Are we all just doomed to failure?
 

I have read a few articles this weekend that all say the same thing, and it really depresses me. The articles all state that 95% of people who lose weight are destined to gain it back again.

I have already failed twice to keep the weight off. I can't go through the agony of regaining. But basically I only have a 5% chance of keeping the weight off?

The articles also say that surgery is the best way to keep the weight off, but I know that people fail after surgery too. I would be even more depressed to go through an invasive surgery and still fail.

If it is already a struggle just to lose the weight, what hope do I have to maintain the weight loss once (if?) I get to goal? Just having one of my self-pity moments...:(

No, not at all. You have 100% chance of keeping it off if you stick to your plan and truly change your relationship with food and exercise. It's a life long commitment but you have the power to do it, remember that, you're in control of what happens when you lose the weight. It's your body.

I understand it's difficult, I've also regained weight. I lost weight without trying previously just by being happier and healthier and because I didn't pay attention I gained it all back so this time I'm very aware of what's happening.

You can do it :)

We need to keep working on it. I know it is going to be a life long struggle. It is going to take hard work.

That figure (95% of dieters fail) is a made up statistic from the 80s. I'm not sure why it has stayed around so long but it has. The problem is people diet without being tracked. You'd have to do a long term study of people dieting to get an accurate account and that kind of study would cost quite a bit of money.

The fact is that no statistic will determine your own individual success rate. I've never hit under 200 lbs but I've lost over 100 lbs and kept that off for over 5 years and I'm going to say that I'm fairly happy with that.

I don't believe they're destined to regain the weight -- they choose to regain it. On either a conscious or unconscious level, they opt for the short-term pleasure of eating what they want over the long-term pleasure of having a fit, trim body. As a previous poster said, you have a 100% chance of keeping the weight off if you stick to your plan.

Also, even if 95% of people end up regaining the weight, that means there are a million people who DON'T regain it for every 20,000,000 who've lost weight. That's a lot of people. There's no reason you can't be one of them, especially if you keep hanging around 3FC, where awareness seems to be much higher than average.

F.

Growing up I have always had to watch what I eat to stay skinny....After my second child and a tubal ligation I could not lose the weight so easily, so I just believed that I couldn't lose weight and so I might as well eat whatever I wanted to.... The point is this, I love food and I cannot control myself....so I must for the rest of my life be cautious of my eating habits and if I do that I will be able to stay skinny... Some people like my 6 year old, husband & his father's side of the family have little to no appetite, therefore don't have to worry about watching what they eat because they are never really that hungry anyway... My oldest son is like me and absolutely loves food and cannot control himself... Don't get discouraged....I did and thought that I wasn't capable of losing weight and so I gained even more weight! ....but so far I have lost 14 lbs.... I now know that I can lose weight...

If you need some inspiration and long term success stories, I highly recommend reading Thin For Life. It's packed full of long term success stories and methods to help you keep the weight off.

I'm not doomed, are you? I choose to continually work at maintaining healthy body fat and habits, modifying as needed, trying new approaches, and continually being accountable to the scale/tape measure/energy improvements and other markers I am using to determine my success.

You only fail if you give up. If you allow it beyond your control and cede power to food or circumstance instead of getting creative and finding another way. Life happens and sometimes regains occur with stress, childbirth, death of loved ones, hormonal changes, etc etc. These are real and can temporarily impact our habits or force us to put some aspects of our health on the back burner. But again, do you just roll over and give up? Quit? Decry the unfairness of it all and suffer?

For me, my choice is to deal with my circumstances and find a way to succeed if I find life has interfered and something is no longer working. I will NEVER give up. I will NOT quit. I haven't done it as long as I have been on this journey and I sure as shootin' am not starting now.

A statistic created by some agency or researcher doesn't determine my success. I do. I'm not giving some number that has nothing to do with me and my body any more power than it deserves, and neither should you :)

When I was diagnosed with Hairy Cell Leukemia in '04 I though I was about to die and really over ate. I gains 60# very quickly. But remission lasted 6 years then HCL again in '10 I gained again but more from inactivity and not as much. So I wanted to share a photo of my friend the frog. It was a photo my son traced for me when HCL came back the second time he tracing is on my desk at work. This is the photo he traced.

http://i859.photobucket.com/albums/a...nal-poster.jpg

Gosh, I didn't know I was supposed to fail...I've been at goal since 1977 after losing 200 pounds. The reason people fail is they go on diets. Once the diet is over, they return to old eating habits and regain.

C'mon over to the Maintainers forum, OP. If you prepare yourself ahead of time for what happens when the losses are done, it will make things at little easier. Not saying we don't have our lapses, but collectively we have lots of strategies for not being part of that statistic.

That is simply Awesome and inspiring. 35 years at goal. I have 193 more to loose of a total 250 so hearing from someone who has done it is so encouraging.

While the statistic is depressing if it's true, I don't see why any one of us can't be a part of that 5%

I agree that those stats are very old; they have been spouting them so long, I can't remember when I first heard them. My new doctor throws those stats around all the time: I said that they are too old to be reliable.

Also, I do not believe people deliberately choose to regain weight. Only now are we finding out what we have to do to maintain. Fad diets are futile. We have to eat in a healthy way, long-term. I have kept my weight off for 7 years now and plan on eating healthy for the rest of my life.

Once you get that through your head, that even if you eat a bit more one day, you just eat better the next snack, meal, or day -- you'll more than likely keep it off. No-one is doomed. Eat healthy every day to lose; and eat heathy every day to maintain. :D

But what about all of the people who lose weight and never regain it?

I think a lot of people regain because they find maintenance to be the most difficult part of their journeys. Just thinking about it fills me with some trepidation: I know how to lose weight and I know how to gain it, but I don't know if maintenance is quite so simple.

But honestly, your plan has to be a lifestyle change - anyone who is dieting and wants to lose a significant amount of weight can never go back to their old ways once they lose the weight. If they do, of course they're going to regain. I've never lost as much weight as I have now, but every time I've lost weight (15 lbs or so) I always regain it because I immediately go back to my old habits once I break the diet. But those habits have to be something we say goodbye to forever - not just for now. I will never be able to return to the things I was doing.

You can definitely lose weight and keep it off. But you will have to actively work to keep it off by watching what you eat and remaining vigilant about falling back into old habits. I'm not really qualified to give advice about this, but I know there's people here who have lost really large amounts of weight and kept it off. I'd be very interested to hear what they have to say about maintaining, and how they make sure they keep the weight off.

I think the statistic is very real and current. It pertains to anyone who is using a "diet" to lose weight and then decides that they can return to their "normal" way of eating when they're done losing. How many of us on this very forum have done this? I sure have. I can't tell you how many "diets" I've tried and how much weight I've lost and re-gained. It's really depressing.

What isn't depressing though is what that actual 5% did. Those are the people that actually changed their lives and attitudes about food. It's hard to do and takes more work than joining a gym for 6 months or eating pre-packaged meals for 3 months, or drinking only shakes for 60 days, etc. We have to think of this as a life long challenge that doesn't end when we hit some magic number.

I'm fighting hard to get into that 5%. But I'm a realist. I know this is not easy and it never will be. I'm always amazed at people who talk about their weight loss as if they can't possibly gain it back. You know the ones who beileve they've found the answer and then lecture other fat people about how they can do it too. Or the ones who whine about plus sized clothing and say if fat women had less options they'd lose weight. Or those like Star Jones who say people shouldn't sugar coat the message and simply call people out as being fat. (Particularly interesting in her case because many people were calling her fat for a very long time and it didn't cause her to magically lose weight.)

And then you see them a few years later and they're right back where they started. So, we should all remain humble and dedicated to this for the rest of our lives.

You'll only fail if you convince yourself that failure is possible.

Failure is not an option. This is a lifetime journey, not a sprint to the finish line. Don't ever EVER give up. You won't fail if you don't give up.

You have total control over your failure or success in this journey. Only YOU can determine whether you will be successful... not some random statistic.

Statistics can be scary. The employment rate is scary - but I found a job (after over a year of searching). Average test scores can be scary, but I know people who have scored in the top percentile. That 95% thing was done in some study in the 50s, I guess you can argue that a majority of people will still regain the weight. But even if a majority did, it doesn't mean that you will. It means that people can, and some have and others haven't. I don't know what it is that caused those people to regain, I know I have a few times and it wasn't because I did some temporary changes, it was because I was an emotional binger and just making physical changes wouldn't cut it for me - we are all individual and who knows what will lead us to long-term or short-term success.

I haven't maintained for 5 years so I may yet become a statistic but I doubt it because as mentioned I'm not on a diet - I've simply changed my lifestyle. That said - I have maintained and been a healthy weight for almost two years and I have a "secret weapon".

I'm going to just beat the IF drum a little more. Sorry to sound like a broken record but for me IF has made maintaining my weight very simple and here is why.

Calories dictate fat loss or gain. (No matter what any person or website tells you this is a fact)

When you limit the number of hours you eat it is easier to not over eat. (Key word - easier not impossible)

The fact that there may be some additional health benefits to it are icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned.

It's not for everyone but if you like eating larger meals as opposed to fequent grazing IF might be for you.

Ha! I knew that sooner or later you would post something that I would agree with 100% and without reservation. :D

Congrats on maintaining for so long as well! Good on you!

I'll toot the horn of IF with you JohnP :). I, without a doubt, know that I can maintain my loss for the rest of my life. I have control over my health, and not the other way around!

Love it! :)

:hug: (from one cancer survivor to another)

Idk about the accuracy of the stat, but I think it's like any major lifestyle change.

Look at the stats of recovering drug addicts and alcoholics, or former smokers. Sure there's some failure, of course lots of relapses, but there are also a lot of success stories. And small slips, or large slips, don't mean failure! Giving up is what makes failure.

Slipping back into old behaviors is the real danger, weight gain is the symptom of that. That's why it's said over and over to make it a lifestyle change.

Dieters may fail, but, lifestyle change people don't!:hug: Some days are better than others, and we will always have to be vigilant, but it's not impossible!:D

I find that the longer that I'm successful at maintaining, it is becoming easier, because it really is becoming my lifestyle.

I still have days when I don't want to workout, but I do anyway, because once I get there, I'm glad for the me time. Food wise, I still have days, I'd much rather call Pizza Hut for carry out, than go home and cook. Mostly I don't do that. But once a month I give myself a cooking break and order out.

As long as I eat healthy most days, and stick to my workout schedule most of the time, I can actually enjoy the now and then indulgence without guilt or weight gain.

NO!

You have to understand something about the weight loss statistics. Scientists basically have two choices when it comes to weight loss studies:

1. They do it all in the lab. That means the participants have all their food monitored, all their exercise monitored and due to funding restrictions they normally only can do these studies for a short period of time. WHICH MEANS very, very low calorie diets and way more exercise than normal. I'd be willing to wager that most of these participants go into starvation mode and the weight loss is just not substainable.

2. They rely on personal feedback. Again, this is extremely tricky because having someone reliable keep their own food diary is near to impossible. How do you know if they actually measured 1 cup of rice accurately? How hard did they run for 30 min each day? Did they take their measurements accurately? Are they being truthful about the number of the scale? What if they stop responding to your information requests?

Point is that slow weight, steady weight loss is extremely hard to study. The National Weight Loss Control Registry attempts to do this and have found much better statistics. BUT to participate you've had to have kept off at least 30lbs over a year's time. So clearly the participants already have it figured out to some extent..

Overall, you can rely on the statistics. There's just too much that go into them. Also, think about it in terms of yo-yo dieters (like myself). If they counted the number of diets that I've been on in my lifetime, well, there have been a TON of times that I've regained weight. That being said. This time IS different. I've been at this for almost 2 years without ANY regains. That in and of itself is huge for me. So clearly, it's possible even for the worst of yoyo dieters. ;)

Regardless of how old the study may be, I'd have to say based on personal experience, real life friends, neighbors and acquaintances, I know of NO ONE, (IRL) who has ever maintained a weightloss...big or small. Every single person I know in real life who has dieted has gained it all (or most of it) back within a few months to a few years. Old, young, rich poor, popular or not. I am the only person I know (IRL) who has maintained a weightloss for this long. (so far). It is coming up on 3 years that I have met my goal, and it has never gotten easier, and some days I'll be honest, it is down right hard. BUT, because of those staggering statistics, I refuse to give up. I just keep plugging away, day after day because I feel pretty damned special being in that 5%. It's what keeps me going and knowing that I have so far beaten the odds is a great feeling. I'm doing it because I know I can, and I enjoy being a normal weight more than I love pie and ice cream!

I would also like to say that if those stats are based on the 50's or the 80's as some have mentioned, I would have to say they are more than likely even worse now. Since the 80's there has been more sugar, more processed, more chemical laden addictive food added to the grocery store shelves than ever before. It's nearly impossible for some people to free themselves from the cravings and addictions of all the crap being shoved at us today.

Yes, it's depressing to think that we have to WORK at this for the rest of our lives, but it is possible I think, and I truly hope that in 3 more years I can say the same thing! As they say, "It ain't over til the Fat Lady sings!"

I consider myself to be a dieter because my personal definition is that its someone who is eating at a cal deficit to lose weight. I try to incorporate habits so that I can regulate my weight-even thin people I know go up and down a few pounds and they immediately address that. I am not a yo yo dieter but I don't know if I am a lifestyle changer either...I made changes that I consider to be permanent, but I will have to up my cals to maintain my goal weight eventually.
So some habits might shift (unless I decide to continue losing more weight past goal or I find new habits that I want to incorporate) and others may stay the same. Either way OP, no matter how you define yourself, its about what works for you. The people I know who regained did not resolve their relationship with food, only their habits. I treat my body needs and body cravings differently and I never did before. I now look at my knee jerk emotional feelings and address them directly instead of trying to run away from them - anxiety is less scary when I actually face it, than when I try to run away from it with food.
Yes I can regain the weight, but I can also get struck by lightening. At least I can control the weight! :D

Often we don't know someone has been overweight unless they specifically say something. I can think of 5 people off hand (4 women, 1 guy) that I only knew when they were skinny but each of them told me they had lost a good amount of weight (30-60 lbs) and kept it off. People that have met me in the last 6 or 7 years don't know that I have weighed more than 300 lbs for most of my life. Sure we see struggles of others and we may also struggle but that doesn't mean we are doomed to failure.

YES. and like in middle school or something too. When I first lost weight and people noticed I got a bunch of nitpicking, food policing, advice questions and talking about diet diet diet etc. It got so old. Even if the comments come, I think that I will try not to talk about it more than necessary - maybe I know more people hwo were able to lose a lot of weight, but they don't feel like getting tons of attention from it. Or its no biggie to them, so they just mention it in passing. I feel no shame that I am losing weight, but I don't want to talk about it all the time.

This!

Since I moved half way through my weight loss journey most of my local friends have no clue how much I've actually lost. To them it looks like it's just a small amount. Unless it comes up in conversation (and it rarely does), I don't mention how high I was at my highest. I figure they know I've lost weight but at some point the actual number of pounds loss becomes irrelevant.

Also, I do know a number of people in my life who have lost weight and kept it off. They might not have kept all of it off but still the majority of it.

Bah, I refuse to be a statistic!! :p

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." :)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.3fatchicks.net/img/bar-re...169/220.6/.png

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! :lol:

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.