Going back to old habits - will I gain?

If i used to weigh 138 lbs eating whatever i want and living a sedentary lifestyle and a few months ago started eating less, counting calories, doing some weightlifting, and went down to 125 lbs.

if i go back to my old habits, will i gain more weight than 138 back as a yo-yo effect?

Yes, you will. It might take a while, but sure enough the longer you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain the weight back. Happened to me last December and that's why I'm back on here a year later with even more weight to lose! :)

If you need to take a break, by all means, stop obesessing about it, but generally try to make the same healthy decisions or exercise in a different way so that all your hard work doesn't go to waste... or uhh, to waist! :)

it depends on whether or not you are sedentary or not .. I used to be active and could eat anything that i wanted and i didnt gain an inch.  Once I stopped being active the pounds slowly crept into my life.... it was so slow that i didnt realize i was fat until i couldnt fit into my clothes anymore! be careful ;)  just be healthy and exercise and eat the things you like but with moderation ;)

well i'm like 8-9% body fat now i'm pretty sure, so i wasn't even really at an unhealthy weight before.

i'm just afraid that if i return to my old habits (minimal exercise, eating junk), that i'll go back to my original weight + More...?  

If you had to make changes to your lifestyle to lose weight, then reverting back to your lifestyle before those changes will make you gain the weight back, yes.

That's the problem with all these quick-fix diets: as soon as you go back to eating more than just rice, or grapefruit, or meat you gain the weight back.

You will not maintain 8% body fat without working at it.

If you eat as much as you did when you were 138 pounds, yes, you will gain weight, because: 1.) 125 pounds takes fewer calories to maintain than 138 pounds does; 2.) if you don't exercise as you currently do, you will lose muscle tone, and untoned muscles are not as metabolically active as working muscles (so burn fewer calories).

This does not mean that you will always have to exercise/eat as you did to lose the weight. It means you need to eat appropriately for your weight and lifestyle. IOW, if you stop working out, don't eat as though you still do. If you eat appropriately -- at maintenance calories for you at your current weight and activity level -- you should maintain your weight loss.

i know i'll go back to my original.

my main question, is will i go back to even more than my original?

"well, by looking in my crystal ball i can see that you are definitely not going to gain it all back!"

sibrek, no one can answer that! your body and the way it handles what you feed it and how you work it changes with age, stress, life!

i don't know what kind of answer you're looking for here, but i can guess. if you don't want to continue with a healthy lifestyle, you WILL GAIN IT BACK and you MIGHT gain more! You might NOT gain more. That's the gist of it.

If you eat more than you burn, you will gain until your intake matches your burn rate; if that never happens, you'll keep gaining.

If you have damaged your metabolism in some way -- such as by convincing it that it's subject to famine (IOW, by undereating) -- your body could react by gaining fat even if you eat below what should be your burn rate, because your metabolism may have adjusted itself downward.

even though i never gained in the past?

Yes, you might gain now even if you didn't in the past. You'll see a lot of people on this site who were livin' carefree eating whatever, not exercising and were rail-thin. All of a sudden, something happened and they can no longer live like that! They have to watch what they eat and exercise like others. Your body and metabolism might change as it ages or it might not. Your body might change the way it handles the food you eat and whether your burn it off or not. It might not change at all.

The only way to find out if you'll gain more weight is to just do it. I think the bigger question is, why do you want to quit?

well i'm 18, so i don't think my metabolism changed from 5 months ago

and i'm a 5'6 male. weighing 138 and being reasonably muscular(no visible flab at least) put me in a good bmi range

i want to quit beacuse i've bcome obsessed with calorie counting, food, dieting, etc and it's unhealthy.

i've gotten down to around 124 lbs and 8-9% bodyfat according to my taylor scale, and i'm not any happier than i was before.

well, what i think you should do is relax then. You're right, you're young, your body is still developing to some point and you don't need to be obsessing about food and exercising to the point where it's making you unhappy.

i think that you should try to incorporate as much of the healthy lifestyle that you've developped into your new, more relaxed lifestyle though, so that you're still doing good by your body. being nutritionally sound is helpful in all aspects of life, not just looking good, but being able to function in daily life at your peak.

jayd, I disagree with your emphasis on fad diets -- it doens't matter what diet you've followed, be it healthy or fad, if you go back to your "old ways" and those "old ways" made you overweight before, then they will make you overweight again.

why would you want to go back?  Or are you just afraid you are going to slip back into the old habits?

i'm living proof that going back to old habits will make you gain, and may make you gain even more than you had at first.  DON'T DO IT!

once again, i wasn't overweight.









i weighed 138 when i did nothing and ate like crap.


in THEORY, if i went back to my similar crappy eating habits and minimal exercise, will i go back to 138? or more

Hence the emphasis on "quick-fix" diets... any diet that's not looked at as a long term solution.

i take that back, I didn't read the rest of the post, just the beginning.  you sound like you were probably healthy in the 130's.  but be careful, don't just eat junk - it's bad for you, and you don't want to do anything that is bad for you, do you?

And once again, sibrek, there is no way anyone can know if you will maintain at 138 or if you will gain more than that. It's totally dependant on your lifestyle, your genetics, etc.

But if this is making you unhappy, I don't think you should continue. I don't think you should go back to a fully unhealthy lifestyle, but maybe you can find ways to incorporate healthy bits and pieces into a more relaxed approach.

i was at a healthy weight in the 130s.

5'6 male at 130 is in the healthy BMI, and i would say i was more muscular than most so i was even a little less than my calculated bmi

even though the junk is bad for me, do you think i'll gain weight past my old weight if i eat again?

basically, did dieting once change my metabolism or natural weight?

it could have... you just never know, honey!