How long have you maintained your goal weight?

1. 7 months as of this week! I lost over 30 pounds last year.
2. By treating my maintenance similar to my weight loss. Knowing I need to continue up the habits I used to get here - watching my diet, working out, weighing myself daily. Allowing for "life" (parties, celebrations, travel, down days), but keeping an eye overall on making good choices.
3. Yes! Every day! I don't count calories much anymore (maybe 1 day per week, if that.) If the scale creeps up, then I may log for a few days until things are back in check. I feel like after months of logging, I have a pretty good handle on roughly how much food I can eat in a day now.

Good questions!

1. Since October 2014 so 9 months now.

2. Same as how I lost the weight: Staying active & logging my food, just aiming for a little more calories per day now. I do approximate more now though than when I was losing. And I have a weight range, so if I'm between 123-128 in my opinion I'm 'at maintenance'. When I'm on the low end I splurge a little more. If I get too high, I can trim back to a 200-300/day deficit.

3. I still get on the scale most mornings. Its part of my daily routine, but I do not have an emotional relationship with the scale.

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Maintained for over four years. Just followed MFP, exercised regularly (and "ate back" exercise calories). I prefer to weigh in weekly.

lalalalalaurie wrote: »

1. How long have you maintained your goal weight?

2 years

2. How did you do it?

While I was losing weight and tracking calories, etc I made it a point to adopt healthy habits and a healthful lifestyle...it wasn't just about dropping some weight. I knew and understood that the way I live life had to be different from the way I was living before. I eat very healthfully...I am admittedly a food snob and a whole foods snob at that...most of my diet consists of whole food nutrition or minimally processed food items and I cook most meals from scratch. I don't eat out often due to most restaurant food is very calorie dense...if I do, I tend to eat a little lighter elsewhere in the day. I have pizza night with the family every 2-3 weeks, but other than that, eating out is usually a special occasion or I'm on vacation, etc.

Regular exercise is an integral part of my life...as a general rule ride 60 - 80 miles per week (sometimes more) and lift a few nights per week, walk my dog 3ish miles 3-4 days per week and do a bit of swimming and hiking...and yes, there are days when life happens and I miss workouts, but I'm overwhelmingly religious about my fitness.

I understood very early on that there really wasn't a finish line...hitting that rather arbitrary number on the scale didn't mean I was done with anything...it meant that I had just arrived at the starting line of the real race...everything before was just practice. Few people actually grasp this concept and simply go back to old, ingrained habits and the weight goes right back on.

3. Do you check your weight often? Or measure? How often? [/quote]
Of course...that's how you catch yourself before things spin out. I weigh myself pretty much daily just as I did when I was losing. It is important to note that your body weight isn't a static number...you don't way exactly XXX lbs...you are going to fluctuate up and down and you need to watch the overall trend. Maintenance basically looks like you're gaining and losing the same 3-5 Lbs day to day and week to week. I take the average of my weigh-ins every week and consider that to be my "real" weight...I also use an app that graphs out my numbers so that I have something to visually look at trend wise.

1. 16 days
2. I had a very good idea of my TDEE based on Excel spreadsheets, so I just upped my calorie goal to that.
3. Every day.

1. How long have you maintained your goal weight? 18 months

2. How did you do it? Kept logging and new goals of recomposition and strength gains.

3. Do you check your weight often? Or measure? How often? Both weigh and measure twice a month.

1. 10 months

2. I still log everything I eat and exercise regularly. Same things I did when I was losing but I eat maintenance calories instead of at a deficit.

3. I weigh every day and track my weekly average and trend in a spreadsheet. This has helped me adjust my calories as needed as I've never maintained a healthy weight in my life.

I have always been overweight until last year and have hypothyroidism to boot so I expect I will always have to be diligent about my diet and weight. I'm ok with this. I look at it similar to any disease that needs to be monitored.

1. How long have you maintained your goal weight?
About 12 years minus time having 2 kids (+50-60 lbs each)
2. How did you do it?
Made fitness and balanced diet part of my life.
3. Do you check your weight often? Or measure? How often?
Yes, I check my weight every morning. I'm a little OCD about it but don't stress when it fluctuates as it does often esp now that I've started lifting heavy(er).

About 5 years, except during last two pregnancies when I lost too much and dipped below my ideal. I never had a significant amount to lose, just changed how I ate and got back into lifting/running, reshaped my body, got strong, only counted calories for about 6 months and quickly realized that wasn't my problem, so I still don't count. I stay super active, eat a lot, eat everything I enjoy, watch portion sizes. If I didn't work out I'd be way overweight. I only see my weight when I go to the Dr, I go by how my clothes fit. After a vaca or like last month when I was injured and not moving as much, I just eat accordingly. But it's not hard as I'm not as hungry.

1. How long have you maintained your goal weight?
Two years & counting this August 10th - YAY!

2. How did you do it?

• My goal was never to lose X weight by X time nor did I EVER go on a "diet."
• My goal was always to get healthy & as far away from being pre-diabetic as humanly possible. Loosing the weight was an added bonus.
• I made very calculated incremental changes to my life because I wanted this metamorphosis to be a permanent one. Therefore whatever changes I made whether to my nutrition or activity it had to be sustainable over time ... as in the rest of my life.
• By nature, I'm fairly seditary. I'm not a fan of the gym or exercise in general. So I started slow. 15 minutes twice a week because anyone can do anything for 15 minutes. When that became second nature (by this I mean like getting in the car & automatically putting on a seat-belt sort of automatic mode - without thinking) I bumped it to 30 minutes three times etc.
• With eating I swapped out what was the easiest first. ie. No more than 10 calories a day from what I drink. So goodbye soda, goodbye Starbucks. Then I slowly looked for more nutritious rich options to what I like to eat. ie. Sandwich for lunch at work is the easiest. Instead of Sara Lee Whole Grain White bread at a whopping 120 calories 25g Carbs 3g Sugar for 2 slices I substituted it with Aunt Millies at 70 calories 19g Carbs 1 Sugar for two slices. So by simply swapping out my bread choice I saved 50 calories a day, 6g in Carbs, & 2 in Sugar. I continued to slowly swap out my staples to find more nutritious versions until I came to my beloved it Rice! OMG that was SO hard because I literally grew up eating rice almost 3 meals a day! But I knew I had to give it up so I tried quinoa. It was good enough substitute that within the month I no longer craved white rice! It was more psychologically harder for me than anything else to be quite honest.
• And lastly, I practice a variation of the 80/20 Rule. This saved my sanity! LOL It liberated my sense of guilt when I indulge - yes WHEN not IF. It is INDEED a Jedi mind trick ... because I gave myself permission to indulge I found that I no longer obsessed about indulging. Does that make sense? It's kind of like that proverbial fruit, the more someone (me) tells me I can't have it the more I want or need it. It's human nature. This approach also allows me to strike a balance which I don't think I have EVER had before.

3. Do you check your weight often? Or measure? How often?

• While losing I checked my weight religiously, every Sunday morning before the gym after bathroom, in the same workout clothes. Weight for me was the easiest measure of progress.
• Now in maint I check about once or twice a month unless something is particularly snug around the waist then I see if the clothes shrunk from the dryer or is it me who got bigger. lol If it's me I review my food diary over the past 2 weeks and usually I can see the cause so I make adjustments and I'm back. That's is why logging for me is closely intertwined with my maint success because I'm not going to be on par 100% of the time ... no one can. So the logging helps me remember 'oh yea we had two sleepovers that week where we had pizza & wings and a bday with cake & buttercream frosting' etc.

Maintained for 6+ years with a 5 lb range.
Gone under it once and never gone over.

I come back and log every once in a while when I think my weight is going up or down. Generally that is when my exercise routine changes.
I have nearly always made my own meals, and don't eat huge portions if I do eat out. Desert and wine are my downfall, and that is what I cut back on if I think I am gaining. ( could never exclude them!)

When I started I did formal exercises year round. Now I don't go to the gym during the summer, I garden, then start back up in the gym September/ October. I have done that the past two years and it works well for me.

When I am logging I weigh daily, first thing; when I am not logging I weigh myself when I remember to.

I think my 30 lb gain was the anomaly, and my body likes the weight I returned to, as maintaining is not to difficult for me.

Cheers, h.

brynnsmom wrote: »

Maintained for over four years. Just followed MFP, exercised regularly (and "ate back" exercise calories). I prefer to weigh in weekly.

Way to.go to.you too! (I think long-term maintenance deserves a huge pat on the back!)

lalalalalaurie wrote: »

1. How long have you maintained your goal weight?

2. How did you do it?

3. Do you check your weight often? Or measure? How often?

1. I've been maintaining +-5Lbs for bout 14 years so far

2. I did it by reducing the heavily refined foods (mostly heavily refined carbs), and dramatically increasing my consumption of whole foods. I basically learned how to eat a healthy, nutrient dense diet. I learned how to cook whole foods. I did it to lose. I do it still.
I apparently ate at a deficit while I was losing (I wasn't counting).
I move more.
I focus more of my attention on my strength training than I had before

3. I weigh daily. I measure once in a while.