I'll add my voice as another one who lost it and gained again---I lost 100lbs 3 years ago and gained back half of it---fortunately I've stopped myself before I gained it all back and am losing again....
For me I didn't deal with the reasons behind why I overeat and that is a very important thing to consider in keeping the weight off--as I am an emotional eater as well as a compulsive eater--so that is what I'm also working on this time as well as trying to eat healthier.
Also, for me I think my weight allows me to be more unattractive to men (I know that sounds weird but I was a battered wife and have had some very bad experiences) and I get rather thrown when I am thinner and suddenly start getting attention---something else I have to deal with, just enjoying my new shape and not letting it scare me...
So there is a lot more to this than just getting the weight off, but getting support and making good decisions still are key factors to success...
(1) has been there and done that . . . 80 lbs in a little over a year . . . it totally sucked
and
(2) is very fearful of having it happen again
and
(3) is grateful for the experience and the resulting fear . . . it is the best way to ensure that complacency doesn't set in again
I started my current fitness plan last January. I was far from perfect in 2008 - as a matter of fact, I was "on-plan" (journaling/generating a calorie deficit and exercising) for only about 6 months out of 12. The fear of repeating my experience from 2006/2007 is what kept me weighing in regularly during my off-plan periods and it is what caused me to get back on track each time I started to regain.
I think this is a good learning experience for anyone. I know I only lost about 15 pounds, but gained it back very easily. I guess we all have to stay vigilant and we can't ignore the scale!
I lost 30 pounds three years ago and then gained it back when I stopped exercising. This is the first time I have ever lost this amount of weight. Things have been different this time for certain. I didn't join up for any programs or gyms. I just started to read. I didn't buy a bunch of fancy workout stuff I just got my fat butt out on the road and started walking. I have also surrounded myself with people who believe in me and want this for me. Above all, I have educated myself and not relied on information from others. In short, I guess I have very much internalized the whole process this time.
I know this is truly a journey for me. It will never be "over" for me. I will have to (vastly) make good decisions day after day, week after week, month after month or the weight will come on again.
ETA: Fear is why I get on the scale each and every morning.
Last edited by Thighs Be Gone; 02-18-2009 at 02:16 PM.
How I wish I could sit down with that woman with cups of coffee between us & just listen to her talk for an hour or more about what it was like when "something snapped." Learning more about that would be key for me.
For me, it wasn't a snapping -- it was like letting out more & more rope gradually, over time.
I'm another who lost a dramatic amount of weight (from a size 20 to a size 4/6) and regained it, attaining a size 22 before I started over again.
For me, it had to happen to some degree because I'd dropped my weight to a point where it was unsustainable if my routines changed even slightly. I needed to be able to exercise two hours each day. I needed to eat very measured amounts. It had become a variety of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Going through therapy meant relaxing the rituals. Relaxing the rituals meant a weight gain. But it also opened up my life. I stopped thinking I'd always be a legal secretary. I finished my long-deferred bachelor's degree, which I'd given up on nine years before. I got a master's degree. I became a journalist, took on a job as a corporate business writer, became a poet & won awards & residencies & published a book of poetry. All this was immensely distracting. I clearly remember giving priority to writing in the mornings, rather than exercising. Also, I ate. Very badly. Very, very badly. I think I ate to relieve the stress of managing all these achievements.
I think I also created a false dichotomy: I could have a physical life or a life of the mind, but not both. I had to become sort of disembodied, if that makes sense.
I do not know why I thought I couldn't be a corporate writer who writes poetry or fiction & also runs 5Ks, but that seemed impossible to me. Because I had to excel & that requires dedication.
Now I'm trying to get my exercise in & at least also take up reading again. (I'd been avoiding reading as too sedentary & leading me to snack while my eyes are on the page. I think I have a handle on that now.) I am just not good at balancing. I want to be better at it this time.
But I can understand the snapping. Like an overtrained race horse, you duck your head down & say: "No more. I am NOT getting in that starting gate again."
I know how you feel Trazey. I know a lady who used to be a Weight Watcher's leader who has gained (apparently) all her weight back. When I see her I want to either run screaming from the room with a garlic necklace to protect me or to sit her down and interrogate her as to how it happened so I can avoid the same pitfalls. Of course I just smile and do neither.
My plans for avoiding the same fate include not having any too-big clothes around when I hit goal weight and to weigh daily (or almost). Oh yes, and to
visit the maintenance forum here.
I think I know how you feel--I've experienced something similar with one of my closest family friends, my mom's best friend, who I have known since I was a little squirt (and whom I refer to as my "aunt"). She has struggled with her weight a bit over the years, too, and though I was never very aware of things like that when I was a kid, my mom has told me that she has lost ~80 lbs or so on a few occasions, but unfortunately has gained it back every time. So of course, because my mom has seen my aunt go through this several times, I feel like she doesn't believe that I'll be able to stick with it, either--that I'll inevitably gain back all the weight I've lost. Similarly, one of my close friends has shared his concern with me that I might gain back the weight, because he knows someone else who lost a significant amount of weight and then "found it again."
It doesn't help that you hear so many statistics about how 90% of people who lose weight gain it all back within 4 years or whatever (I made up the numbers just now, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has heard something similar). It IS very scary to me... Very scary. I never want to be one of those people! But you know what? As many of the other posters have been saying, just because some people regain the weight they lose does NOT mean that you will. Only you can determine that! Use the fear as a motivation. That's definitely what I do.
I'm scared to death of gaining it back. I'm not even sure how it got here. I gained with my last pergnancy (18 yrs ago) and I haven't been the same since. Ive gained 50lbs more since then. in the last 5 years I have given up sugar, I used to drink a liter of coke a day PLUS several coffees with creamer and sugar....I have cut my fat intake in half and haven't lost anything. Dr. Phil always says that "if you cahnge this habit or that habit, you'll lose such and such amt over 1 year" well Dr. Phil is full of $h!t.
that's why I am being SOOOOO strict, and I get tired of people telling me I'm supposed to eat more...puleeze.
when I get the weight off I plan to continue weighing in every week and I am going by the 3 lb rule. I plan to make healthy eating a lifestyle and exercise too.
I think it's always a good idea to look at HOW they lost weight in the first place! Did they cut their calories so drastically that it became something they couldn't sustain. Did they deprive their bodies of much needed fats so they were starving for some nutrition. Did they remove entire food groups but then brought them back when they were supposed to be maintaining...
You HAVE to make good choices that you can stick with FOR LIFE! Losing weight should look THE SAME as maintaining!!! You can't lose a bunch of weight and then go back or change your way of eating and expect to keep it off. It's unrealistic.
I am so sorry your friend gained her weight back. But you WON'T.
I felt the same with some of the Biggest Losers--like Suzy from Season 2. Both her and Matt have gained a lot. I know she just had some kids but still... I read some article about how hard she still works out and is so careful with her food and she's still gained... so either she's not being totally truthful about her diet & exercise or she continues to do a lot and can't sustain the loss. Either way, it's disheartening... I thought she looked so good at the finale and made me and others think that a person whose been overweight their whole lives CAN be slim and fit.
Obesity runs through my whole family and two of my heaviest relatives have both lost a lot of weight--my uncle lost 70, my aunt lost 110. I'm positive they've gained it all back. And it seemed like they lost it in a reasonable way, no extreme dieting or anything.. my aunt just said she walked for exercise and watched what she ate.
I think this situation is the total car crash that you drive slowly by... why do you drive slowly by? Because you want to see what happened to that person and ask yourself if that could happen to you.
I think anything bad that happens to someone strikes a little fear in us (or at least me). When the seemingly perfect couple divorces, you think--what happened to them? Could that happen to me? Or someone gets cancer. Or loses their job. Or gains 100 lbs.
My most recent gain of 25 lbs was totally because I was trying to act "normal" in front of my new boyfriend. I didn't want to seem the food-obsessed, weight-obsessed, over-exercising nut so I happy ate too much, frequented restaurants & bars, skipped exercising to hang out with him. Two years later, the weight-obsessed nut is revealed and I'd like to think the whole world can see me as this but who knows... I feel like I've had more of a lifestyle change than I ever have with weightloss (which by the way makes for sloooooow weight loss) and I sincerely hope this is forever.
I think it's always a good idea to look at HOW they lost weight in the first place! Did they cut their calories so drastically that it became something they couldn't sustain. Did they deprive their bodies of much needed fats so they were starving for some nutrition. Did they remove entire food groups but then brought them back when they were supposed to be maintaining...
You HAVE to make good choices that you can stick with FOR LIFE! Losing weight should look THE SAME as maintaining!!! You can't lose a bunch of weight and then go back or change your way of eating and expect to keep it off. It's unrealistic.
I am so sorry your friend gained her weight back. But you WON'T.
I think that in addition to looking at how we lose the weight, we need to spend some time looking at WHY we gained it. for some of us, food is like an addiction. we use it as comfort and we have alot of underlying reasons why we eat....and if we don't recognise that and learn alternate behaviors we may likely end up where we started.
For me I didn't deal with the reasons behind why I overeat and that is a very important thing to consider in keeping the weight off--as I am an emotional eater as well as a compulsive eater--so that is what I'm also working on this time as well as trying to eat healthier.
Also, for me I think my weight allows me to be more unattractive to men (I know that sounds weird but I was a battered wife and have had some very bad experiences) and I get rather thrown when I am thinner and suddenly start getting attention---something else I have to deal with, just enjoying my new shape and not letting it scare me...
So there is a lot more to this than just getting the weight off, but getting support and making good decisions still are key factors to success...
Scarlet, I completely hear you! not weird at all...I get it. there is a certain safety in being "sexually irrelevant" ....it's a safe and at the same time, sad place to be.
