i lke this better than the success thread

janicelo1971

jenilla1 wrote: »

I've been on maintenance for well over 2 years now. Don't know about the research, but for me personally, maintenance doesn't depend on exercise. It's all about the eating, just like it was for weight loss. Exercise is important to me for other reasons: good health, stress management, energy and aesthetics. :flowerforyou:

I have maintained for about 7 months of the last 4 months due to an injury i stopped going to cross fit and lowered my calories by about 400 a week..no issues with maintaining with no exercise.

Vailara

It was the other way around for me. I exercise for health and fitness. I originally lost weight to help facilitate the exercise (rather than exercising to facilitate losing weight).

I've kept both exercise and diet very moderate, because I want them to be something I can stick with for years and years.

bwogilvie

Exercise has been important to me for quite some time, and regular, moderate-to-intense aerobic exercise for the last 6 years. However, by itself it wasn't much use in weight loss. In 2012, I bicycled nearly 2000 miles, and covered another 200 walking and hiking, but I gained 10 pounds.

In 2013 I lost 45 pounds by counting calories with MFP; in 2014 I lost another 20 and am now at maintenance, though I might decide in the spring to take off another 5 pounds if it seems like it would help with running and cycling.

Exercise was (and is) helpful with weight loss, for a couple of reasons:

(1) It lets me eat an extra 500 or so calories a day while maintaining the same deficit. Psychologically, it was a lot easier for me to net somewhere around 1500 by eating 2000 and doing 500 calories of exercise (measured with an accurate HRM and checked against my actual results), than to eat 1500 and not exercise.

(2) It helped preserve lean body weight (through strength training), improve my endurance, and maintain a positive outlook. Endurance exercise (cycling, and this year, running too) makes me feel good about myself. It gives me goals toward which to strive that aren't related to my weight.

And at this point, now that I'm at a healthy weight, my goals have shifted toward health, fitness, and body fat percentage. If I decide that getting stronger will help me meet my goals, I might bulk and cut, even if that means a higher maintenance weight. Or I might lose a bit more if it would help with my cycling and running goals. Weight is a crude metric, but it has the virtue of being easy to measure. It was clear that at 215 pounds, I had to lose weight. It's not so clear that 150 is my ideal weight, though it's clearly a good weight for my height (5' 10" / 178 cm) and frame.

DeterminedFee201426

for me exercise was not ever necessary for me ever when maintaining my weight
only thing i did was walk every once and a while and was fine . i prefer to exercise for (strength) now so i wont feel like sponge bob when he's trying to lift a twig

DeterminedFee201426

jenilla1 wrote: »

I've been on maintenance for well over 2 years now. Don't know about the research, but for me personally, maintenance doesn't depend on exercise. It's all about the eating, just like it was for weight loss. Exercise is important to me for other reasons: good health, stress management, energy and aesthetics. :flowerforyou:

same here

freedomlady

Ive maintained by 38 pound weight loss the past 3 years. I love it!!! I watch what I eat more than exercise. I was an avid exerciser but health problems have prevented me from exercise. Believe me, I LOVE to eat, but if I do I will surely gain and no way do I want to get heavy again. I just find lower calorie foods and if i eat over my calories one day I don't do it the next day.

FitOldMomma

I'm not near my goal weight yet, but I plan on continuing the exercise, maybe even adding more things such as bicycling and hopefully running. Not for the calorie burns, but because being physically fit and strong makes me feel so much better. I love having muscles that I can now see and feel.

jane837

I've lost about 115 lbs and have been maintaining for four months now. Other than tweaking my calories in/calories out a little bit, I haven't changed my habits at all from what I was doing while losing.

Being thoughtful about the number of calories I'm eating has been the most important factor (both for losing and maintaining), but exercise has been hugely important as well, for a few reasons:

- Going to the gym every day after work replaced my previous habit of watching TV and snacking in the evening.
- Exercise can be a great stress reliever/anxiety reducer/mood enhancer, and it's much easier for me to make healthy choices about food when I'm feeling good.
- Working out is a great way to add wiggle room for a few hundred extra food calories
- Now that I don't have weight loss goals anymore, I'm really glad to have ongoing exercise goals to keep me focused and motivated.
- Regular exercise has led to endless benefits in my daily life: being able to lift heavy furniture to help my parents with moving, having the stamina to walk all day exploring a city while I'm on vacation, being able to sprint two blocks to catch a train, etc.

All that being said, I *hated* exercise when I first started. I don't know if I was aware of it at the time, but I think the frustration came from the difficulty of learning a new skill. I was terrible at it in the beginning - even 15 minutes on the elliptical seemed hellish. But I kept practicing and pushing myself a little, and not giving up. Eventually, I started to feel really good about how strong and fast I was getting, and I realized I actually liked exercise!