Quote:
Originally Posted by Lolo70
It would be interesting to have some data on how many people actually successfully maintain their losses on each diet.
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Lolo70, it looks like not many. There is not a lot of data but here is
one medical study for reference, from the Journal of the American College of Nutrition:
Subjects regained an average of 73.4% of their weight loss during the first three years. The average weight loss maintained for 112 subjects was 22.8% of initial weight loss after an average of 5.3 years of follow-up.
But their program was lower calorie than most MF followers:
During the weight-loss phase (the VLCD program), all subjects were instructed to abstain from food and consume at least 520 kcal/day in the form of five chocolate or vanilla liquid supplements plus two vitamin-mineral tablets daily.
I think meal replacement programs like MF or IP work very effectively, but it's up to the dieter to adhere to a regimented, watchful maintenance. In 2001, I had lost 52 pounds with Weight Watchers and weighed 156 pounds. It was fantastic, BUT I did not make any real effort to maintain my loss. I just thought, well, that's done! Coming from a heavy mom and a history of huge portions of food, I know this time I will need to be much more diligent with both food and exercise after I hit goal. It's not magic and I think formerly obese or overweight bodies fight leanness - hormonally, they want to be fat again