Those who gained back...

charliex2202

My ex was about as motivating as a wet sponge, he had no support for me changing and instead would constantly whine and whine and whine about me exercising or eating less or even reading the calories off the back of the packets.. he would try to sabotage me bringing chocolate and sweets home practically every few days so that id be tempted to eat them so much so that eventually i just gave up and as sure as eggs are eggs the weight came back too....

Now I have kicked his *kitten* to the curb and i'm doing this for me, my future my life..i am the only one that can create my destiny...

MFP is an amazing site full of fun, sweet motivating people...one step at a time we will get to our goals,,,,

~Charlie

geebusuk

Life getting 'busy' and working in a different part of the country.
Finding my weight wasn't really going up, because I was riding a push bike every day presumably - then stopping doing that.
"I'll get back on it next week."
I really do like food/eating.

But perhaps worst....
Knowing that I CAN lose the weight without TOO much hassle!

Now, it's not so much the weight but that I can't progress training so much when on a deficit.

ThriceBlessed

For me it was that I faced an extremely difficult situation in my personal life which lasted an entire year, and during that same year I had a constant, unavoidable environment of temptation with all of my biggest problem foods constantly being not only offered to me, but pushed on me. At first I resisted most of the time, but as the year wore on my resolve weakened, and by the the six month mark I'd given up completely, thrown caution to the wind and just figured I'd try again when the situation was resolved.

In retrospect, I should have kept trying and doing my best, because even if I'd gained some, I wouldn't have gained back as much as I did and wouldn't have had to start completely over.

I have accepted that what I am doing to lose will have to continue in some fashion for the rest of my life if I want to maintain. I may not log every day for the rest of my life, but I know that if I want to maintain then at the very least I'll have to weigh myself weekly and go back to logging whenever the scale starts to inch its way up, and I may just continue to log daily from here on out.

I know that while I may be able to cut down on the length of workouts eventually, I will still need to keep working out daily for the rest of my life if I am to maintain, and chances are I will continue with the length as well if I possibly can.

fougamou

About 10 years ago I list 40 lbs and was about 5-10 lbs less than I am now. I maintained that weight for three - four years and then my weight started creeping up. Once it started creeping up things just spiraled out of control and I gradually over the next 6-7 years gained about 75 lbs.

Some things are obvious to me

1. My exercise routine didn't vary and that contributed to the initial increase in weight.
2. My exercise routine eventually went away completely (well I maintained my gym membership, but seldom went) . Part of that is discipline, part of that is my schedule just got really busy and it is hard to find the time to exercise.
3. The more I gained, the less I cared about what I ate, which lead to some bad habits.
4. There were some major stresses in my life


Some things that I plan to do differently now that I am in maintenance mode:
1. Keep tracking everything -- I felt helpless when my weight start creeping up because I didn't understand why it was happening or how to stop it. I hope by continuing to monitoring calories in/calories out this will be obvious to me.
2. I looks at exercise differently. Its sort of hard to explain, but I used to look at it as "I need to exercise" and "I need to watch what I eat" almost as two separate things. Now they are firmly linked in my mind as calories in/calories out
3. I am trying to be realistic about my exercise. I fit it in where I can, do what I can. Just because I can't make it to the gym (or even don't feel like going to the gym) doesn't mean I can't do something else. And if I don't do something else, the impact is I eat less and not "oh I feel so guilty" but will eat the same as I was going to with the workout.

Nightdust

I fell in love and moved in with a man, doomed

Lol isn't that the truth?

Skarlet13

I went on a crash diet and lost something like 15 lbs per month. I was eating very little and exercising 2.5 hours per day. It simply wasn't sustainable. Funny cause now I'd be satisfied with losing just 0.5 lbs per week. I don't want to be hungry and tired all the time so I'll settle for the slow weight loss. At the end of the year it's 24 lbs.

turtleball

Falling back into old habits, and not changing my mindset when I was losing. I saw the losing phase as a "diet" that had an end date, when I could get back to "normal". "Normal" was how I got fat in the first place.

Learning to maintain begins the day you decide to start losing. It's a challenge in and of itself.

i'll remember this, thank you

OSUgal03

Had a baby an I way over eat when pregnant. Now my baby is 8 months old and I am still right back where I started.

wendybird5

...why did you?

My goal is far, but looking to learn now to avoid a similar fate down the road.

For me it was a combination of things:

1 - I didn't realize it until I'd lost the weight, but I had this expectation that hitting my goal weight was going to fix other issues in my life. Instead I found that losing the weight took away the excuse I'd always given myself for those other things not being what I wanted. It was frustrating and demoralizing and I'm an emotional eater.

2 - Though I knew that this was going to have to be a lifestyle change for me, it was still difficult to hang around friends who could eat whatever they wanted either because they never seemed to gain weight or they were perfectly happy being overweight. It didn't seem fair and it was frustrating for me.

3 - I also stopped planning ahead and had lots of free time where I didn't do anything. Both of those are a recipe for binging for me.

But this was all in my head kind of stuff so I just had to be really honest with myself and confront some issues I'd been avoiding. My solutions were to realize that losing weight is not a magical remedy that makes your life perfect. It just makes you healthier. And I've started arranging time with my friends doing things that aren't centered around food - hiking, movies (where I can use my budget as an excuse for not snacking), museums, walks around town, etc... I've gone back to planning my meals for each week and have lists of things to accomplish each weekend to keep myself busy so I won't snack as much.

Maintenance can get frustrating because without that weight loss goal to focus on anymore, you may wonder why you are still doing it. But I got a great motto for myself now that a friend uses and I'm going to start using once I go into maintenance. "I don't workout so I can lose weight. I workout so I can eat." It may just be a matter of finding that motto or goal for yourself to help keep you motivated once you are no longer having to check a scale.

dougt333

I think keeping it off is a much bigger goal to have. I commend you guys for sticking with it.

Nutella91

binge eating disorder
basically i am strict with calories and working out and then i binge

gigglesinthesun

For me it's actually I stopped weighing myself and thus I didn't realise that I put on 13lbs over winter. I do have weight fluctuations of about 4lbs during my cycle, so I just need to keep tracking the weight over time and once a gain is persistent I can reduce my calories accordingly.

Currently I am practising to live of my goal weight TDEE so that I actually get used to the amount that I should be eating regularly.