Imagine Maintenance
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I don't think my maintenance meal plan will look much different than it does now. My plan is to keep doing what I'm doing and adding weight training in a month or so. I already run 5 or 6 days a week (less lately because of a terribly large and terribly painful blister, yuck) and will continue to do that but work on adding more muscle. To do that, I'll need to up my calories a bit but that's it.
I will definitely not be adding back refined carbs in maintenance. Maybe some fruit here and there (which I already do when I'm really in the mood) and some more veggies (I've cut them out because I feel like they make me too hungry after I eat them, like carbs tend to do) but that's about it. I enjoy experimenting with LCHF baking and would much rather make myself something healthier but still indulgent than feel the consequences of a sugar binge.0 -
I'm hoping I'll be in maintenance by March. I'm lucky in that I only had about 45-50lbs to lose. I'll start switching to maintenance at about 140 lbs (I'm almost 42 and 5'8"). I'll reasses as I near that goal.
Right now I eat approximately 1500 kcal per day, + or - 500 kcal. I am guessing that at maintenance I'll eat between 1700 and 2000 kcal, + or - a few hundred, maybe even more if I am very active but I doubt I'll be able to go higher. To do this I'll add more to breakfast. Right now I usually just have BPC for breakfast but I'll add back eggs and bacon on most days and use my BPC to snack through the morning and afternoon. I thought I would have evening snacks of nuts more often then too, but my FBG seems to go up when I snack in the evening, even if it is just cheese, so that might not work. Eggs and bacon should take me up close to 300 calories so that might be enough to get me to maintenance.
I will continue to eat in keto for a while, maybe forever. I'll open up the option of eating a higher LCHF diet once I am more firmly rooted in this WOE. Maybe in a year or so. Maybe.
I also plan to make exercise a more regular and intense thing before I hit maintenance; something I can continue for many years. I like P90X and related videos. Walking is good. My dream and hope is to be able to run and play basketball regularly, and without a lot of joint pain, but I think I might have moved past that point in my life.
Hopefully, once I get rid of the extra weight, my hips and knees will be able to handle a bit more abuse. I'm also hoping some stabilizing muscle will help protect my joints.
I plan to be in this for life. I had prediabetes and some autoimmune issues that this WOE has really helped with, not to mention that my change in cognition was enough to give me a scare - I don't want to drop back to my before. I made the mistake, about 5 years ago, of losing my weight and then going back to what I was doing before, but (initially) at lower calories. That didn't work. I can't moderate a normal diet. I just can't. That way of eating has to be a thing of the past for me or I'll be back to square one.
Good for you!
Also, me either. Sadly. I'd love to be able to look at a serving size of cake and think that will do me just fine! Not ever going to happen.
I hear you! I just keep thinking of it as a medically needed diet. I wouldn't mess with medication, so I can't mess with my diet/WOE either.
Cake would be nice though... I'm looking up fat bomb recipes lately so I can make myself, and my family safe treats for the holidays.
I make cheesecake with butter frosting.
It's cheese with some butter on it. Okay, it's not really cake, but I like it!
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I've said this a few times, "I hope the last 5 lbs takes me years to lose."
Here's my thinking about it.
Using FitnessFrog's TDEE calculator:
at 265 lbs. light exercise, tdee is 2950
at 160 lbs. light exercise, tdee is 2051
Now I'm eating 1500/1800 calories.
Without changing my calorie intake getting to goal weight will be tough.
I'm happy with my meal plan now & it should see me thru all the way.
Besides this WOE is to help me control my blood glucose levels, which
it is doing nicely. Weight loss actually is a bonus.
OR 
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I've been at maintenance for over a year, with a couple kg swings up and down around my current settling point. I'd like to trade a bit more fat for muscle, but the weight I am at is basically where I want to be. If I go lower, it won't be because I was trying. I wanted something that I would be able to do without counting, restricting, or tracking. All I watch is my weight, to make sure it doesn't start going out of my expected range too dramatically.0
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I am about 20 kilos from my goal weight so I have a long way to go. But when I started I definitely was thinking 'this is just to lose weight and once that is done I can eat 'normally' again' Thankfully I have been reading and watching lots of info about keeping the weight off this time. I know I will have to keep exercising forever, the thing is I enjoy this WOE so my plan for maintenance is what I am doing now plus the occasional dark chocolate treat and wine. And weighing myself very regularly.0
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Gorgeous schnauzer! I have about 20kg to go also, probably more. I enjoy the WOE but can't wait till my kids are old enough for school so I can work and afford better foods.0
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I've been thinking about this today... In 2005 I stopped drinking regular soda, cut bread and pasta but nothing else and went from 205 lbs to 145 in about 8 or 9 months. I did gain 20 of that back but it took me a few years. Then I maintained there for a while, lost some... Gained some... Fluctuating between 155 - 165 for years. I just decided to look through old photos so I could see how much this showed.
Wow! It really showed! I basically thought I was maintaining pretty well since that initial big loss. 15 - 20 lbs just didn't seem like that much. I definitely went back to pasta and bread. Not in large amounts either! But I know my candy habit was a big part of it.
I'm confident I'll make it to my goal weight and I've felt pretty confident about maintenance. I definitely need to be more aware when I get there. And clearly, the fall of 2009 I was enjoying way too much pumpkin spice treats!
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I will almost certainly aim to stay low carb and likely very low carb forever. Two things I can see messing with:
Right now I aim to not go over 20g carbs a day. Maybe I'll experiment with 50 and see how I do? Right now I feel like with small increases in carbs I have issues with cravings, but its something I can see wanting to play with a little to better learn what I can and cannot handle.
I've only recently starting lifting weights, but I've been itching to do so for the last year or so (I didn't b/c I committed to $$ for a year of classes at the gym and stuck that out, even though it wasn't what I ideally wanted to be doing, it was very, very good for me). Until I get to my goal weight I just want to be losing weight, but I can imagine getting down there and deciding to experiment with bulking and cutting a little bit to see what I can do with my body. I dunno, that's a long ways off still, but those are the things I think about maybe in an ideal world.0 -
Wow @Sunny_Bunny_ that is quite the change over the years, so awesome! Also, when you hit your goal weight you should definitely break out the cat ears and strike that same pose from the 2012 pic for comparison.
RAWR. 0 -
Being on the road all last week I was more out of ketosis than in ketosis. The world did not end but I did not feel as well. My low back got tender for the first time in a long time.
I do plan to stay with ketosis for pain management plus the other awesome side effects.0 -
I'm hoping I'll be in maintenance by March. I'm lucky in that I only had about 45-50lbs to lose. I'll start switching to maintenance at about 140 lbs (I'm almost 42 and 5'8"). I'll reasses as I near that goal.
Right now I eat approximately 1500 kcal per day, + or - 500 kcal. I am guessing that at maintenance I'll eat between 1700 and 2000 kcal, + or - a few hundred, maybe even more if I am very active but I doubt I'll be able to go higher. To do this I'll add more to breakfast. Right now I usually just have BPC for breakfast but I'll add back eggs and bacon on most days and use my BPC to snack through the morning and afternoon. I thought I would have evening snacks of nuts more often then too, but my FBG seems to go up when I snack in the evening, even if it is just cheese, so that might not work. Eggs and bacon should take me up close to 300 calories so that might be enough to get me to maintenance.
I will continue to eat in keto for a while, maybe forever. I'll open up the option of eating a higher LCHF diet once I am more firmly rooted in this WOE. Maybe in a year or so. Maybe.
I also plan to make exercise a more regular and intense thing before I hit maintenance; something I can continue for many years. I like P90X and related videos. Walking is good. My dream and hope is to be able to run and play basketball regularly, and without a lot of joint pain, but I think I might have moved past that point in my life. Hopefully, once I get rid of the extra weight, my hips and knees will be able to handle a bit more abuse. I'm also hoping some stabilizing muscle will help protect my joints.
I plan to be in this for life. I had prediabetes and some autoimmune issues that this WOE has really helped with, not to mention that my change in cognition was enough to give me a scare - I don't want to drop back to my before. I made the mistake, about 5 years ago, of losing my weight and then going back to what I was doing before, but (initially) at lower calories. That didn't work. I can't moderate a normal diet. I just can't. That way of eating has to be a thing of the past for me or I'll be back to square one.
Good for you!
Also, me either. Sadly. I'd love to be able to look at a serving size of cake and think that will do me just fine! Not ever going to happen.
I hear you! I just keep thinking of it as a medically needed diet. I wouldn't mess with medication, so I can't mess with my diet/WOE either.
Cake would be nice though... I'm looking up fat bomb recipes lately so I can make myself, and my family safe treats for the holidays.
I make cheesecake with butter frosting.
It's cheese with some butter on it. Okay, it's not really cake, but I like it!
Mmmmm. Now I want cheese cake... crustless would work. 0 -
@nicintime brought up a profound point in another thread. He said something to the effect that he originally hoped to get skinny so he could eat more, like all those other skinny people who can eat whatever they like. The profound part was his realization that that might not be a good long-term strategy, and that he now believed a ketogenic diet was the way to go long term.
So we're all aware of the sad fact that weight loss is often followed by weight gain. In fact, companies like Weight Watchers turned this into a business model.
What's your long-term strategy? Is your current diet the same as your maintenance diet? If not, do you have a maintenance diet in mind? Have you tried it yet?
This forum, and this entire experience, is a bit weird because we're all n00bs. Most of the pros who are successfully in maintenance have left. Maybe they're skinny people now who can eat whatever they like.
Heh heh, not all of us are noobs... I'm in maintenance for the past almost 20 months. I keep my carbs under 100 net grams a day, when I'm up a few like right now (5 lbs over fave weight from random stooopid eating) I go down to under 50 g net til my weight moves back to where I want it.. When I am at my optimum weight, I separate my fat heavy and carb 'heavy' meals. 3:1 ratio of grams - one meal is 3g fat to 1g carb, the other is 3g net carb to 1 g fat. Works like a charm.
I suppose technically I am not low carb, but compared to the SAD, I CERTAINLY am.
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I had not initially planned on staying low carb, but can tell now I will probably have to. Low carb is the only woe that seems to ward off cravings.
I don't seem to be able to diet off these last 10 pounds so how do I think I could maintain that weight? I may have set unrealistic expectations.
My idea is to not have to count or measure , weighing only once a month to check for adjustments I may need to make.
I recently started that maintaining mode in spite of these last 10 pounds I was wanting to shed. Just to see if it was possible.
I guess I will figure it out as I go.0 -
Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »I've been thinking about this today... In 2005 I stopped drinking regular soda, cut bread and pasta but nothing else and went from 205 lbs to 145 in about 8 or 9 months. I did gain 20 of that back but it took me a few years. Then I maintained there for a while, lost some... Gained some... Fluctuating between 155 - 165 for years. I just decided to look through old photos so I could see how much this showed.
Wow! It really showed! I basically thought I was maintaining pretty well since that initial big loss. 15 - 20 lbs just didn't seem like that much. I definitely went back to pasta and bread. Not in large amounts either! But I know my candy habit was a big part of it.
I'm confident I'll make it to my goal weight and I've felt pretty confident about maintenance. I definitely need to be more aware when I get there. And clearly, the fall of 2009 I was enjoying way too much pumpkin spice treats!
Great timeline in pictorial form.
The lesson learned just jumped out to me for my maintenance.
I will pretty much stick with what has me healthy now.
Why change and expect to see the same results?
Thank you
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Wow @Sunny_Bunny_ that is quite the change over the years, so awesome! Also, when you hit your goal weight you should definitely break out the cat ears and strike that same pose from the 2012 pic for comparison. RAWR.
Lol Will do!
It's actually supposed to be a fox. (Insert what the fox says here)
lolAppetiteControlFreak wrote: »Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »I've been thinking about this today... In 2005 I stopped drinking regular soda, cut bread and pasta but nothing else and went from 205 lbs to 145 in about 8 or 9 months. I did gain 20 of that back but it took me a few years. Then I maintained there for a while, lost some... Gained some... Fluctuating between 155 - 165 for years. I just decided to look through old photos so I could see how much this showed.
Wow! It really showed! I basically thought I was maintaining pretty well since that initial big loss. 15 - 20 lbs just didn't seem like that much. I definitely went back to pasta and bread. Not in large amounts either! But I know my candy habit was a big part of it.
I'm confident I'll make it to my goal weight and I've felt pretty confident about maintenance. I definitely need to be more aware when I get there. And clearly, the fall of 2009 I was enjoying way too much pumpkin spice treats!
Great timeline in pictorial form.
The lesson learned just jumped out to me for my maintenance.
I will pretty much stick with what has me healthy now.
Why change and expect to see the same results?
Thank you
I think going through the pics showed me I'm not so good at maintaining either. I think bread and pasta need to stay away permanently for me. And clearly, I can put on a good deal of weight in just one months time, so I will need to keep weighing regularly and address any real gain that may show up right away. As long as I don't start having bread, pasta, chips and candy, I feel like it will be ok.0 -
This is how I feel. I have thought a lot about maintenance. I am about 8 pounds away from lowest goal. I am eating very close to Maintenance right now and purposely trying to lose super slow. I think maintenance will be lose 1/2 pound a month which will keep me on track. (Mentally)KenSmith108 wrote: »I've said this a few times, "I hope the last 5 lbs takes me years to lose." OR
I have thought about adding more fruit, more yogurt and a cocktail on the weekends.
But my number one goal has been to be a person that doesn't have to WORRY ABOUT MY WEIGHT.
I stopped tracking food in June and exercise in August. Now if I could beat my scale addiction.
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The National Weight Control Registry defines "success" as losing 30+ lbs and keeping it off for at least 1 year. That seems kind of arbitrary, but I'm going with that as my next goal. 3 months down. 9 to go. Then I'll consider this a success.
I stopped counting calories and carbs several months ago. That was kind of a thrill. I encourage everybody to try that for a month to see how maintenance feels. You might decide to go on cruise control, like I did.
Because of my recent kidney excitement, I had to take a break from exercise. I also increased my carbs a bit just to reduce my sodium losses. Sort of an unplanned experiment. So far, my weight is still stable, but I've stopped losing weight.
I miss exercise. I think it does make maintenance easier, and the NWCR stats reflect that as well -- something like 90% of successful maintainers exercise regularly. For me, exercise was always there to balance out any excess carbs. I didn't really use exercise as an excuse to eat more carbs, but I liked the control it gave me over my burn rate.
I found it difficult to increase my carb intake (since it was already in the 100g range). I think once you really adopt a low-carb mindset, it's hard to force yourself back to high-carb.
Pizza used to be my biggest weakness. My family wanted pizza last night. I ordered a salad and sat down with them. No temptation at all. I decided to try one piece as an experiment. OK, it was just the toppings. Meh. I don't even miss pizza. I'm cured. 0 -
Gorgeous schnauzer! I have about 20kg to go also, probably more. I enjoy the WOE but can't wait till my kids are old enough for school so I can work and afford better foods.
Thanks! this schnauzer is Oskar, he has the nicest nature Yes I agree this is not a cheap way to eat at all. I now buy chicken on special, portion it all to the freezer. I am lucky it is just me and hubby (and two dogs) otherwise I think it would be a struggle to afford all this bacon and cheese!
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I've lost the same 20/25 pounds twice in the last 6 years. So this time, I decided I had to lose at least 35#s. I lost 20#s in Spring, took a 2 month break. Now I'm in my second go round - Goal to lose another 15-20#s by Thanksgiving (down almost 10 at the moment), take another 2 month break. Then lose another 30#s next year doing it the same way. I think maintenance is at least as important as dieting. I do much more exercise during maintenance. I'm sure I'll always stay low carb, I'm just not sure yet if it'll be 10, 20. or 30% of my diet. (I'm hoping for 30%).0
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@Sunny_Bunny_, I love the photo collage! You pull off many different hair colors well. And yes, the photos sync up well with the story you tell. You look amazing. Keep up the good work.
I'm roughly 10-15 lbs from what my original goal weight was, which was my lowest weight in college. I'm pretty happy where I am, and have been dabbling in maintenance over the past month.
My maintenance will be pretty much exactly what I'm doing now: No more than a nibble of refined carbs and a very occasional beer or sugary thing, centering meals around eggs, meat, fish, dairy and veggies, with fruit at maybe one meal per day, lots of coffee, snacking on nuts and dark chocolate, roughly 50-100g carbs per day, exercise 5 days a week or more. I am in a place where I really love my exercise sessions, and I don't see any reason to either cut back or increase dramatically. Yoga, Pilates, certain bodyweight exercises (push-ups and planks are my most consistent, but then I do upper body weightlifting and a lot of lower body work in my classes), and any kind of cardio opportunity that presents itself: walking, hiking, swimming, running, dancing, playing sports, etc. I want to be doing all these things.
I'm currently averaging about 1900 calories per day, but this will probably have to drop back when I wean my baby. I'm guessing 1800-1850 per day, long term. But that's just an average, and will fluctuate day to day.0
