I need Help Maintaining!

annmarie38

Hi Everyone! Well A little background About myself! Iv been heavy my whole life My highest weight was 300 pounds that was my breaking point. I decided to change my life and once and for all and get healthy! I Did just that over a three year period i got down to 167 pounds! I felt AMAZING!!! It didnt last long unfortunately As of today I weigh in at 181 Im so discusted with myself How could i allow myselt to re gain that much???? Im having a hard time Maintaining smh!! Any ideas anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated I have come to far to fail! I need Help!!

mom2ava07

How are you going about attempting to maintain?

Did you lose by logging and tracking your intake and then just stop once you reached a weight you were happy with?

TimothyFish

What appears to work (for some people anyway) is that you set a weight range and you check your weight at least once a week. If you see your weight go outside the range, then you adjust your diet to bring it back in line. But as long as your weight stays within the range then you eat and exercise like you normally do. And yes, exercise is important for maintenance. Some studies indicate that exercise is very important for maintenance, while hardly any help while trying to lose weight.

AsISmile

I would combine those advices.

Assuming that you will again start eating at a deficit and counting calories, once you reach your goal weight continue counting.
Each week add an extra 100 calories to your daily conssumption untill you reach your maintenance calories. Keep tracking for a month or two on your new maintenance calories and checking the scale weekly. Keep a weight range of 5-10 lbs to stay within. This to check if your calculated maintenance calories are correct.

After you get used to eating at maintenance you can slowly stop counting calories because by now you should be aware of how much you are allowed to eat. From now on you can just check if you are staying in your weight range by using the scale and adjusting your calories again if it seems necessary.

RaspberryTickleChicken

annmarie38 wrote: »

Hi Everyone! Well A little background About myself! Iv been heavy my whole life My highest weight was 300 pounds that was my breaking point. I decided to change my life and once and for all and get healthy! I Did just that over a three year period i got down to 167 pounds! I felt AMAZING!!! It didnt last long unfortunately As of today I weigh in at 181 Im so discusted with myself How could i allow myselt to re gain that much???? Im having a hard time Maintaining smh!! Any ideas anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated I have come to far to fail! I need Help!!

First of all, congrats!! That is a TREMENDOUS amount of work & accomplishment! WOW!

I think it's important to understand HOW you lost the weight? Was it a gradual process of learning how to eat mindfully or was it a specific set eating regimen like Akins, South Beach, etc.

If you did it gradually and have groomed good habits of consistently choosing nutritiously rich foods (majority of the time) then I think it's important to trace your steps back to when you started to regain. If you have been even mildly diligent in logging you should be able to go back & do some research to figure out approximately when you started to regain and the cause.

• Is it that you thought 'YAY reached goal - finish line' and started to revert to old eating habits?
• Did you stop logging?
• Did you regularly skipped physical activity?
• Was it a period of stress and you were feeding your emotions rather than your body?
• etc.

Once you figure that out then you can begin at the beginning, eat at a calorie deficit until goal then take some extra effort in making sure that your mentality is right ... there is NO finish line to this journey. There is only loosing weight phase and the rest of your life phase.

Try reading this article HERE It's a good one chalk full of tips which you may find helpful.

Just try not to be too harsh on yourself and definitely don't see this as a sign of defeat but a learning opportunity to self discovery.

Best of luck to you!

Azurite27

Feel free to add me. I've had a similar journey starting at almost 300 lbs a few years ago, losing around 140 in a year and a half and have maintained this weight more or less since last August. I still log my food just like I did while losing. I think this is a necessity for me as my hunger cues are all over the place and it keeps me from over or under eating. The most important thing is you can't look at your goal as the end and then you can go back to what you were doing before. Make changes and build behaviors you can keep up long term. Focus on eating as much as you can and still lose so when you get to your goal you're just making small adjustments to eat a little more to maintain. If you need to, set new fitness goals when you get to your goal weight so you always have something to work towards.

mrmbs589

Give back to others by sharing your sucess story with them and guiding them in their own personal journeys to do what you've already successfully accomplished!

nxd10

You lost all that weight - you obviously have a lot of self discipline.

But the goal isn't to lose the weight. The goal is to keep it off forever. Don't lose sight of that.

Keep doing what you did to lose it - track and log everything. You did great with that. Now you get to do it with more calories. Every single day you step on the scale and see you're still in that 5 pound range, celebrate. You did it one more day!

You HAVE come so far. Get back on the horse and start riding again.

BWBTrish

I maintained for almost 23 years prior my injury and weight gain.

For me ( i think its personal for everybody) was keeping track of my calorie intake.
One day to much was the next day a step back. I weighed myself daily.
And kept it off that way.
So control and keep tracking did the trick for me.

Now with only 16 to 18 pounds to go to get to my desired weight, i will do the same thing again. keep tracking and weighing myself

michellesz

First of all don't be disgusted with yourself. Be proud of how far you have come & get back on the horse! The bottom line is not to become too comfortable and lose site of what your goals are or where you started. Reduced your calories, increase your exercise, log everything again & when you get to your desired spot, slowly start to increase your calories just a bit. If you see the scale creeping up and up, go back to step 1 & reduce calories for a bit and/or increase exercise a bit more until you find your happy place

LivingtheLeanDream

TimothyFish wrote: »

What appears to work (for some people anyway) is that you set a weight range and you check your weight at least once a week. If you see your weight go outside the range, then you adjust your diet to bring it back in line. But as long as your weight stays within the range then you eat and exercise like you normally do. And yes, exercise is important for maintenance. Some studies indicate that exercise is very important for maintenance, while hardly any help while trying to lose weight.

^^ well said and totally agree

nxd10

I think the key issue is 'eat like you normally do'. I could do that - I know I could because I kept a healthy weight into my 40's and have maintained now in my 50's for over 3 years. I almost never have to limit what I 'normally eat' because I've developed good habits and am attentive to what I need. But that's because what I normally eat now has changed from what it was during the 15 years where my weight slowly crept up from the bottom to the top of the healthy range. If I went back to that, I'd gain weight again.

Most people can lose weight with persistence. But 75% regain because they go back to their old eating habits after they hit their goals. So something has to change. If you have used your weight loss period to develop new habits, you're fine. I still think logging for a while helps to consolidate that. But I could see people doing it without that tool.

However, the OP has not managed to do that. She has shown fantastic perseverance and accomplished great things. But she's regaining that hard lost weight. Tools may help her. It could be just weighing, but why not log for a little while longer? Right now her eating hasn't re-adjusted to her new, higher level where she is comfortable with her eating - this has to last a lifetime - eating the right amount and exercising.

And like TimonthFish and RunRutheeRun both said - exercising has been shown to be the most important thing in maintaining. Even thought it doesn't help much in weight loss. I'm not a gym rat, but I do have a pedometer - it was my present to myself when I hit my weight. And I do try to hit my 10K steps every day. It gives me more food to eat and has really helped me feel better.