AIBU to think hardly anyone ever actually loses a lot of weight for good ? Please post here is you can prove me wrong!

[Smallhorse]

I have followed literally hundreds of weight loss threads on mumsnet in the last 20 years.

They all start the same way

“ I need to lose 3 stone - who is with me ? “

There then follows a lot of people joining in, lots of day to day posts about “ what I ate today “ and lots of encouraging chat in general.

People post their weight losses . Then their gains. Followed by encouraging messages to keep going.

Then people drop off the thread one by one.

I am not knocking these threads but they don’t seem to be helping .

Has anyone lost say , 3 stones of more and kept it off?

If so could you please post here and encourage me and my fellow fatties?

Thank you 😊

I’ve lost 5 stone over 2 years and am now slowly trying to lose another 1.5-2 stone
It’s never going back on
I’ve yo yo dieted since I was 14 I’m now 54 and this is it for life

Which stats are these?

A pp said 'I'm not losing weight twice'

I second that!

grannycake
Thank you, I find your posts realistic and helpful

I lost 7st about 9 years ago now, and I have fluctuated a little like when I had an operation or the time I tore my ACL and couldn't walk for a month, but I've never been back over 10.5st after going from 16st to 9st.

I counted calories (didn't do Slimming World or anything) and literally weighed all food/ingredients I cooked with, keeping a food diary and logging everything. It taught me so much about the actual calorific amount of most food and has served me well in helping to make smart choices or know what the consequences will be of eating certain things.

I was 'good' 6 days a week when dieting and then one day of having whatever I wanted. That really worked for me. Now I pretty much eat healthily most days but with plenty of treats. I have maintained the weight so easily this way. It's definitely possible, but not with a crash/fad diet imo. You need to really learn about food, and counting calories and keeping a food diary is the best way to do that.

I also still weigh myself regularly, and always in the morning before breakfast. Good luck - it's definitely possible!

Don't be afraid of how long you think it'll take to get to the weight you want to be. The time will pass anyway, it's what you do with it that counts!

😊

My mum was a size 16 after I was born and stayed that way for 28 years. She's been a size 8/10 for 7 years now.

I was 12 stone about 6 years ago unfortunately due to steriods I had to take at the time but now down to 9.5 hoping to edge it closer to 9 (I'm only 5'2" so it wouldn't be underweight). I have had a child in that time to.

It is definitely moderation. No yoyo or restrictive diets. We don't eat on dinner plates because they're massive nowadays and we as humans tend to want to fill what is empty. So pasta bowls every night. We eat everything, there is no bad food in our house, try to be balanced. And I do have a sweet tooth. But just because I am having dessert doesn't mean a massive portion. I still have sugar in my tea and coffee, full fat coke etc,.

In fact we try to make sure we're eating real. So butter is used, no margarine. No diet drinks or any sweeteners. When food is rich in flavour or even has some fat it satiates so you feel fuller for longer. Plus variety helps to. But still moderation in those meals.

We don't snack much in our house either or it's often nuts, dried fruit and the like. Definitely no sitting and grazing in front of the TV.

I lost over 2 stone from January to June last year. (Low carbing) I know this is not a huge amount, but it has stayed off despite creeping back into my old eating habits. (Especially over thanksgiving, Christmas and 3 vacations) I do eat less sugar, drink less alcohol and exercise lightly, I think these changes are more sustainable than extreme dieting though.

Yoyo dieter +/- 3 stones here.
I know how to lose it.
I am moderately active (dog walk every day/swim/bike)
But even when I'm at a low weight I'm always hungry. Even as a baby/child I was always hungry.
I also don't have a full setting so just keep eating.
I know people who "don't notice its lunchtime already" etc. but even if I'm super busy I get hungry.
I'm fine with my portions at home but struggle with the amount of food at social occasions e.g restaurants/Christmas/biscuits in office
I'm an emotional eater.
So eventually something goes pear-shaped in my life and I take my eye off the ball and I get fat again. Then I hate myself for getting fat and undoing all the good work and so I emotional eat some more.

I have lost 2.5 stones in 25 months. The loss is slow because I decided to just do the old mantra of move more and eat less but no dieting. So at least 10,000 steps every day, and 2 meals a day (never like breakfast). Minimal snacking - very rare for me to eat anything between meals. Eat what I like at the meals. Still drink wine.

I didn't want to diet, for me they were a always a short term fix and the weight returns. The very slow weight loss has meant that I cannot ever see myself putting the weight back on. This is the way I eat now. I feel so much better, healthier and in control. Most people want to lose weight fast and unless you change the bad habits for good, it will pile back on.

Meant to add I am a menopausal middle aged woman and was when I started to lose weight so you can lose weight in middle age.

I think it depends why you gained weight. I gained weight being on fertility treatment for 8 years. I had never had an issue with my weight. I went off the pill, had to go on loads of medication and stacked on 10kg in 8 months and kept gaining until I stopped fertility medication. No matter how hard I try I do not lose weight. The only way I can lose any eight weight is to drop to 900 calls a day which basically means you are starving all day.

The trick is to stay active and busy. Exercise suppresses your appetite and staying busy keeps your mind occupies so you're not thinking about food.

I lost 6 stone end of 2015/2016. August 2016 I fell Pregnant and after pregnancy I put around a stone back on. Since then I've stayed at around the same weight... Ithinki ts down to how you lose the weight tbh, if you crash diet then it won't work long term. In my opinion xx

I’m finding this thread really quite inspiring.

I’ve got 2.5 stone to lose and, v slowly, it’s coming off. I’m moving more, consciously eating more veg and ditched all the excuses I found for not walking to work!

But even when I'm at a low weight I'm always hungry. Even as a baby/child I was always hungry.

How much fat are you eating, out of interest? It might well be an oversimplification but to me, hunger points to a lack of fat in your diet. I ate a low fat diet for years and quite simply I was always always hungry. I did low carbing for a few years and all my hunger totally vanished.

I don't low carb now as for me it wasn't sustainable in the very long term, as good as it is in other ways but I eat nut butter in my porridge, avocado or olive oil with lunch, real butter, etc. I very rarely feel hungry now. Or mildly/appropriately so before meals.

I lost 3st in 2004 and have kept it off. I was about 1.5st heavier than I am now after DD2 but 10 weeks back on WW sorted that out and that was 4 years ago.

I agree that it was about complete lifestyle change. I realised that I’m an emotional eater and that I needed to have more of an active relationship with food and an understanding of how I related to it. I liked WW because it didn’t ban any food, just reduced the stuff that wasn’t so sensible. I never ate any of their branded products and also worked to reduce my portion sizes. I now eat off smaller plates.

I actively try to lose weight coming up to Christmas or other holidays and then if I gain a couple of pounds, it doesn’t matter!

Permanent weight loss is really a case of mind over matter.

YABU.
I lost over 20kg and kept it off.

How? Very simply, actually.

A diet doesn't have an end date. It's a lifestyle change rather than a quick fix. While losing weight, I ate at a deficit, and now I eat at maintenance - that's all there is to it.

If you're going to slip back into old habits as soon as you reach your target weight, the pounds will pile back on.

I've lost almost three stone since September 2016 and I've kept it off. I know this isn't a particularly long amount of time. I'm terrified of putting it all back on again and every day I have to carefully consider my food intake. It's exhausting and takes over my life.

I often wish I could just rock up to Greggs and get a baguette or a sausage roll and just not worry about it!

Has anyone lost say , 3 stones of more and kept it off?

Yes, my OH did. He was overweight since childhood but when he was in his early 30's he did a lifestyle change which resulted in a "permanent" weight loss of 4 stones, which he's kept off for the 21 years of our married life.

He had a sedentary job (sat at office), a 2 hourly daily commute sat in the car, did no exercise and just binged on crisps, chocolates etc all day (an addiction started in childhood when he first discovered the primary school tuck-shop!). Luckily, he never smoked and never liked any alcohol, so food was his only vice (sadly still is!).

We worked together on changing his "trigger points". A lot of his eating was from stopping off at garages on his commute to buy pies, chocolates, crisps etc to eat on the commute. He'd tried not stopping, but like I say, it was an addictive habit. So we worked to get him a more local job in our own town, so he didn't have the time or opportunity to stop off and stuff himself on his journey. That was a massive success in itself and the weight started to come off.

Then we started the exercise. We just started going for walks, bought ourselves a couple of bikes to do some easy cycling, took up learning to play golf. Nothing excessive, no gyms or marathons, just made sure that we included various forms of light exercise at least twice a week. The weight kept coming off.

He lost 2 or 3 stones within maybe 6 months of the life change and in the years since then, he maybe loses a pound or so every month or two, so very gradual, but at least it's all downwards.

He doesn't (and never has) do "diets". He eats normally the same as the rest of the household, probably not too healthily as he likes his chips, processed foods, etc., and turns his nose up at the suggestion of salads or veg! But, because he doesn't binge anymore and doesn't really eat snacks between meals, he can get away with it, and the regular light exercise which we still do stops the weight coming back on at least.

I'm sure he could lose another stone or two pretty easily if he'd cut back on the chips & processed foods and increased the fruit/veg, but he's happy as he is for now, and like I say, we're happy that there's still an occasional pound or so reduction even on what I think is a poor diet.

For him, the change was all about a change in attitude and lifestyle, we identified his trigger points and problem areas and dealt with them, rather than going down the road of fad diets.

The anecdotes you'll find here are next to useless. 97% of people who lose weight gain all of it back within a few years. A good portion of those 3% used bariatric surgery*

Sorry, but that is simply not the case - it is a"well known" statistic but it is inaccurate.

That 95% figure comes from a study in 1959 of just a hundred people - estimates vary, but better, longer term studies of greater numbers of people put the figure at more like 36%. However, these stats are hard to quantify - if you lose, say, ten stones and keep it off for thirty years but then gain two stones, is that "failing"?

Proof of the unreliability of stats here :

www.nytimes.com/1999/05/25/health/95-regain-lost-weight-or-do-they.html