switching from weight loss to maintenance

experimenting will be the key, and I already weigh daily, so I'll keep that up. At least that will be one indicator. I also take my measurements monthly and keep a calendar of every exercise so at a glance I can see everything! Good luck to all of us, I just set my maintenance mode last night. We'll know more in a month!

Great question! I started my plan at Christmas when I received a Fitbit as a gift. I was at 190 and wanted to get to 175. I'm currently less than a pound away. My plan is to change the settings on MFP app to maintain current weight. It has kept me on track all they way through this process and I have no doubt that if I continue the plan...it will work. We shall see...

Good luck!

I started at the lose 1 lb a week setting.
As I lost weight MFP deducted calories, when it got down to 1200 cal a day.
I switched to lose 1/2 lb a week.

For the last 5 lbs instead of letting MFP deduct calories when I lost I added back 100 calories,
So that by the time I got to my goal I was eating very close to my maintenance calories.
The last part was VERY SLOW... but worth it I think... If I had to do it again, I think I would go for an even more gradually step down.

MAINTENANCE IS SCARY... I've almost forgotten the panic of gaining it all back.

You do have to give yourself the room to play around with strategies and find the right diet/weight/life style balance so you can live the life you want.

Maintenance since Jan 2012 and still figuring out what works best for me.... Still fight the demons of things I KNOW are self-sabotaging.

- up your calories slowly, not all at once to allow your body time to adjust

- nothing much should change other than the amount of energy your are consuming...your actual diet shouldn't really change. If you've had a 500 calorie deficit and you've been losing roughly 1 Lb per week on average then mathematically your maintenance calories would be roughly 500 calories more than you are eating right now...that is all that should really change.

- you have to keep getting your fitness on...don't stop exercising

- understand that you're going to have a range, not one specific number. I generally weigh in anywhere from 178 - 185 or so with my 10 month average being 183. It's not static, you have to look at the trend over time.

- understand that while in a deficit, your glycogen stores (primarily fluid...your immediately available energy stores) have been chronically depleted...you will fill these stores once you start eating more calories. It is pretty common for people to put on a good 3- 5 Lbs of what basically amounts to water weight when they replenish their glycogen stores. If you are really worried about that and obsessed with the actual number on the scale you might want to diet off a few more pounds...but personally I don't understand why people care about this so much.

- continue to weigh yourself regularly and be conscious of the way your clothes are fitting, etc. It's easy to nip it in the bud if you're paying attention

- make proper nutrition and fitness an intrinsic part of your life

In my experience, people fail at maintenance largely because they never managed to really learn a sustainable way of eating...they just dieted and deprived themselves and never learned how to eat...never learned portion control and moderation...so they get to maintenance and pretty much just go back to eating the way they did before and end up gaining the weight back. Add to that, most people so closely associate exercise with weight loss they fail to see that it's actually far more important in maintenance and they stop exercising...recipe for putting the weight back on right there.

You don't have to exercise every day...I have two rest days per week. That said, I also walk on those days and just remain generally active. My other 5 days of exercise are lifting and moderately intense cardio activity and usually in the neighborhood of 60 minutes.

What you have to understand about exercise is that it increases your calorie requirements...the more you do, the greater your calorie requirements...the less you do, the less your calorie requirements. If you start doing less exercise, it is likely you will have to compensate with your calorie intake...your maintenance exercising 7 days per week @ 30 minutes per day is going to be a higher level of calories than if you just exercised 3 days per week @ 30 minutes per day. You need to understand that relationship between your activity and your consumption.

For the years that I was tracking and losing or maintaining I was also collecting data. I have been able to figure out my maintenance calories accurately from my data. I suggest to take a maintenance number from a TDEE calculator and follow it consistently for a few weeks to a month, then look at the data and make adjustments accordingly. There is t a deadline and you don't have to do it perfectly right of the starting line. . This is meant to be a tool you can use for life!

- up your calories slowly, not all at once to allow your body time to adjust

- nothing much should change other than the amount of energy your are consuming...your actual diet shouldn't really change. If you've had a 500 calorie deficit and you've been losing roughly 1 Lb per week on average then mathematically your maintenance calories would be roughly 500 calories more than you are eating right now...that is all that should really change.

- you have to keep getting your fitness on...don't stop exercising

- understand that you're going to have a range, not one specific number. I generally weigh in anywhere from 178 - 185 or so with my 10 month average being 183. It's not static, you have to look at the trend over time.

- understand that while in a deficit, your glycogen stores (primarily fluid...your immediately available energy stores) have been chronically depleted...you will fill these stores once you start eating more calories. It is pretty common for people to put on a good 3- 5 Lbs of what basically amounts to water weight when they replenish their glycogen stores. If you are really worried about that and obsessed with the actual number on the scale you might want to diet off a few more pounds...but personally I don't understand why people care about this so much.

- continue to weigh yourself regularly and be conscious of the way your clothes are fitting, etc. It's easy to nip it in the bud if you're paying attention

- make proper nutrition and fitness an intrinsic part of your life

In my experience, people fail at maintenance largely because they never managed to really learn a sustainable way of eating...they just dieted and deprived themselves and never learned how to eat...never learned portion control and moderation...so they get to maintenance and pretty much just go back to eating the way they did before and end up gaining the weight back. Add to that, most people so closely associate exercise with weight loss they fail to see that it's actually far more important in maintenance and they stop exercising...recipe for putting the weight back on right there.

You don't have to exercise every day...I have two rest days per week. That said, I also walk on those days and just remain generally active. My other 5 days of exercise are lifting and moderately intense cardio activity and usually in the neighborhood of 60 minutes.

What you have to understand about exercise is that it increases your calorie requirements...the more you do, the greater your calorie requirements...the less you do, the less your calorie requirements. If you start doing less exercise, it is likely you will have to compensate with your calorie intake...your maintenance exercising 7 days per week @ 30 minutes per day is going to be a higher level of calories than if you just exercised 3 days per week @ 30 minutes per day. You need to understand that relationship between your activity and your consumption.

^^^^^ THIS ^^^^ Excellent explanation!

I have been maintaining for 5 years with wiggle room up or down within 5-7 lbs. You have to remember this is a LIFESTYLE change.. not a quick fix. What you have been doing to get the amazing results should start to be a second nature to you. The energy you feel, the way your clothing fits, the confidence... all came from hard work. The food and exercise relationship you have made and obtained for how ever long it took you to get to maintenance. Once we feel complacent, we start to live the "i got this" lifestyle.. that is when trial and error is going to catch up with you. (i say this from my own experience, not as judgement or saying you will do this).

Play with your calories, play with a different routine of exercise if you don't want to commit to what you have been doing. Just don't walk away from the hard work you put in to get to this point... keep your relationship healthy.. or it will catch up with you.

Still check in with a scale, still check in with your measurements. I would you use how you feel with your energy level as a gage, how your clothing is fitting. Get rid of the "larger" clothes you no longer fit into because they are too big.. there is no need to keep them. Leave the comfort zone of the back up of "just in case".

Best of luck, i hope this helped. I have lost 60 lbs and have been maintaining that loss for 5 years in the process have also lost an additional 10 lbs. Accountability is my key to success.

In to read some more great tips.

Like the OP, all I seem to be able to do is lose & gain it back:noway: . Trying to break out of the yo-yo diet mode. :sad:

My plan is to have a 3-5 lb 'goal range'. Slowly will up my calories till things even out (stop losing etc). I plan to continue my weekly Sat a.m weigh ins. Planning to continue my walking/running. I need to get more motivated to work out with my weights, definitely need to firm & tone (at my age, skin is not going to snap back...ever)

Right now am just in my "range" so still looking to lose a bit more.