Anyone else addicted to People magazine's yearly "Half Their Size" issue that normally comes out in January (just in time for New Year's resolutions)?

I picked it up yesterday and was surprised to see a follow up article - 10 years of Half Their Size where they went back to talk to folks who had been featured.

Eye opening. Very very few people are maintaining at/below the weight from their issue (4 people didn't include their weight at the time of the article, so I didn't include them).

* Karen Brown - 202 weight - 124, current weight 122

* Stacie Daniels - 2009 weight 154 lbs, current weight 160 lbs

* Annmarie Santillan - 2003 weight 120 lbs, current weight 160 lbs

* Cristy McAdams - 2004 weight 135 lbs, current weight 160 lbs

* Charles White - 2007 weight 217 lbs, current weight 230 lbs

* Sheri Cameron - 2011 weight 145 lbs, current weight 150 lbs

They also caught up with some of the Biggest Loser contestants:

* Ali Vincent - up 3 lbs

* Olivia Ward - up 10 lbs

* Erik Chopin - gained 175 lbs, lost 123 lbs

* Danny Cahill - up 24 lbs

* Helen Phillips - up 23 lbs

* Hannah Curlee - up 8 lbs

* Bill Germanakos - up 45 lbs

* Patrick House - up 21 lbs

Did you notice Charles Scott in that article ? He is a 3fcer and you can read his story in the Goal Section.

Oh that's right!! I thought the picture was familiar.

I was just glad to be able to read anything about long term maintainers. We need our own magazine!

loved the updates. I remember reading the original article for some of them.

Great post. Thank you.

Maintaining is extremely rare and rarely discussed.

Thanks for posting this, Glory.



I wish I knew why, though. Why do people find it so difficult to maintain their weight once they've lost? Is it just that to eat within a moderate range we have to focus on it (e.g., counting calories or something else) & that we get burned out doing so? Is it that most of us live in an environment where delicious, fattening food is abundant and relatively inexpensive? I wish I knew the reasons it is so difficult for people to maintain their weight. I'm interested in the reasons, but I'm very discouraged by the statistics that indicate how rare it is.

I think the main reason is the high level of ignorance among the general population about how to keep lost weight off. We only need to read all the threads here about how those who have never had a weight problem, or who are overweight and don't want to change, think we "success stories" can now eat and exercise like they do, to get a glimpse into that mindset. That level of ignorance is fuelled by all the quick weight loss schemes promoted by the mainstream media.

Many people who lose weight are unprepared for the work required to keep it off, and can't/don't want to make the commitment. Everyone loves a "diet success story", but no-one wants to know about the day-to-day hard work of maintenance.

Nor does anyone want to know about the hormonal changes and lowered metabolisms of the formerly obese...

Then there are the many people who eat for emotional reasons, and lose weight but haven't found a better way to deal with their problems...

When I think about it, it's a miracle that there are so many maintainers around.

I just wish that I could find friends IRL that I could regularly talk to about wl/maintaining. I realize that I can be overwhelming when I talk about it. Recently I've talked briefly, and offered support, to a woman at work that has lost a great deal of weight in the last 1.5 years after wls. She doesn't even want to talk about maintenance! On Friday on my way to the gym, I passed her in the hall. She was carrying her lunch--2 big bottles of pop and a large bag of chips. Maybe she was bringing it to a party?

I agree with needing some IRL friends. I very happy and grateful to have 3FC but I am quite isolated otherwise. that's why I'm going to try going to a "Weight Watchers" meeting this Thursday. I think the "newbies" are generally asked why they are joining and I'm going to cite maintenance "burnout" as my main reason.

And I really would like to have help with FINALLY hitting my goal weight of 130 and staying there.

Dagmar

I did quite a bit of dieting from age 15 to age 35 and twice lost sizeable amounts of weight (up to 50lbs at one point) and gained it all back and more (I often say I dieted my way from a 140lb 15 year old to a 200 lb 35 year old).

This last time, when I reached that moment, that "catch the lightning" moment where I knew I had to change, for the first time I sat down with myself and had a long introspective look into my dieting history. I knew I could lose weight, I had lost lots of weight! But, I knew I always ended up gaining it back. I realized that I was GREAT at dieting, could go really hard core, could really drop the pounds but I always...eventually...stopped dieting. When I stopped dieting, the weight came back on, and more weight with it.

So, I actually said to myself - how can I start dieting and NOT STOP? With all the new talk about "way of life" and such this doesn't seem especially relevatory but back in 2004 when I came up with this myself, it seemed amazingly radical to me.

I told myself I needed to set a new goal, not I want to lose 50 lbs (my original goal weight was 150) but I wanted to lose 50 lbs and keep it off forever. For the first time ever, I made maintenance the goal from day 1. I knew I couldn't do it with unsustainable 800 calorie days, I looked at the foods I ate everyday (curries, stir fries, pasta, quesadillas, pizza) and changed the foods I loved to healthier options so I could keep eating them forever. Along the way I realized that some foods made me want to eat eat eat! (no wonder I had spectacularly failed at earlier diets where I would try to snack on low fat Graham crackers or Snackwell cookies!). Once I realized that something as simple as a plain saltine would make want to inhale a sleeve of plains saltine crackers, I started reducing/saving for special occasions those foods that awakened what I dubbed "the sugar monster." I'm vaguely jealous of folks that say they can eat one Thin Mint and then stop, I know if I eat one Thin Mint, I will WANT THEM ALL.

I gave myself permission to be firm about my weight loss. I was always a people pleaser, if someone picked a restaurant I'd go, if someone made pound cake, I'd eat it. I would go with the flow in almost every case. Not anymore.

And most importantly, I had to finally accept that my "normal" made me fat and I had to change normal. I had to get off the American diet of fast food and convenience and huge portions and too much carbs. I had to quit whining that other people get to eat whatever they want - I had to compare it to being born wealthy. Do I wish I were rich like Paris Hilton and could buy whatever I want whenever I wanted? Sure, but I'm not and I can't. From purses to french fries, I can't have whatever I want and sometimes life just isn't fair that way.

Wow - I wrote a lot! To sum up, based on my own experience as a regaining yoyo dieter and a successful maintainer, the experience is nothing the same.

Thanks for sharing!

I'm kind of at a weird spot right now with weight loss/maintenance. Over Christmas and beyond I've been able to maintain this weight with pretty much no effort at all but now that I've trying to lose again and nothing's happening. After reading so often about long term maintainers who at least gain back some of their weight (10-20lbs), I have to wonder... should I just stay at a higher weight (even though it's not where I'm that happy at but it's WAY better than before) but that it's easy to maintain?

I always wonder... those who gain back small amounts, did they just pick too low of a goal weight? Could it simply be unrealistic expectations about what their body should look like and what it is like to maintain long term? Also what do they say about it? Are they fine with the new weight gain? Were they weighing themselves during that time?

I kind of wonder what is considered a maintenance success and a maintenance failure.

I don't know the starting weights of those folks listed, but because it's the "half their size" issue I know that they all lost significant amounts of weight. It doesn't seem like those listed regained all of the weight they lost--only some. Are they failures because they regained some of the weight, or are they successes because they kept most of it off? I'm guess that even if some of them are 40lbs heavier that it's a lot better than being 140lbs heavier and that their lives are still significantly improved.

It still is interesting how so few seem to stay near that goal weight.

Same here. I don't know anyone IRL, other than my husband, who is maintaining a substantial weight loss, and it can be very isolating.

Glory, when I first came to 3FC, yours was one of the first success stories I read, and it really inspired me. I am happy to read the above part of your post because it's a realization that I also came to this time around. I keep trying to pinpoint differences between my past weight loss attempts and this one so that I can convince myself that I won't regain this time around. One of the big differences is what you indicated above: I have stopped trying to compare myself to other, "normal" eaters and whining about what they can eat & what I can't. This time, I'm approaching this in a much more individualized way, i.e., if something works for me, I'm going with it rather than questioning it because it doesn't work for others, isn't statistically supposed to work, etc.




Great question & one that I have asked myself many times. When I first started dieting [this time around] in June 2011, I set my goal pretty high compared to others of my height (5 ft 3): Fit into size 8's or 10's and weigh about 145. (I often joked to my sisters that I must have low standards compared to other dieters! ). I didn't weigh myself throughout my weight loss "mode," but when I finally did (the week after Thanksgiving), I had surpassed my wl goal & was 140.6. Now I'm 135 (as of yesterday). That additional loss was not intentional, though; I've been trying to figure out my maintenance calories, and I keep losing, so apparently, I can eat a lot more than I thought I would be able to. The problem is that now that I'm down to 135, it's as if I don't want to go up from there. I'm recognizing that as a way of thinking that I eschew, so I'm telling myself that a range between 135-140 is fine with me.