What are you doing during weight loss to prevent future relapse?

Ninkyou

Live, laugh, learn & log.

Liftng4Lis

Ninkyou wrote: »

Live, laugh, learn & log.

Nicely put. +1

Lasmartchika

Liftng4Lis wrote: »

Ninkyou wrote: »

Live, laugh, learn & log.

Nicely put. +1

Oh yes,

salembambi

zyxst wrote: »

I'm eating how I'm going to eat until I die - keeping food diaries, tracking sodium, portion control. Imo, people gain back the weight they lost because they return to eating how they ate before losing.

I agree with this I will never eat how I use to eat again .. new lifestyle & all that crap

tuckerrj

Record what I eat, exercise daily, weigh regularly, , , keep my weight in a +/- 5 lb. range. If I'm up more than 5, it's back to eating at a deficit.

Froody2

http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=415&cpage=1#comment-20158

Just leaving this link here. Have a read, it explains one of the reasons people regain weight quite well.

My plan: eat mindfully, get as much exercise as possible, have a 3kg buffer that, if I go over, will tell me I need to stop doing what I'm doing and rein it in a bit.

Edited for spelling error.

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Laughter_Girl

Great post!

I plan to maintain (just 15 pounds away) by doing everything I am currently doing.

1. I will log everything I eat.
2. I will make healthy food choices most of the time.
3. I will not deny myself of any food as long as I plan for it. (I love pizza, veggie burgers & fries, and sweets and enjoy them in moderation on occasion.)
4. I will exercise most days of the week.
5. I will drink plenty of water.
6. I will not overeat no matter the occasion.
7. Most importantly, I will enjoy the healthier me.

Kalikel

lemurcat12 wrote: »

One way is to try and make fitness part of my social life, so I'm working on that...

The trick is not to let it go to far, so to keep up with regular weighing...

That first part is good advice. I need to make friends with people who like to walk or just do active (or semi-active) things outside.

The regular weighing is important, too. I plan to weigh every day, but I'm sure many people plan that and then change their minds or circumstances.

I will not buy clothes in bigger sizes. I think that's kind of the beginning of the end. All my fat clothes are sold or donated and I just WILL NOT buy fatter clothes. The clothes thing will be my last stop, The End. If the clothes get tight, I have to diet. It's not really what I want to rely on, though.

There is no way in hell I will be weighing every bite of food for decades, though. That just won't happen, lol.

I think this is a wonderful thread. I'm very interested in people's plans, but even more interested in hearing from people who lost weight and then gained it back - why they think they did it and how they'll avoid that in the future.

I never yo-yoed. I just gained slowly and then very quickly over the years. I never failed to keep weight off, so it's all new to me, lol.

Knowing those little fat cells will be sending messages to the brain saying, "We are empty! We should be full! You may need us one day! Fill us up!"...it's not helpful. I have to outwit those little cells, lol.

Not trying to pry, but if you feel like elaborating, please do!

drewmmm

bumping for later

Sabine_Stroehm

I plan to keep doing what has been working so far (13 years): eating nutrient dense foods, limiting overly processed crap. Tweak as necessary. Stay active.

Kalikel

Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »

I plan to keep doing what has been working so far (13 years): eating nutrient dense foods, limiting overly processed crap. Tweak as necessary. Stay active.

This is more my plan. It assumes the ability to stay active, but that's where tweaking comes back in.

Very happy to hear that it is working for you for that long!

I'm figuring that when I switch from losing to maintaining, it will be so hard to lose that it'll just even out. I don't know.

I may be overthinking it, lol.

Sabine_Stroehm

Kalikel wrote: »

Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »

I plan to keep doing what has been working so far (13 years): eating nutrient dense foods, limiting overly processed crap. Tweak as necessary. Stay active.

This is more my plan. It assumes the ability to stay active, but that's where tweaking comes back in.

Very happy to hear that it is working for you for that long!

I'm figuring that when I switch from losing to maintaining, it will be so hard to lose that it'll just even out. I don't know.

I may be overthinking it, lol.

Nope, that makes sense. I didn't switch. The loss just stopped and I stayed at this weight. You gotta figure eventually you hit stasis if you're eating and moving consistently.

Lorichr

Great post!

I have been maintaining for a couple years now and I decided when I started that I was going to lose they same way I was planning to live the rest of my life. I had no intention of never having alcohol, carbs and dessert again so I never gave them up at an point in my weight loss. Granted I then and now make much better choices and eat much better portion sizes.

Tons of water. Lots of whole foods. I also plan my intake ahead of time as much as possible.

I exercise nearly every morning as soon as I get out of bed. For years and years I knew I should work out but I could never get myself to do it after work. The trick for me was getting it out of the way first thing. It's a great way to start the day.

onelentilatatime

Froody2 wrote: »

http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=415&cpage=1#comment-20158

Just leaving this link here. Have a read, it explains one of the reasons people regain weight quite well.

.

Thanks very much for this article - the second on adaptive thermogenesis posted in this thread. Having now read a few of these articles it seems there is evidence that weight loss causes our energy expenditure to reduce by about 400 calories a day more than you would expect from weight loss alone. This makes it harder to maintain.

If that's all there is, I feel like I can deal with it by careful monitoring. The article says that exercise (> 2500 calories a week) can help avoid weight regain caused by lower-than-expected energy expenditure.

In the past I have experienced an insane desire to eat after substantial weight loss. I wonder if that is just me psychologically letting go and enjoying what I have deprived myself of. Or a more biologically driven need to regain lost weight. Either way, however strong the urge to eat is, I'm sure it can't be overwhelming. Exercise and monitoring will surely win the day. Will let you know when I get there.

bwogilvie

I plan to not worry too much and keep things simple. I'll log for a while. I'll continue to weigh myself daily and calculate my weight's exponentially smoothed moving average. If I maintain fairly easily, I might stop logging and just keep a food journal without calories. If my moving average gets more than 2 pounds over my goal, I will stop and assess whether the weight gain fits my fitness goals; if not, I'll go back to careful logging until I'm back at goal.

Using MFP has taught me the relationship between my physical activity, food intake, appetite, and weight, and helped me get a sense of the portions that I need to eat sensibly. I'm hoping that will be enough to maintain without counting every calorie. However, if it doesn't work, the daily weigh-in and average will act as an early warning system, to let me realize that I have gained some weight before it becomes a significant undertaking to lose it again. Having done a deficit of about 550-600 calories a day for 6 months, and then 350-400 for the next year, I don't think it would be very hard to do a deficit of 250 calories a day for a month.

And if that happens more than once or twice, the lesson will be that I should log my calories to maintain.

Kalikel

Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »

Kalikel wrote: »

Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »

I plan to keep doing what has been working so far (13 years): eating nutrient dense foods, limiting overly processed crap. Tweak as necessary. Stay active.

This is more my plan. It assumes the ability to stay active, but that's where tweaking comes back in.

Very happy to hear that it is working for you for that long!

I'm figuring that when I switch from losing to maintaining, it will be so hard to lose that it'll just even out. I don't know.

I may be overthinking it, lol.

Nope, that makes sense. I didn't switch. The loss just stopped and I stayed at this weight. You gotta figure eventually you hit stasis if you're eating and moving consistently.

Really happy to hear that.

I'm down 75 pounds and even my dream-it-but-won't-get-there weight is only fifty more. It's already harder than it was. So I figure it'll keep getting harder and eventually I'll say, "The hell with it. I'm happy here," and stop. At that point, I'll already be at whatever "maintenance" is for me and shouldn't really have to change anything.

(That's why I have I focus on doing NOW what I plan to do then.)

Thanks!!

SteveMFP123

MrM27 wrote: »

Reminding myself how much more I enjoy being fat than obese.

It's funny, I'm 12lbs away from being medically overweight instead of obese and I can't wait, I hate that word so much. I started off nearly obese III.

johnnylakis

This is a point that I KEEP stressing. After we reach our GOAL weight, we stop "DIET"ing. That's the problem. Our "diet" has to become a new LIFESTYLE. By adopting a PERMANENT "diet", we won't relapse!

GaleHawkins

LIFESTYLE is the key word for me now. In the past I could lose weight and do it fast but I was just cutting back on what I ate instead of changing what I ate to be more real food vs. mainly processed carbs. While high fat is now working for me I know there are many different long term diets out there that work. In my case I knew I was going down for the third time so it was time to learn how to swim in a sea of food that was killing me so I could get back to shore to get some real food but not more than I need.

At this point I am working on what I can eat that lowers my pain level and makes be feel good the next day that can become a lifestyle vs. once again making losing weight my main goal.

lemurcat12

Kalikel wrote: »

There is no way in hell I will be weighing every bite of food for decades, though. That just won't happen, lol.

For me I'm not sure, but when I maintained before (and when I lost before) I didn't log. I think I could stay at about the right calories without logging--it's not like I use logging as really more than a check or a keep me honest now. For the time being I find the numbers aspect of it--the calories but especially the macros and just seeing what I eat--to be motivating and kind of fun, and keeping me interested in the process is helpful.

I think this is a wonderful thread. I'm very interested in people's plans, but even more interested in hearing from people who lost weight and then gained it back - why they think they did it and how they'll avoid that in the future.

I agree about the thread and find it interesting to see what others do and plan to do.

I mostly like how I eat and how active I am now, so I expect to keep that up, which is what I did before too. Before I kept myself into it (while I did) through activity-based goals (I was doing first runs and then triathlons) and am starting that up again, but I'm also going to try to add in some physical goals about generally continuing to improve my body, strength, etc. I think before I just was shocked to get lower than I'd expected without it being too tough, and I never really believed I could do more, and it was pretty easy to stay where I was (120s) for a time, so I didn't focus on that at all. I also stopped weighing and let myself (eventually) grow out of clothes, which kind of shocks me now.

I never yo-yoed. I just gained slowly and then very quickly over the years. I never failed to keep weight off, so it's all new to me, lol.

I haven't really yo-yoed either. I was always sort of average and then gained weight reasonably quickly in my late 20s/early 30s and then lost it pretty quickly and maintained for 5 years and then regained similar to the pattern the first time. I know I lost by incorporating cooking and activity and started the slide by one day just quitting the activity entirely. I didn't change my eating much until later, but I started to gain because at less than 130 and 5'3 being sedentary means you don't need much to gain. After I was already feeling kind of frustrated with myself I started eating worse more often (mostly going out a lot) and then started to slip back into a pattern of emotional eating. The latter wasn't helped by the fact that I quit drinking and started over-compensating for a while with food, and was too scared/insecure in my sobriety at first to want to stop that, as I was afraid I'd slide back to drinking. And then after I'd regained a bunch it took a couple of years (when I was gaining more) to care enough to change it, since it's easy to feel like it will take forever to lose it again and so can always be put off a day or two more, especially since a payoff of being fat and sedentary is not having to get active again (which sucks when you are completely out of shape) and being able to eat whatever you want (or whatever amount you want), because who cares. (And contra what some seem to be saying most of the time I was gaining I continued to eat "real food" and all that; you can gain on it.)

Ugh. I know to some extent why it happened and some of that won't be happening again, but my ability to stop caring and change back from what certainly seemed a complete lifestyle change still bothers me some, or makes me wary.

I did refuse to weigh myself after I knew I was gaining (kept saying I'd lose it and then weigh, which doesn't work for me--knowing the number is owning it for me), and I did switch my social circle some from people who were really into fitness to people who were really into dining out and watching plays. I still love and hang out with the latter but am getting back into more social fitness activities so it's not just me imposing the incentive to workout.