And thx for the congrats. It does feel really good to have it under control. It has been a long but informative journey. I feel now that I mostly have the tools I need for staying fit for the long haul, unless I get a health or injury surprise! I can take a more relaxed attitude about the whole thing,because I feel that even if I start gaining again, I can manage it.

Perhaps the next step for me will be learning to eat more intuitively, if I continue to have a more appropriate appetite. This afternoon I had to make myself eat after my run (I'm up to 47 minutes regularly now, at least once a week, shorter for other days) because I knew that the hunger would hit later, and I wouldn't have another opportunity until dinner. And for dinner, because I was not ravenous, I chose to eat my burger without chips first and then wait and see if I was still hungry. The cravings are mostly gone. Maybe later I'll have some chips, or maybe a bowl of ice cream, or maybe a glass of wine. But I won't have to choose based on what will fill my empty leg for the least number of calories. I can choose based on what strikes my fancy.

This truly is uncharted territory for me. . . . And I'm definitely not complaining!

@DaniH826--I agree, it is definitely easier to eat at goal, whatever it is, now that my appetite is appropriate. Notice I said appropriate, not controlled! Yesterday may prove that mine is not quite controlled! Donuts for breakfast and party buffet for dinner. My healthiest choice of the day was spaghetti and meat sauce! Calories were not outrageous, but oh, the lack of nutrition! But that is why I do MFP and not some weird low carb or other exclusion type diet. I can live my life and eat normally, or even a bit beyond normal, and participate in the food that culturally accompanies life's accomplishments (here in the south, school concerts, graduations, sports seasons conclusions, and pretty much everything else is celebrated with decadent food! Probably that way other places too, but southerners tend to go over the top, culturally, with everything--our hair was bigger in the 80's, our houses are over-decorated, our clothes are fussier, etc. . . In college I remember my California roommate was appalled by my excess! And I couldn't understand her simplicity!)

Anyway, MFP lets me stay in touch with reality, but gives me the freedom to deal with life, and then move back to healthier eating! When I did low glycemic, I stopped eating anywhere outside my own house! Not sustainable!

Seriously though, I am still thankful to not feel the constant need to be eating, and if I don't make a single gain in fitness or weight beyond this, I feel like I can live my life. If it truly is vitamin D as I suspect, the nutrition scientists seriously need to figure this out and get the research, etc!

An observation. Misfit has updated their site so I can easily see weekly and monthly averages. Back in February and March when I was struggling so much, my average TDEE was 1600-1700. This month I have averaged 2000! That is the difference that being at work, and having access to outside so I can run regularly will do! Is it any wonder that I was gaining weight during those months? I was reporting an intake of around 1500, but if you factor in 10% error, which I figure is reasonable for both my logging and the TDEE reported by misfit, you can see what the problem was! BTW @DaniH826--I really do like running, and I was glad to see warmer weather so I could run more. It is the only exercise I have found that I consistently WANT to do. Thx for the reminder about strength, though. I can use those encouragements anytime, as I can always convince myself to NOT lift on any given day for just about any reason!!

My NSV: (TOM is here so the only victories I will see will be away from the scale this week). Yesterday I stretched my bare (yay spring) legs out in front of me, and lo and behold, I have calf muscles! There was actually a bit of roundness to the sides of my lower legs! Three or four years ago, after losing my weight, I had someone tell me I had the skinniest legs they had ever seen. This was not a compliment!! (At least not to me. Also, for the record, at my highest weight of 156 lbs, wearing a size 14, I still had skinny legs! Thigh gap?? not a problem! Well, maybe no thigh gap at 156, but they were still skinny!) I'm still not seeing the ab fat budge, but at least there are improvements. I'm not sure if the ab fat is an age thing or what. It is like my mid section is just THICK now, and as a young person it wasn't. As a young woman, at around 105 lbs, I had the classic 36-24-36 hourglass (except it sat on toothpick legs, as I mentioned above!) and ab fat just didn't happen! Age has definitely changed the fat distribution for me!

Transitioning to summer: I'm a little worried here. Hopefully my Misfit connection will work again soon (the company is supposedly working on the issue that was presented by the app update, but it still is not resolved and MFP and Misfit are not "communicating" and sharing my info). That would help. Here is my issue. I am so much less active outside of workouts during the summer because I am not at work. (Small house--I can walk the entire house in 15 steps!). I am going to have to either adjust my eating again, or add more workout to compensate for less non exercise activity. I will have more time, so maybe I'll just add in an extra walk each day. Or maybe a swim. Could be the time to start training for the triathlon that is on my bucket list?? Anyway, I definitely will have to be sensitive to the change.

@DaniH826 -- i did kettlebell and light-weights-as-cardio and bodyweight type exercise videos to stay at least active during the indoor days, but I just don't get as good a burn (partly because HR is up and down--I use the circuit training numbers from MFP for estimating burn--they were close to what my HRM was saying when I used one, for what that is worth. Also I can really only stand those videos, or even the treadmill or elliptical or stationary bike, for about 30 minutes!)

I will check out the link. You are right any moving is better than not.

I really like the misfit. I got the flash, which was on sale for $25 at Christmas. It's regularly $50. (The $99.00 shine has the same mechanisms but is in a jewelry quality shell, and it is beautiful. It is appropriate even for business or dress attire. I would love to have one!). It seems to track my movements well, without over-tracking my arm movements (bodymedia I had before counted typing as exercise, and you can only imagine what it did with piano playing--and I'm a musician/conductor/drummer). It's numbers line up with several online calculators as well as @heybales spreadsheet TDEE estimator. It ranges from about 1750-2250 a day for me. Besides the low price, I chose it because I can wear it several different places--wrist, shoe, collar, pocket, bra, etc and get a good reading. I especially wanted that feature after having so much trouble with arm movement and the BodyMedia(now the jawbone). Misfit also acts as a cool faceless wristwatch, and I like that. I've ended up wearing it on my wrist, since it seems to work well that way without going crazy when I drum or conduct, and I like the watch feature.

With any monitor, you have to take it with a grain of salt--I'm sure there is built in margin of error!

Ha! As a mother of two competitive swimmers, I should have caught that! How many times have we carb-loaded for meets! And after practice! (After practice snack for 14 yo: 4 pop tarts, huge bowl of ice cream, and two bagels with cream cheese. True story, and that was just before dinner!)

I'll have to give that some thought--adds more to the balancing act for sure. But more carbs is always good news! I have definitely been noticing for awhile now that I need carbs to feel satisfied. It seemed to be so contrary to the way usually protein is pushed for satiety that I had already wondered about it. Bottom line is even though I am constantly aware of fueling my two young athletes, I really don't consider myself an athlete, and so I've not given it much thought beyond calories, and a nod to protein, which I always seem to come up low on. 70+ is a good protein day for me!

Any additional suggested reading on this?

That's a lot to digest (haha)!

Okay, so here is my quick takeaway plan, no numbers here, just basic thoughts. (Btw I really like numbers. Understanding the math behind this has been so helpful to me! I'm a math geek, I guess right after being a music geek.)

On run days I should be more conscious of carbs in breakfast and lunch, and then include a carb-heavier snack in early afternoon. That I can do.

Yesterday, I supplemented with an awesome donut mid morning! Lunch got a bit sidetracked, because someone produced banquet leftovers at the staff table. No one in memphis is going to pass on bbq! That would be wrong. Then for afternoon, a granola bar. I checked the nutritioun label for one higher in carbs (bear naked) instead of my favorite (kind--love all the nuts!).

Now that probably still left me a bit low numbers wise, but I think it was an improvement. I seemed to feel better at the end of my run. Sounds like the first step will be just being a little more intentional. That is do-able.

Right now I have my macro goals set for 25%p-30%f-45%c mostly because I was just trying to get my protein up. I come from the cholesterol controlling no fat eating 80's, so it has been hard to break away from the mindset that cheese and meat is actually better for you than crackers and jelly beans (remember T-factor diet?)! Baby steps. Also, I have not seen much of an effect of protein vs. carbs on my weight. Now the effect on fat vs muscle, who knows because that is much harder to measure. So basically I have just tried to make sure there is enough protein to preserve muscle. Trying to hit between 70 and 100. Most days I manage 70. Who knows, in 20 years maybe they'll tell us that is wrong too!

I will take a look at these carb numbers and timing more carefully and see where that takes me.

And, once again I complete the cycle of lose 2-3 pounds over a couple of months, then while keeping a similar deficit and exercise routine, turn around and gain 3-5.

Even taking into account hormonal/sodium fluctuations, I am up 3-5 lbs since christmas, and 5-7 lbs since last year at this time. Looking back one month, assuming the hormonal fluctuations were similar one month ago, I am up 4 lbs.

Over the last year my records show that my intake ranged from 1350-1700 (total not net) with most numbers being 1450-1550. I am pretty consistent with exercising 5-6 days a week, although seasonally the type of exercise may change a bit (more strength in winter, more cardio in good weather, more time spent in summer, etc. but overall not a whole lot of variation).

The past 6 weeks I have eaten more consistently 1550-1650, since I increased cardio from 30-45 minute sessions to 45-60 minute sessions, and I wanted to compensate and not under eat for the increased activity. I'm still including 2-3 strength days with dumbells. I'm just about to need a set of 35 lb ones now. For some of the lower body. I still have plenty of room for upper body with the weights I have. Mostly I use the 10-15 lb range for those, and I struggle to finish the third set of 6 (or sometimes 8) with most of the upper body work using the 12s and 15's. So again, plenty of room for growth there with what I am doing.

It seems that when I consistently eat over 1550 I consistently slowly gain. That still totally doesn't make sense. Calculators predict I should be maintaining at least at 1750 with the above routine.

I am still glad to feel satisfied while eating at around 1500-1600, as I said above, but I am frustrated that it seems I will have to go below 1300-1400 to see any progress. 1400-1500 seems to be the line below which hunger strikes. And based on the way my body has been feeling, I don't see that I can add a whole lot more workout right now. I have found that I have to increase very slowly (when I started running five years ago it took me an extra six weeks, repeating several of the weeks on the program, to finish the c25k because I know my body and I could feel when I was overdoing it-this comes from watching for years for symptoms of a flare that go along with the mild lupus I have had for probably most of my adult life). So while I still have a goal of being able to run continuously for 60 minutes, I can see that I have to build more slowly. So I'm not going to be able to compensate for lower calorie goals with adding a whole lot more exercise. I was hoping to consistently do three strength days this summer, and then on the evenings of those days, add a bike ride, swim, or short run, but that may not work out. I can continue to walk on those days, though, so I will at least meet my step goal (8,000) on those days hopefully. If I don't include some sort of walk or run each day this summer, I will not meet my step goal. Earlier this week, even a trip to the grocery and light housekeeping/cooking didn't get me to 8000 steps. I am truly sedentary in the summer outside of workouts. I don't garden, I do the bare minimum housekeeping (get those kids to do their chores!), and the kids'activities involve only driving and sitting on bleachers for me.

My clothes are all too tight. Even the shirts/tops.

And the worst thing was looking at pictures taken this week while at my sister's. Compared to christmas pictures, there may be a tiny bit of tightening of the mid section (hard to tell because I'm not in the same clothes), but overall I looked really, really wide and thick. Very matronly (and even though I am "of a certain age" I prefer not to look like a middle aged fat lady). It was so disappointing. I thought I at least looked fit, even though I'd kind of given up on being small (it takes being under 115 for me to look small). We were in St. Louis touring all the Anheiser-Busch stuff (they give away all kinds of free beer!) with all the Germanic imagery. Let's just say my figure would have fit right into the pictures/statues, etc. of those full figured German gals! Probably because in all truth that is genetically where my inheritance is, and it seems you can't outrun your genes!

Anyway, I'm so frustrated, disappointed, and confused about exactly what to do next.

Thought I was done with this thread, as I made good progress in May. But bam! Three weeks of summer and it is all gone, plus I'm up even a bit more.

So when summer vacation came, I upped my mileage gradually on my run days. I am up to 6 miles 3 times a week. I'm still slow, but I can do the 6 without walking now, except to sip water because I am not coordinated enough to drink and run at the same time. So 4 or 5 30 second drink walks in there. I feel good about my progress there.

I have been very dedicated to getting at least two lifting sessions a week. I am now keeping a log so I can make sure I am adding weight, instead of just going at it willy-nilly each day depending on how I feel. I have missed this week because of a mystery hand injury. Probably overuse because of non exercise activity a couple of weekends ago--I hauled drinks and ice bags (20 lbs) constantly for two days. Also ripping open the ice bags and drink boxes, etc. anyway, it is still sore and a bit swollen but rest seems to help. I did yoga today for a change.

For the first three weeks of summer I have logged these average intake totals: 1579, 1742, 1667. My avereage TDEE for those weeks was about 2000. (According to Misfit. Actually 1950 for the first one).

And I have gained 3 lbs.

I was willing to write it off because of sodium, water, and hormones, but it has stayed very consistently up for the past two weeks. And hormones should not be the reason right now. That is in two weeks, and I can't imagine what will happen if I am already up this much.

And the worst part is that the fit of my clothes confirms that this is not just water. My larger (not largest, but close) shorts are now tight. The only bright spot is that the increase feels like it is more in the top of my hips rather than the waist.

Trying to focus on the positives--the performance gains like runs getting easier and longer, lifting a bit more, and the fact that at 47 I can still actually still wear a bikini in public without scaring small children, but this is still very frustrating.