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I think we've all seen the before and after photos posted in magazines, books, and online or know of people who have made beyond tremendous success in terms of improving their overall health and body composition. However, does anyone know of those that after much hard work and determination to look fantastic let themselves go again just to be back to where they started?
I don't think it's fair to categorize it as "letting themselves go."
The older you get, the harder it is to keep thin and trim, especially after a lifetime of bad eating habits.
When I was 42, following a divorce, I took up cycling and stopped eating any fast food. My life really sucked in every way, so I would spend three hours a day on that bike, five days a week. Plus, the bike trail was 60 miles away, so I spent an hour driving to and from the trail.
I worked and I rode my bike.
Years later, I remarried and suddenly, I was back to eating three meals a day, and riding my bike 30 minutes four times a week and I regained 30 pounds in about five minutes.
My point is, staying fit when can be a full-time job if that's not your natural body habitus.
To answer your original question, I have read that "most" of the people featured on "The Biggest Loser" gained back much of the weight, because the weight was lost TOO fast.
Sure, LOTS of examples out there where people make an unsustainable lifestyle change, and when they finally can't keep it up anymore, they go back to fat again.
Much fewer examples of people who made a lifestyle change, lost a bunch of weight and kept it off for decades ~ I'm 12 years out from my big loss and have never fluctuated beyond about 5% of my average over that time, though I'm threatening to right now... on the Low side, and yet I'm STILL hyper aware of my diet and exercise. It takes no effort at all to be fat and out of shape, it's EASY, which is why it's such a plague on first world countries.
Anyone can put in the short term efforts to look great. It's not hard and doesn't take a whole lot of time to get there. But the dedication to maintain that lifestyle, that's rare.
i agree a lot with Rosemary T. It's VERY easy to return to fat as an older person and it's harder to get the weight off too. My big loss happened in my early 40s and it wasn't really a walk in the park. I had to work doubly hard to get the weight off and keep it off. It required me to be dialed "all in" and keep a singular focus. I've had achievements in my life, but dropping 70 lbs will always be a personal, endearing victory for me. My weight loss journey involved overcoming many obstacles but I did it. Maybe it's because I had to work so hard to get where I am now (and realizing that losing again at an even older age will be much harder) is the reason why I'm not going to be a statistic - the 95% who regain all of their lost weight.
This is where, to me, exercise becomes crucial. It changes your mentality from a "fat person" to a "fit person". You become very aware of what you eat and are attuned to your weight. I can tell if the trajectory is going upwards and i do something about it before it gets out of hand. Eat less or work out a little more. Can't really put it to words now but my mindset is different than when I was obese and it really is all about the mental. Exercise has really helped with changing my mentality.
i agree a lot with Rosemary T. It's VERY easy to return to fat as an older person and it's harder to get the weight off too. My big loss happened in my early 40s and it wasn't really a walk in the park. I had to work doubly hard to get the weight off and keep it off. It required me to be dialed "all in" and keep a singular focus. I've had achievements in my life, but dropping 70 lbs will always be a personal, endearing victory for me. My weight loss journey involved overcoming many obstacles but I did it. Maybe it's because I had to work so hard to get where I am now (and realizing that losing again at an even older age will be much harder) is the reason why I'm not going to be a statistic - the 95% who regain all of their lost weight.
This is where, to me, exercise becomes crucial. It changes your mentality from a "fat person" to a "fit person". You become very aware of what you eat and are attuned to your weight. I can tell if the trajectory is going upwards and i do something about it before it gets out of hand. Eat less or work out a little more. Can't really put it to words now but my mindset is different than when I was obese and it really is all about the mental. Exercise has really helped with changing my mentality.
Exercise is they key to staying at a healthy weight. And it is no picnic trying to lose weight as a women in her 40's. I lost 40 pounds when I was 47. I am now 56 and in those years my weight has fluctuated between 5 and 10 pounds over. When my jeans get tight I know I have to eat less and move more. But after going through menopause last year the scale hardly moves at all. But that is not going to deter me from exercising and staying at a healthy weight.
Even though diet is at least 90% of the equation for losing the weight I believe exercise is at least 70% for keeping it off.
Guilty as charged. Part of due to medications which caused weight gain but I went from lean and mean last year to borderline obese now I am down about 7 lbs but have 30 plus more lbs to go. My metabolism has never been fast but now it's slowing down at almost age 50.
Honestly when I was really lean I was so burned out on doing cardio the same thing every day for almost 60 minutes and my knees were wracked with constant tendinitis and eating only 1200 calories a day. I just burned out and with the meds bam OMG the weight came back in 6 months or less.
Maybe I need to hire a trainer to keep me motivated who knows but I am focused now and determined to lose the weight now.
To expound on my previous post about mindset changes - I no longer have that "I've fallen and can't get up!" mentality.
Meaning, life happens. There will be curveballs that may derail your perfect little eating plan, exercise regimen.
If all you did was learn how to diet your way into a size 4, but in actuality, your mentality didn't change, you will regain when hit with life's obstacles.
I'm a working parent who still has to be a wife, mother, and a colleague. There will be times that I will not be able to have my full workout. There will be times that I will be eating out multiple times per week. There will be times when I will get sick and totally go off the rails. Pounds may come on.
The key thing is that I don't stay in a "fallen" state. I got gobsmacked with pneumonia last year in December. Inability to work out and constant holiday overeating translated into a TWENTY POUND REGAIN. Instead of putting myself on cruise control back up to 220 by reverting to habits of old, I hit the gym the moment I was physically able to do so. Like someone chops away at a tree, I chipped away at the regained weight until it was mostly gone some months later. I didn't just lose 70 lbs, I worked on freeing myself of my behavioral demons that threatened (and still do threaten) to make me return to being fat. I say "still threaten" because it is a never ending saga. There are days that I truly feel like being seduced by the dark side and I do succumb. For example, I had crap go down at my job and I found myself stress eating. I was no longer in control. Thankfully it wasn't a full on binge but it happened so quickly and I consumed more calories than my body needed. I could actually tell because I was full, yet continued eating. Again, what did I do? Just keep on going down that road? No. Next day I started anew, returned to eating normal, delicious healthier food and I hit the gym with a vengeance.
if you don't have a mentality shift and all you do is learn how to restrict, then there's a high chance you'll fail when taken out of your comfort zone.
I think we've all seen the before and after photos posted in magazines, books, and online or know of people who have made beyond tremendous success in terms of improving their overall health and body composition. However, does anyone know of those that after much hard work and determination to look fantastic let themselves go again just to be back to where they started?
I think Boy George is headed in that direction. He was very overweight a decade ago, then dropped a good deal of it. He looked slammin' aboyt 5 years ago. Very hot looking. But it's been sneaking back on him the last year or so. The Daily Mail just posted photos of him walking in Sydney Harbour (he's a judge on the Australian The Voice)... they aren't very flattering.
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