If you have managed to lose a lot of weight and keep it off, what do you think was the secret to keeping it off?

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I am reading Why We eat (Too much) and admittedly I am not very far in but while I am finding it really interesting it is making me feel quite despondent about the likelihood off keeping my weight gain off once I lose it.

I was always slim until my thirties, then gained a lot of weight when I was out on heavy steroids. I managed to lose most of the weight but then regained it all and a bit extra. I am trying to lose again now but feel like I need to believe I can keep it off.

I actually love healthy food, and I don't ever binge eat but I was probably relying too much on ready made food because I have a health condition that makes me tired so cooking is hard and I can't exercise much at all - just some very gentle pilates or slow swimming. Steroids also made me ravenous and I was constantly fighting that feeling.

I have switched to all home made food and I am building back in exercise.

I want to be healthy and I want to feel like "me " again, but it feels futile when the message seems to be that

I have also gone cold turkey on diet coke/pepsi max as I was having 2-3 cans a day and I am convinced it made me more hungry. It seemed worth stopping anyway.

(Nb I don't want to use mounjaro etc because I have had a really bad time with medication side effects - steroids made me very unwell as well as fat- and I am just very wary of trying anything new)

I would love words of encouragement from people who have managed it, and especially if you couldn't manage weight control through exercise

Are you able to do yoga? Not the light stretches, but the more intense stuff?

I wish I knew the answer to this one because I've never managed it! Unfortunately the women I know who are my age (I'm 45) and slim really don't eat very much. I was talking about it with a friend the other day and she told me that the last time she ate cake was when she had a slice of her 40th birthday cake 7 years ago!! That just sounds like such a miserable existence to me.

I started on mounjaro in January and I could never have got the weight off without it.

Well, I lost over 5 stone in the 6 months after my DH died.

Not recommended. 🤷‍♀️

But, my stomach is now used to so much less, it remains the same - regardless of what I do.

Less calories meant weight loss. 🤷‍♀️

No sadly

I had to accept that i cant eat very much. i have two small meals and one snack a day. I accept that exercising makes very little difference to weight and understand it is only down to food. Don’t finish my plate when eating out, if i drink alcohol i have to eat less food. I had a big health diagnosis and my thinking kind of switched to “food is fuel” which helped. I am on a medication that makes me ravenous so have kind of played around with the timing of it so the worst time happens overnight when i’m sleeping. I don’t eat bread or pasta in general, but i will eat really nice bread that i love (baguette or danish etc) once in a while.

also while i have lost weight i am not “thin” but i am not prepared to put in any additional effort!

Saying your slim friends don't eat very much is your answer right there (one slice of cake in seven years is extreme though 😅)

A miserable existence for me was being 20kg overweight, high blood pressure and sore knees and avoiding having my photograph taken. Dieting and exercising every day is hard but preferable to being as fat as I was three years ago.

My breast cancer diagnosis at the age of 50 was the hardest wake up call I ever had, I had no idea that being overweight could have contributed (obesity can raise oestrogen levels).

I lost 6 stone (45% of my body weight!) and have kept it off for the last couple of years. I still track calories to make sure I’m fueling correctly for exercise, I use MacroFactor which is super quick to log food and it calculates my TDEE for me.

I don’t track on holiday and Xmas, but I’ve never really gained more than a few pounds in the those periods, which come back off when I start tracking. I exercise a fair bit, but don’t feel deprived of anything really, I’m vegan now so majority of my food is plants, but have a sweet treat every night and definitely have cake at least a couple of times a month!

Biggest factors for me are the exercise and losing the binge and restrict cycle I was in for many years.

Realise that all calories are not equal, so a protein heavy meal will likely keep your blood sugar stable and not make you ravenous, treats are exactly that, only very very occasionally, no bread, no alcohol, although I do eat cheese, a mini baby bel lite,😂 weigh myself every single day without fail, a slight gain means strict strict strict, it's the only way, unless you're a super fit person able to throw hours a day at exercising it doesn't make much difference, I lost 4.5 st. on mounjaro and am petrified of putting it back on now, I'm managing to keep it off, but only with the principles outlined above, and it's much much harder without mj, but I much prefer the 8 stone me in clothes, so I stick to it.
I also have prominent photos up of the fat me, repulses me enough to stop the overeating.

To be fair, I don’t really like cake; and I got to obese and had to use the drugs. Chocolate, ice cream sure, but never ate much of that either, not that fussed, but never really liked cake. it was too big portions whilst working a sedantry and stressful job that saw me gain not cake. I really don’t think it’s miserable unless you really like cake and feel deprived, and you can easily stay slim if you eat to maintenance and eat the occasional slice of cake as part of that.

I can only keep it off when I’m not working full time.
Office job combined with children just leaves little time for exercise.
I am not good at cutting back on food when working full time as I stress snack too…

I lost weight between January 2023 and September 2023 via 16:8 fasting, very little alcohol, cutting down on crisps, drinking plenty of water, and taking a lot of exercise.

I’ve maintained by sticking to the above although I now drink wine a few times a month and I eat crisps most days.

I find it very important to weigh every few days so that my weight doesn’t ever “run away with me” again. What happened in January 2023 was that I couldn’t fit into an old dress so I got on the scales for the first time in a few years, and had a very bad shock. By weighing regularly these days, I can nip any weight gain in the bud.

Intermittent fasting, very tight portion control, healthy eating and plenty of exercise

Ive lost about 7st mainly from hormonal changes caused by perimenopause but I do exercise 5 days a week as well as walk about 10k steps a day and eat a plant based, mainly wholefood diet too.
I think the key is really boring TBH.....consistency.
Find something that works for you and just keep doing it. I don't like the phrasing 'on a diet' as it implies you are going to come off it at some point when really it should be about eating healthy for life.

Interesting that people say stress causes them weight gain, cortisol I believe interferes with insulin, so can make it even harder to control your weight when stressed.
Consistency too can really help, I eat the same thing almost every day, so I don't think about food very much,and I don't over buy ingredients.

It's actually quite helpful reading that healthy eating has been enough for people, I like eating healthily.
This book has made me feel quite pessimistic because he talks so much about how people regain their weight at more after dieting because the dieting essentially alters how their body responds to food. But I am hoping it may be that the later parts of the book have more practical advice on how to avoid that

As can the menopause, increase cortisol. hence why so many gain weight during this period and struggle to lose it, and cortisol increasing also increases insulin resistance, mounjaro manages both.

There's no judgement from me about mounjaro but after 5 years of basically having a life on pause dealing with horrendous medication side effects (first steroids which made me very fat and very unwell and then a different immune suppressant which wrecked my liver) I just can't face trying anything else (plus there's no real data as to how it affects my illness)

@Thebigonesgetaway yes I never could have lost 4. 5 stone at 59 without mj, people think it's just an appetite suppressant but it's way more than that. I can't justify the price now I've lost it, but I will think about restarting if it becomes too difficult to maintain, I'm doing OK at the moment though.

Fasting works well for me. I've read bits here and there that it isn't the healthiest option for women but then being obese certainly isn't healthy for me and fasting works to fight that battle.

I don't eat from waking up until my evening meal, whether that's at 5pm or 8pm, just black coffee and water until then. After my (large and mostly non-UPF) evening meal I'll have whatever I want but I've not got as much drive to pick at food as I would during the day eating regular meals.

I have days where I'll go out for breakfast or lunch and that's fine. It's just a day here and there.

Generally though no eating until teatime. I feel more clear headed and I have more energy when I don't eat during the day. It stops the battle of 'oo I want a biscuit, but I shouldn't have a biscuit, well one biscuit won't hurt, I shouldn't have had that biscuit, well one more won't hurt, oh no I've ate the full pack'. This way I just think, I'll have a biscuit tonight' and put it out of my head.

I think fasting works for me the way MJ does in that it completely kills any 'food noise'.

Did you read the bit about how I was pumped full of steroids? What an offensive and stupid comment. I was a size 8 pre medication. I might have thought like you then. But having read around the subject it is clear genetics are a major factor too. As well as events outside our control (eg mother's who are either very underweight or overweight in pregnancy)

Do you? Why?

Complete change of attitude toward foods, and lifestyle too

i am not a mumsnet teeny tiny- I love cake and chocolate and pizza and pasta and these feature in my diet often, but I only eat ‘nice stuff’. As a result I don’t pick up bars of cadburys when doing a top up shop, or grab a freezer pizza for dinner. This was a game changer as I would frequently just eat rubbish food.

i’m also now very active which isn’t enough on its own- but maintains the consumption of nice cake and chocolate and pasta and pizza