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.

I've successfully followed a lot of Insane Diets,
and have this TRUTH to share.
< - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - No matter WHAT they say - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Although the "ME" in each of us
(through personal effort)
can get Thinner, 


"There's no "Perfect ME" 
waiting at the end
of the insane-diet rainbow." 

And that's okay,
Everyone is Beautiful. 
It is our choice whether or not to recognize that.
Beauty is something that we get to claim and own for ourselves
WHENEVER we want to.  

The thinner woman inside of me ... or in most of us ... doesn't look like the one in the picture above,
and it will never be my own personal "end result".
But
no matter how many "Rainbows of Wishful Thinking" that any diet guru vomits in my face,


the Best I can be is Good Enough.
 

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.

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.