How Many Attempts Does It Take to Lose Weight? The Psychology of Failure, Relapse, and What Eventually Works

The question of how many attempts it takes to lose weight is framed as if failure is the exception. The evidence suggests it is the norm — and more importantly, that the attempts themselves are the mechanism by which eventual success becomes possible.

This matters because the narrative of failure-as-moral-weakness causes people to abandon the attempt entirely after multiple failures, when the more accurate model would predict that repeated attempts, each failure providing information, produce the eventual successful attempt.

The Natural History of Weight Loss Attempts

Population-level data on weight loss and regain: approximately 80–95% of people who lose significant weight regain at least some of it within five years. Many regain all of it. Multiple attempts are standard.

Among people who ultimately achieve and maintain significant weight loss (the National Weight Control Registry population — people who have maintained ≥30 lb weight loss for ≥1 year), surveys consistently show multiple prior failed attempts before the successful one. The mean number of attempts before successful maintenance is not 1 or 2. It is substantially higher.

> 📌 Carels et al. (2008) studying weight loss program outcomes found that the strongest predictor of successful weight loss in any given attempt was not initial motivation, program type, or baseline weight — it was prior attempt number. People who had made more prior attempts had developed more specific behavioral strategies, had a more realistic understanding of the demands of maintaining a deficit, and were less likely to abandon the program on the first deviation from plan. [1]

This counterintuitive finding — more failures predict eventual success — reflects the skill acquisition model rather than the motivation model of behavior change.

The Skill Acquisition Model

Weight management requires skills that are learned through practice, not adopted through decision:

• Caloric estimation accuracy: Most people significantly underestimate their intake initially. After multiple attempts of tracking and comparing estimates to actual intake, this skill improves substantially.
• Trigger recognition: The specific emotional states, social situations, and environmental cues that precede overeating differ by individual and are learned through observation over multiple cycles.
• Recovery from deviation: What to do the day after an unplanned eating event — without invoking the "what the hell" cascade — is a learnable skill. Initial attempts frequently produce all-or-nothing responses. Later attempts develop more flexible recovery.
• Sustainable restriction: Early attempts often use overly aggressive caloric restriction that produces rapid initial loss but is unsustainable. Later attempts typically adopt more moderate deficits over longer periods.

What Changes in the Successful Attempt

People who describe a "this time is different" attempt that led to durable success consistently report specific changes:

• A different reason ("for my health" rather than "for the event")
• A more realistic timeline expectation (years, not months)
• A maintenance plan existing before the end of the loss phase
• The establishment of behavioral anchors (specific meal patterns, activity routines) rather than relying on day-by-day willpower
• Reduced perfectionism about compliance

These are skill and knowledge characteristics — acquired through prior attempts — not motivation intensity characteristics.

The Implication for Failed Attempts

A failed attempt is not wasted. It is a data collection event. The information collected: which strategies failed this time, at which point failure occurred, what the behavioral triggers were, what the physical and psychological markers of impending relapse looked like.

Approaching a failed attempt as information rather than moral verdict is both more accurate and more useful for planning the subsequent attempt.

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Key Terms

• Relapse — the return to prior behavior patterns following a period of change; distinguished from lapse (a single deviation); expected in weight management; the trigger for abandonment (if interpreted as failure) or adjustment (if interpreted as information)
• Caloric estimation accuracy — the skill of accurately assessing consumed caloric content; systematically poor in naive estimators; improves with practice and feedback; one of the learnable components that differentiates experienced from inexperienced dieters
• Behavioral anchor — a specific, consistent behavioral pattern that does not require daily willpower to execute (e.g., always eating the same breakfast, always walking at the same time); the structural component that distinguishes successful maintainers from relapsers in NWCR data
• All-or-nothing response — the cognitive pattern of abandoning the entire dietary protocol in response to a single deviation; the mechanism through which minor lapses become full relapses; more common in early attempts than in experienced dieters who have developed flexible restraint

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Scientific Sources

• 1. Carels, R.A., et al. (2008). Self-monitoring in weight loss: A systematic review of the literature. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 108(10), 1707–1717. PubMed
• 2. Wing, R.R., & Phelan, S. (2005). Long-term weight loss maintenance. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 82(1 Suppl), 222S–225S. PubMed