Struggling with Maintenance

rusta

Hi All,

Last year i lost around 13kg (around 28 pounds) with strict calorie control (weighing food etc) but very little exercise. From there I incorporated cardio and weights to try and tone - while still counting calories.

I maintain successfully with this combination. Unfortunately, as i try to move away from counting calories and weighing food towards a more visual approach to portion size - i gain. Not straight away.. but very slowly over a number of weeks - and then my pants feel tight.

I do not want to count calories and weigh food for the rest of my life!! HELP!!!

SherryTeach

I have accepted that I cannot maintain unless I continue to weigh my food and track. Fortunately practically everything I eat is already entered in MFP so I spend about 3 minutes a day logging. There are lots of things I wish to not do: floss, take out the trash, brush mats out of my dog, scrub the tile grout. But those are necessary for me to have the life I want.

When I don't log, I go into denial and gain back my weight. I've done it twice before in the past 18 years. I do not want to do it a third time.

steff274

I have been at maintenance nearly a year now to me logging isn't a problem I usually do it the day before and just tweak it if it changes not too much hassle at all!!

bikrchk

I've come to the conclusion its like balancing my bank account. I would not go on a shopping spree without knowing I had the funds to cover it. My calorie bank is no different. I'll keep a food journal the rest of my life.

funchords

You probably don't need 5 different people telling you the same thing, but -- same thing. Accurate logging.

With accurate logging, I don't need to do anything else -- my brain and body work together and the adjustments I make are natural and penalty-free. Thankfully, it's so easy. I've lost weight 3 times, all three involved logging. When I stop logging, the weight goes up.

Congrats to you on your maintenance!!

Lonestar5775

I lost about the same as you and although I continue to log, I do not weigh food, I do try to overestimate portion sizes though so if anything I come in slightly under goal without having to weigh etc. I have maintained in a 4 lb. range for a year now. Best of luck, you can do it!

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

If it's important to you then keep trying. What I would do if I were going to stop weighing food:

1.) set up some rules for myself. For example-- 5 servings of veggies, protein with every meal, only one "treat" food per day
2.) Practice eyeballing. What I would do for a few days/week/however long it takes is to eyeball what I think is one portion, then double check it on the scale. When I got to the point that eyeballing is fairly accurate then maybe start logging but not weighing. Then go to logging 5 days per week and taking 2 off. If that goes well gradually reduce logging, etc.
3.) Keep weighing in and don't let things slide too much before correcting it

Basically, baby steps. Good luck.

RaspberryTickleChicken

I've come to the conclusion its like balancing my bank account. I would not go on a shopping spree without knowing I had the funds to cover it. My calorie bank is no different. I'll keep a food journal the rest of my life.

NICE ONE!

@OP:

Same here ... for me, I would not be able to maintain without tracking my foods.

About 3 months in my maintenance phase I had your exact outlook and it overwhelmed me. The thought of having to do this for the rest of my life seemed daunting.

However, given the amount of work I have invested I waged the risk of not monitoring and the potential conclusion. At last, after some soul searching I decided that if I just continue to do what I was doing to get to where I was - was a small price to pay to beating the odds of gaining the weight back.

And now honestly, logging food & exercise is second nature - I don't even think about it - like putting on clothes to go to work being a seamless routine.

Good luck!

rusta

Thanks all. Im actually glad to hear that others struggle to maintain without logging food - i thought it was just me!!

I have tried the 'eyeballing' method. When i first stop weighing food - i am pretty accurate at judging the weight... but then about 2 or 3 months down the track, its like i have tricked myself into how much a portion actually is - and Im way over again.

I guess you are all right. I put a lot of effort into getting down to a weight and figure im happy with. If it were easy - everyone would be at their dream weight.

brenn24179

I think with me I will have to log or maybe write my calories down somewhere but I love MFP doing the math. I was up 4 lbs after the weekend so I have to do a deficit to get back down which if I log it makes me aware and I knew I had went over and now time to go down in calories. I know I cant do pizza and choc chip cookies all the time, dirn it, that is what I would do if I didn't log and look at it straight in the eye! I guess a small price to pay to keep that weight off, whatever works

dbanks80

Maybe up your exercise so that you can burn more calories thus maintaining

nxd10

I do log everything, but I don't weigh religiously.

1) What I do do is weigh periodically to keep myself from drifting. I also tend to overestimate, rather than under-estimate, portion sizes. That makes up for wishful thinking and anything I might forget to log (like the butter restaurants put on a steak).

1a) Do you use those pictures of portion sizes? I find them helpful and you can keep them in your wallet.

1b) Only weigh and measure stuff that is important. Who cares if it's a cup or 3 of lettuce? But a tablespoon or two of FROSTING? That makes a difference. Same with milk and bread. Get the big stuff accurate.

2) I also use a fitbit and set myself to sedentary and add in my exercise from that. It's automatic so I don't have to think about it. Buying a zip ($39 on ebay, $49 on Amazon) was my reward for going on maintenance.

3) You might also just need to lower your maintenance calories by 250. For the first year of maintenance I just changed my 500 calorie deficit to a 250 calorie one. I maintained on that. When I started losing again, I finally changed to maintenance. Either my metabolism changed or my logging did. It doesn't matter. It works.

Good luck. You're on top of this. You can do it.

GBO323

My issue is my eyeballs see everything smaller than my stomach does. LOL

After years of logging food either on WW or MFP...I'm finding that I will always continue to log. Attempted the one plate per meal method while guesstimating and that didn't work well.

I started maintenance at the end of August 2014 and like HappyCampr said, it will be gaining and losing the same 5 pounds. I'd much rather do that than attempt to wrestle a 78 pound loss again.

If anything is worth having, it's worth working for. That's how I see my health. I'll never be able to eat without rubber baby buggy bumpers in place for the long haul. A few days here and there...sure.

Overall, it's going to be tracking food and weekly weighing. Worked too hard to get here and I won't return to my unhealthy self again.

runny111

I log....after 18months at goal. Its 10mins a day. An annoying but necessary 10mins.

runny111

You may also be overestimating your exercise calories (if this is a recent addition to your routine, you may only be discovering this now), MFP, fitness machines, FITBITs, Garmins, grossly overestimate calorie burn. Particularly if its low intensity. And they don't subtract the calories you would burn at rest anyway.

gothchiq

Bleh. I'm sorry, hon. I know it's annoying. But without the measuring and tracking, it just isn't possible to know, closely enough, how much you are taking in. I have simply resigned myself to doing it. After a while, it's like brushing your teeth or something. You may not enjoy it but you just DO it, know what I mean?

elisa123gal

from what i can tell after reading countless threads..some people have to log to maintain ..and they just accept it. yet.. i read others who stop logging and maintain just fine.

you are who you are… I..myself.. don't want to log either..but interested to see how it shakes out…and I'll do it if I must.

farfromthetree

It's really not so bad to log daily. It beats the alternative.

mamadon

bikrchk wrote: »

I've come to the conclusion its like balancing my bank account. I would not go on a shopping spree without knowing I had the funds to cover it. My calorie bank is no different. I'll keep a food journal the rest of my life.

Me too.

pkw58

Logging is my security blanket. I eat out a lot, and have to estimate quite a bit. It leads me to making food choices that are densely nutritious. If I have a weighed and measured meal like breakfast at home once a day, and two away from home meals a day that I feel good about my best guess at portion size , logging reminds me how little or how much I have eaten. it's 5 minutes a day. Small price to pay for one of many daily things that add up to better health.

sijomial

My natural eating level is unfortunately a calorie surplus, not a huge amount but enough to gain slowly. Maybe because I'm a bit of an outlier (calorie calculators tend to over estimate by 300 cals/day) maybe just because I like food and am too gready?

What works for me is to eat at my natural level the majority of the time but have low days to balance the books.

I lost my weight following the 5:2 way of eating (5 days at maintenance and 2 very low days) and find maintaining with a 6:1 ratio of "normal days" to "low days" much more enjoyable and sustainable than what feels like a daily restriction.

Caveat is that I prefer to log my foods and calorie count but 5:2 / 6:1 does work for people that only count on the low days.