Bah, I refuse to be a statistic!!

I put this weight on all by myself and I can and will take it off!
I will also keep it off because I now know that calorie counting has to be a way of life for me.

I won't do the yo-yo thing any longer. I'm 50 and it's do or die!

To quote a wise little little green guy (Yoda), "Do, or do not; there is no try."


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True, I don't think anyone is doomed to fail.

It's great that you know long-time maintainers with prior weightloss histories. I'm sure in bigger metro areas this happens more frequently than I would think. Unfortunately in small town very rural Nebraska, the odds of anyone even moving here, (that I don't know their past history) is even probably a lower statistic than maintaining a weightloss!

I remember having a great aunt who was very tiny (well she was old, wrinkly, saggy, and tiny - which I attributed to old age). When I was a teenager, my grandmother and I were going through a box of old photos. One of the family portraits had a very heavy woman in it whom I didn't recognize. When I asked who it was, she told me it was my great aunt! Apparently, she had been heavy throughout her childhood and much of her adulthood. When she was in her late 40s or early 50s, she went on some kind of diet and lost over 100lbs. She kept it off, because I only remember her being very small. Also, no one ever mentioned that she used to be heavy, until I saw that particular photo (it was taken at my grandmother's wedding). I don't remember seeing any other pictures of her at her heavier weights.

When I first reached my goal and started to maintain I just ignored that statistic. I didn't let it discourage me and I hope you'll do the same.

I've been in the 5% of people who maintain for 3.5 years now. It's really just a choice we have to make. It's not always easy but definitely worth it.

I definatly agree with this--I used to be over 250 pounds, when I was still in high school. I have maintained my weightloss for over 12 years I like to maintain around 150 pounds. DON'T get me wrong I have had 3 substantial weight gains over the last decade. It is usually brought on by VERY stressful events in my life-then I get back on track and lose the bit I gained again.

I had an OVER 30lb. re-gain recently--and have lost about 19 pounds since I joined 3FC in mid-March. For me the MOST important thing was learning to cook for myself, treating myself "within reason" so I didn't feel starved or deprived, keeping A VERY detailed food journal (calories, fat, carbs, and sugar), and the #1 thing for me is TO STICK WITH IT ( I feel like giving up all the time when the scale REFUSES to move for a week at a time or I eat right and GAIN! UGH!). I am really glad to have found this site...."WE ARE NOT DOOMED!" any of us....

While still overweight, my mom lost about 100 pounds and kept it off for many, many years. I'm going through the same thing right now. It's still a struggle to lose, but I don't feel in any danger of ever going over 300 pounds again as it's been relatively easy for me to maintain.

First of all - If you aren't part of a scientific study - you aren't part of that statistic, no matter when the info was compiled! I'm not part of a study. My probability of maintaining is 100% in my mind! I remember a college professor making this statement in class, "There are lies, there are damnable lies, and there are statistics." Meaning that statistics can be manipulated to prove whatever point we want.

Anyone who tries to sell the point that surgery is the only effective way to maintain weight loss is a weight loss surgeon! I know a number of people who had surgery. All but one gained back a significant amount of weight - 2 gained it all back, one gained back over 100 pounds, 2 died. What kind of success rate is that? If you don't fix your attitude about food, you won't fix the problem. We have to learn to look at food the way thin people do. We have to learn that a day off plan isn't the end of the world and don't treat it as failure. We have to realize weight fluctuates up and down. We have to learn that we have the power to be our own little success story of 1 - one who is 100% successful. That shoots the 95% failure idea right in the a$$, doesn't it?

No one is destined to fail. That is as depressing a thought as I can think of. While many people DO fail at all sorts of things, no one is destined to fail. We have total control.

Lin

Weight loss statistics are dismal, but I think it's because most of what we've learned about weight loss actually perpetuates failure. If you try to lose weight the way most people do, then you probably will get the results most people get.

However, if you refuse to follow the self-defeating behaviors that have become weight loss tradition (almost ritual) you can succeed.

But you do have to unlearn and give up a lot of the weight loss rituals that we tend to follow just because we see everyone else doing them.

Some of the self-defeating patterns are things like

1. Deciding that a single off-plan food choice means you've "blown it" and might as well binge until the next appropriate starting-over point. Which means that if it's not yet Wednesday, the next starting-over point is tomorrow morning. However if it's Thursday or Friday, the next starting-over point is Monday morning. Unless the month is almost over and then the starting-over point is next month. Unless it's past October, and then the starting-over point is January 1.

2. If you decide that the diet you're on isn't right for you, you abandon it, and take a (binge) break before starting a different diet. The binge may even last until you've regained all or more of your lost weight.

3. If you decide there's one weakness in a diet that's mostly working for you, instead of tweaking the diet, you throw the baby out with the bathwater and look for a diet that is better suited to you (but they all end up having at least one fatal weakness). But you think you can't "tweak" the diet, because we all know that diets are magic, and if you break even the smallest of rules, they won't work.

This is crazy nonsense. For a while I was on Southbeach and loving it, but I thought the plan was ridiculous for suggesting that fresh pineapple, fresh watermelon, and sweet corn were supposed to be avoided. I had never had problems with those foods, so I ate those foods, and the Southbeach God did not strike me down. I lost weight very well on those foods (until I didn't). When the weight loss stalled, I followed the Southbeach guidelines more closely and still didn't lose - so I decided I was eating too much and went back to my exchange plan dieting (because I need the portion control element) but I continued to choose mostly Southbeach friendly foods. Then when I read paleo dieting and wanted to give it a try, I also ended up finding that I gain if there isn't a strict portion/calorie control element - so I went back to exchange plan dieting, but used the paleo-friendly choices because paleo foods were extremely helpful in controlling hunger.

Unlike the dieting "norm" I didn't look for the "perfect diet" instead I learned from my own experience and used the elements that worked for me. And when a plan didn't work, I didn't decide that "I'd blown it."

If you diet like everyone else, you're going to get what everyone else has gotten. You have to find successful role models, but more importantly, you have to learn from your own experiences. What types of plans work for you - and better yet - which elements work best for you. Build on success and don't use less-than-perfection be an excuse to fail.

There are a lot of reasons weight loss attempts fail, but the biggest reason is how we look at weight loss. We're taught to give up when the weight loss slows, because that's what everyone else does.

We're also taught to see success as failure. My doctor set me straight when I complained that I wasn't losing at least 2 lbs a week like a normal person, and my doctor told me "losing 2 lbs a week isn't normal" "losing 1 lb a month (which I was losing at the time), isn't failure, it's extraordinary success, because most people don't accomplish it."

Knowing that 95% of weight loss attempts fail completely, isn't crazy that we consider slow weight loss failure. If 95% of people do not lose 1 lb a month, isn't it kind of sad that we even consider 1 lb a month slow. If almost no one gets 1 lb a month loss, doesn't that make 1 lb a month rapid weight loss?

The fact is we don't know what "normal" is, and so we judge a lot of success as failure. When you truly realize that even 1 lb a month is extraordinary success, you don't get nearly as tempted to give up when weight loss isn't the holy grail of weight loss the 2 lbs or more per week.

All you have to do to prevent being in the statistical majority is choose not to give up, and learn from your trials. Ignore what you think you know, and base your beliefs on what you learn from your own experience. It doesn't matter what you see most people doing, to succeed you have to find what works for you and continue doing that.

Being another Nebraska Farm Girl, you inspire me to keep on doing the the right things!

It comes down to this. That's why I say that the regain most people experience is a choice, not destiny. To my mind, there's NOTHING wrong about choosing more pie and more girth over less pie and less girth, but if that's the choice we make we should own it.

F.

Not doomed. I like to think that we're doomed only if we want it; and that those statistics probably express the difference between "dieting" and "lifestyle changes".

Dieting >> something temporary, often drastic, that you stop after a while, thinking "now I've lost the weight, it's over, I can go back to living a normal life". Except that when you stop and go back to this lifestyle a lot of us consider(ed) as 'normal', the weight comes back.

Lifestyle changes >> what's probably closer to 'maintenance mode'. The weight might come off more slowly, but the good habits we gain stay with us, and there's no reason the weight should come back after that. And since those habits also teach us to nip it in the bud, it's easier to stop the weight gain before it becomes 10, 20, 30+ lbs.

Actually I'm the contrary of such statistics that say that when you gain the weight back, you always gain more. I actually regain less. The one time I had regained more was because I had lost it cluelessly at first. The next time I lost, it was through lifestyle changes (learning to like exercising + conditioning myself to like vegetables, among other things), and those habits are still with me now. You may say, alright, K, but you're not at goal. I know. I'm a few lbs above "official goal". But I don't care. At least I haven't regained the rest, right?

Also, I think part of the "lifestyle changes" is to learn to like food. Real food. (I'm French, I guess it helps? ) I still eat "junk food", but I've become very picky about it. I.e. if I want to eat a croissant, I'll eat it, but I'll also go to lengths such as finding a good bakery to buy it—none of those crappy supermarket-croissants in my stomach. And I'll buy only one, not a whole pack. And I'll well darn enjoy it, every morsel of it, and then be done with it. So it's also about choices: ours.