I'm beginning to believe the 95% weight loss failure rate is a myth. I've been trying to find a study the number is based on and I've come up with nothing. I found one reference to a study done by Dr. Albert Stunkard on a 100 patients in the 1950s. The only other reference I can find is to a 1992 study by the National Institute of Health which said that people who complete a medically supervised weight loss program could expect to regain virtually all of the weight after five years. I can't find that study or any mention of where it was published.
Has anyone ever seen this study or some other scientific evidence that proves the 95% failure rate?

Gin

No, I've never actually seen any studies, but this is just the 'norm' for them to say. It's very possible even THEY don't know, they're just shooting figures out of their bums.

It may not be a whopping 95%, but I know it's got to be large. Me included, just about everyone I've known that's lost weight has gained it all back. I don't know ONE person (personally) that's lost weight and KEPT it off. I know of one girl that I used to work with who dropped a bunch of weight and maintained simply by watching the scale. If the scale started creeping up, she'd back off the food. If it started dipping too low, she'd increase her intake. But the last I heard, she's putting weight back on again.

Case in point.

My sis-in-law, for example, who is VERY heavy, started watching her calories and dropped 32 pounds. I was so proud of her. She's fallen off the wagon again and has slipped back into her old eating habits. So I don't worry about it anymore. I can't help her. She has to want to do it for herself and she's in that mentality of, "Well, I'm already fat so I may as well accept it and enjoy my food."

That's her choice, I suppose. I feel bad for her, though. Because me losing all of MY weight was sort of an inspiration for her to do the same. But she's giving up.

I don't have the link handy, but I read an article by Yale University last week that said 80 to 85% of people that lose a large amount of weight will regain it. They said it was partly because our body metabolism changes after weight loss and we can't eat as much as we used to. So it's easy to eat even a little too much and regain. I think the other part was due to choosing the wrong diet plan that could not be continued after goal was met. They also explained that it was better to lose weight slowly to increase the chances of long term weight loss.

Another thing they mentioned was the importance of a good support system. They pointed out a study by the National Weight Control Registry that found people who lost weight and continued to participate in support groups at least twice a month for one year maintained their full weight loss. The study participants wo did not continue with support regained almost half of their weight.

I don't know if that helps or not, lol. But I'm assuming that if Yale University included the stats, they had validated them. It's still not the same as the 95% commonly quoted.

Well I can't find it to qoute it appropriately but in the book "Fit for life" It states that those numbers (95% failure) are determined by clinical studies performed on people who are searching for a weight loss solution, the people with successful weight loss stories are rarely involved. Therfore, resulting in a deluted if not entirely biased result. Its in the beginning some where.

Yes, I think that's a big part of it. Because a good majority of people lose their weight on 'diets' and once the weight is lost, they find it unrealistic to stick to the diet they were on. Like low carb, for example - who wants to go the rest of their life avoiding pasta and bread? Maybe some people can and I'm sure there are those successful with this, but most people just can't stick to it. So they start eating the carby foods again, thus increasing their calories, and back the weight comes.

Diets are fine for short term, but in most cases, it's not realistic to stick with them forever.

Way, way back in late 2003, when the Maintainers Forum was first started, we had a big discussion about that 95% figure. Some of you may recall that we had a huge server crash in January 2004 that obliterated the earliest posts, including that thread. But Jiffypop did a little research on the topic and the discussion resumed here: the origin of the 5% figure

Honestly, I don't know how anyone could ever accurately track the percentage of regainers since not everyone who loses weight is in a study or organized diet group. Take me, or Linda, or lots of others here ... how would Yale University or any other group even know we exist? I imagine they're extrapolating from studies but that's got to be very inaccurate.

But I'm with Linda - even if we don't know the exact number of regainers, it has to be huge. I've never met anyone in my real life either who's lost a lot of weight and kept it off, though I sure know plenty who lost weight and put it back on.

The only thing that matters to me is that I have a 100% chance of success so long as I make the choices necessary to keep the weight off. No one can make me fat again except for - ME! We each control our own destinies; statisitics don't determine whether we regain or maintain.

I'd like to think that we're a little pocket of success here at 3FC that the researchers haven't discovered yet!

Exactly.

If I get fat again, it's my own fault. I didn't spend 2 years losing 83 pounds to turn around and put it right back on again. I remember what it was like being fat and how I felt about myself. And I don't ever wanna go back there again.

No food is worth that.

Except maybe sausage gravy and biscuits, lol! Just kidding. I still eat very small portions of it every once in a great while. The point is I don't deny myself the foods I love, I just eat them in extreme moderation.

I think we are too, Meg! Maybe someone should conduct a survey based on 3FC members.

I might not have lost as much as lots of people, but the 30 pounds I have lost were done over a 3-year period. I lost 15 and maintained it for more than a year, and then started working on the rest. I've never regained more than a pound or two and there's no way - NO WAY - I will ever allow myself to gain it back. I initially gained it over a period of time where I was recuperating from an accident and thought it was inevitable, since I wasn't able to exercise. I proved that theory wrong this spring when I had a similar accident and didn't gain a pound.

I will be in the 5% club for the rest of my life no matter how hard it is to maintain. It's worth it.

That high figure helps sell diet products/programs and exercise equipment. It's meant to cause people to fail before they've been given a chance to really try. It helps the industry keep repeat customers.JMHO

So. . .how do you accomplish this?

Sometimes I feel like I have a weird chemical thing going on because I just can't seem to do this. I go into a situation thinking I'm going to eat part of a piece of cake, then end up eating it all, and then even more or then eating something else. It's like I have no off switch in my brain that tells me to stop once I start.

I second that.... I am the same way. I know that there are foods I can NEVER! have again.... Some people might be able to moderate, but I didn't get to 350lbs because I could eat ANYTHING in moderation. I really get tired of hearing people say you shouldn't deny yourself anything, its just about moderation....
I doesn't work that way for every person (in fact, I would doubt it works for most people); but because it is said so often, so many people believe it to be true for THEM instead of objectively evaluating their lifestyles and truly knowing what will send them down the slippery slope.
One twinkie! NOPE, gotta have the whole box...that will never change for me, and that is how the food industry wants it to be.

I have great difficulties with moderation myself. I am really happy for people that can open a box of Thin Mints, take out two Thin Mints, close up the package and eat their 2 cookies and be done - but that will never be me. When I'm done with the 2 cookies, it's like my mouth fills with saliva and I want MORE cookies, right away. I want to keep filling my mouth with cookies until my stomach hurts.

The only way I can eat things in moderation is a very controlled environment - like splitting a dessert in a restaurant. I have to share and play fair with the other people, so I can't hog it (and most of my binge-y eating was done in private, I wouldn't want anyone to think I was "hogging" or eating more than my fair share." When the dessert is done, it is done (who orders MORE dessert in a restaurant, my brain wouldn't think to do so). Then, I go back home to my house which is a completely junk free zone, no ice cream, sugary cereal, cookies, chips or packaged baked goods allowed.

I've had few treats since I started, but I remember my birthday last year. My coworker Beth is an accomplished baker and always brings in delicious baked goods for birthdays. I managed to decline all offerings until MY birthday, I figured heck, it's MY BIRTHDAY, so I told her I wanted a fancy chocolate cake with chocolate/orange icing. She brought it in, I ate my piece and I remember thinking "that was so good I want more." Just like that. I hadn't eaten cake in a year, I hadn't craved cake or wanted cake or missed cake, but as soon as I had that one piece and knew the rest of the cake was still in the building, I wanted MORE cake. I don't have an off switch, I can never buy cookies for the house. I can never have a box of cookies. I'm okay with that, I have accepted it.

As far as the 95% number, I just have my own experience. I lost weight, gained it back, lost weight, gained it back, lost weight and gained it back for 20 years. Every time, I gained back MORE weight. The number seems entirely believable to me.

Moderation works for me. I have to be very aware of an all or nothing/perfection mentality...that is dangerous for me. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I think it sends the opposite message, to tell you the truth. I can't count how many times I've heard someone say, "Well if I'm destined to fail, then why bother with it in the first place?"

WARNING: BIG BABBLE AHEAD, lol.

Well, it's not the easiest thing in the world to do and it was hard for me at first. In the beginning, I did deny myself the stuff I loved because I knew once I got that taste in my mouth, it would all be overwith. So I stayed away from Chinese food and fast food and fried chicken and sausage gravy and biscuits and everything else I used to go crazy over. Then after I'd lost quite a bit of my weight (I waited about a year) I started to slowly work my favorite foods back in. A little at a time, on rare occasions and sometimes modified. Like my explanation about how I eat sausage gravy and biscuits here ....

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88072

I simply made compromises with myself. And learned how to work these foods back into my life without overdoing it. Because I ALSO learned something in that first year, it was very hard to want to continue on with the weight loss thing if I had to give up everything. Giving up everything isn't the answer because eventually you say, "Well this is just stupid, I can't go the rest of my life without ever eating pizza again, so screw this!"

The key is work these things in to where they 'fit' with everything else. I know how hard it is, it wasn't easy for me either. And why I went a year completely avoiding this stuff because I didn't trust myself. I couldn't stop at just one or two pieces of pizza or fried chicken, I had to stuff myself with it. So during that year, before I went back to occasionally eating fave foods, I 'trained' myself to PUSH IT AWAY. I had to go through a period of my own training before allowing myself to even GO there again (with the fave foods). One of my biggest problems to overcome was wanting to eat everything on my plate whether I was full or not. So, again, I started to 'train' myself to get over that. I'd test myself with a plate of food (this was before I became a calorie-counter, which is what saved my butt) and would eat slowly. I went by one rule -

Don't eat until you're full - eat until you're no longer hungry.

So I'd talk to myself, sometimes out loud (it helped a lot) and I'd say, "Okay, Linda? You're feeling comfortable now. You don't need the rest of that food. You won't die without it. You won't starve to death. PUSH IT AWAY."

And I'd say to myself over and over and over again - PUSH IT AWAY.

And finally one day I did. And damn I was proud of myself, lol. I mean I know that sounds stupid to some people, but to me it was a huge accomplishment. And it was like taking your first step - "Hey, if I can do it one time, I can do it again!"

So that's how I started my 'training' in only eating what I NEEDED, not what I WANTED. Then I became a calorie-counter and that's when I developed even more control and the weight started to really come off. And now, that I'm close to where I wanna be and never want to go back to where I was before, I can proudly say that I can even exercise complete control at a Chinese buffet. When 2 years ago I didn't trust myself to even walk in the door.

As far as I'm concerned there are no forbidden foods. They don't exist. You just have to learn how to eat them all over again. My diet used to be 90% bad, 10% good. Now it's the other way around. I make sure I eat healthy 90% of the time and save that 10% (not every day, mind you, eating these foods is a rare occurance) for that 'other' stuff