstainer

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Just a request for the OP’er (or anyone else) to chime in if they have seen anything in the responses that surprise you.

34

Channeling my mother:

  1. What percentage of your body weight did you lose? About 15%
  2. Did you have a particular diet, or was it just fewer calories, more exercise? Fewer calories.
  3. Male or female? Female.
  4. How much of the food you consume do you make at home? Not me (I rarely cook anymore), but either my assistant or my children… pretty much every large meal. I sometimes eat a snack that’s not prepared by us; I eat at a restaurant less than once a month, and while sometimes I do eat food from a prepared-food place it’s all home-style. We’re more likely to get half a lamb baked over a bed of potatoes (which simply doesn’t fit into our ovens) than a pizza.
  5. How much did this change? Not at all.
  6. Are there any foods that you just can never eat again because you don’t want to gain weight back? No.
  7. On a scale of 0 to 10, how much mental and emotional effort do you put into your diet on a regular basis, with 0 being “about as much as I put into breathing” and 10 being “I spend every waking moment fighting against my desire for food”.
    After a lifetime of dieting, none. Turns out that getting my anxiety treated, combined with having those intestinal problems I kept trying to self-medicate through food treated, have gotten me to. Stop. Snacking. At all hours. And eat normal portions in all meals. It’s amazing what eating a normal-sized breakfast rather than a teenage-sized one, coupled with not eating dairy desserts, chocolate (sugar-free! One must take care of one’s diet!) and fruit all day long does for one’s weight.

And she’s neither a moderator nor an abstainer. She’s a cheater. For decades she would follow a very strict diet BUT not count snacks at all. This includes all her decades of dieting, including the decade or so of being hyperglucemic.

35

I’m answering these questions on behalf of a friend. Really. I mean, a family member. I am a male whereas the answers come from a female.

  1. What percentage of your body weight did you lose?
    About a third of the initial body weight.
  2. Did you have a particular diet, or was it just fewer calories, more exercise?
    Yes, there were new diet/lifestyle rules:
    (a) daily power walking
    (b) five smaller meals a day instead of three large meals a day
    © no sweets and bread or bread-based items in the first 6 months
    (d) only fish for meat in the first 6 months
    (e) only fish and chicken for meat in the next 6 moths
    (f) less processed foods and regular fruit and vegetables
    (g) regular water (and green tea)
  3. Male or female?
    female
  4. How much of the food you consume do you make at home?
    This is a woman who likes to cook and bake. I’d say 90% of the food she consumed was cooked at home.
  5. How much did this change?
    It hasn’t changed. She cooks most of the food she eats, avoiding unhealthy foods or unhealthy cooking methods (such as frying).
  6. Are there any foods that you just can never eat again because you don’t want to gain weight back?
    Romanian cuisine includes a lot of delicious baked items and fat dishes. Now she only eats them occasionally (that is, on national/ religious holidays) and no longer on a regular basis.
  7. On a scale of 0 to 10, how much mental and emotional effort do you put into your diet on a regular basis, with 0 being “about as much as I put into breathing” and 10 being “I spend every waking moment fighting against my desire for food”
    Somewhere between 7 and 8 in the first year. Probably close to 9 in the first 6 months and lower than 5 after a year.
  8. How many hours do you work?
    About 8 hours a day.
  9. How many times did you try to lose weight before this stuck?
    Many times, unsuccessfully. This time it worked because it was carried out under medical guidance and observation.
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  1. About 25% long term… started around 210 and got down to 155 but decided that was too thin and settled on an easy to maintain 170-175.
  2. Counted calories like a maniac and wore a Garmin Vivofit (similar to a Fit Bit) and walked like crazy. I weighed everything I ate/drank and logged every bit.
  3. Male
  4. 80% +
  5. not much
  6. Nope… even when I was actively losing weight I would factor in if I had a craving for a Big Mac… eat less through the day and enjoy the craving at dinner.
  7. 3… I found a weight that my body seems to like and since realizing better portion sizes and understanding what adds up I put very little thought into my diet now. I’ve kept the weight off for five years now.
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Missed the edit window… another big thing. I eat slowly and stop when I feel full. It took some adjustment to leave half a sandwich, or the last three bites of potato salad, but it all adds up.

38
  1. 25% initially, but the 1-year steady state settled out to 15%
  2. Fewer calories. Not exactly intentional for the “lose” part, but very much so for the maintain. Rigorous monitoring of caloric intake has been essential, and almost ten years on I keep track of calories on my phone.
  3. Male.
  4. It’s varied through the years. Nowadays about 75% is made at home, but it’s been 100% made elsewhere for months on end at times.
  5. See above, quite a lot. The key for me has been restricting calories, not type of food.
  6. No, with the caveat that I am aware that it’s harder to stop eating some foods/packaging combinations than others. That one pound bag of pretzels, for instance? I don’t buy that anymore, because if I do it will be the only thing I eat that day (okay, maybe I’ll be able to divide it up over two days. Still…)
  7. IDK, like, a 5? It’s hard to say because, given 6 above, I go day-to-day on junk food. That is, I don’t keep a tub of ice cream in my fridge, I go out and get a pint of light ice cream each day, at the end of a bike ride (the bike ride is nothing to do with weight loss, just general health). So to with other snacks. Nothing on hand, buy it for the day after the bike ride, and only buy enough to meet the calorie cap for the day. So it’s “easy” to stay on target, but only because I’ve structured things around not having excess food on hand.
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Addendum:
8) Variable. I was deployed to Iraq when the initial weight loss happened, and I was working very long hours. For most of the intervening years, then, I was stationed aboard ship, also worked very long hours, and it was very hard to monitor calories (the food aboard ship is bad enough, though, that it’s easy to take a pass on—I’d generally just measure myself after returning to port and find I could eat whatever the hell I wanted due to yet more unplanned weight loss). But currently, I’m unemployed/semi-retired.

  1. I made half-hearted/poorly considered “attempts” to lose weight a couple times before, but both times I was under the illusion that exercise is the key to weight loss and so did nothing to monitor or control my calories.

Also, I used to drink a lot of coke. When I realized how many calories are in that stuff (which is, coincidentally, when I was in Iraq and started losing weight) I switched to diet or zero.