Well blueeyes, I just had a piece of leftover birthday cake and some pizza last night. Yet I'm still holding my loss. Because? I don't do it ALL the time, and I exercise regularly.

I'd say that YES your fear is true that if you DIET (I think that's such a nasty word), you may gain it all back. I did, many times. Instead, don't diet, but change your DAILY diet. Don't have pizza every week, but once a month, get the chips out of the house, cut back the burgers and go with grilled chicken, cut out white pasta and bread and replace them with whole grains. Just learn a new way of eating daily, then have the pizza, the cake, the chips ocassionally.

You should also learn to incorporate SOME exercise into your daily routine. You can lose without exercising, but you can lose BETTER with it. IOW, you can tone up better, look better and feel better. And, it gives you a little more wiggle room to indulge ocassionally than if you just dieted alone.

Start with a few daily changes at a time. Like, increase your water intake and cut out sodas if you drink them and maybe switch to whole grains. Once you've done those for a couple of weeks and think you can sustain them, add others, like increasing your intake of fresh fruits and veggies, or adding a 30 minute walk just 3 days a week. And keep building onto that.

Then once you HAVE lost the weight, there's no diet to quit. You've made a lifestyle change that will stick with you. And there's nothing then to be afraid of.

I have done this myself. However, a few things. The oft quoted statistics well, I don't know exactly what this means. Do 70% of people that are really committed gain it back? Or does someone saying *I am going to diet this week* count. Much of my diets I was just not serious. Statistics IMHO always lie and are used for those who want to use them. Now that I have lost weight people keep saying something to that effect to me. I often think it is their way of covering for themselves. After all if I or they are statistically *proven* to gain it back then the pressure is of them for not losing when I did right in front of them. So I want to fight the numbers on that one. I don't see a lot of weight gain here, or in real life. What is an epidemic for me is not seeing people able to make significant losses.

However, what I think turned the key for me was learning about a lot of studies that are showing that eating less is better for you body. Less you eat the less oxidative stress on your body. And it isn't starvation, it is just what perhaps people ate in 1950's. I mean that really smacked my head into the idea that I am not on a diet. That maybe I just don't need that much food. Perhaps my idea of what I do need and what is *normal* or *off diet* is exaggerated and wrong.

Ok I don't know if it is true, and the studies are not all in yet, but just the idea that it could be possible that *dieting* is really *what I should be eating* just really helped me think about eating this way for the rest of my life with much less fear and faith that I will never go back.

While I completely agree with the blue text above, I don't understand at all what you mean by the purple text. Eating is oxidative stress on the body? What does that mean?

I was successful this time because OF eating. Instead of being hungry, deprived, miserable, eating "diet foods" (lots of fat free, sugar free products), I switched to increased volume of really nutritionally powerful foods. Just based on volume, I probably eat MORE than I used to eat (one processed muffin vs. bowl of oatmeal with walnuts/dried cranberries, fast food burger vs. huge plate of vegetable stir fry over brown rice, etc, 1 bag of M&Ms vs. a big baggie of cut up vegetables).

Considering the anti-oxidant benefits of many of the foods I eat, as well as the increased fiber benefits, I can't imagine I am doing anything stressful to my body by eating good-sized portions of really healthy foods!!

As far as the statistics, I know a lot more people who have tried and failed, then tried and succeeded. Even those who are currently succeeding have a potential to re-gain weight. I don't think it's hopeless and I do think that there are a lot of factors that those statistics don't take into consideration (in one of the forums we read Rethinking Thin and its take on regaining weight was completely infuriating).