Maintenance Strategies

jjjsroach

I know in an ideal world, we relearn how to eat the right volume of the right foods, and we naturally reach a happy equilibrium at our new weight and stay there forever.

I don't think this is reality for most people. I am wondering what strategies people have come up with to keep from gaining the weight back?

My brother's strategy (with some success) has been to strictly diet 5 days per week (1000 calorie deficit) and then eat whatever he wants to satisfy cravings on the weekends. He weighs in every week. Most weeks he is able to lose back any weight gained over the weekend and breakeven. If the scale goes up 5 pounds over his target weight, he goes back into 7 day diet mode (1000 calorie deficit) until he is back at his target weight. Then back to 5 days on and 2 days off.

Any other strategies besides eat like a rabbit the rest of your life? Thanks!

xbowhunter

What I do is eat basically the same thing daily for breakfast and lunch. This usually leaves me with 500 to 600 calories left for the day. Then my dinners vary in foods but I only eat until I used up my calories for the day. This has worked really well for me.

I am actually down 3lbs from goal but it's almost the weekend and I am sure I will deviate a bit but that's ok because I am down on the scale.

spiriteagle99

I became a runner, with the goal of running marathons and half marathons. I don't race much any more, but I do still maintain a halfway decent base, running about an hour 5 days a week. I also have a large dog who loves to walk and I take him out for a couple of miles every day. This allows me to eat pretty much what I want, within reason. I know most people don't have the time to exercise 2 hours a day, but it works for me.

tomcustombuilder

Lose the weight by making the right food choices in the proper amounts. Continue doing that for life. Depending on how much you have to lose there’s a good chance that what your calories were during your starting deficit, they become your maintenance and need to be adhered to in order to not gain the weight back.

When you lose and are happy with the results you can’t go back to your old eating habits and not expect to gain it back.

PAV8888

I would ask how long your brother has been successful at that.

In my opinion it is a very high risk strategy not as a base concept but because of the magnitude of the numbers you're throwing around.

It would be one thing if you were talking 150Cal or 200 Cal deficits and 500 or 1000 Cal overages. Or an occasional (as in once per quarter not once a week) 5K Cal day that involved a buffet.

But weekend binges and 1000 Cal deficits that may be contributing to triggering them doesn't sound long term sustainable to me.

I would suggest strongly to him that he may want to smooth the curve if he does not want this to become a run-away train.

Unless activity levels change to compensate (and such changes have availability of time, effort, and possibility of illness or injury concerns) as weight reduces and as a person ages caloric needs go slightly down, not up.

While it is not all sunshine and puppies, it is also not all dismay and gloom. While hunger cues may be quite elevated immediately post weight loss... fight for time. You may just find that over time (think from half as long as you were losing to twice as long as you were losing) your hunger cues may fall in line with your needs.

In the meanwhile you have to rely on the tricks and strategies that you developed while losing weight to contain any tendency to regain.

Which means (to me) that losing weight pretty much the same way you intend to maintain is probably a good thing.

AnnPT77

You might want to go over to the "Goal: Maintaining Weight"part of the MFP Community and read posts there, starting with ones in the "Most Helpful Posts" section. There are as many strategies as there are maintainers, I think.

IMO, personalization of tactics is key. We all have different preferences, strengths, challenges and lifestyles. Our eating and activity habits need to fit into that personal context, and operate almost on autopilot when other parts of life get challenging . . . because they will.

Further, I think it's ideal to experiment during weight loss to find those maintenance tactics (with the cushion of a sensibly moderate calorie deficit still in the picture to catch any oopsies); then practice the chosen habits until they're grooved in, routine.

It's the majority of our days that determine the majority of our results, not the rare day when we eat too much cake or do a 6-hour workout. That makes our routine daily habits a power tool for successful maintenance.

I'm heading into year 8 of maintenance, after a year of loss and around 30 previous years of overweight/obesity.

During loss, I decided I wasn’t going to do anything to lose weight that I wasn't willing to continue long term to stay at a healthy weight, except that sensibly moderate deficit to trigger loss. That turned the process into a search for sustainable new habits. That's worked out well for me . . . so far.

I don't think my specific maintenance routine will work for others because they're not me. Personalization!

Specifically, I found that I feel more full and happy more of the time if I eat a solid breakfast with plenty of protein, then protein through the day. At some meal(s) I need volume, normally in the form of truly large portions of veggies/fruit. (I shoot for a minimum of 400g, ideally more like 800g of veggies/fruit daily.)

I fry things less often than I did pre-loss, and use less oil when I do. I reduced portion sizes or frequencies of a lot of calorie dense foods that weren't nutrient dense or extra tasty to me. I eat less of what I consider "filler foods" like bread, pasta, rice, etc., and eat more of the toppings (mostly veggies). I portion snacks rather than (say) mindlessly eating chips out of the bag.

I haven't dropped any foods I enjoy, and that includes deep-fried foods, alcohol, rich desserts, candy. They're just less frequent, and in more considered portions.

I do the same exercise activities as when I was obese, because I'd already been very active for a dozen years while staying fat - the semi-mythical pretty-fit fat person. (I even competed athletically, and not always unsuccessfully, in age group competitions.) I try to move more in daily life, though.

I still log food most days, but not all days like I did at first. I weigh daily, put the results in a weight-trending app. I pay attention to the trend (not so much the dailies), and act if things slip a bit.

The one thing I do in maintenance that I didn't do during loss is "calorie bank": Eat a small number of calories (100-150) under true estimated maintenance most days, so I can indulge more (occasionally). I don't track the "bank" numerically, just keep an eye on the scale trend. During loss, I knew I could eat anything up to maintenance calories occasionally, and if I did, it would only briefly delay reaching goal weight. The calorie bank does a similar thing for me in maintenance.

TL;DR: No one can tell another how to maintain. Tactics need to be personalized, and pretty easy.

jjjsroach

Thanks for all the feedback. I have lost 25 pounds and have 25 pounds to go. I am going to try to follow the advice given of eat the foods now that you are ok eating for the rest of your life. This should make the transition much easier. I am also picking up the cardio and resistance training and trying to find activities that I enjoy, so those activities can be a permanent part of my life going forward (they were not before). I also like the idea of banking a few calories for a rainy day (it will come) and continuing to monitor the trend on the scale...reacting to it as necessary. Thanks again!

JaysFan82

It took me a little over a year to lose 170 pounds and hit my goal. That was the easy part. Losing weight I know. I've been trying my whole life. Maintenance was new and it took a lot of playing around with my calories to figure it out. I'm a runner, so I have to consume a good amount to maintain (I'm also 6"4 220lbs). Not taking my foot off the pedal like I did in previous attempts and falling into horrible habits.

I just hit my 1 year Maintenance I would say it took me a good half a year to figure it out. Good luck to you brother in Maintenance!

lynn_glenmont

For me, what works is to continue to log just as I did during weight-loss phase. Most days I naturally have a small deficit, so I don't worry on days when I want to eat something that puts me above maintenance.

I definitely do not eat like a rabbit. I have never eaten like a rabbit. Rabbits eat their own droppings because their digestive tracts aren't long enough to extract all the nutrition from some of the foods they eat. If I ever do that, it will mean there has been some kind of apocalyptic event, and trying to lose or maintain weight won't be something I'm concerned about.