I am now I'm now in my 9th year of maintaining a "normal" weight after a large weight-loss.

Accomplishing this has been incredibly hard, and, even after all these years, this task is not getting any easier for me.
See: Running DOWN the UP Escalator.

The Truth about weight-loss and maintaining weight-loss isn't something that we're EVER going to hear from Marketing Interests … (which includes most doctors and nutritionists) … however, Facing it, Understanding it, and Accepting it, can be very helpful.

Below is a recent CBS news article discussing this issue.

Obesity research confirms long-term weight-loss almost impossible. 
                          by Kelly Crowe, CBS news 6-4-14

There's a disturbing truth that is emerging from the science of obesity. After years of study, it's becoming apparent that it's nearly impossible to permanently lose weight.

As incredible as it sounds, that's what the evidence is showing. For psychologist Traci Mann, who has spent 20 years running an eating lab at the University of Minnesota, the evidence is clear. "It couldn't be easier to see," she says. "Long-term weight loss happens to only the smallest minority of people."

We all think we know someone in that rare group. They become the legends — the friend of a friend, the brother-in-law, the neighbor — the ones who really did it.

But if we check back after five or 10 years, there's a good chance they will have put the weight back on. Only about five per cent of people who try to lose weight ultimately succeed, according to the research. Those people are the outliers, but we cling to their stories as proof that losing weight is possible.

"Those kinds of stories really keep the myth alive," says University of Alberta professor Tim Caulfield, who researches and writes about health misconceptions. "You have this confirmation bias going on where people point to these very specific examples as if it's proof. But in fact those are really exceptions."

Our biology taunts us, by making short-term weight loss fairly easy. But the weight creeps back, usually after about a year, and it keeps coming back until the original weight is regained or worse.

This has been tested in randomized controlled trials where people have been separated into groups and given intense exercise and nutrition counseling.

Even in those highly controlled experimental settings, the results show only minor sustained weight loss.

When Traci Mann analyzed all of the randomized control trials on long-term weight loss, she discovered that after two years the average amount lost was only one kilogram, or about two pounds, from the original weight.

Tiptoeing around the truth

So if most scientists know that we can't eat ourselves thin, that the lost weight will ultimately bounce back, why don't they say so?

Tim Caulfield says his fellow obesity academics tend to tiptoe around the truth. "You go to these meetings and you talk to researchers, you get a sense there is almost a political correctness around it, that we don't want this message to get out there," he said.

"You'll be in a room with very knowledgeable individuals, and everyone in the room will know what the data says and still the message doesn't seem to get out."

In part, that's because it's such a harsh message. "You have to be careful about the stigmatizing nature of that kind of image," Caulfield says. "That's one of the reasons why this myth of weight loss lives on."

Health experts are also afraid people will abandon all efforts to exercise and eat a nutritious diet — behavior that is important for health and longevity — even if it doesn't result in much weight loss.

Traci Mann says the emphasis should be on measuring health, not weight. "You should still eat right, you should still exercise, doing healthy stuff is still healthy," she said. "It just doesn't make you thin."

We are biological machines

But eating right to improve health alone isn't a strong motivator. The research shows that most people are willing to exercise and limit caloric intake if it means they will look better. But if they find out their weight probably won't change much, they tend to lose motivation.

That raises another troubling question. If diets don't result in weight loss, what does? At this point the grim answer seems to be that there is no known cure for obesity, except perhaps surgically shrinking the stomach. 

Research suggests bariatric surgery can induce weight loss in the extremely obese, improving health and quality of life at the same time. But most people will still be obese after the surgery. Plus, there are risky side effects, and many will end up gaining some of that weight back.

If you listen closely you will notice that obesity specialists are quietly adjusting the message through a subtle change in language.

These days they're talking about weight maintenance or "weight management" rather than "weight loss."

It's a shift in emphasis that reflects the emerging reality. Just last week the headlines announced the world is fatter than it has ever been, with 2.1 billion people now overweight or obese, based on an analysis published in the online issue of the British medical journal The Lancet.

Researchers are divided about why weight gain seems to be irreversible, probably a combination of biological and social forces. "The fundamental reason," Caulfield says, "is that we are very efficient biological machines. We evolved not to lose weight. We evolved to keep on as much weight as we possibly can."

Lost in all of the noise about dieting and obesity is the difficult concept of prevention, of not putting weight on in the first place.

The Lancet study warned that more than one in five kids in developed countries are now overweight or obese. Statistics Canada says close to a third of Canadian kids under 17 are overweight or obese. And in a world flooded with food, with enormous economic interest in keeping people eating that food, what is required to turn this ship around is daunting.

"An appropriate rebalancing of the primal needs of humans with food availability is essential," University of Oxford epidemiologist Klim McPherson wrote in a Lancet commentary following last week's study. But to do that, he suggested, "would entail curtailing many aspects of production and marketing for food industries."

Perhaps, though, the emerging scientific reality should also be made clear, so we can navigate this obesogenic world armed with the stark truth — that we are held hostage to our biology, which is adapted to gain weight, an old evolutionary advantage that has become a dangerous metabolic liability. 

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, whose new book, The Diet Fix is featured here in DietHobby's BookTalk section, made this comment about the above-quoted article:

 

I think what makes maintaining weight loss seem "almost impossible" are the goal posts society has generally set to measure success. 

 

No doubt, if the goal set is losing every last ounce of weight that some stupid chart says you're supposed to lose then the descriptor "almost impossible" may well be fair. 

On the other hand, if the goal is to cultivate the healthiest life that you can honestly enjoy, subtotal losses, often with significant concomitant health improvements, are definitely within your reach. 

Ragen Chastain of DanceswithFat says: 

If you read the comments on the article, you’ll see that many people subscribe to the magical power of semantics.  If you attempt intentional weight loss, but instead of dieting you call it a lifestyle change, they claim you won’t gain your weight back.  This is the second to the last stop on the denial train, at the final stop people just close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and scream LA LA LA! 

Studies have shown that when people diet, their bodies change biologically for the express purpose or regaining and maintaining weight,

.... but it really doesn’t matter at this point why weight loss fails almost all the time.  The fact that it does means that weight loss does not meet the criteria of evidence based medicine.  If a prescription fails almost all the time, often having the exact opposite of the intended result, (and especially when that happens consistently for more than 50 years,) the solution is not to keep prescribing that intervention and tell people to try harder.

This is the world that diet culture built. Doctors, diet companies, internet commenters, people’s mamas and everyone else have been telling us that being thin is the only path to health and that if healthy habits don’t make us thinner than they won’t make us healthier.  Society says that the only “good” body is a thin body. Now we find that if healthy habits don’t make us thinner we “tend to lose motivation.”  I forget, what’s the word that means the opposite of “shocking”?

The solution is to stop worrying if the truth is “stigmatizing” and start telling the truth early and often.  Telling the truth with the same veracity that people post anti-fat, pro weightloss diatribes in the comment sections of every article that exists on the internet.

Public health should be about making as much true information and as many options as possible available to the public, and then letting people make their own decisions.

Health is not an obligation, a barometer of worthiness, or completely within our control. Each of us gets to choose how highly we prioritize our health and the path that we want to take to get there and those decisions can also be impacted by forces outside of our control.

The other part of the solution is to stop stigmatizing fat people. The article waxes tragic about the fact that fat people are unlikely to get thin, but the truth is we have no idea what our health would be like if fat people weren’t faced by constant stigma.  We have no idea what our health would be like if fat people stopped feeding our bodies less fuel than they need to survive in the hopes that they will eat themselves and become smaller (aka weight loss). Since statistically the best way to gain weight is to diet, we don’t know what our society body size distribution would look like if we stopped doing it. Maybe if enough people refuse to perpetuate the lie of weight loss and start telling the truth, we can find out.

My own view is, that just because something is hard, doesn't mean it is impossible.  

Losing weight is hard.
Maintaining weight-loss is hard.  
Being fat is hard.  
Choose your hard.
  

Each of us needs to decide for ourselves, whether or not we want to attempt to "climb the weight-loss mountain", and, if so, what individual path will work best for us personally. 

Here's a statement I frequently hear from people who are dieting.

"I'm trying super hard to not get discouraged,
but I'm not seeing enough results
even though I'm sticking to my diet."

Even though we are "responsible-adults" in almost every way, when it comes to dieting and weight-loss most of us are like spoiled children, expecting to receive something we simply have not yet earned.

Each of us lives inside an individual body, and bodies differ as to how fast they lose weight ... even when they eat exactly the same amount of the same foods.

Our ONLY real CONTROL over the size of our bodies is the food we put into our mouths ... AND, we have the ability ... although it is difficult... to control our behavior with food.

Eating less is the CAUSE of weight-loss.

Weight-loss is the RESULT of our eating BEHAVIOR.

  We DO NOT have any control over the speed of our weight-loss, and until we understand and accept this, we are not going to have the PATIENCE, and the PERSISTENCE, that it takes to continually, day-after-day engage in the kind of eating behavior that CAUSES weight-loss.

There is really no WAY that any one individual body can lose weight faster than it can when strictly following a diet that allows only a tiny bit of food intake, ... for example one such as the 5-bite diet.  Even a total water fast would BARELY increase one's weight-loss speed.  So, if you feel that a very-low-calorie-diet such as the 5-bite diet is a good choice for you, personally,  I say do everything you can to stick with it, no matter whether your weight-loss results are fast or slow.

Yesterday I answered a question from a member of a forum that I frequent.  I'm doing that again today. 

         Forum Member Asked:  

"What percentage would you say .. of those with above-normal BMI's are seriously obese? I'm pretty sure the morbidly obese comprise under 10%, but would you include others in the seriously obese category?"

 I found this an interesting question.  I thought about it; did some research; made some rough calculations; and came up with the following answer. 

There are "official" stages of obesity, using the BMI. 

Stage 1 is 30 - 34.9 BMI -- obesity

Stage 2 is 35  - 39.9 BMI -- severe obesity

Stage 3 is 40 - 49.0 BMI - morbid obesity

Stage 4 is 50 and up BMI - super obesity

Personally, I would include most of the Stage 2, severe obesity people into what I term the "seriously obese category", depending on the number of years they've spent above Stage 1.

About Percentages … roughly based on a 2010 survey of the US population,

73% of the US population is overweight or obese. 

The Percentage breakdown for women over the age of 20 is: 
 

64% of women over 20 - either overweight or obese 

36% of these women - are obese. 

The Percentage breakdown for Obese women over the age of 20 is: 

36% Obese. with …  

Stage 1 --Obese = 17%

Stage 2 -- Severely Obese = 11%

Stage 3 -- Morbidly & Super Obese  = 8%

However, note that these are the percentages of the overweight and the obese women within the general population.

When considering only the Diet Community population,  the Overweight and Obese breakdown is approximately 100% of the diet community population, rather than the 64% that is within the general population.

Of that 100%, there is no way to actually KNOW the breakdown between overweight and obese.. but common sense and my observational skills tell me that most women who join dieting communities are commonly near or above the obesity borderline, so the percentage of those obese dieters joining diet communities is higher than the 56%  which would be allotted through changing the 64% to a 100% breakdown. 

Assigning percentages of those obese dieters to stages 1, 2, 3, and 4 would merely be further guesswork.  However, if we based percentages proportionally.. which, of course, would be inaccurate…. Approximately….

47% of these obese people would be stage 1 - obese,

30% of these obese people would be stage 2 - severely obese

22% of these obese people would be stage 3 or 4 - morbidly or super obese

Dragging this out to absurdity…

the percentage of the dieting community which is obese .. rather than overweight.. could be at least  two-thirds (63%) or higher..more than one-half (52%) of that two-thirds would be severely or morbidly obese. ..meaning about 33% of 100% would fall into the category of severely obese or above. 

The absurdly-inaccurate general calculations above support my own personal estimate which is that probably about one-third or higher of the diet community population consists of women who I would term as "seriously" obese.  

 Twenty-two years ago, my own highest BMI was 52.9 which placed me into the Stage 4 category - super obese.  However, my lifetime of continual dieting allowed me to spend the majority of my years between the ages 20 and 50 with a BMI from 35 to 39 -- within Stage 2, the severely obese range. It has only been within the past 9 years that I have been in the "normal" BMI range.

The No S Diet by Reinhard Engels is a diet book that I recommend, and there are several articles discussing that diet in the DietHobby Archives.  I recently received and answered a question in a forum that I frequent, and due to its relevancy, decided to also post it here. 
 

A Forum member wrote: 

I realize I've never understood how you use No S.
Do you stick to 3 meals, but also track calories?
And continue to experiment with food types or limiting calories?

Although I have personally dealt with severe obesity, for all of my life, I have no ultimate answers or ultimate solutions for people who are severely obese. I've come up with personal observations and possible solutions, and here in my personal blog, DietHobby, I talk about these issues a great deal. I've made no secret of the fact that my own personal weight-loss and maintenance requires constant vigilance, and ongoing experimentation.

 In my opinion,  "Diet Head" is a negative term useful only for those who are exhausted with their dieting failures, and who wish to avoid taking further personal responsibility for their own ongoing food choices. I reject that concept, and I have learned that ... for me...any short term "peace" that comes from giving up personal vigilance over my food and weight issues has always resulted in a very rude (and unmerciful) awakening.

My own choice is to consistently approach my food intake mindfully, to be constantly aware of how my food and my weight relate to each other, and to purposely choose to view "dieting" issues as an enjoyable "hobby".

  I understand why people would feel they don't have a clear understanding of my personal dieting practices. My own personal diet / food-plan / way-of-eating has a great deal of flexibility.            

The only thing that I am concisely "rigid" about is my choice to track and log ALL of my food EVERY DAY into a computer software food journal. I have done this every day since September 20, 2004... It is now an enjoyable HABIT, and my computer history tells me that "0 out of 3503 days have missing data".

 My computer food journal automatically gives me access to extensive nutritional information about my food, including calories. I see that information every day, so it is something of which I am constantly aware.  Since I have ongoing information of how my own weight relates to my own calorie ingestion, I pay attention to that calorie number and I consistently work toward keeping my ongoing calorie averages low enough to avoid weight gain. Sometimes I feel frustrated, but shame or guilt is not part of my personal mind-set.

  The No S concept that has been the most valuable to me is the Habit concept. I've found No S to be flexible enough to be valuable for my own long-term use. Over the years, I've used No S principles in many different ways, and I really like the support I've received from Reinhard for that process.

There are times when I practiced "vanilla" No S, exactly as recommended; I learned very quickly that, for me, following a basic "S" day plan without modification would take me rapidly back into morbid obesity, and I've experimented with many different "S" day, modifications.

There are times when I've experimented with the specific number of meals in my "N" days, trying out modifications involving having more and having less daily meals. There are times when I've experimented with various other modifications, sometimes independent personal modifications, sometimes these modifications which involve combining No S principles with other diets.

Except for my consistent daily food tracking Habit, I am quite flexible about involving myself with food-intake experiments. Sometimes I've combined No S with experiments of different food types. Sometimes I've combined No S with experiments of higher and low calories. Sometimes I've modified No S to fit in with other food intake experiments.

 My ongoing pattern is to engage myself in a variety of dieting experiments.  I continue to do this because I have not yet found ONE single way-of-eating that will allow me to maintain my large weight-loss in a sustainable and enjoyable manner.

  At present, what is sustainable and enjoyable for me is the habit of searching and experimenting.  Anyone interested in the details can access the hundreds of posts and videos through my DietHobby Archives, or by following my ongoing DietHobby posts.

Working to control one's eating behaviors is EFFORT.

Weight-loss that occurs from skillful eating behaviors is a RESULT.

Although we are responsible for our EFFORTS,
we are not responsible for our RESULTS.

Eating Behavior skills for becoming thinner can be acquired, and using them can help accomplish that task. But even with the consistent application of the same eating behaviors, people's weights will vary. Weight is only partially determined by factors under our control. As we look around and size one another up, we have to stop thinking that a variation in size means a variation in effort.

Belts and bathroom scales measure RESULTS.

They do not measure EFFORTS.

 
 
Human physiology accounts for many variations among us. Genetic mutations exist which result in greater or lesser energy efficiency, and other variations in metabolism influencing the propensity to gain, retain, or lose weight.

While most people are vulnerable to the obesigenic influences of the modern world, some of us are far more vulnerable than others. All of us can lose weight when calories in are less than calories out, but it takes very differing efforts for some of us, than for others, to get There from Here.

Weight is neither a behavior, nor a choice.

Almost no one can wake up and decide exactly what to weigh... no matter which diet they decide to implement in order to become thinner. 

Many Thin people put far less Effort into their eating behaviors than the Efforts that are put forth by Fat people. Variation in size doesn't equal variation in effort. It is important to recognize that even the best application of eating behavior skills will not turn weight Results into a Behavior.

We don't ALL get the same RESULTS from the same EFFORTS.