What are you doing during weight loss to prevent future relapse?

I am ONLY making changes I can keep. I am not about clean eating or anything like that. I love carbs, starch and drinking my calories. I will never change that so I am learning the best balance between healthy and happy.

ana3067 wrote: »

Nothing. Because I plan on logging probably for life

This. I have been maintaining for a year, something that has never happened before.

OP, your #5 is something I'm doing along the way to my goal. Some other good points, not only for losing weight but maintaining a weight loss are ...
... OPs #5 - Practice maintenance along the way
... it's a lifestyle change
... live, laugh, learn & log
... have a buffer ... but I'll add ... lose 3kg below your goal and keep your weight within that and your goal.
... eat nutrient dense foods, limit overly processed ones, tweak as necessary, stay active
... learn to indulge a bit within your limits
... keep a support network
... never say "it won't happen to me" about regaining ... be mindful.
... fall in love with the 'new me'
... make changes you can keep ... again, it's a lifestyle change that goes on forever.

I have been thinking for the last couple of days about making myself a personal video that I can watch every month when I'm at goal. The video will be me telling myself how proud I am of what my new self watching has achieved and reminding myself how uncomfortable it was being in a bigger body and how insecure it made me feel. No-one can tell you how far you've come but the old you!

I'm trying to develop active hobbies.

Right now, im thinking triathlon, with some hiking and paddling mixed in.

I figure if I'm always training for something, I'll treat food like fuel rather than going back to boredom eating.

Unfortunately, my hips and feet are not loving running. Hopefully getting used to it and losing weight will help that.

i have been maintaining for a while now, and I just keep logging. If I binge, I log it too. I overindulge on my birthday, and holidays, and log that too (sometimes really sloppily, like "thanksgiving-2,000 calories")

I am working on living a shame free life, and being open about my food choices is a part of that.

scrittrice wrote: »

DeirdreWoodwardSanders wrote: »

But if a habit is a routine behavior that we generally do unconsciously -- brush my teeth every morning, for instance -- and if general wisdom is to be believed, the period of time needed to adjust to a new habit is 21 days, then why do we slip back into old habits?

Seems to me that if we want to sustain a lower-weight lifestyle, our understanding of habits really needs better investigation.

Some research suggests that habits take 66 or 254 days to form, but I wonder, for something like our eating habits, how many days it really takes for the new habit to stick, and more importantly, for the old habit to dissolve.

I actually interviewed the guy who did the study that gave rise to the 21-day figure that's been paraphrased all over the place (mostly innacurately). What he found was this: anything can become a habit, but the more unpleasant and difficult the thing is to do, the longer it takes to become ingrained. (One of those they-needed-a-study-to-know-that? studies.) It took 21 days to adopt an EASY habit--I believe the example he gave me was making coffee at home rather than spending $$ at Starbucks. Not much effort there. The hardest habits for people to form? You probably know what I'm going to say: exercising regularly and maintaining good eating habits. He found it takes years for the average person to go from couch potato to regular exerciser, not to say that it's impossible, but it needed to be a conscious choice for much longer than he was expecting. Same was true for eating healthfully/appropriately--even when people were thrilled with the results of those things, they needed to continue to think about them.

I'm only just seeing this now and am intrigued by this. I've heard the 21-day quote bandied about often on this site, and it always seemed suspect to me. Now I know why. @scittrice, do you have a link or reference to that interview, or to the original studies?

Jruzer wrote: »

scrittrice wrote: »

DeirdreWoodwardSanders wrote: »

But if a habit is a routine behavior that we generally do unconsciously -- brush my teeth every morning, for instance -- and if general wisdom is to be believed, the period of time needed to adjust to a new habit is 21 days, then why do we slip back into old habits?

Seems to me that if we want to sustain a lower-weight lifestyle, our understanding of habits really needs better investigation.

Some research suggests that habits take 66 or 254 days to form, but I wonder, for something like our eating habits, how many days it really takes for the new habit to stick, and more importantly, for the old habit to dissolve.

I actually interviewed the guy who did the study that gave rise to the 21-day figure that's been paraphrased all over the place (mostly innacurately). What he found was this: anything can become a habit, but the more unpleasant and difficult the thing is to do, the longer it takes to become ingrained. (One of those they-needed-a-study-to-know-that? studies.) It took 21 days to adopt an EASY habit--I believe the example he gave me was making coffee at home rather than spending $$ at Starbucks. Not much effort there. The hardest habits for people to form? You probably know what I'm going to say: exercising regularly and maintaining good eating habits. He found it takes years for the average person to go from couch potato to regular exerciser, not to say that it's impossible, but it needed to be a conscious choice for much longer than he was expecting. Same was true for eating healthfully/appropriately--even when people were thrilled with the results of those things, they needed to continue to think about them.

I'm only just seeing this now and am intrigued by this. I've heard the 21-day quote bandied about often on this site, and it always seemed suspect to me. Now I know why. @scittrice, do you have a link or reference to that interview, or to the original studies?

I interviewed Jeremy Dean, the author of "Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don't, and How to Make Any Change Stick." Now that I'm looking back at my notes (it was a few years ago), I'm not sure whether he did the 21-day study or just reported on it. Also, I misremembered the "easy" habit--it was getting yourself to drink water every day. But exercise and good diet were the difficult ones.

I'm a long way off my goal weight yet, but I'm hoping to maintain this time and make it a lifestyle choice.

My only hiccup in the middle might be if I decide to have another baby and that will obviously temporarily mess things up a bit.

During 2014, although nearly 30lbs overweight, I did actually manage to maintain that weight all year and that was a huge achievement for me!

I've got another 40lbs to lose to get to goal and then once I'm there I plan on doing pretty much what I did to maintain during 2014 which was:

1. Consume less alcohol
2. Eat plenty of fresh fruit and veg
3. Eat breakfast (I found that this stopped me getting really hungry and making bad food choices later in the day)
4. Walk more

I'm also going to add in the following things as at a lower weight I will obviously need less calories than I did to maintain at the weight I was last year! These will be:

1. Carry on logging for at least another year
2. Weigh myself weekly and take action as soon as my weight goes up by more than 2lbs
3. Keep eating pasta dishes to just once a week (I find it very easy to eat huge amounts of pasta!)
4. Get rid of any clothes that are too big
5. Mainly use low fat substitutes for butter and olive oil (again nothing wrong with these for a lot of people but I personally find that I overuse them and end up eating so many calories that way!)

I've not really included anything to do with exercise as I have so many issues around it (all stuff in my head) that it's just too much to deal with along with eating sensibly! I am trying to think long term here and I have previously burnt myself out with way too much change too quickly.

My only plan with exercise is to try doing Couch to 5k again once I get to a much lower weight (I've tried a few times but at this weight my knees do not like running) but I'm going to try to see that as a celebration that I have lost enough weight for it not to bother my knees so much when I run!