Maintenance =/= Promised Land: Advice for new maintainers.

I read a lot of posts from people who are nervous about starting maintenance. Oh boy, can I relate. I was totally nervous and for good reason - we worked really hard to get here and it seems like so many people work so hard to lose all this weight then gain it right back within a frighteningly short period of time. What will follow is just a story of how I learned how to stop being scared of maintenance. I really hope that it helps or reassures anyone who wants to take the time to read it. It is pretty long, but I thought I'd put it out there because reading something like this would have helped me when I was nervous about approaching maintenance. I know everyone is different, but sharing experiences can be really helpful.

I'm sure it's a common story - start tracking calories, feel pleasantly surprised by how doable weight loss is after you've adjusted to eating a smaller amount of food and making smarter nutritional choices. Still, for me, there were often times where I felt hungrier than I wanted to but had used up all of my calories, or wanted some kind of snack (like trail mix) but opted for something less exciting because it wasn't practical - it wouldn't curb my hunger enough to make it worth the calories. The results I was seeing made these feelings easy to brush off, but I would often find myself thinking "I can't wait to get to maintenance, then I can have that" or "I can't wait till I hit my goal then I don't have to think about this all the time".

This mentality, I am pretty sure, is the reason that my first couple of brushes with maintenance were short, sweet, and complete excersizes in failure. Weight loss was not unpleasant for me, but I was stuck with this mindset that maintaining would be some sort of magical experience filled with rainbows and zuchinni bread and peanut butter toast for every snack! I have never been too unhealthy an eater, I just have a tendency to over-snack and not very good portion control. The first time I hit maintenance I thought "I'M FREE!" and just ate way too much. So I gained a bit and got back on a deficit and hit maintenance again. This time I was more careful about portion control, but I ended up eating the same amount of calories in meals as I had been during my deficit and just filling all the rest up with chocolate and alcohol. I felt hungry and cranky all the time and the fact that I felt like being in maintenance meant I should not be feeling this way made me even more cranky. I gained a bit of weight back, probably glycogen, and went back on a deficit.

I waited until I was about two pounds under my goal, and with a sigh I started to mentally prepare myself. But this time, because of my experiences so far, I was no longer thinking of maintenance as a promised land, as the oasis at the end of a long crawl through a desert where everything would be better and different. People say around here a lot that this isn't a diet, it is a lifestyle change. That is the truth. And it's funny how easy it is to say and agree with, but how hard it is to truly believe right down to your core. When I finally realized that, maintenance didn't disappoint me, it simply became part of the process. I also chose to begin upping my calories by 100 per week rather than jumping right to what mfp dictates for maintenance. That was also really helpful in the sense that it reinforced the process mentality rather than "Yay I'm done, let's order some chinese food and cupcakes!"

I am still looking for my true maintenance calories. I still consume a lot of chocolate and alcohol. I still take a pass on certain foods because they won't fit into my goal for the day. However, I don't feel deprived or disappointed. I still feel thrilled with the results of this journey. And most importantly, I am not afraid of maintaining. When I step on the scale and it says the same thing it did last time I looked (within a pound or so) I feel really good. This is what I was hoping for. This is what the point of this whole dieting thing was all about and I really hope that reading and relating to my experience will help even one other person feel this way.

The advice: do not think of maintenance as the end of your journey. It isn't. Think of it as a place to feel comfortable and settled in your new, healthier lifestyle. You may or may not need to keep tracking your calories depending on how accurate you become at judging your daily intake vs calories burned. You don't need to control yourself with an iron fist - it's okay to go over a bit here and there as long as you're not just going after junk food cookie-monster style 24/7. I found using the weekly goals on the MFP app to be incredibly helpful.

All you really need to do is check your head and find a way to be comfortable in your life. It will be different than it was before you started your weight loss - it has to be or you will end up right back where you started. But it's totally worth it.