Lifestyle

j3johns4

Hi Everyone! How do you make your "diet" into a lifestyle to avoid gaining the weight back?

I have lost 60 pounds over the span of 2 years, and still have about 30 pounds to lose. It's been a year since I have lost any weight, and in fact about 5 pounds have slowly crept back on. Restrictive diets aren't the answer for me and am looking for examples of lifestyle changes that worked for you. What limits have you set with food/life that don't feel too restrictive? Does sticking to a regular eating schedule work best for you, or do you focus on listening to your body to tell you when you're hungry? Thanks in advance for your feedback!

RelCanonical

I pretty much ask myself "how lazy can I be and still meet my goals" and do that. I don't waste anymore time than I need to focusing on it, then I get back to my life. The most energy I spend is on ways to make it an afterthought. The only time I pay attention to my macros or micros is to determine what happened if I had a hungry day, and I only change that which is most effective, or decide that it had nothing to do with what I ate. I overhaul NOTHING, and only adjust. I only do fun exercise. I don't cook much. I only eat what I like. I have a lot of baseline days, where I just don't feel like it, and I just eat at maintenance because stay still in weight loss is moving forward.

Sorry, that was kind of ramble-y. In short, I do only what's needed and then get back to my life because there's nothing like only focusing on the "lifestyle change" to get you off track. It has to be something you can live with on a bad day or else it's not really a lifestyle change.

rosebarnalice

Check out the "maintenance" threads-- lots of great insights!

kimny72

I ate basically the same foods I had always eaten while losing weight. What changed was how much, and for some foods how often. I focused on calories, protein, and fiber - those were the only rules. I ate all the stuff you're told not to eat, just less of it and sometimes less often. I logged consistently, every meal, every snack, every day. Logging, building meals around protein and fiber, and noticing calories all became a habit like brushing my teeth.

I've been maintaining for about 2 years. It's all still habit. I open the app in the morning and prelog most of my day. The one "must" I have exercise-wise is getting my steps in, so I take walks whenever I can. My eating schedule is dictated by my schedule - I'm a creature of habit so I tend to prefer scheduled eating times. I actually had to stop listening to my body, that's what made me overweight

Logging is what keeps me in line. I'm not nearly as exacting with it as I used to be, until my weight creeps up over my "upper limit" weight. Then it's back to food scale, meticulous logging until I settle a few lbs back down into my maintenance range.

If you don't get a ton of calories in maintenance, this thread might help:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

I am currently maintaining a lower weight on the same calories I used to gain weight on, thanks to the thought process behind that thread. My goal is to get my NEAT as close to 2000 as I possibly can! Which reminds me - having new goals (like fitness goals, or my goal of increasing my maintenance calories, anything you can measure) really helps too. Good luck!

J72FIT

j3johns4 wrote: »

Hi Everyone! How do you make your "diet" into a lifestyle to avoid gaining the weight back?

I have lost 60 pounds over the span of 2 years, and still have about 30 pounds to lose. It's been a year since I have lost any weight, and in fact about 5 pounds have slowly crept back on. Restrictive diets aren't the answer for me and am looking for examples of lifestyle changes that worked for you. What limits have you set with food/life that don't feel too restrictive? Does sticking to a regular eating schedule work best for you, or do you focus on listening to your body to tell you when you're hungry? Thanks in advance for your feedback!

My advice is avoid the extremes. Keep it simple...

88olds

Started at 285 lbs. After being stuck for years at around 215-220 lbs I joined Weight Watchers. That’s where I learned tracking. WW was basically CICO dressed up so they could copyright it.

A short time counting WW points showed me why I was stuck- I was eating too much. Lost about 30 lbs in 6 months. Been maintaining for almost 13 years. Never over 186 lbs.

How? First, I made GW and kept tracking for at least 5 years before I could maintain without it. Second, I’m not shy about starting up again when needed. If you draw a red line, act like it’s a red line. When needed I count calories on MFP.

I’m currently tracking on this app since the beginning of July, and just like every other time I’ve done it, logging my food works. I’ve lost about 4 lbs this month.

But even if I’m not keeping a food diary, if you were to ask me at some point, I could likely tell you what I’ve eaten today and about how many calories. It’s all just habit now. Also, my food scale has never left the kitchen counter in 13 years. Even when not tracking I control my portions.

I eat 3 meals per day, 3-4 snacks. One of my snacks is almost always some kind of plan friendly ice cream. I play Pickleball regularly and rarely go to the gym anymore. When I first joined WW I tried calculating my workouts, decided it was too inexact and dropped it. Any exercise I do is just a cushion.

I’ve noticed that some people make goal and then start kicking themselves for counting calories or “obsessing” about their weight. I had a WW meeting leader who started going on about being “normal.” Then she started gaining weight, lots of it.
I keep a close watch and do what I have to do. This is me now. Not the 285 lb slob.

Last thing- kinda like @RelCanonical, I think in terms of how much I can get and be where I want to be. I never set out to eliminate any particular food but some things are just hard to make work. I tend to prefer volume. Hope this answers some of your questions.