Emotional maintenance

Do you exercise daily? You can sometimes go off the deep end but burning calories will help you at least maintain.

I feel somewhat similar to you in regards to maintaining. I have gone through at least 5 cycles of up/down 30+ lbs in the last 23 years. Loss was always slow and steady with diet and exercise, gains were always slow and caused by slacking off. Like you I set "action limits", but kind of blew thru them and rationalized it based on what was going on in my life at the time. Eventually I became unhappy enough with myself that I started the weight loss journey again.

I've now been in maintenance for about 6 weeks. I debated with myself the weigh in schedule. Every week? More or less often? Like you I was anxious about it. This is the first time I am using a tool like MFP to help me maintain and I really want to do it right this time. So I decided to weigh myself every day. Same time of day. I track the results in Excel and keep a running average to really see what's going on. I was too anxious about the once a week approach. What if it was a really good or bad day? How would I react? Frankly I am finding maintaining harder than loosing was, and avoiding the scale was giving me too much anxiety. So I guess I traded my anxiety in for obsession, but so far I'm happy with the results. I've seen overall fluctuations of about +/- 2+ lbs around my goal, with daily variations of 3+ lbs on a couple occasions, but my running average is only +/- 1 lb around my goal, so I am calling it success. Although I am still debating with myself if the goal was correct, and 6 weeks is a short time, I think I'll keep giving this a go

Funny enough Im weighing myself everyday, if I see an increase I cut back, then a decrease I eat more, changing calorie intake happens serveral times a week for me, I usually like to use the weekends as fasting days as I don't work on weekends so I expect im not burning as much calories.

It's good to keep track while following any weight loss program, but concentrating too much to scale is also not good for yourself, you can check your weight ones in two weeks it helps you to know you are going right or not. If your weight is increasing then you have to cut calories and if you are losing weight according to your plan then it's OK. You have to be perfect, so try to be healthy and eat more if you're loosing weight continuously.

I disagree--for me--with the people who say not to weigh in every day. I lost 50 pounds about 11 years ago and kept it off pretty well. I weighed in every day while losing and in maintenance. I also saw that on the National Weight Control Registry (of people who have maintained weight loss), it's common for people to weigh in every day. (I always thought it was odd for "experts" to recommend against daily weigh-ins, when the real experts--the maintainers--do weigh in every day.)

It was only when I stopped daily weigh-ins a few years ago that the scale starting creeping up a few pounds. So I finally committed to reversing that and lost an additional 40+ pounds (down 90 pounds now from 12 years ago). I will absolutely weigh in every day forever. It's important that I don't think much about daily fluctuations and just stay within an acceptable range, which really ends up being just 1-4 pounds.

I know that some people seem to end up feeling obsessed with the scale. So if you can avoid this, I can't recommend daily weigh-ins strongly enough.

I can really relate to your post. In 2010, (and this was prior to joining MFP) I lost 50 pounds. Have much more to go and have yo-yo dieted for decades, unfortunately. However, one thing I am doing differently this time is working on the emotional side of my connection to food and my size. What I have learned through this process is that I had a lot of emotional housecleaning to do and have worked with a qualified therapist in this regard (mainly in the area of grieving the many losses I have endured but never really dealt with). It has helped immensely and even though I am only early in the process, already I am feeling different and know that when I reach my goal, I will "deserve" to look and feel good and be healthier, both physically and emotionally. Good luck on your journey.