Operation refocus underway ...

sjkcwatson

525 days into this, i've maintained my goal weight for almost a year. I've never stopped logging and have stayed within 5 lbs of my lowest by weighing ever few weeks, adjusting a little up or down as needed, and watching a weekly rolling average to stay on track for my goals.

However, I had noticed my focus begin to slip a little. A few more treats, a little less exercise. So this past week I refocused. 22 miles and 5 hours of walking last week and adjusted the calories back down to get back to my goal weight (will bump back up as soon as I loose a couple).

How do you stay motivated? Do you occassionally refocus? This is a lifestyle and it's working, just sometimes feel like i need to refocus.

dakotababy

I have not been to maintenance yet, but I could imagine there would be a lot of "refocusing"...especially in the first few years of maintenance.

mmerry5

I’ve been in maintenance about a year too. Logging is the only way for me to keep accountable and not yo-yo. I also bought a fitbit to give me a better idea what I should be eating every day. I really Love knowing more accurately how many calories to eat each day. I try to run/walk nearly every day so the fitbit was a good fit for me. (No pun intended.) Every now and then I allow myself to have a day where I eat what I want. During the week I am very good at staying focused and I typically try to eat under calories a bit because I know I will eat a bit more (+200-300 cals extra) on the weekends. That’s pretty typical all the time, kind of a mini refocus every Monday.

This weekend we had a grad party and I ate over calories by nearly 1,000 cals. I didn’t log until the end of the day and was not surprised by the numbers. Lots of calorie dense food, so no surprises. I suppose it could even be more than 1000, as I didn’t weigh or measure anything, so it was a complete guess for the day! I had decided I was going to eat pretty much what I wanted. And saying that, even as I was filling my plate I STILL decided to limit portions! I have MFP on the brain I guess! Just goes to show how easy it is to over eat with certain calorie dense foods. Now I’m wondering what would it have been had I totally gone all out? It was good though, no regrets, but now I will eat at a slightly larger deficit for a few days to get my weekly totals back to goal. I was a bit worried I would crave the sweets again after all the goodies, but I find I really didn’t even want them today.

By not cutting out anything in particular (everything in moderation) I find that maintenance is not so bad. I can’t say it’s easy, and though I do eat what I want, I sometimes wish I could have a bigger piece of pie!

einzweidrei

I've only been maintaining since December 2013 but whenever I start to lose motivation, I try to remember why I did this in the first place and how good it feels to be here. Refocusing is normal and should be applied in various areas of life not just eating. :-)

I lost weight doing 5:2 and whenever I feel like I need to get my head back into it, I try to do 5:2 or 6:1. I just came back from an all-inclusive vacation (translation: six pound gain in five days) so I just did 5:2 last week to refocus---though I really overate on Father's Day---and my weight is already back to normal. Or, I will go for a very long walk or hike like you. I also try to stay motivated by doing things I don't normally do for kicks/exercise---SCUBA and hopefully kayaking soon.

brynnsmom

I've been maintaining for several years now and YES I from time to time find myself in this place. This time around we went on vacation, and even though I've kept up with exercising since our return I just haven't had the determination to really monitor my diet. Luckily I know how hard I worked to get here, and how badly I do not want to have to lose weight again. I'm refocusing too!