Some friends and acquaintances have been trying to demotivate me (not on purpose) by telling me that I will most likely gain my weight back in no time due to the Yo-Yo effect of dieting.

Most studies around dieting show a strong tendency of those on a diet to gain back their weight after reaching their target weight. What is not well controlled in those studies is the real change of eating habits. The graph on the right shows my weight loss at two separate points. The first was our first vacation after I started dieting. I did not stop my new diet during the vacation, to the unhappiness of my wife. As can be seen, no weight was gained. The second point was a vacation in the USA where it was much more difficult to keep from over-eating. Weight gain was part of it.

Where was the difference? The first vacation was strictly vegetarian, sometimes pescetarian. The second I was calorie counting, but had fat, processed wheat and sugar in my meals. This just showed that most of the science behind The End of Overeating by Kessler is right. Yo-Yo does not have to be your fate. All required is sticking with the new way of eating: 

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. – Michael Pollan