"Approximately two-thirds of people who lose weight will regain it within 1 year, and almost all of them will regain it within 5 years.

Although dieting (ie, caloric restriction) to lose weight is a difficult task, the maintenance of lost weight requires the patient to deploy even greater efforts.

Rather than a simple lack of willpower, the relapse of most individuals to their previous weight after otherwise successful weight loss is largely driven by the coordinated actions of metabolic, neuroendocrine, autonomic, and behavioural changes that oppose the maintenance of reduced body weight.

The few individuals successful at maintaining weight loss (at least 13.6 kg (30 lbs) for at least 1 year) generally have common behaviour and strategies that include consuming low-energy, low-fat diets; engaging in high levels of physical activity; consistent self-monitoring of body weight and food intake; eating breakfast regularly; and demonstrating a high level of dietary restraint.

It is highly unlikely that some of this behaviour can be emulated by most of the population with excess weight.

There is also concern that unhealthy weight control methods (eg, fasting, meal skipping, laxatives, diuretics, stimulants) might ultimately lead to a larger weight regain and pose a risk to both mental and physical health.

Thus, although sustained weight loss with diet alone can be possible for some individuals, agreeing on realistic weight-loss expectations and sustainable behavioural changes is critical to avoid disappointment and nonadherence.

Weight regain (relapse) should not be framed as failure but as an expected consequence of dealing with a chronic and complex condition like obesity."

This has been true for me personally.  See my previous article:  Running DOWN the UP Escalator.

The above article involves a paper about the Widespread Misconceptions About Obesity published in Canadian Family Medicine in November 2014 written by obesity experts - Dr. Sharma et al, and it was originally posted originally posted at his website - Dr. Sharma’s Obesity Notes.

I have now completed 10 consecutive years
of food tracking - writing all of my food into a computer food journal each and every day.

Congratulations to me!

On DietHobby, I post whenever I feel like it. 
Sometimes once a day, and sometimes less frequently.

My posts are all Diet-Related, and they consist of anything that I'm in the mood to share. Sometimes this is merely a picture; sometimes it's a long article; sometimes a video.

Every post becomes part of my DietHobby Scrapbook.

All posts are Timeless, and browsing through the DietHobby ARCHIVES provides ongoing inspiration, and reminds me of the Truths I've discovered about dieting and diets and myself.

Recently, I've posted lots of inspirational pictures rather than lengthy articles. This is because:

(1)  I haven't come across any new dieting ideas that I want to add to my Scrapbook here.

(2)  I've been spending lots of time writing on various forums that I frequent.

Right now, I'm in the middle of one of my diet experiments. As usual, my choice is to NOT write these while they are ongoing. Perhaps someday, down the road, I'll share about this one, but for now, all I'll say is, at present, everything is going well.

 It's all Good!

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.