How do you want to eat when you reach maintanance?

skinnyone2012

How many of us drink the shakes, go low carb. starve it off, exercise it off, etc to lose the weight we have to lose and then gain it all back?

It doesnt take a rocket scientist to tell us that we have not been doing the right thing to gain all of our weight? How do you want to eat when you get to your goal?

LoraF83

I'm going to eat exactly as I do now: nothing is off limits, everything in moderation. I will still count calories so I can stay in maintenance. I won't stress over the occasional splurge. Nothing will change, except that my calorie goal will go up by a few hundred!

AmIhealthyyet

I'm going to eat exactly as I do now: nothing is off limits, everything in moderation. I will still count calories so I can stay in maintenance. I won't stress over the occasional splurge. Nothing will change, except that my calorie goal will go up by a few hundred!

GREAT!!!L that is my plan! I hope to end my yo-yo eating/ dieting once and for all!

beachlover317

I'm going to eat exactly as I do now: nothing is off limits, everything in moderation. I will still count calories so I can stay in maintenance. I won't stress over the occasional splurge. Nothing will change, except that my calorie goal will go up by a few hundred!

This as well. It's why I'm eating healthy and not starving now. I can do this FOREVER!

kjw1031

I agree with everyone above.

I'm not going to do anything to LOSE the weight that I'm not willing to do in order to MAINTAIN it for the rest of my life.

Soooo, I eat carbs and I don't drink shakes. He he.

Irish_eyes75

Exactly the same as I am now.

JesterMFP

I plan to carry on eating just as I am doing now, but with an additional couple of hundred calories a day. I haven't cut out any particular food or food group, and I don't have meal replacement shakes.

ninerbuff

I'm going to eat exactly as I do now: nothing is off limits, everything in moderation. I will still count calories so I can stay in maintenance. I won't stress over the occasional splurge. Nothing will change, except that my calorie goal will go up by a few hundred!

THIS. People DIET, do FAD DIETS, use DIET PRODUCTS to lose weight only to regain, then go back on the DIET they lost weight with and do it again, and again, and again, etc.

Calorie control should be the focus. Eating foods you like lowers stress and makes you happy. Just don't go overboard and it will be fine. You want to eat hoards food, then counter it with exercise. Burn a 1000 calories in a day to eat 1000 calories of food extra.
You DON'T have to diet to lose weight for the general population. For most calorie deficit will work just fine.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

magerum

Listen to ninerbuff! With an hour a day of exercise Im able to maintain @ 3350 daily. 5'10" 183ish

llkilgore

I've been in maintenance for 11 months and eat the same sized servings of the same foods I ate to lose most of the weight, just with a higher calorie budget.

I started out with a couple of weeks of low carbing, then ate "diet food" for a couple of months - big salads, egg white omelets, protein shakes, etc., etc. Then I realized my diet was too restrictive and too "special" to be sustainable. I needed to learn how to manage standard, full sized servings of a full range of "real food" if I was to have a fighting chance of keeping the weight off. So I switched to a 3 point strategy to lose the remaining weight : 1) The adoption of healthier cooking methods. For example, more olive oil, less butter, less fat over all. 2) Strict portion control of all calorie dense foods. And 3) calorie counting. The only thing that changed when I reached maintenance was my calorie budget.

I eat whatever I want and don't worry about portion control on low cal fruits and veggies. I just eat what I want of them and log what I eat. But I never EVER eat more than a single standard serving of any calorie dense food, and rarely eat less than a standard serving. Standard servings start to look completely normal and perfectly adequate after a while and it's a lot easier to stay on budget when you aren't mindlessly super-sizing everything. I think of it as a "start as you mean to continue" strategy, except that I didn't quite start that way.

zyxst

Same as I eat now, though I'm hoping I can be cleared to not worry so much about sodium. I'd like to eat 2k cals as well. I don't want to go lower than that.

happypath101

I've been maintaining for about seven years now. What I find is that it's not about staying the same weight. It's about being self-aware and having the skills and the motivation to lose that same 2, 5, 8 pounds (whatever it is for you) that goes on every Christmas, vacation, tough deadline, life crisis. If you're truly changing your lifestyle than your day-to-day won't be that different. But, you'll go back into weight loss mode a few times a year to drop those pounds that creep on here and there. At least that's been my experience.

Also, you may find that your weight means less and less to you. You may want to use a measure tape or a pair of skinny jeans as your guide. As you get more fit and build more muscle, you might gain GOOD weight in maintenance mode. So, you don't want to be married to a number you set for yourself a long time ago.

You can do it!

tvanhooser

What's the point of going to all this work if you aren't going to maintain the lifestyle when you get to where you want to be so you can stay there ad infinitum??? ) I've run my goal weight through several calculators and come up with 1500 calories as being my maintenance level when I get there. So I'll do that unless I find it isn't working for me, eat healthy, the way we all SHOULD eat anyway, not be afraid of an occasional treat or splurge for special occasions and cut back the whole exercise thing to 2-3 times a week instead of every single sweatin' day which I hate and only stick to because I am "on a mission from God" as the Blues Brothers would say to get to the bottom of my knee pain issues and convince my doctor that last year's surgery did not fix everything like he evidently thinks. So I plan on exceeding everyone's expectations by leaps and bounds as to how much weight I will lose (more like completely BLOW them OUT OF THE WATER since most people in my life now--including the doctors-- have never known me when I was at the place I am going!! ) ), planting my flag and building a homestead there until the day I die!! )

chubbygirl253

I learned from my mistake the first time. In 2007 I lost 68 pounds on weight watchers only to slowly put it back on over 5 yrs plus an additional 18pounds. No, no. Not this time.

Changes I'm making:
1. Now I'm using lowfat and calorie counting to lose the weight and I have tripled the exercise I did back then. Much stricter plan than before.
2. When I reach goal weight, THEN I'll follow a less-strict plan (probably weight watchers) but never again will I go "off diet"
3. Last time when I stopped the diet I also stopped the exercise. This time when I complete my goal I will maintain a workout schedule, probably an hour a day/5 days a wk (right now I do 2-3 hrs/6days a wk)
4. This isn't a "diet" I get to quit when I'm done. It's my new life. I'll occasionally get to go out for a really yummy treat because it has to be something I can live with for the long haul. Sustainability. But I can't allow myself to ever gain more than 10 pounds past my goal weight or I'll be right back on the strict diet/exercise plan.

MissFuchsia

I'm going to eat exactly as I do now: nothing is off limits, everything in moderation. I will still count calories so I can stay in maintenance. I won't stress over the occasional splurge. Nothing will change, except that my calorie goal will go up by a few hundred!

I've been maintaining my goal weight about 6 months and this is what I do. I think if someone struggling with their weight loss plan (too restrictive etc) then there's no way they'll keep it off.

banshishi

same as I do now...I dropped a load of weight and maintained for a while by eating the same as when I dieted, just a slightly bigger portions...then I got complacent and started eating processed easy convenience food, utter laziness.. and I got less and less active.....so this time around I get to where I want and I pay attention and keep working out and eating properly.

zaph0d

same as now. just a little more quantity.

bulbadoof

About the same as I do now, except no more mashed cauliflower when what I really want is mashed potatoes and if I want to bake on Sundays, I'll do it without a second thought.

LeotaD

I want to eat the same as I do now. I don't feel hungry or deprived, I just live and all those foods that used to appeal to me aren't that great anymore.

LorinaLynn

I'm eating pretty much the same as I did while losing. Not even in that different of amounts, since I burned more calories when I was a little heavier.

XXXMinnieXXX

exactly as I do now, figure if I don't need to change it when I get to goal the transition should be fine! x