Did maintenance (reaching your goal) meet your expectations?

I was a periodic yo yo dieter with long periods at a decent weight. When I started MFP I wanted to stop that. It's only been three years of maintaining, but I felt I'd changed my approach when I reached my goal. And with the lifestyle change, I ended up losing an additional 2 sizes at my maintenance weight.

So, yes, I'd say, it's what I wanted and I'm pleased to have gotten there. Probably the best part is being able to focus on the rest of my life.

GuitarJerry wrote: »

For me, it never ends. Besides the cut and bulk cycles, there's the endless goal setting of athletic pursuits. And, my weight requirements might be different. So, it changes; ebbs and flows. So, I've never been able to sit back and take it easy. It's constant.

This. There is no maintenance for me. There's always a longer trail to run, higher hill to climb, or bigger weight to lift. My pursuit of health and fitness has truly become a part of my life. (I've kept it off for over 6 years.)

Maintenance happened rather quickly for me. When I started logging 955 days ago, I didn't even think I needed to lose weight, but lost about 15lbs over a few months by analyzing my diet, becoming appalled at the volume of unbalanced calories, sodium, and sugar I was consuming, and making some changes. Since then, I've been roughly the same weight (168lbs), plus or minus 5lbs.

Maintenance has been an interesting journey in itself!! I am sitting about 7lbs below where I originally thought my maintenance number would be: low 160's was my guess weight. I continued to lose after starting maintenance while I figured out my true activity level with the help of my fitbit. Turns out I'm in a great caloric burn range most of the day at work and it's rewarding to see some muscle tone now that the flab is lifted from the majority of my body. I'm happy in this range of 153-157 and in a size 8/10 that looks healthy on my 42 year old self. It is very motivating to continue to move more and allow myself to eat more of what I like when I like. Best of luck to you, and don't forget to take your measurements!!

In 2014 I reached goal weight after 4 months of hard work and 25 pounds lost. I was thrilled and gradually stopped logging since "I got this". I regained 20 pounds in 5 months. It took me another 8 months to restart.

Second time around I'm on month 7 with 4 pounds to go to 120 (5'2"). I'm adding calories to slow my weight loss from 3# a month to 2. Am I at maintenance? Pretty close. I'm trying to go slower. I like how my clothes fit. Since I've worked out my whole life it's hard to make workout goals. At 61, I just want to maintain and not yo-yo.

I'm happy in this weight range but with aging we can get complacent. I've fought to maintain my weight my whole life, but in the last decade, was losing that fight for the first time in my life. I want to show to myself, that it can be done. Getting older doesn't have to mean you are expected to have a wide middle and be out of shape .

For me, it was more of a range I hoped to reach. And that is still somewhat overweight (150-170 range for 5'8" female). But I'm very happy here and now working hard to stay on track. I lost my footing quite a bit last Fall and didn't gain much, but have realized that at my current "maintenance" size, 5-8 lb is a LOT. In the past when I was close to (and once over) 300 lb, gaining or losing 10 lb or even 20 lb was barely noticeable at all. Now 5 lb can seriously be the difference between looking amazing (to myself) in a dress and looking (to myself) almost like I never even lost any weight at all because of the way it hugs the smallest bulge. It's a bit unsettling but I am 99% happy. I admit that a full year of logging my food and doing normal activities/exercise resulted in a loss of just a few pounds, I started to lose motivation. But I always seem to get it back. I want to be, and stay, where I feel great.

As for expectations...I really didn't expect to even reach my goal range. I never expected to achieve some "perfect" body or have zero loose skin and tight abs and so forth. So for me, the imperfections are not an issue or problem even. Instead I'm thrilled with unexpected plusses like loving my legs and being shocked at the narrowness of my natural waist...stuff like that. I think individual expectations have a lot to do with one's feelings of success or failure. I have friends who (like me) used to be a size 24+ and are now size 10 but still want to get to size 4-6. They constantly gripe about their flaws. In some ways I admire their goals - but mostly I just feel lucky that I'm so pleased with my body at this point.