On a mission to maintain weight

Kirstyw4

so in over 2 yrs i have lost 3st 2.5lbs. I have gone from 11st 2.5lbs to 8st and i am very happy at my new weight. But now have the task of trying to maintain and not lose or gain 🤦‍♀️🤞

kgirlhart

Congratulations! My biggest advice when moving into maintenance is to set a maintenance range instead of just one number since your weight will still fluctuate like it did when you were losing. There is a good thread each month for maintainers. I haven't seen the October thread posted yet, but it should be up any day. The thread for September is called Sept Check In.

Kirstyw4

thank you 🙂

briscogun

Welcome to maintenance!

In some ways it's harder to make that change because you don't get the reward of seeing the scale go down. Just know that you are going to bounce around by a few pounds up and down, here or there, even eating the same stuff sometimes. It's all normal. You'll end up finding your "range".

It's took me a good 2-3 months to sort of make that mental and emotional "shift" into maintenance mode so give yourself some time to transition. But this is why you worked so hard, so you can enjoy your new self!

Congrats!

sijomial

Congrats!

:flowerforyou:

Enjoy the ride but don't let the ride get out of control......
(Set some limits, remain vigilant but not on red alert.)

lgfrie

So I lost 5 1/2 stone (haha I always wanted to use stones; I admit I had to do a conversion in Google to get there) and a month ago decided to take a maintenance time out. Still in maintenance - loving it, I think you'll like it. I haven't learned any deep lessons about maintenance yet, but I also haven't gained any weight back, which I was a tad worried about beforehand. All I've done was switch my calorie goal from a 500 cal deficit to a zero deficit - everything else is exactly the same - counting and logging everything, trying to map out my eating day as much as possible in the morning so I don't get blindsided by things later on and go over, an hour of cardio or walking every day, etc. Basically, continuing my diet "as is" but at TDEE calories. This seems to be working - not hard at all tbh.

Strudders67

Congratulations! It's a great feeling.

I lost just under 3 stone in 2 years and switched to maintenance just as lockdown started. A few weeks later, I lost another few pounds, closely followed by another couple of pounds. At that point I even switched my MFP goal to gain weight! I didn't gain anything, but I also didn't lose any more and realised I'd stabilised after a few weeks. I am now happily maintaining at around 7st 10.

There were multiple factors at play. Not going to work, so no access to the seemingly endless supply of snacks usually being brought in, but also not going to the gym. Going for a long, brisk walk every day, but also not going to shops unless essential and only have small portions of pre-made, bulk-cooked meals in my freezer. I thought I was eating at maintenance but either my intake or my exercise figures were clearly a little off. Probably a mix of both.

One thing that I do remember is being hesitant to eat more and I'm sure there was a small nagging fear that I'd suddenly be back where I'd started. I suspect that, in the early days of maintenance, I was probably also eating a little under the calories allocated, most days. The deficit would mostly have been tiny but, if my exercise tracking was also a bit off, that would explain the continued weight loss.

What I learned is that I actually need to eat a few more cals a day that MFP suggests. At my height and current weight, my maintenance cals are 1320 but I'm now eating 1400 (plus exercise cals). Doing that, I've been between 49 and 50kg (a swing of 2lb) for just over 3 months now. Hopefully I'll still be saying the same thing a year from now.

In the app, you can see your weekly average - I find that helps a lot and I aim to end each week with my net average being just above my maintenance calories (rather than under). At least initially, continue weighing yourself at regular intervals and, as said above, have a range whereby, if you go above or below certain weights, you take action to do something about it.

mylittlerainbow

I think I've finally arrived at my daily calorie range, after working up to where I am now for about 6 weeks. All the online TDEE calculators put me in a range of 1380-1430 calories per day. I was still losing weight as I built up, but now I'm in the high 1300s per day and actually gained 0.2 lbs yesterday (I'll keep watching, of course, to make sure it's not a trend but just a fluctuation - I did eat commercially-prepared food yesterday and went over my sodium limit for the first time in over a year), so I think that plus a minimum of 60 minutes of exercise daily is working for me.

My work now has been on recomp and in particular the sagging skin I've been left with. But I think I have something workable now in terms of a daily eating plan. I know from bitter past experience that I'll have to keep on top of this for the rest of my life, and that things will probably change now and then, but I don't have as much 'fear of the unknown' in maintenance at this point, the way I did when I started out.