Is maintaining weight, just as hard as losing weight?

I have found it to be harder.

I reached my goal in 2012, and my weight has been fluctuating about 5 lbs. around my goal weight, since.

Last year, I gained back the 40 pounds I lost the previous year. I wasn't really trying to maintain, so I guess it doesn't answer your question, but I think it's hard. This time, I'm doing something a little different. I tried to estimate my TDEE at my goal weight and that's what I've set my calorie goal to. The idea is that the deficit will automatically get smaller as I lose weight and I can enter maintenance without changing how I eat. Right now, it's a pretty steep deficit (>1000 calories some days, depending on exercise), but it should be getting better soon.

I think about this all the time. So glad you asked!

I'm on my journey and with the help of myfitnesspal.com am getting there much more effectively. I hope you meet your goal and successfully and healthily maintain it forever!

Try this site: http://www.thinandhealthyforever.com/CalorieRequirement.asp

I've been meaning to google, "How many calories to maintain 125 lbs" and it came up, along with some other really helpful sites.

Either way, the suggestion was 1,849 calories a day (for my height and age), which is about 500 more calories than I'm consuming now daily. That makes a lot of sense and I think will be easy to add in. But I want to be careful to make them smart calories, you know? Like whole wheat pasta or something (I've cut processed sugars and refined carbs).

Plus, I plan to continue logging my daily calories for several months (or maybe indefinitely!) to keep me in check.

All the suggestions you've gotten are so helpful! Again, I hope we both reach our goals and keep them for life!

I like these threads as it's always interesting to see how people's experiences differ. It seems to me there are two main things that affect how easy maintenance will be. One is how you approach the weight loss phase - how restrictive you are, how much you make it a genuine lifestyle change vs a temporary diet etc. The other thing is whether you are someone who has battled weight for many years, possibly with disordered eating patterns, emotional eating etc, or whether you're someone who has many years of healthy habits to fall back on, who just happened to gain weight following injury/pregnancy/slowing of metabolism etc.

For me, maintenance has been quite a lot harder than losing weight.

Firstly, as others have mentioned, there is the fact that when you are maintaining, there are no longer the reward cues that you get when losing - you no longer see changes on the scale, see yourself differently in the mirror, get compliments and comments form people, feel your clothes fitting differently etc. Changes still happen, but they're much more subtle. So, that can be hard and for a lot of people, they find it hard to sustain the motivation to keep putting the effort in when there is no regular reward like there was before. You need to really learn to appreciate/love the reward of being healthy, being fit, being slim etc. It's hard to work hard to basically stay the same, so you've really got to want to stay the same. It helps to learn to love health and fitness and how they feel - and not just be concerned about being a certain weight/size.

It's also really helpful to continue to make goals to keep that momentum going. These can be fitness goals, like running a certain distance, or pace, or lifting a certain weight, or learning a new dance step or yoga pose or whatever. Participating in races etc.

You also need to accept that a lot of the stuff you need to do to keep in shape is pretty boring, and that's just how it is. Logging your food (if you choose to continue) and working out becomes just part of your daily routine, like brushing your teeth and food shopping. Not exciting, but necessary.

For me, the lack of excitement in the maintenance phase is something that you get used to. It's the first hurdle in a way, once you get used to it no longer being exciting, and carry on anyway… you've a good chance of succeeding at maintenance.

The second thing that I've struggled with in maintenance is the emotional eating side. I have struggled with emotional over-eating since I was a young child, and it's not something that has completely gone away. It is under control now, but it's something that I'll probably always deal with. I think a lot of people assume that once you've lost the weight, problems like that disappear. A lot of times, they don't. So, in maintenance, I get a few more calories to play with, but I still need to be vigilant about my intake. I'm not someone who will be able to stop logging my food, at least not in the near future. I need the structure. In a way, going into maintenance messed with my head a bit because weirdly enough, I feel more restricted now than when I was at a calorie deficit. At a deficit, you always have a bit o wiggle room. If you go over a bit, it doesn't matter because you'll still be at a deficit. Even if you go over by a lot, you're probably still at a deficit for the week. In maintenance, you can't do that, at least not often. So, even though I have more calories, I need to be more careful about not going over. I just find it a whole lot less stressful to eat at a deficit than in maintenance. Occasionally, I can understand wanting to just give up and not think about how much you're eating and just let the weight creep back on. However, being a healthy weight, and being fit, are totally worth the extra stress.

tl;dr
Maintenance can be a lot harder for some people, especially if you have emotional eating issues or other disordered eating, or have struggled with weight your whole life. Make it easier by living in the weight loss phase the way you can realistically live the rest of your life (ie not crazy restrictive changes). But, even if you do everything right and build good healthy habits, it still might be really hard.

I think it can be for all of the reasons others have shared. But for me the key is actually enjoying my life as it is. I like eating healthy foods. I like being fit--and going to the gym to get it. I like working toward fitness goals. I like knowing that I can participate in pretty much any physical event/activity that comes up. I think that for someone who just did these things in order to lose weight but actually hates them, it would be really hard. I do wish my husband had gotten on board with me (still hoping!) because that would make it easier and we could have my fun together!

I definitely weigh in every day and expect to for the rest of my life. (It keeps me mindful--and still a little proud!--right from the start of each day!)

Depending on the way you look at it, it can be harder or it can be easier. It takes time to get the hang of maintenance. The biggest difference with maintenance is that if you weigh yourself weekly, and if you see the scale go up a little, you know how to lose those extra pounds.

For me, when I hit maintenance, I changed the way I focused on goals. Now, for me, it is about improving myself. I want to be stronger and faster, so I focus on those goals now. Nutrition and food intake are still as important, but now I worry about my macros, getting enough vitamins, and my workout stats more than what the scale says.

But when I gain a little too much or my pants feel too tight, it's a lot easier to nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand.

it is only as hard as you want to make it. all the trial and error and learning i have done over the past year has made it easy. i know what i need to do. still eat the same as when losing, just a few hundred more cals. wanna cut a few lb's, cut a few hundred cals. if i am going to eat big for a holiday or b-day i just throw in a couple 24 hr fast/500 cal days. boom, deficit. if you didn't learn anything during your weight loss that you can apply to your weight maintenance to make life easier, dare i ask, why? learn something about what your body needs and when during your weight loss to make life easier when maintaining.

My DH joined MediFast to lose 50 pounds - which he did, without cheating (seriously, he did not cheat), in three months. Twenty percent of his body weight.

But that is not my point. The MediFast program has you pay up front for their counseling and testing for the entirety of (1) the time they expect it to take for you to lose the weight and (2) a full year of transition/maintenance. DH lost the weight much faster than expected, so he is getting a refund for those weeks, but will meet with them weekly for another 51 weeks to make sure he adopts healthier, sustainable habits.

As someone said, I know already it's going to be harder because you can't just say 'oh it's ok if I eat a bit more today, I'll just lose a bit less this month'. I already know it's going to be a tough mindset for me... even if I should be able to eat more overall. Also makes it harder for cheat days, unless you purposely decrease your goal the rest of the time.

If you can't maintain your weight without restriction, then you're not meant to be that weight!

Restriction can lead to a lifetime of health problems if the damage is never addressed- osteoporosis, hypothyroid issues, blood pressure issues, hair loss, really the list goes on and on. Basically any symptom of starvation and malnutrition.

A non-restrictive eater should be able to maintain on 2,500 calories with a sedentary lifestyle. Everyone has their own weight set point- like you have your own foot size, hand size, etc. and respecting that is what contributes to a longer, complication-free life (aka HEALTH.)

I'd say it requires as much dedication as losing, but not that it's as hard.

The BIG thing is to realize you're going to exist in a weight RANGE, not at a specific number. That's where I think it might be a little easier, because you have some more wiggle room, including some more freedom to eat more on special days.

Plus, you're then able to say "oops, I'm 'over / under' eating and going 'up / down' more than I want from my target", and need only SMALL adjustments to get back to where you want to be.

But I would say you still need to put in the same basic amount of work when it comes to counting calories and logging exercise.