Maintenance findings...4 months on :)

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  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    Awesomeness! WTG
  • spicy618
    spicy618 Posts: 2,117 Member
    edited January 2015
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    Love to hear about success within my age group. COngrats!!!

    btw, do you lift heavy or at all?
  • amyniceneasy
    amyniceneasy Posts: 143 Member
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    You are my hero. I'm 40 5'2" and 140 now. I'd never be able to maintain at 2100. I was eating about that level for a year and my weight slowly crept up. That's why I'm back in the game..trying to lose the 10lbs I gained back. What is your lifestyle/career and what is your exercise routine if you don't mind me asking? I'd love to find my sweet spot where I could maintain at that many calories.
  • kailyw05
    kailyw05 Posts: 80 Member
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    I enjoyed your post. After finishing university 3 years ago I was at my heaviest (155lbs). That year I lost 20+ lbs and was the healthiest and fittest I had ever been. A puppy, a house, and a wedding later and I weighed just a couple pounds short of my heaviest weight at Christmas this year. Maintenance is clearly my biggest struggle. I am happy to see that someone has it figured out. I hope when I reach my goal (again) I can keep the lbs off once and for all!
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
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    amyniceneasy wrote: »
    You are my hero. I'm 40 5'2" and 140 now. I'd never be able to maintain at 2100. I was eating about that level for a year and my weight slowly crept up. That's why I'm back in the game..trying to lose the 10lbs I gained back. What is your lifestyle/career and what is your exercise routine if you don't mind me asking? I'd love to find my sweet spot where I could maintain at that many calories.

    Hi Amy, hero!! wow!! high praise so thank you for that :) I have a desk job actually. I get up at 6.30 to run 5 miles Mon-Fri - I have a Fitbit, so with that run I get 10000 steps before I get to work. At work I might clock up another 3k steps with difficulty (I make excuses to leave my desk LOL), then at home again between housework/cooking before the day ends I average 17000-20000 steps (9 miles) ..as I said I am active, always up and doing etc which makes my TDEE high for my height/age/weight. 3 days a week I do 30 mins strength training workouts, its been enough to give me great defintion. I'm happy to answer any questions, just PM me or send me a FR :)
  • ewhip17
    ewhip17 Posts: 515 Member
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    GREAT post - I totally needed this today. Thanks to the OP.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
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    kailyw05 wrote: »
    I enjoyed your post. After finishing university 3 years ago I was at my heaviest (155lbs). That year I lost 20+ lbs and was the healthiest and fittest I had ever been. A puppy, a house, and a wedding later and I weighed just a couple pounds short of my heaviest weight at Christmas this year. Maintenance is clearly my biggest struggle. I am happy to see that someone has it figured out. I hope when I reach my goal (again) I can keep the lbs off once and for all!

    Glad you enjoyed it :) so many people lose weight successfully and then just slowly slip back into old habits, of course slowly the weight goes on again. I see it all the time with my friends even on here. They cut themselves some slack, they stop logging, they stop logging into MFP for a while etc. What we have to realise is that this is a lifestyle change, the way you exercise/eat now has to be how we do it for the rest of our lives, thats what keeps us from gaining. I never cut out any foods, I eat EVERYTHING, but I eat smaller quantities of the ones that are high in calories. The exercising I started off doing to give me extra calories to eat. I took my weight off really slowly, from the beginning I never lost more than 1/2lb a week and that was fine by me. It took me over a year to lose 20lbs. But, I never felt I was on a silly diet or deprived :) I was satisfied, I was getting active and enjoying how I was feeling about myself and how I was looking. I've turned my life around when it comes to fitness and how I think about food in general. What I say to anyone is, if I can do it, anyone can. :smile: )
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
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    ewhip17 wrote: »
    GREAT post - I totally needed this today. Thanks to the OP.

    Thank you, and glad you came across my post :smiley:
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
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    This is how to do a good maintenance routine!
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
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    spicy618 wrote: »
    Love to hear about success within my age group. COngrats!!!

    btw, do you lift heavy or at all?

    I do strength training using heavyish dumb bells and using Hasfit/Fitness Blender/Jessica Smith strength workouts ( I don't have access to a gym and am happy with the workouts I do to not feel the need to add anything extra into my workouts.) I have great muscle tone. I don't particularly enjoy strength, I do it to keep my muscle mass and help my bone density which is important as we age - my preference is to run/walk :)

  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
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    Kim55555 wrote: »
    RunRutheeRun wrote: »
    @kim55555 you are the reason that I've been keeping on increasing my calories lol...I might do as you say but in this cold weather I just get hungry more so I reckon when it starts warming up I'll feel its easier to stay at 2100 then. Yesterday I ate 2400!! I just could not get filled. The thing is two days earlier I 'only' ate 1900 so it all balances out. It seems if my body gets 'under' fed one day, then the next two days its crying out to be fed all the time LOL. I'm still learning!

    Haha, your appetite (metabolism) has awoken. ;)

    haha Kim you are sooo right LOL
  • JazzyJoby
    JazzyJoby Posts: 4 Member
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    What an insperational post. You have prompted me to post on here for the first time instead of just "lurking". I am in my first month of maintenance and finding the conflicting advice confusing, I am also obsessed by the scales.Thank you for making me stop and think and congratulations on finding what works for you :)
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
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    netutopia wrote: »
    What an insperational post. You have prompted me to post on here for the first time instead of just "lurking". I am in my first month of maintenance and finding the conflicting advice confusing, I am also obsessed by the scales.Thank you for making me stop and think and congratulations on finding what works for you :)

    Thanks for the FR, you will always find conflicting advice on the forums lol, everybody is different and have different ideas of how to do things. I just didn't want to believe I'd have to keep lowering my calories so I'm happy I stuck with trial and error - it took a little time but its such a great feeling! Imagine being able to maintain an ideal weight whilst eating everything I like and practically stuffing my face LOL exaggeration, but I'm sure lots of people would look at my diary and think Miss Piggy :-D
  • SR_86
    SR_86 Posts: 58 Member
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    Great post! I want to maintain my weight but change my body composition... I know I need to stop obsessing about the scale but I'm finding it difficult after so many years of it ruling my life!! Thank you for this
  • SuperJo1972
    SuperJo1972 Posts: 113 Member
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    Well done - What a great inspiration to us all. It helps to know that a healthy maintenance is doable. :o)
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
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    SR_86 wrote: »
    Great post! I want to maintain my weight but change my body composition... I know I need to stop obsessing about the scale but I'm finding it difficult after so many years of it ruling my life!! Thank you for this

    You're welcome, don't let the scales rule your head, it took me some time to come to terms with fluctuations. If you can't handle them only weigh in once a week/fortnight :)
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
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    SuperJo1972 wrote: »
    Well done - What a great inspiration to us all. It helps to know that a healthy maintenance is doable. :o)

    Thank you for your comment :)
  • Montu42
    Montu42 Posts: 2
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    First of all, amazing job, Ruth! I know I'm finally looking forward to 40 whereas before I'd been dreading it. Mind if I ask what your heaviest weight was and what kind of diet and also exercise you do besides walking, push ups and planks? Thank you. -Shannon
  • cincysweetheart
    cincysweetheart Posts: 892 Member
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    Thank you for sharing. I'm not ready to switch to maintenance yet… but I try to educate myself so that I can be successful when the time comes. I find your post very helpful!
  • elansc
    elansc Posts: 24 Member
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    Ruth,
    Wonderful post! Highlights perfectly that this is a trial and error process as we are all different and need to take the time to figure out what works for us. Thanks so much for sharing what works for you and inspiring us all to be patient with ourselves while we learn to be healthy, happy, and fit!! I am 10 pounds (or so...) from maintainence and your post will help me to plan that stage of this journey

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