If there's one thing that all the research being done suggests, it's that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to weight maintenance. "Just eat less", or "mo

If there's one thing that all the research being done suggests, it's that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to weight maintenance. "Just eat less", or "move more" are solutions suggested by many people, but it's not that simple. Some bodies naturally store excess calories as fat, while in others the body ups its metabolism to try and prevent this. At the same time, diet certainly plays a role - some forms of carbs can be converted into body fat much more easily than other energy sources (the fat that you eat, for example, doesn't get converted into body fat nearly as efficiently as sugar, for example). And of course, once you've been fat, even if you lose the weight you will have to work harder to keep it off. --There was an NPR story about a study that if you have two people of similar weight and muscle mass, one of whom has lost a lot of weight, the person who lost the weight may have to eat as much as 500 fewer calories per day to maintain his or her weight. It's no wonder how few people manage to keep weight off. Personally, I've been struggling with my weight since I was 9 years old. I used to be skinny, but I managed to catch hepatitis, and after that I started gaining weight. One of my doctors told me this wasn't that surprising as hepatitis can often cause drastic changes to your metabolism. At my heaviest I was around 290lb, but I'm down under 190, and have been as low as 175 - it's not easy, though. I try hard to watch what I eat (not always successfully, obviously). I used to do high intensity workouts of at least 1 hour 6 times a week - in 2010 I was at the gym more than 300 times. I suffered a setback earlier this year that accounted for a fair bit of the weight gain back from 175 to almost 190 when I caught mono and was advised by my doctor not to work out for 6 weeks, and lingering fatigue issues meant there were many weeks where I only managed to make it to the gym 2 or 3 times a week. I'm finally back up to 5 workouts a week near my old intensity, but it'll still take months of keeping this up to get my weight back down. I'd love to make it down to about 160-170, but that won't be easy.