Transition to Maintenance

*bump* for myself to look at later!

I am actually struggling to switch over to maintaining. I am still working out almost every day. It is just a habit now. I am eating a little bit more than I did, but not much. I am still losing a little, but it is a difficult transition for me.

I hit goal a few months ago and am currently struggling with maintenance... Firstly, I stuck at a deficit... I don't know why but I was finding it really hard to let go of the deficit in fears of gaining weight. But I found myself exhausted and starving hungry, and had quite a few bad binges, and wasn't losing weight at that level anyway! Since going up to my maintenance calories a few weeks ago I do feel better, less exhausted, less irritable, haven't had a true blow-out binge in a few weeks. (Binging was never a problem when I was losing.)

I'm finding it much harder to keep the motivation and make the right food choices all the time, but seem to be striking a bit of a balance at the moment.

I'm definitely sticking with the exercise, I prefer to have a toned look so plan on doing 4-5 workouts a week. I just fell in love with running and am doing about 10k 3x a week and then when I can get back to a gym i plan on strength training 3x a week and hope this is enough to keep me in my weight range.

With eating back some of my exercise calories i'm averaging about 1600 - 2000 cals a day (netting 1000 or so) and this feels sustainable. It feels strange to be eating 2000 calories after surviving on 1200 for so long but it's also nice to be eating the governments recommended amount and not be gaining weight! It also means i'm choosing full fat foods again and less diet options.

There's a lot less help out there I've found for people trying to maintain, I know how to lose weight, but sticking to my current one is hard going! I'm trying to go by clothes sizes, if my trousers feel tight then cut it back a bit on the calories.

Umm... think that's about it! lol

this is what I have been doing -
When I had 10 pounds to go, I switched to only losing 0.7 pounds a week... now I have 5-7 pounds to go and I switched to 0.5 pound loss per week. I did this so I wouldn't lose weight so fast and so it would be easier for me to transition to maintenance. I'm not quite sure what i'm going to do when I get to my goal weight but that has been working for me so far

bump

After six months of ever-increasing intensity and commitment to healthy eating and working out, I reached my goal of weight loss. Interestingly, I got two kinds of feedback from family and friends: (1) Wow! The results are AMAZING! (in a good way); (2) I seem a little bony - it's been so long that people have seen me at a normal weight, they just got used to me with extra padding... except those how knew me decades ago.

In looking at BMI charts, etc., I decided to stop my weight loss focus at the mid-point of my BMI Healthy range although I still have a little more fat to reduce around the waste, chest, and back area. In fact, the program that my personal trainer and I worked out involved 90% fat burning and 10% muscle building.

The change we will implement, starting this week, is to continue my workouts because, like so many on this thread have acknowledged, I, too, love working out (always have), moving the ratio to 50/50 fat-burn-to-muscle-building, or thereabout. It's time to tone, not to be muscle-bound but continue to burn the remaining fat.

As summer creeps in, I also intend to move from 100% gym workouts to 50% gym (muscle training), 50% outdoors (cardio) - swimming, cycling, and jogging, with the intent of adding the goal of endurance. Can I run three miles straight? Can I cycle 15 miles AND swim 300 meters? That kind of stuff. And, so, that will be my spring and summer transitioning from fat burning to maintenance, toning and endurance.

My transition was very easy. I generally ate 1700-2200 calories a day while losing weight with 2-3 "free" days a month with no logging.

I am 6 months into maintaining my 135 pound + weight loss, and all I've really done is relax a bit on cardio. I continue to lift weights three days a week, but I don't consistently do an hour of cardio 2-3 times a week anymore...more like 30-45 minutes twice a week and I run when I want to.

What's been working for me is a "clean week, dirty weekend" approach. I eat a nice, logged diet M-F, around 2000 calories a day. On weekends I eat what I please; this doesn't mean binging, but it does mean eating meals out, beers or cocktails when I want them, etc. It's been working really well for me, physically and emotionally.

Saving this for when I hit my goal

good thread!!

It was easy for me becase my weight loss program was to set my calories at the maintanance of the person at the weight I wanted to be. It took along time to get there, but once I did, I was so used to eating that amount that there was literaly no transition. I just kept eating the same. I highly reccommend this to others for long term success.