Line between diligent and obsessed

ChickenKillerPuppy

I am having a hard time deciding if I am being diligent or obsessed, and I fear I am being obsessed and just wanted to hear what some other folks think to help me hopefully ease up a little on myself. I want to be a little more relaxed and enjoy what feels like success if that is possible, so take that into account.

Quick background: I am 47, 5'4" and I am in maintenance. My goal range was originally 125-130 which I reached in early February but I have been weighing in between 121-123 since April 1st and I am pretty happy in this range (although I would have been THRILLED in my original range had I not gotten lower). I use Happy Scale and weigh myself every day. I am obsessive about weighing every single bite, lick, taste and track religiously and meal plan for the whole week once a week before I shop (and basically eat the same breakfast, lunch, and snacks and put variety in my dinners which is a system I love and works for me).

I have averaged my weight and calorie intake per week to really try and get a sense of how many calories I need to maintain, and my research tells me I need an average of 2100 a day to maintain at this weight. Now I indulge in alcohol Fridays and Sundays so I tend to go closer to 2300 on those two days and then 1900-2000 the rest of the week (or whatever I need) to get to that average. This will result in a RANGE of my weights between 121-123. I get about 16K-20K steps a day (I still practice social distancing!) which includes long walks daily, and alternating barre videos for strength 3 days a week and running 3 days a week.

My problem is that even with all that feedback, and knowing I am doing everything right, I find myself freaking out when I am on the high side of the range and feeling relief when I am at the low end. I can weigh in at 122 and feel good but if I weigh in at 122.6 or god forbid 123 I internally freak out a bit. I know weight fluctuates daily, I really do, but to be honest for the 6 months it took me to get to goal, and the 2 months I slid down to the lower range, I was a bit of a unicorn in that my weight was stable or would drop, and almost never had a day where I was up a pound or two unless I had been on a vacation. My graphs in Happy Scale are pretty steady line down so I got used to staying the same and losing. I was probably eating too few calories considering my TDEE but I have worked hard to accept that I can eat around 2000 calories/day and maintain.

Related to this, I become obsessed with every little calorie because I am so afraid of gaining. E.g., I wanted to finish my container of EggBeaters so I could throw away the box bc I am going shopping tomorrow, so I had 167g instead of 125g and this added about 20 calories to my day. This was perfectly fine for my averages and where I should be. But instead, I went into my log and went back and forth 6 times about whether to change my lunch almond count from 12 to 10 almonds to compensate for the EggBeaters. And I keep thinking about it.

I know I am doing great, especially in light of the stress of this shelter-in-place, and I would just like to enjoy this system I seem to have down and not stress over every 20 calories or every .4 pounds. But I worry that if I get lax that's the slippery slope that will cause me to gain. I also think the total control over every calorie is helping me feel I have control in these times where we all feel out of control bc covid-19.

Thanks for reading this LONG post. I really appreciate it and would love any advice.

janejellyroll

So you're still relatively in the early days of maintaining (congratulations!).

For me, a lot of what you're describing was what I went through in my first year or so of maintaining. It was hard for me to believe I was really going to do it, so if the scale went up, I would get upset thinking that it was the beginning of regaining all the weight. I was afraid to add more food to my meals (like your egg example) because I was afraid it would be the first step of just eating everything and abandoning meal planning completely.

As I proved to myself that I could be trusted, a lot of the stuff that I struggled with just fell away. Now I'm the person who can be calm when I see a blip on the scale. I'm the person who has no trouble pouring out the rest of the carton into my meal if it makes sense from wanting to throw away the box.

It took a few months, but I got there. You *are* doing great. The feelings you're having are normal for new maintainers, at least as far as my experience goes. We're told all the time that long term success is impossible, that we're going to regain the weight, etc. Some of that seeps in our heads and it influences how we act while learning to maintain.

Unicorn_Bacon

I think it's okay to have fear when something is new.

I think an important distinction is.. your fear is not causing you to eat less or start extreme exercise habits or both, where your calorie goal in maintenance is now no longer being reached.

This would be an obsession and disordered eating.

But fear at the beginning is normal and though a couple of almonds may seem like a petty thing to get flustered over, I think it's also important not to lose touch with choices made either once your goal has been reached. Eventually once you've settled in to the norm and have enough experience with it, those little things will be more okay, and you wont be sitting there trying to take away two almonds, you will just eventually move on to making sure you dont do it too often.

springlering62

Thank you so much for this post.

MaltedTea

Many nutritionists are familiar with the psychological aspects that can often be linked to food, food intake, food avoidance/reticence, etc.

I'm not suggesting that they're a replacement for mental health professionals yet you may want to check in with one or the other (if not both), as what you've described is very relatable but, if left unchecked, could be detrimental to your overall health.

Stay strong!

cupcakesandproteinshakes

Maintaining a loss is a skill just like losing weight is. Can you perhaps relax off on one aspect that feels ‘safe’ eg could you stop weighing low cal stuff like salad?

Or intentionally not log for a day? See how that feels, just as an experiment.

I dunno the answer, I’m just throwing out a suggestion. I’m not saying you have a ‘problem’ either.

All I can say to try and reassure you is
If your weight does creep up, you know what to do. It won’t just jump up 20 pounds over night.

I moved away from tracking when in maintenance. Cos it was stressing me out. It helps that I’m really predictable with what I eat and so even if I’m not tracking I have a rough idea I’m my head. And I still weigh myself regularly

AnnPT77

I agree with Jane that some of what you're feeling is just being new to maintaining.

That said, it would be good to figure out a way - harnessing what you know about yourself - to chip away at some of those anxious moments, so that you head in the other direction (more calm, less anxious) with time, as opposed to reinforcing the anxious thoughts. We really can use what we know about ourselves, to train our thoughts in a desired direction, I believe. (Sometimes we need expert help to do it, as someone else suggests: Knowing whether we'd benefit from that, or not, is part of knowing ourselves.)

Maintenance (where I've been for 4+ years now) doesn't have those scale-drop rewards. Some people find that setting some new goals (like fitness goals, or nutritional goals, but it could be in other realms of life) helps with that. For some, focus on relaxing the rules a bit (as @cupcakesandproteinshakes suggests, is helpful (treating the relaxations as a success).

In your core, you know, now, how this works. You will not gain a pound unless you (cumulatively) eat around 3500 calories over maintenance. Try to use and trust that.

Maybe consider some experiments, to trust that in your (heh) gut. Maybe when you're at the low end of your range, and not poised for a monthly-cycle scale jump or something, eat a single indulgent meal (birthdays and holidays are nice for this experiment). That could easily (if you're like me ) add 1000 calories to your day. Then go back to your routine. The scale will jump the next day, almost certainly. YikesYikeYikes! Then over the next couple/few days it will decline again, back near where you started . . . maybe even at/below where you started, since you say you're losing slowly. (Bye bye, Yikes.)

Personally, I was uninterested in stopping logging altogether. (I tried it, didn't like it, as much or more from a nutrition management standpoint than a weight management one.) But I do skip the odd day here and there, usually days that would be annoyingly complicated to log (potluck event, say; or Indian restaurant buffet), and those also tend to be higher calories than normal for me. I've trained myself that that extra eating, even without logging it, is no big deal, as long as it isn't frequent. Experience is persuasive. (But creating experience is possibly anxiety-producing, so a personal challenge.)

I hit a pretty-low (too low) weight by overshooting goal, at first. Then, I decided to gain a few pounds back. I did. Afeter maintaining close to goal for several months, I started drifting up, super slowly, but stayed well in the healthy range. A few months back, before the holidays, I decided I needed to drift down again (didn't feel like doing a serious quicker "lose pounds" effort). This has been super reassuring, actually: I thought I knew how to do this, and I do. My trend line is down about a pound a month since October. It would be hard to see (especially before several months had passed) without Libra, but it's obvious even in daily weights, now.

You know how to manage your weight, too. Your route may need to be different than mine, but it's useful to convince yourself, deep down, that you've got this.

Best wishes!

alexmose

Like some above posters, I have no interest in stopping logging, save for the buffet days. However, that is personal preference. Some months I have maintenance as a goal. Other times I have bulking or cutting. I find that I have a terrible eye to estimate portions and largely undereat. Since I know that about myself, I continue to love.

@AnnPT77 offers good advice.

cmriverside

My first year in maintenance I tried to do it without logging food and with no body-weight scale.

Yeah. That didn't work!

For the past maybe six years or so I've still been logging daily. I'm easily staying in my five pound range, and there have been MANY days I've been over by 1000-1500 calories. Many. Once I settled into this weight, which is 21-22 BMI, I have had no trouble maintaining it even when I go way over for many days. Now if I go over for a couple weeks, I'll see a bump up of 1-2 pounds but it's easy to get that back off.

I don't weigh individual ingredients in salads, but I weigh everything else except pre-portioned things like bread, eggs, bacon and sausages. For salad I have "Meals" set up for a large salad and a small salad (before cheese, dressing, avo or croutons.) I just add those calorie dense items in addition to the "salad."



In my case, it really isn't an exact number and a lot of it is instinctual. I can tell when I've had the right amount of food for the day.

You'll be okay! It's just a new chapter. Enjoy all your hard efforts.

PAV8888

It is a fine balance isn't it between relaxing a bit and relaxing too much. There's no question that some relaxing is not only allowed; but, eventually, necessary. There's no question that utter disregard is guaranteed to end in regain.

I think of it as layers.

Being interested enough to read and post here is a layer.
Weighing every day is a layer
Using a scale to weigh food is a layer
Logging is a layer.
Logging deliberately in the red everyday is a layer that makes it clear who's the chief hamster in charge!
Going for at least one long walk a day is a layer.
Choosing to eat varied food with certain "health" attributes (say veggies or soups or fruit like things) instead of just fish sticks on pizza topped with chocolate sauce is also a layer!
Reviewing Fitbit and Trendweight stats is a layer which requires and reinforces the weight every day layer.
Reviewing food logs and nutrition is a layer.
Fitbit competitions and little health app circles are a layer.
Looking for a training or athletic challenges or lack of regression (whew, I can still pick this up) is also a layer.
Choosing to actively manage ups or downs with slow reversals <a different version of flattening the curve) is also a layer
Continuing to AVOID as state of IDGAF is also a layer

Do I hit all of these layers all of the time? FAR FAR from it.
But they're there to promote avoidance of the only critical one: AVOIDING IDGAF!

So you're in the early stages of loosening some of your own layers.

You are also probably still operating in an environment where your hormones are not yet stabilized after your recent "starvation" bout. Having food thoughts and being hungrier than normal and thus feeling the need to make sure you're on top of it... is normal.

It is not a total coincidence that most regains happen immediately--a lot of the immediate regains are probably skewed by unsustainable plans that are terminated abruptly, or by arriving at maintenance past the point of being ready to give up and with no plan to continue managing your weight!

Then most of us fight to stabilise for the first year or two post maintenance while avoiding loosening up too much and too soon. All you're going through.

Then i suspect things get easier as we progress post that, though the "fat boy/girl" thoughts and past habits and past coping behaviours still lurk in the shadows waiting to snag us.

On top of that, it may also be valid that you're "unsettled" because you're seeking maintenance and haven't quite found it yet.

I think of maintenance as a couple of elastic bands: you can push a bit up and you can push a bit down and nothing much of anything happens.

You keep pushing often and a lot and the bands break and you're through to the other side.

The bands are slightly more elastic when you're pushing down and a bit more brittle when you're pushing up. But they're still there and they still can be broken!

And, as Ann mentioned, even when the band snaps and you're actually drifting up or down... it's not like you have no way to intervene, or even that it happens instantly and fast.

My only other suggestion (as if I am shy about throwing some out there) and I believe the one she implicitly makes: is make small adjustments. Try to flatten instead of overcompensate. Ann's 0.25lbs a week will more than get you where you need to be in no time even if you drift a bit!

cmriverside

@PAV888 's post is so right on...I seriously laughed at the

Choosing to eat varied food with certain "health" attributes (say veggies or soups or fruit like things) instead of just fish sticks on pizza topped with chocolate sauce is also a layer!

...but all of it is exactly true, the whole post. Thanks for that.

PAV8888

except that my edit was a little bit late, by like 1 minute! GRRRR: we don't want to AVOID AVOIDING IDGAF we just want to simply avoid the wretched state!. It came out a little bit critically reversed!!!!

ChickenKillerPuppy

I cannot thank you all enough for this. Seriously. And I really am taking in what everyone is saying, and it all makes so much sense. I even appreciate just being told these feelings are normal bc I’m new to maintenance! I am very grateful for this community, so thank you all again. I feel better and more relaxed reading what you all said! ❤️❤️