Is maintaining weight harder than losing weight?

It's perceived as harder cuz tracking your food can never stop while maintaining. "Diets" have an end date and people don't plan for maintenance from the get-go. Does an alcoholic say "ok, I've been sober for 6 months now and did really well, back to the bar I go"? Nope.
The book Thin For Life is a great read BTW.

Jennifer
your friendly dietitian

It was harder for me at first but now it's easy. The main thing for me was that it was hard not to see the scale progress anymore-- that had been my reason for doing everything that I was doing so when I got to maintenance I needed to find new reasons. For me (and most people I know in maintenance) what was required was a shift toward fitness goals. So instead of eating and exercising with an end goal of weight loss I changed my mindset to eating and exercising with the goal of deadlifting 200 lbs, squatting my body weight, doing a mud run, etc.

Personally, and I realize this may be different for different people, the longer I do this the easier it is because it just becomes a habit and not something that requires conscious effort. So in that sense maintenance has been easier.

I'm new at it but so far for me it's hard but not as hard as losing. But you're doing it forever (hopefully), where with losing you knew you were working toward a goal and if successful it would end at some point. Still a goal to maintain, but it's different.

Timorous_Beastie wrote: »

It's not really harder. But it's not any easier, either. Everything you did to lose weight, you have to keep doing to keep it off, just with a little more calories.

The part that may be harder is that losing comes with it's own rewards that keep you motivated. Lose 15 pounds and everyone says how great you look. Keep those 15 pounds off for a year or two and no one says anything. It's odd going from seeing constant change and progress to minimal change and progress.

This. When I was losing
1) I anticipated it would require effort
2) I made progress in terms of weight loss when I stayed on track
3) I knew the level of restriction was temporary

When I started to maintain
1) I did not anticipate how much effort it would require
2) I didn't get the same feeling of progress when I stayed on track
3) I knew the level of restriction was permanent

Just to put into perspective when I was losing I ate around 1400 calories per day and exercised around 400 calories per day. In order to maintain I eat around 1600 calories per day and exercise around 200 calories per day. When I was gaining (pre-MFP) I ate around 2400 calories per day and exercised 0 calories per day. So yeah, I was able to relax things when I got into maintenance but not as much as I thought and its forever.

Don't get me wrong. I am still figuring maintenance out (6 months in) and I do think I will be able to up my calories a bit (100 or 200) eventually. BUT it is not as relaxing as I secretly anticipated.

As I read the replies on this post I am thinking, that if the statistics show 80% (some are even higher than this) of the people who lose, gain back the weight, with some people gaining even more weight than they lost, it occurs to me that most MFP'ers, who are responding to this thread, are in the 20% who keep it off for more than 5 years.

This statistic, indicates to me that 80% of the people are unable to keep the weight off, for whatever reason, so it stands to reason that maintenance is harder. Or it is for most people

It would be interesting to see how many people have kept the weight off for more than 5 years, here on MFP. They are the true success stories, in my opinion. I see a lot of posts on the forums about people returning to try again. Indicating they were unable to either reach goal weight at all, or were unable to keep it off.

snowflake930 wrote: »

This statistic, indicates to me that 80% of the people are unable to keep the weight off, for whatever reason, so it stands to reason that maintenance is harder. Or it is for most people

My hunch is that most people who lose weight gain it back because they return to their old eating habits. That's why I have stayed with MFP after reaching my goal weight in mid-December; I want to continue with my current habits, including (for the time being) logging.

I find maintenance harder. When in losing mode, there was a specific goal to strive for, and I think all along I sort of thought when I hit my goal weight I would be done. I hit my goal weight 6 months ago, and I find I have to fight from slipping back into old habits of eating. It is getting easier, but it is a struggle. I hope as time goes by it will get easier and the new habits I have developed will become second nature.

I think all of it is hard. I am greedy with food. I want to eat whatever I want whenever I want, I also want to spend money all the time. But guess what, discipline.

my doctor told me fat has a memory of about three years so if you can keep it off for three years it should be easier to maintain your weight. I lost 16kg but have put it back on so I'm part of the 80%. My new goal :get the weight off again & keep the weight off for three years.

I'm getting close to my weight goal too, so I also have been thinking a lot about what maintenance really means. I like the advice about setting fitness goals. I'm almost able to run 5 k and I hope to push that to 10 k before long. Maybe I will add more goals as I go. I know that I can never sit down with a 2 liter tub of ice cream again, but that doesn't mean I can't ever enjoy a bowl or a cone. I really need to learn balance. Being aware of my calories, monitoring my weight, and staying fit are all part of my maintenance plan.

It's not harder, it's just different. No idea how many calories I lost on (Weight Watchers), but I maintain on around 1800 net. Everyone is different and you have to find what works for you.

It's definitely different - but I still believe it's another mind over the matter situation. It's just that what matters now is a different set of goals.

It is a lifestyle change - it's not temporary. Anyone who thinks that when the diet ends they can let off the gas and start eating all the stuff they cut out is going to end up right back where they started.

I refuse to fall into that trap - so for me it's still a set of goals - they are just different

Harder for me because I'm hungrier as a whole, even eating more calories. Go figure. And I have more 'cheat' days, I guess after 2 years you sometimes need a break from restricting yourself. So I pretty much still eat at a deficit with cheat days that wipe it off.