I seem similar. I've lost 92 lbs over 8 months, and I don't seem to be having problems. In particular, I'm not having any feelings of hunger. I've pretty consistently been averaging a tad under 2000 calories/day, 35% carbs, 21% proteins, 44% fats.

One interesting thing is that if I go significantly over 2000 calories in a day, which happens maybe once every couple of weeks, I find myself automatically eating less the next day. For example, last Thursday I went over (2390), and then Friday I went way under (1150). I went over Saturday (2240), and under Sunday (1740).

I'm hoping the fact that I'm not feeling hungry eating this way, and the fact that if I go over my goal I automatically go under afterwards means that my body is adapting well to the way I'm eating and so I won't have trouble continuing to lose weight and keeping it off.

I've done similar twice before. Those ultimately failed, but I believe I know why. Both times I changed my eating habits, lost weight, and it was staying off. Then both times I had major career changes that threw my schedule into disarray. I didn't have time usually for home prepared meals or sit down restaurant meals. For instance in the first case I was working at a small consulting firm that specialized in taking contracts to step in on failing firmware projects for new hardware and redesign/rewrite the firmware--and these were fixed price contracts with hard deadlines and penalties for missing the deadlines. I'd often be in the office very late, and by the time I realized I needed food the only places open were fast food drive throughs, or the Dominos half a block down the street.

Next time I have a job change, I'm going to make sure that the new job won't mess up my eating habits even if it means taking lower pay.

As someone who (over the last 6 years has) lost 65 lbs (245>180), regained 45 (225), lost 40 (185), and am now up 25 and back at 210 I can tell you that this will creep up on you if you don't remain diligent about sticking to your new eating habits. Sugar addiction has continually crept back in my life despite sticking to low carb diets for almost a year on more than one occasion.

I second this. Sadly I am up about 35 pounds from when I hit bottom.

Sugar-addiction, at least for me, is harder to beat then smoking. I am able to go without sugar for one to two weeks and then it hits me and I binge on chocolate again.

Hope to find the strength to restart my efforts.

Does any of you have helpful suggestions?

Remember that relapse is part of recovery. Fall down seven, get up eight. Corny, but it got me through my hard times (and still does!)

DO NOT HAVE CHOCOLATE IN YOUR HOUSE. Ever. Even shitty chocolate. Even someone else's chocolate. If you know you'll binge on it, get rid of it.

Remember that chocolate will exist today, tomorrow, next week, next year. There will be a time in your life when you can eat chocolate again. For me, part of what always brought on bingeing was feeling like OH MY GOD I WILL NEVER EAT THIS FOOD AGAIN IN MY LIFEEEE. I had to, and still have to, remind myself that I can eat the food again so I don't have to EAT IT ALL RIGHT NOW OH GOD.

I actually had a friend who successfully resolved cravings in a completely different way - she'd binge on the food she craved until she'd never ever crave it again. I've never been able to bring myself to try her approach, but it worked for her.

Alternate:

have the bitterest chocolate around(90-100%), such that you can only eat a square inch or so at a time.

I've cut a tremendous amount of sugar by cutting way way back on Pepsi. I could not stand diet soda, so when I started aiming for under 40% calories from carbs I was trying fairly hard to make sure that I was way under 40% for most of the day, so that my evening snack could include a Pepsi.

I tried adding some low sugar gelatin cup desserts to my diet to have a nice cool dessert on occasion, not expecting much since I usually cannot stand the artificial sweeteners such things use...but to my surprise I was OK with these. That led my to give diet Pepsi and diet Dr. Pepper another try. Nope, still did not like them...but I disliked them a lot less than I used to. The diet Dr. Pepper was close enough to acceptable that I was able to start drinking it a bit, and after a couple of weeks I was OK with it, and after a couple more I liked it.

Pepsi dropped from daily to once or twice a week, and then to none. Everywhere I'd normally want a Pepsi I'm now fine with diet Dr. Pepper. That's cut calories from whatever falls under the "sugar" line on the nutritional information label from 15% of my calories to about 8%.

Of course, as soon as I got to where diet Dr. Pepper was acceptable, I saw an article claiming that new research showed that people drinking diet sodas lost less weight than people drinking regular soda, and sometimes even gained. WTF?

That research, thought, was based on surveys of people who had tried to lose weight for a year asking about their eating habits, so I don't think it is applicable to me. I doubt that most of those people seriously tracked their eating, whereas I have a spreadsheet with almost everything I've eaten for the last 8 years entered.

I suspect that what happened with the people who lost less or gained on diet sodas is that they offset the calorie savings from the diet sodas with more calories elsewhere. If you are trying to cut calories, and you have a regular soda for lunch, you might pass on dessert at dinner because you know that you did something bad at lunch. If you had the diet soda at lunch, you might feel virtuous, and reward yourself by allowing a sugary dessert at dinner which might be more calories than a regular soda.

One suggestion I have for the next time you try to cut sugar is that if you set a daily sugar goal of below X% of calories from sugar then adopt a strict rule of no borrowing against future meals.

What I mean by borrowing is this. Let's say you set a goal of no more than 10% of calories from sugar per day. One way to achieve this would be to have no more than 10% of calories from each meal or snack be from sugar. Another way is to have some meals and snacks be over and some be under, as long as at the end of the day you are overall under.

Borrowing is letting the earlier meals and snacks be over, and then counting on later meals and snacks being under to meet the daily goal.

The problem with borrowing is that you can easy get yourself in a position where it is hard or impossible to get yourself back down to 10% for the day. Now you feel bad and are discouraged.

Instead, try to make the early meals and snacks under, so that the latter meals and snacks can go over and still meet the daily goal. If you do good enough on avoiding sugar during the day, you might be able to have a nice treat in the evening. But note that this presupposes you are keeping track of your sugar, so that when you give yourself a treat at the end of the day as a reward, you won't go over. Without numbers, it is too easy to end up like those diet soda research subjects.

As a kid, my grandma wanted me to drink less soda (I spent the summers with the grandparents). So she switched me to iced tea, but had me add as much sugar as I wanted. As time went on, she had me add less and less sugar until I no longer needed to add sugar.

Today it's almost exclusively what I drink. The only times I don't is when I know the restaurant I'm in can't make drinkable iced tea to save their life (for some odd reason, it mostly seems to be Cuban or South American restaurants [1]) and I'll switch to soda.

[1] I live in South Florida. I suspect the reason is that Cuban/South American restaurants use coffee brewers to make tea, and I can't stand the taste of coffee.

Yeah, you can get used to anything if you can stick it out at least 2 or 3 weeks.

You might try soda water with no sweeteners, its what I drink now when out.

Re: diet soda and weight gain. There's some very early research that suggests artificial sweeteners may change you gut flora in very bad ways.

Similar to me. I've lost ~60 pounds over the last 5 years. I always maintain and slowly lose more. I don't crave anything or fight hunger, etc.

How many times have you lost and regained? I ask because I am a little older and have done that cycle multiple times. This last time I am going on a decade without periods of large weight gain. The first time you lose a lot of weight you feel like you have it mastered and that is one of the ways your brain gets you. Eventually you figure you have it handled, relax and then two years goes by and you are heaver than when you started. I've done that at least 3 times

First time ever. I had an eating disorder my whole life, which is how and why I gained up to 300lbs in the first place.

I no longer have the mental issues that caused me to turn to food for comfort, which is what I credit my successful weight loss to. And again, I lost the first 75lbs or so just through recovering from my eating disorder and not through dieting or changing anything about what I ate other than no longer turning to food for comfort and not listening to the binge urges my brain was sending out.

Eventually you figure you have it handled, relax and then two years goes by and you are heavier than when you started.

Having maintained within +/- 3 lbs for the entirety of 2015 I'm not worried about this in the slightest. Even though at that time I was not actively trying to lose weight, I still weighed myself every week and took measurements every month, as well as continued to exercise regularly (and even learned how to ride a bike!) I also maintained vigilance for ED-type thoughts and identified them quickly if I began relapsing. I absolutely adjusted my eating if I gained more than 2 pounds in a week or when I knew I'd been letting my vigilance slip. Still didn't count calories or anything, just mindfully ate smaller portions and stayed away from desserts for a while. It helped a lot that I have learned that if I eat sugary stuff more than two days in a row I start craving it badly and will eat it every single day unless I stop eating it entirely for at least two weeks.

I view my weight loss as the side effect of recovering from my unhealthy relationship with food. For me, that was bad enough that it was a full-blown eating disorder, but I absolutely believe that many people have an unhealthy relationship with food which causes weight gain that is impossible to reverse without first addressing the mental issues that got them to that weight in the first place. Take that and add in this new potential issue of the body wanting desperately to get back to the homeostasis it was at when the person was at their heaviest, and the rebounding of everyone who was on The Biggest Loser is no surprise.

"...I'm not worried about this in the slightest". Your brain has already begun its master plan to make you fat again

Damn son, dial it back a bit.

Maybe there's something different about the metabolism of people who manage to reach a weight of 450lbs in the first place. Without exercise and watching what you eat, almost everyone will gain weight, but most people never get anywhere close to the 300lbs+ range.

Well, clearly the contestants were at the far end of the weight spectrum to begin with, but regaining weight after an intensive, successful weight loss programme isn't rare, even for people who were only mildly to moderately overweight. That suggests that their problems aren't unique to their particular metabolisms, just more extreme.

Also, their pre-competition metabolic rate was normal for their size, and after their weight loss it cratered, and never properly recovered. Even if they had pre-existing physical or psychological abnormalities that contributed to their heaviness, this is a clear, objective measurement that started normal and has become different, simply through losing weight.

Maybe! I was 305 at my heaviest, but I was also a serious powerlifter and was at the gym 10-15 hours a week lifting, plus training for competitions. I often wonder if having that strength base made it easier, in some ways, to drop the weight than if I had been totally sedentary and had to start from zero with regards to exercising.

Having a lot of muscle will increase your base metabolic rate. Being a serious powerlifter, I imagine the increase due to muscle was significant (speaking just as someone who reads into this, not as a qualified professional!). Also, being a powerlifter, if you don't maintain the muscles, they would atrophy, taking a lot of weight with them.

Interestingly enough, I stopped powerlifting about a year ago and the atrophy hasn't happened as quickly or as much as I thought it would. Now, I say that with the caveat that I have NO idea how big my muscles were when I was at my strongest (which is also when I was 300 pounds), but I still have 25+ pounds of muscle that I didn't have the last time I was the size I am now (scientifically deduced from being able to fit into the same pair of pants that I did when I was 180lbs, when I am now 205lbs). I currently have a knee injury that's keeping me from doing any lower body lifts, and am only doing upper body bodybuilding style stuff twice a week. I'm absolutely not as strong as I used to be, but I'm still muscular... although, again, don't know how much of that is a hold-over from my powerlifting heyday because at the time I was like a muscular manatee... couldn't see the muscles for all the blubber on top.

[edit] 5'11", about 1.80 meters

How tall are you?

The last point is important. Many people claim that muscle turns into fat if not exercised for maintanence. This obviously isn't true. What is interesting is where that idea may come from: the habit of eating a larger amount of calories to power a huge masses of muscle that doesn't entirely go away along with the muscle without conscious planning.

In my experience, this is the case. Or at least, it's the case after they reach that weight and maintain it for a significant period of time. I don't think there is any clear indication of which comes first though.

True enough, but those are just more extreme cases of a trend we see pretty widely.

The article did also talk about people who lost 360 calories per day by urinating it out. They also unwittingly at 200 more calories per day. This amounts to losing something like 1.5 pounds per month. But they also note that this increase in calories eaten is what causes weight gain later -- so even slow approaches hit the same problem.

And while 3 years is good -- you really should watch for over 5-10 years. I previously lost about 40 pounds, and kept it off for about 6 years. Over the course of four years after that I gained most of it back. About 8 pounds per year like clockwork. I didn't even realize it was happening until I was 18 months or so into gaining the weight back. I did nothing different the first six years versus the last four. But something happened...

I contend you should then force it to adapt to a completely different athletic / exercise reality.

Of course the problem is that people drop back into their same lifestyles, and American lifestyles are pathetically nonactive.

Hint: 20 minutes 3 times a week is not "active". It's just better than pathetic.

It's pretty well-known that if you drop more than 2 lbs/week you're very likely to gain it all back later.

Do you have any source for the claim that if you lose it slower you're more likely to keep it off? While intuitively appealing, I keep seeing it without any evidence.

I can't find the source now, but years ago in an agricultural class in high school I was told that studies had been done on weight recovery in cattle who had been through drought conditions and who were either malnuritied or had lost significant weight. I believe the results were that the cattle recovered and increased their weight after this occurred.

Wish I could find that study! But it would be an interesting hypothesis to test for: if someone reduced their calorific content too quickly then the body will attempt to compensate when normal eating resumes. Obviously it would need to use animals and a control group but it might be insightful.

> Wish I could find that study! But it would be an interesting hypothesis to test for: if someone reduced their calorific content too quickly then the body will attempt to compensate when normal eating resumes. Obviously it would need to use animals and a control group but it might be insightful.

There's a natural experiment of sorts in re-feeding people with anorexia. Many people think this is a risky time because they think it's easy for someone to gain wieght too rapidly.

(I'm not talking about the related, but different, "refeeding syndrome" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome)

Interesting! Evidently this is a bit of a hot topic though, I seem to have raised the ire of some, but others found my comment interesting.

Very good info, though I honestly don't think it was exactly what I was thinking of. I'll keep looking for that info...

>if someone reduced their calorific content too quickly then the body will attempt to compensate when normal eating resumes

Ever fast? I find fasting extremely effective at reducing my post fast appetite dramatically. In fact, fasting occasionally the only thing that keeps me from gaining more weight, it "resets" my appetite.

Interesting - I've heard this also. I wonder if there is something that would only help someone in a normal weight range, and exercises?

It sounds like gradual improvements are the only way to handle weight loss. So it takes time and effort...

Not sure why the downvotes except maybe not sourcing it.

What you are saying is 100% right in my experience and watching others.

Cut 500 calories per day and you lose a pound per week and that can be maintained.

Those poor people were losing a pound per DAY which there is no way you can maintain that lifestyle. You aren't teaching habits for life with that kind of diet, you are teaching how to crash and burn.