All you fit ladies maintaining, what is the future like?

I know you're looking for women to respond but maintenance vs fat loss shouldn't be all that different to be honest. I'm a former personal trainer and one of the first things I asked people was to describe their desired eating and exercise habits during maintenance. I then structured their fat loss phase to mirror maintenance as close as possible. The main benefits of this are higher compliance with very little change between the two phases. Too often people create fat loss plans that are vastly different than perceived maintenance that few stick with it and have no idea how to transition to maintenance.

There are several misconceptions people have regarding fat loss. One is that you must give up your favorite foods. Another is that you need to drastically reduce calories to reduce fat mass. Neither is true.

If your goal is to lose 22 lbs, then simply eat about 350 calories below what's needed to maintain your present weight. By eating just below maintenance, you will reduce fat mass but still have room to enjoy your favorite foods.

Hello!

I am writing to all those ladies who have lost the weight and are keeping it off, to find out - what is life like once you have got the weight off, as far as diet and exercise goes?

To translate my question - does maintenance basically look/feel like the losing weight period, with slightly more calories?

For me, yes. Some people successfully transition to not tracking/logging calories, but for me, that hasn't happened as yet and I don't see it happening in the near future. I need the structure of logging to keep me on track. My exercise is just the same as when I was losing.

For instance, I go away to Italy for 3 weeks every summer for work, and I definitely can't carry my weights with me. Nor can I carry my weights when I go see my family or hubby's family for 2 - 4 weeks at a time at Christmas (though I can certainly maintain my calorie restriction during these times - will that be good enough?)

It shouldn't matter as far as the weight - just adjust your intake to match your exercise, but as for keeping up with strength training, it's very helpful to learn some body weight exercises that can keep you going for those periods you don't have access to weights. Google "bodyweight exercises" or "you are your own gym" or "convict conditioning". Nerdfitness is also a good place to start.

Does it eventually start to "not matter" to you the fact that you can only eat half of what everybody else is eating, and that sort of thing? I easily push the other half of my pizza or burger away and eat my salad while my hubby eats the whole thing, however I always WANT the rest of it, even though I do not eat it. Is it always going to "feel" like a diet, for the rest of our lives?

Well, yes and no. I certainly don't eat "half of what everyone else is eating". That sounds a bit extreme. Obviously, if your husband is a lot bigger than you and/or more active, then yeah, you're going to have to get used to him being able to have much bigger portions. You shouldn't be eating half of what an average woman your size/age is eating though, and you shouldn't be having to give away half a burger. I generally eat the same as the people around me, but I'm definitely a lot more aware than most of whether or not I can fit in a second helping or whatever. If I want pizza, I'll eat pizza. If I want a burger, I'll eat a burger. However, it's unlikely that I'll be able to have say a burger meal for lunch, and then a whole pizza later on, plus a few beers... I can have any of those things, but probably not all on the same day, unless I've been unusually active that day.

It does feel like a diet to me - in a way. I eat whatever foods I like, and did while losing, so that part doesn't feel restrictive. But, I always have to think about food and whether or not I can fit something into my day, so in a way, yeah, it still feels like a diet. I go for periods where it's really not a problem, it's just habit now, but there are other times when it's still hard work.

I've reached the lowest weight I'd like to go to and have unintentionally been in maintenance for the last couple of months. For me, the journey is not over and I think I will always continue to set myself new fitness and health goals. Right now I'm meant to be gaining to gain muscle and recomp but I'm finding it hard to gain weight. I've increased my calories and carbs a bit and had quite a few treat meals but I guess I've got used to making better choices generally and so its not hard to maintain. I'm also quite hoping that once I have recomped and am trying to stay the same weight that my body will just get used to it. Most of my life my weight was stuck at about 150lbs and regardless of what I ate or drunk my weight would settle around that number so maybe that can happen once I've been at a lower number for a while. I certainly don't plan on tracking calories for the rest of my life, eventually I hope to just go by the way my clothes feel but that is a long way off yet for me.