I failed to maintain my weight!!

FatmaMalik

Hello..
These days last year I went on a diet and lost about 7 kg "that means 14lbs I guess"
And I kept on sticking to the same diet until college days came and I had to stay in dorms and eat from the food they give us there..
I decided to stop the diet and just maintain my weight bc I felt comfortable with it and also decided that I will continue that diet later to lose more so that I focus more on my lessons...
The problem is that even though I stayed low in calories .. I gained weight!

So I really want to know what are the most important basic steps to maintain the newly lost weight so that I don't gain them back
Now I am on the same diet hoping to lose more than those 14lbs before college starts

MzManiak

Eat at maintenance to maintain your weight. Eg. Don't eat more calories than you burn.

PoundChaser2

Are you certain you ate a low calorie diet ? Did you exercise at all and if so, how often and type? Do you track your food? ALL food? How many calories do you eat per day? What does your menu look like ?

AnnPT77

If you gained weight, it's likely that either (1) you ate more calories than you thought, (2) you over-estimated the calories you should eat to maintain your weight (the calculators are close to accurate for most people, but not spot-on for everyone), or (3) you were less active than you thought.

Most important steps to maintain weight:

• Decide on the specific weight you want to maintain, then set a "maintenance range" of weights around that, that will accommodate your usual daily weight fluctuations. For example, I'm maintaining at 120 pounds, plus or minus 3.
• Weigh yourself regularly, at the same time of day, wearing the same thing, and keep track of that weight (on paper, or in a weight-trending app like Libra, Happy Scale, Trendweight or something similar). I weigh myself every morning, wearing nothing, right after getting up, before eating, and record the result in Libra.
• If you stay above your upper weight-range limit for more than a few days, eat a little less, or do some extra activity, daily. So, in my case, if I go above 123 pounds and stay above for more than 2-3 days, I would reduce my eating until I got back below 120, and stayed there.
• If you drop below your lower weight limit for more than a few days, eat a little more daily until you get back up to your maintenance weight.
• Optionally, keep logging food & exercise to keep calories eaten/burned closer to on track. (I do this, but not everyone does.)

Consider thinking not so much in terms of a temporary "diet", but in terms of learning nutritious, satisfying ways to eat that will get you to a healthy weight and keep you there permanently.

FatmaMalik

I heard some people say that the food they give us in the dorms is full of fats and oils but I didn't believe them and now it seems like that to me bc I gained weight!
also I didn't exercise there bc I was always busy with studying and had no time ,,, but I always thought that I was active enough that I hadn't to exercise
thank you for the tips .... and the reasons to weight gain seems now really clear to me ^_^

nxd10

Like people say, you're either eating or drinking more than you think, you're exercising less, or your food composition has changed. That's how it works. I know for me (I've maintained 4 years), if I eat too many carbs, I'll gain weight even if I have the same calories. You don't have to go low carb - no one can maintain that. But look to see if your carbs are making up more than 50% of your calories (I need to stay around 40%). It can mess up your insulin levels, especially if you're pretty sedentary.

Get something to count your steps and try to hit those 10,000 steps. Keep logging.

If you really think none of those things happened, have your thyroid checked. That can cause unexplained weight gain too.

Fursian

How long has this been? Weight fluctuates. One of the ways to stay on track is to weigh/measure all foods and liquids, that contain calories, and track them in a diary to be as sure as can be of your intake.

LivingtheLeanDream

if you gained you were eating more than you did before...