Struggling with maintenance - still!

joyfuljoy65

Mr Will Power, where have you gone? At one time you and me were so tight; we had such a good relationship and were strong together. Now you are gone and only appear fleetingly in my peripheral vision. Please come back - I need you!

sijomial

For me goal setting is very important. Your profile says exercise is the next goal so maybe pick an event or target that you need to work towards?

I'm very anti weight loss goals based on time or dates but the opposite on fitness goals - having a deadline gives a real focus. I've got two big events coming up in May and June - I know I will be on the startline so it's up to me to be ready.

Find something you enjoy but is also a challenge.

nxd10

I don't have a lot of will power. But I do find food I love and don't like eating food that doesn't taste good. So I eat little tiny servings of things I love whenever I went them and it keeps my calories down.

Jubee13

I am about 6 weeks into maintenance, and I feel exactly the same way! The whole time I was losing, I was very focused, and over eating just wasn't an option. The past few weeks, I have been really struggling. I'm just tired of thinking about what I'm going to eat and tracking.
Exercise isn't the problem. I've been a runner for 20 years. It's the food 100% that I'm having a hard time with. I know from past experience that if I stop tracking, I'll gain my weight back, so I need to keep going. Maybe we can get some words of wisdom from those who have been at this for awhile.

sijomial

Jubee13 wrote: »

Exercise isn't the problem. I've been a runner for 20 years. It's the food 100% that I'm having a hard time with. I know from past experience that if I stop tracking, I'll gain my weight back, so I need to keep going. Maybe we can get some words of wisdom from those who have been at this for awhile.

Swap running for cycling and weights and you have described me perfectly!
I treat maintenance almost the same way I treated weight loss. Tracking my food and exercise plus monitoring my weight to stay on track and correct the trend if I drift outside my maintenance range.

The differences are I'm more relaxed about smoothing things out over a week. I'm also more relaxed about food logging to make it less of a chore. As my natural/intuitive level of eating is a definite surplus I find it easier to have one very low calorie day a week and six days at what feels a more natural level.

What I can't tolerate is excluding things I enjoy, compromising social events or everyday restriction. TDEE method would drive me (even more...) nuts.

jrline

maintenance is the worst. Gaining is easy losing is not too hard but just staying where I want to be is the most difficult

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dawnmcneil10

Setting physical goals should help some. If you've never been active pick something that always looked to hard and work at that or maybe you saw someone doing something and thought oh I'd be too scared and go for it.

I still log my food daily the difference is now I don't stress at all over food I didn't make myself. I know if it's commercially prepared it's going to be loaded with sodium so I make a mental note to drink more water. If dining at a friends in most cases it means more fat has been used so I just eat smaller portions and skip the things that don't seem special.

The real trick is to continue with whatever you did to lose the weight with the exception of a bit more calories going in.