[abjbcn]

Hi there. Would like all your opinions on this. I am sure there are lots of you who have lost all their weight and haven't put it back on. But, again, there are some of you, and I am one of them, who have put if not all, most of it back on
Why? I was so happy when I was thin. Why did I let it gradually creep back on? Now I am starting to feel fat and unattractive again, all those feelings that I thought I had lost forever.

I am not going to write my reasons yet as I need to think about it in more detail. Would anyone like to start the ball rolling?

Thanks a lot for your comments.

Ann

PS Need to get around to updating my signature!!

[cat90]

Hmmm Well, I think that a lot of us go on a diet..lose the weight and then think right i've lost all the weight so I can go back to eating what I did before and little by little we start adding the things that we gave up eating back into our diets then where did that extra 30lbs come from we should'nt diet we need to "live it" find something that we can do for the rest of our lives but because we're impatient we go on diets to get the weight off faster then realise that its something that we can't maintain for the rest of our lives and slowly but surely we start to gain again I'm just substituting stuff now I've always used fat free skim milk but i'm looking for other things now too..the deprivation thing does'nt work for me

[srmb60]

I'm going to butt in here ... from Canada ... I read a book called Thin for Life by Anne M Fletcher. It is about people who have oslt weight and kept it off. I was very enlightening.
In the maintainers forum here at 3fc, they read the book and discussed each chapter. It's good reading too.
I'm not going to bore you with the details of what I learned personally but I will tell you that a huge percentage of the people in the book had lost weight more than once before they figured out how to keep it off.
Cathy's answer is very good too.

[YP1]

I have no idea, I've never tried to lose weight before. I suppose it's easy for me to think "I've got it right, I won't put it on" at the moment, but whether that's what actually happens is a whole different battle. I know that to keep it off for life I'm going to have to exercise pretty much every day - what I eat hasn't actually changed that much and it's exercise that is really the key for me. Once I stop, if I get distracted by work or life, will I be able to start again? Who knows?

[kykaree]

I lost a lot of weight once, got to about where I am now, then put it all back on. I think my problem was that I failed to address the reasons why I was big and out of control in the first place, and I failed to make exercise a life long habit.

This time I know my shortcomings and the risks, and I hope I have got things in place so this is the last time I have to do this. My slow weight loss helps with this, I don't want to lose weight so quickly that my brain hasn't got time to catch up.

[PhatPhoenix]

I lost weight (around 40lbs) and kept it off easily for years... Then I had 2 more babies in the space of 21 months and ended up 16lb heavier than my previous highest weight.

The reason I think I lost the weight and maintained for so long was that I followed a low fat diet that allowed 1500 cal a day, rather than a drastic, or faddy diet. I maintained for years without being really strict - and pretty well eating what I wanted. But I found I didn't over-eat anymore - as I valued my slimmer figure more than the chockie and naughties. So I'd eat *bad* things but only in moderation. The diet was realistic but did change my taste for certain things so I no longer even wanted butter or fish and chips - or if I did, I could only eat very small amounts. I stopped tracking what I ate - and I know research shows that people who succeed are those who write down everything they eat. I didn't - but managed to maintain really easily until the two pregnancies in rapid succession seem to have caused havoc.

My only other diet was an attempt at low carbing which didn't work and left me fatter than when I started, last year. I now think it didn't work because it was unrealistic (I like my bread and I like fruit, not jelly and stuff that's full of additives as the diet recommended). I can happily live without meat and fatty foods, but I can't live without a glass of wine and some good bread. In other words, the trick is finding a diet you can make a way of life, know the rules backwards and then, when you reach target - relax, so you no longer live to eat but eat to live.

Faddy diets have too many ridiculous restrictions and even though you could live by them for weeks, maybe months - it's not feasible you could spend the rest of your entire life following them.

I also think there's a bit of psychology involved, that once you hit target you think *Great! I can go back to my old ways*. Forgetting your old ways are what got you in this mess in the first place! So you have to find a diet that is something you can do the whole rest of your life - something that allows you enough leeway for you to feel you aren't hemmed in by too many daft rules.

I've read another key factor is continuing to exercise - and more than you'd probably expect, so something like an hour a day, six days a week will help you maintain. I think many people when they reach target, give up on the exercise so even if they don't overeat much, they massively reduce the margin for error that exercise gives you.

I gained due to two years' solid breastfeeding (it always made me ravenous) and have no doubt if I'd had no more kids, I'd never have regained this weight again in my life.

[veggie]

Hmm why have I lost 50 pounds three times and put it back on?????????????

Hmm...I'm an idiot?

I'm scared of change?

I get bored and collapse into a crisp and junk binge?

[Dippy Chip]

Good question!

I've probably lost and regained around 10-15 stones in the course of my adult life, in around half a dozen or so serious to semi-serious dieting attempts. Every time I'd be going great guns, and then something would happen to derail me (boredom, a holiday, christmas, a change in my routine) and all the old habits would resurface and I always regained all of the lost weight and a few more bonus pounds as well.

That's why this time I'm not being complacent at all.

Instead of beating myself up about those past 'failures' I've started to think of them as 'practise attempts' instead. You don't learn to walk or ride a bike without falling down a few times, and weight loss is no different - it's a whole set of new skills and coping mechanisms that have to be learned and internalised, and that kind of knowledge and habit doesn't simply materialise overnight - it takes hard work and repetition and learning what does and doesn't work for your own personality and circumstances.

For myself I've realised that too much rigidity simply doesn't work. I've had my fair share of 1000 cal a day diets, and they never work in the long run. And since I don't want to live my life forever measuring and weighing, I've had to learn to curtail my appetite and judge my portion sizes and to stop when I've had enough, rather than to just blindly keep stuffing myself because my plate is still full.

With exercise, too, its a matter of finding something you enjoy doing, because I know that if I can't enjoy exercise it'll be the first thing I give up (I am SO lazy!)...so there's no point in me making a commitment to running a hundred miles a week or doing circuits 6 days out of 7 because I know I'd find it a hateful chore and quit doing it at the first opportunity.

Cycling and walking I love, though, so they are my exercise routines of choice, and ones that I can hopefully incorporate into my life for years into the future. And because I enjoy them I don't consider them a chore, and the plan is that I'll do them because I want to rather than because I feel I ought to...which come to think of it is what I want for every aspect of this getting healthy malarkey.

I've told myself that it's not a race, and every day I practise healthy living is a step in the right direction. If it takes me 10 years to get to goal it's OK, as long as I'm eating right and getting some exercise and moving in the right direction. Before, I used to get so impatient, and would literally feel like crying and taking a sledge hammer to the scales if they wouldn't show me a happy number. Now, I'm older and more realistic, and I know that all good things take time to mature, and I'll succeed in the long term only by realising that there are no short cuts and no easy fixes.

All the best for your next jump on the bandwagon,

Janey