They don't call it yoyo 'cause it's fun.

goldthistime

I have hope that I'm done with yo-yoing.
Discovering how necessary adequate protein is for me is my main reason for hope. I had suspected, but never made protein a priority. So much less likely to go on a carb binge when I get enough protein.
Second reason for hope is that I think I am done being a martyr. Both because I've had too many brushes with bad health to risk mistreating my body again, and because I think I'm ready to acknowledge that while in my head I was a martyr for giving up exercise and eating high energy foods to "get things done", in reality, at least part of it was just a "poor me" attitude. I'm ready to say "nope, that would mean too much stress for me, I have to decline".

Azuriaz

I don't care how you lost weight, if you misuse food as a comfort in hard times, you're going to gain the weight back unless you're some freak with a mutant metabolism or the capacity to work out 20 hours a day with the energy levels of a cyborg.

andyluvv

Francl27 wrote: »

mccindy72 wrote: »

It doesn't have to be work. The best to make something less effort is to make it a habit. When we create habits we do them without thinking about it.
If you weigh your solid food and log it on a daily basis, it becomes easier and quicker. I've been doing this for a long time and it only takes a few minutes to weigh my food and enter it into my log. I don't really even think about it- it's just a part of my meal prep.
When you eat at a calorie deficit, you lose weight. If you are weighing and logging all of your solid food and measuring your caloric liquids, you know you are accurate with your calorie counting, and can stick to your calorie deficit. You will lose the weight; that's guaranteed.
Once you lose the weight, you move into maintenance, and you're already doing the work you'll need to do to maintain. It's no different, except that you eat at maintenance calorie goal, rather than at a deficit.

For more helpful information, read the first post in this thread: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1235566-so-you-re-new-here

Really wish it was that easy, to be honest. I've been on MFP for more than 2.5 years and frankly, it is going to take way more than that for my new habits to catch up with my 25 years of old habits (not counting when I was a little kid, I guess). There's much more to it than logging. Logging won't do me any good if my willpower keeps failing on donuts and cookies. Is exercising a habit? By now, yeah. Lifting weights still isn't because I hate it, but I really enjoy my hour of peace on the treadmill at the gym and I hate staying home and not doing anything now, but the food part will NEVER become a habit. Ok I tend to crave healthier foods than fast food now, but I'll still pick dessert over veggies every time at the buffet. And I'm still hungry. I'd lie to myself if I said I won't have gained any weight back in 5 years, because I don't know if I'll still have the willpower to go to bed hungry half the time in 5 years (I've been maintaining for over a year now).

But yeah, I think the juicing part was a big red flag. It has to be sustainable if you really hope to get anything from it.

Just to add to this - I've been maintaining for more than 2 years now and I'll share some of my experience along the way.

You're right that when something becomes a habit, it becomes natural. However, since I'm hungry a lot one of my strategies has always been to load up on veggies - the problem with that? It's hard to get enough calories and nutrients from veggies and protein alone. I went down to about 62 kg last Christmas - a shocking weight that did some real damage to my body and made me start having horrible issues with binges for denying myself a LOT of food. I had stopped logging as it was making me anxious, I had stopped weighing myself every week.

Now, I've learned a few tricks:
Forgive yourself - your old habits won't come back if you don't deprive yourself of things. Create a habit of enjoying things in moderation. If I have a treat, I try to make it once a week. Despite your fears, you won't balloon back to your old weight after one bad day. As much as you won't hit maintenance after just a week of weight loss. I don't deny or deprive myself of anything - if I want something, I'll have it, but just less of it and exercising moderation. I'll also tend to have them on exercise days since I know I'll probably burn more than usual.

Keep healthy foods in the house - I KNOW myself now well enough to know my own pitfalls and bad habits. If I'm cooking, I'll be eating. After dinner, I tend to feel a bit peckish and want to snack. Having vegetables around means that I can avoid reaching for biscuits or bread (bread is a big no no for me). Since I have a sweet tooth, I'll freeze berries and snack on them if I'm peckish. I try to eat smaller meals to make space for some snacking. This way, even if I'm under-logging, it's harder to get 3500 extra calories (to gain 1 pound) from vegetables than it would be from rice or anything with more calories (or general carbs since I can have endless amounts of it).

Maintaining means keeping an eye - I stopped weighing myself every week as it'd make me anxious, but I have created a habit of facing the scales once every two to four weeks.

That means that if I can tell my weight is increasing - I get back on the veggies the following week.

Today I log not because I need to know my weight, but because I want to make sure I'm eating enough.