When I think about how long I've been losing weight, I'm a little bit embarrassed, and a lot frustrated! I was watching this amazing inspirational video about a guy who was told he'd never walk without the assistance of braces. He proved his doctor wrong when he started doing yoga. He lost over 100 pounds and could do some of the toughest yoga poses, in about a year's time. Amazing!

Unfortunately, this video left me thinking about myself and how long I've been doing this. I'm thinking to myself, shouldn't I be done by now? Shouldn't I have lost it all by now? Two years and I've only lost 40 pounds!

It was back in May 2010, at 213 lbs, when I started on this journey with a weight loss plan that I'm not allowed to mention here by name. It was the jump start I needed, though, because I lost weight very fast. I did 4 rounds and lost quite a bit (and gained quite a bit back for a grand total of 30 pounds). With this diet, you have to give yourself breaks between rounds, and each break is longer than the last. So it was a couple of months before I was to start my next round, and when the time came I just couldn't bring myself to do another. While the results were fantastic, the diet was hard!

So I guess it's not so bad because I kind of took a break where I wasn't actively trying to lose weight. I got through the holidays and then started actively trying to lose weight again around the beginning of 201, the "old fashioned way"- diet, exercise, weighing and measuring, calorie counting and paying attention to fat and carbs. Unfortunately, I had less than stellar results at first. Then I got Bodybugg and I started losing again. The loss has been incredibly slow, though.... Another year gone by, managed to get through the holidays before I just lost my motivation and gained some back....I'm still not back to my ticker weight....

Now I'm back on track in 2012, but realizing I've been doing this for 2 years....I'm just frustrated with the thought! It amounts to a whopping 2 pounds a month... oh my gosh, I shouldn't even be thinking about this! I need to keep things in perspective. It's about slow and steady. It's about fitness and lifestyle. It's about keeping my eye on the future and just keep going.....

I guess I'm venting my frustration more than anything else. How long has it taken everyone else to get to where they are?

Don't be frustrated, I know it can seem slow but if you're learning to keep it off in the process you are miles ahead of many other dieters. I am coming up on four years of this in October of this year and prior to 2012 I had lost 55 pounds in that time. Three years, 55 pounds.

BUT!

I had a baby in the middle and was lighter when gave birth than when I conceived. I didn't have any regains. I didn't fall off the wagon or ever quit.

It may have been slow weight loss but I sustained it, and that is BIG. Since the I have found dietary and lifestyle choices that work better for me and another fifty pounds has come off more quickly, as well as more strength gained. All is well, even if it is slow, and my life has changed permanently. I'll take that over losing faster and not learning how to keep going in perpetuity ANY DAY OF THE WEEK!

I've been doing it for around 4 years. Always stopped no matter what dieting technique I used because I never resolved my emotional binging problems. Those years dieting were not a waste though, if I didn't lose and gain I would never have learned what diet worked for me and that I really needed to take care of my emotional/mental health.

2 years! To me it sounds like you've made a lifestyle change, and are not on a diet. Which, at the end of the day, is way better. I'd rather spend 2 years losing than 2 months if it means that I never have to do it again!

I understand your frustration! I've been doing this since August, and between Aug and Dec I lost 14 kg (30 lbs), and since then I've lost 0.8 of a kilo (1.7 lbs). In 5 months. It's so utterly depressing to be counting calories and working out every day and dealing with all the self scrutiny that comes with active weight loss. And to see progress that is so small, that it doesn't feel like process.

But, I just have to keep reminding myself that I have made a real and important change in my life. That I am way happier now than I was a year ago - my energy levels are better, my perspective on life, ****, even my uni marks are better!
And at the end of the day, that's more important than the fact that I still can't walk into a cheap fashion store and buy something off the rack.

I think you're inspiring! Congrats on your weight loss!

You should look at it on the other side--you are still miles ahead of most people. Where would you be if you hadn't decided to make a change two years ago? I don't think you'd be 40lbs lighter.

While I recently celebrated the one year anniversary of me deciding to get my eating on track and go from 182 to 115, I've actually been at this much longer! Seven and a half years at this point! The first six and a half saw me go from a size 18/20 to a 12/14 (I don't know how much I lost). While it was very slow, I learned healthy habits, made exercise an important part of my routine and kept off everything I had lost. When I finally got my eating under control the rest fell into place.

We will each have a different path Some of us will take the direct route there while others might want to venture along the more scenic path.

You girls are all a big inspiration to me, because I've lost a lot of weight and regained it several times. This time I force myself to take it slow and easy, and constantly remind myself that each year I have weighed more than the year before, and each year I try to get healthy and fail. So my goal now is to weigh less this time next year. Hopefully a lot less but I'd be happy with ten lbs of maintained weight loss.

Okay I know curiousity killed the cat, but I'm a very curious person and therefore I am DYINNNGGGG to know why you can't mention it here by name? Is it that the diet itself (the people) told you not to ever mention it online or are certain diets not allowed to be discussed on three fat chicks?

If it is the later, than that is weird because even if a diet is unhealthy (aka Starvation) I don't see why it would be harmful to mention it as long as you're not promoting/advertizing it?

SO yeah...soooooooooooooooooooooo curious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, enough of my nosiness...back to the actual point of your post...I so hear you. If weight loss is done in a HEALTHY way than it is soooo SLOW!!!!!!! So irritatingly slow!!!!!!! Especially once you get close to your goal weight (as I am) it gets EVEN SLOWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For an impatient person like me it is enough to drive you batty. But research has shown time and time again that fast weight loss (aka fad diets) generally comes back plus more. The only way to truly get it off and keep it off is the slow but steady method.

Even if it is annoying LOL. But it's for our health afterall.

Your experience is the perfect example of what I've come to call the "marathon effect" of weight loss. Weight loss is like a big city marathon. It's easy to see the 5,000 people ahead of us, so we assume we're near to last place, only because we don't see the 20,000 people behind us.

Believe it or not, you're in the lead, not "trailing behind." Sure there are people losing faster than you, but not many.

In fact, you're in the top 2%, so be amazed, not ashamed.

About 40% of Americans are trying to lose weight. Studies have also found that failure rates for weight loss attempts are generally in the high 90th percentile (the results tend to fall between 95% to 98%)

It's taken me more than seven years to get this far, so I'm definitely one of the folks running in your wake (my average has only about 1 lb a month. I'm getting it nearer to 2, so it's starting to snowball, but it is what it is.

I'm not at all ashamed of my progress, because I fully well know that there are 100,000,000 people behind me.

I wish I had known this when I was younger. One (if not the only) reason I would always ultimately give up the weight loss attempts (and then regain all the weight lost, plus some extra) was that I would feel as though I were failing miserably, horribly, and hopelessly. I'd think, "at this rate, I'm never going to succeed. I should be losing more, like "normal" people... If I'm going to be fat forever, I might as well at least get to eat what I want..."

I wish I could say that I came to the "marathon analogy" on my own, but it was my doctor who kicked my butt, when I complained that I was barely losing one pound a month and that I should be able to at least lose 2 lbs a week like a normal person."

My doctor essentially said, "that's nonsense... Normal isn't losing one pound a month. Normal is losing nothing or gaining, or losing and then gaining over and over again. One pound a month is extraordinary if you keep it up. Just "not gaining" what you've lost is extraordinary.

It made me realize that the "not gaining" is the extraordinary part, and that even if I never lose another pound, just "keeping off" what I've lost is extraordinary.

And you know, I realized this at only 30 lbs lost. At 365 llbs I told myself "even if you never lose another pound, you will be doing something extraordinary, just by keeping the 30 lbs off."

At that time, I couldn't envision losing 105 lbs. My "record" in the past was 70 lbs (and that was done with prescription diet pills and with a teenager's metabolism).

The amazing thing about knowing that I'm actually in the top ten percent (or better) is that I'm never tempted to quit unless I forget (or choose to ignore the fact) that I'm doing far better than most people. I'm succeeding, not failing.

We choose to ignore reality (and many of us are ignorant of it) by comparing ourselves to the "olympic athletes" of weight loss rather than the "average joe."

In the scheme of things, I'm in the top 10% of all Americans, and probably the top 1% of women in my situation (very morbidly obese, disabled, and with health issues that make everyday activities, let alone exercise, difficult).

Yes, it's taken me seven years to lose the weight so far, but it is getting easier and faster (losing slower as weight loss progresses is normal, but losing faster isn't impossible). And even if it didn't, it would still be extraordinary. If I had to lose 1/4 lb a month, it would still be extraordinary, because most people don't do it.

It's amazing what knowing you're "in the lead" does for your psyche. I don't feel like quitting, because I KNOW I'm being successful, even if I'm just maintaining the loss I've acheived so far.

I'll never be on a television talk show for my weight loss, because people don't want to hear the stories of people who've lost 200 lbs, but took 20 years to do it. They want the "perfection in less than a year" stories. And there are a few, but they're the exception not the norm.

You are not only a success, you're a role model (or should be. It's not your fault that our culture only praises the top .01 to 1 percent).

My first 50 lbs was within the first few months and since then it's been about 2 years and I'm slowly making my way down from there. I'm still not at maintenance but I'm celebrating the present since it is the longest I've kept weight off after being a yo-yo dieter for years.

I don't know how long the rest of the journey is going to take me since I have no clue what my goal weight is but I try to look at the big picture since I'm treating this as a lifestyle change.

I do admit I feel frustrated with myself from time to time since I would love to yell GOAL!

Google ATW Simeons - "Pounds and Inches". I am almost positive she and I have done the same plan.

It is a medical/allopathic protocol I have used with incredible success as well, but doesn't fit into the TOS on this site well, thanks to abuse and misuse by a fair number of clinics. Modifications to it undermine the mechanisms that make it function safely, and such modifications are plentiful.

Bingo. I have mentioned the diet by name, merely stating that I did it, only to find it erased by the mod. Safe, not safe, effective, not effective.... whatever...it was I needed at the time, it worked, and it got me moving forward.

Your stories are inspirational! I love knowing I'm not the exception. I love knowing that others have gone up and down, back and forward, and I'm not alone! Maybe this being the best and healthiest way to lose is true. Slow, but more permanent.

I'd done LA Weightloss many years ago. I lost about 2 pounds a week, give or take and was on the plan for only a few months. I turned around and gained it all back and then added 40 more. Once I hit maintenance, I was just so tired of it, that I got careless. Then when I realized I was gaining, I couldn't bring myself to "diet" to take it off. (The fact that I continued to gain as much as I did over the next 7 years is a whole other story.)

But getting back on point, maybe this way, though slow, will turn out to be less tedious because I'm not dieting in the strictest sense of the word. Maybe it will take me a long time, but I'll keep it off because I'm not dieting, dieting. KWIM?

It remains to be seen. I know I'm more fit. I know I'm healthier than I've ever been in my life. I'm determined to never, ever, be fat again. This time.

Oh, and Pepino, just so you know, curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back.

First off, losing 40 pounds is nothing to shrug off. If it's working for you, keep it up; slow and steady is a fine way to go.

Well I'm sorry but that is just ridiculous. If I said "I lost 10lbs last year when i was hooked on CRACK but regained when I went to rehab" I'm sure no one would be like "She's promoting that weightloss strategy, better remove her post!" Sometimes things are an important part of our story, as then people can understand your past experiences. So that does irk me. I totally understand the need for mods and appreciate their role but that kind of censorship is pointless. If you truly weren't advertizing for it than there is no logical reason that your post was erased or modified. Okay rant over.

KAPLODS...your post was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously. You need to save that some where so you can re-use it LOL. It was soo good.

I have been changing my eating and exercise patterns since 2007. I reached a body I was ok with in 2010, so I probably averaged 25 pounds in 3 years. It probably looks like a lot of time but, if instead of thinking of those 3 years in the past I think about what lies ahead if I want to maintain the body I am happy with, it probably looks even more daunting.

The thing is you have been 2 years at this but if you want to maintain what you have achieve you still have to keep at this for the rest of your life. So I don't think it's important how long it will take you to reach the body you want but the important part is adhering to your new habits and learn to adapt them when your life circumstances change.

Me!!!

I started in the summer of 2010 (somewhere between June-Aug depending on what you consider the official starting point was, although at that point I was around 225lbs already). I'm *almost* to a healthy BMI now but not quite.

Personally, I think slow and steady wins the race. I'm not saying you can't lose quickly and keep it off BUT for me slow weight loss has been key. It's given me time to change my habits PERMANENTLY and also adjust to my new body. As I near goal, it's hasn't been such an abrupt change as others deal with because I've had such a long adjustment period. I also feel that my body image is fairly aligned with my actual body size so I don't feel this push to continually go to a lower weight. Actually, I'm pretty happy with where I am but would just like to get my midsection down a bit further.

Understand something too... ALL the studies that show such high rates of men and women regain weight after weight loss are done on QUICK weight loss. It's nearly impossible to study slow weight loss in the lab so they just don't. The National Weight Loss Control registry is the closest that you can get to that but due to their nature they can't study weight loss in such a rigorous way as others. My point is, if it was possible to study slow weight loss I have a feeling we'd have a higher success rate.