Another possible explanation of successful weight maintenance being associated with daily weigh-ins:
If your weight maintenance program is successful, you are more likely to want to weigh yourself daily, for the positive feedback.
If your weight maintenance program is unsuccessful, you are less likely to want to weigh yourself daily, because you want to avoid the negative feedback.
For the WebMD group study, I'd like to know HOW these people lost the weight in the first place. How many people in the control group or the mega-support group had done Atkins vs. WW vs. doing it on their own vs. some crazy fad thing? And how long did it take them to lose the weight? Assuming that since this is a scientific study, the researchers would have taken all that into consideration and put controls on those factors. (I'm an English major, not a scientist, so please forgive me if I'm not using the right research lingo )
My point is, support is great and it definitely helps when you're losing AND when you're maintaining, but what else might have even more impact on the tendency to regain?
Originally posted by susanrows: I hate to be Negative Nancy (maybe that's my inner toddler's name), but I'm a little disheartened that, even with all that support, the "best" group still regained five and a half pounds! I suppose five is a relative number in the weight loss arena, and it's way better than regaining 10 or 15 or all the pounds you lost. But still.
Does anyone else have a different perspective on that?
I feel like you do when I read such things. Then again I realize that living a healthy life style is and will always be a constant work-in-progress. Your body will change over the years, you will have issues with hormones, you will have changes in your life & life style and so on. When you think about all that, the 5 pounds is actually not a bad number.
Hitting a bit on what Denise brought up, I know I will never weigh what I did in my early twenties. I realize that weight isn't realistic for me any more and I actually just realized that only a little over a year ago. I was fit and at a great weight and clothing size in 2004 but kept wanting to go lower. I was actually more fit then than I was in my early twenties even though I weighed more. When I'm 50 or 60 I may look back at my weight right now and think the same thing. (I hope not ).
“This study found that after two years, an average of 87% (self reported) and 72% (adjusted) of the participants' weight loss was maintained.”
Many people read this and think, “WAY COOL!!!! 72% of people stay at goal for 2 years!”. Actually what it says is that on average, people keep 72% of their weight off, and gain back 28% by two years.
“While the NIH review indicated that "almost all" weight loss is regained by the five-year mark, in contrast, this new study showed that at the end of five years, an average of 69% (self-reported) and 50% (adjusted) of the participants' weight loss was maintained.”
So, on average, LT members tend to keep half of the weight off. Of course very few people are “average” and when you add up all the numbers… you get an average… so some people keep all the weight off… and some people gain it all back… and everything in between…
But authors of the study seemed to think this a smashing success… although I suspect that the average LT’er (over goal) isn’t thinking, “Yay for me… I only gained half my weight back… not all of it!” but I’m sure that some are VERY happy to have curbed the gain at the 50% mark.
My leader has led me to believe that very few LT members stay “free” long term (you can go to a meeting and be 2 lbs over goal and not pay. If you go over 2 lbs, you pay to attend that meeting) but I don’t know the stats of what percentage stay at goal…
I think that the National Weight Control Regestry has pretty good numbers... but MANY people go 5+ lbs over their goal weight. But I think that the average NWCR member may be more motivated. Also I think that people joining the NWCR BELIEVE that they can keep the weight off... and I think that is a big factor.
Also for many people "Goal" is not a fixed number. My goal used to be 106... and I'm never going back there. On paper, it might look like I went down to 106 and stayed there 2 years, then gained 55 lbs and lost about 40 of that. On paper, it would seemed that I failed and will never get back to "goal"... but that is my choice.
Denise
Posts: 8747 | Location: Silicon Valley, CA | Registered: March 17, 2004
I hate to be Negative Nancy (maybe that's my inner toddler's name), but I'm a little disheartened that, even with all that support, the "best" group still regained five and a half pounds! I suppose five is a relative number in the weight loss arena, and it's way better than regaining 10 or 15 or all the pounds you lost. But still.
Does anyone else have a different perspective on that?
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