How do you know when you hit your goal?

sounds like you hit it congratulations are you working out a plan to maintain it yet? i haven't reached my goal yet, but i have been thinking about that a lot lately. nice job reaching your goal. you must be super pleased:-)

smnovosad1 wrote: »

Ugh -- didn't post my whole post above, sorry! Anyway, my issue is my 125 lb number came when I was dehydrated after a workout and hadn't eaten. I was 126.3 this am. So I figure I should switch to maintenance when I am at 122.5 at my low and alternating between 122.5 and 127.5 throughout the day? I'm excited to be so close and want to finish this right! Thanks!

oh I see. that makes sense. that way you have wiggle room. are you going to up your cals slowly?

Most people in maintenance have a range of up to 5 lbs that their weight fluctuates between. Additionally, depending how big of a deficit you are at now, you might want to increase calories slowly to avoid some rebound in your weight from glycogen stores being replenished.

I know it's exciting to be close to the finish line but many people find maintenance more challenging than losing so it's important to have a strategy and an understanding of how maintenance is different than losing.

smnovosad1 wrote: »

Ann -- how cool, I'm also 5'5! I'm 39 and a little jealous you made it lower than me. Congrats!

I think I will increase my calories slowly. I'm set to lose 1/2 lb a week but have been staying under that by a couple hundred calories a day because it freaks me out to get too close. I need to start by eating back exercise calories I think. It's going to be hard to make a mindset change and get myself not to freak out about eating more calories! I really want to get to goal and then stop -- I have great muscle tone genetically, and I finally have the 6 pack, and if I don't stop I think my body will eat up all its muscle.

As someone said, the number on the scale is immaterial. Since you have the 6 pack, you're definitely leaner than I am (I'm fairly fit for a li'l ol' lady, so there are some muscles underneath there somewhere, just not showing).

There's a body-type element in all of this that makes it very individualized. I'm built like a boy: No booty and now (after bilateral mastectomies for breast cancer) literally no breasts (never was busty even before surgery). I'm sure those things are why I got a little lighter.

I guess my body decided for me. I did manage to get down to 125 (for about 2 minutes), but I seem to be able to maintain at 130 pretty easily. It was a real struggle getting to 125 and I could not maintain it. I have been on maintenance for a little over 2 years, and I am kind of happy at this weight. It fluctuates from day to day, and I do monitor closely. It looks like I will be one of the people that always needs to log my food and exercise and monitor my weight to stay successful.

Congratulations to you on reaching your goals!

I think it's just time to find a new goal: many take this opportunity to think about what they would like to do fitness-wise, because the biggest thing about hitting maintenance for me: boredom. No mini-daily victories to keep me moving. Non-scale victories then become even more important. Running x min mile...# of pull ups, # of pushups...find yours!

jessicarobinson00 wrote: »

I think it's just time to find a new goal: many take this opportunity to think about what they would like to do fitness-wise, because the biggest thing about hitting maintenance for me: boredom. No mini-daily victories to keep me moving. Non-scale victories then become even more important. Running x min mile...# of pull ups, # of pushups...find yours!

Congrats on getting to your goal range! Good work!

@jessicarobinson00 has some good advice here! When I switched from Losing Mode to Maintenance Mode it kind of played havoc with my mind for weeks. I'm just now becoming at peace with the whole idea, but you definitely want to look at setting new goals to define your success, because when we are in Losing Mode we only have one way to define it: The Scale! If it goes down? Two thumbs up! If not? Booo! So I had to do two things: 1) Give myself permission to eat more. That was hard because I felt like I was undoing all the work I had done, but even with upping my intake I have still managed to drop a few pounds. Go figure. And 2) Set new goals! I started doing a C25K program for kicks (and the added health/caloric benefits!) and changed my workout routine from a circuit training/calorie burn type to a YAYOG workout to try and build muscle and do a little recomposition if possible.

There's no one right answer for when you switch over from losing to maintenance, and in reality its not like you just flip a switch and go from one to the other. Once you get to that "range" where you feel like you wanted to get, then start to go by what you see in the mirror, not by what you see on the scale. Don't weigh yourself so often, especially more than once a day. Scales are for spot checking, the mirror and how your clothes fit will be a better guide in maintenance mode.

Start adding in small amounts of calories as you get to your goal. So maybe add 100 calories a week, then maybe another 100, and so on. MFP will give you a goal for maintenance, but try to play with your intake (slowly) and see how you react. One cool thing about switching is that I started to eat more full-flavor (and full calorie!) options to get my calories up easily without over-eating. So use butter, creamer, sour cream, cheese, etc. Not go hog wild, but if I added 35 calories here or there by having healthy fats (dairy, nuts, peanut butter, olive oil, etc) than it was easier to reach my calorie goal and not have to open my mouth for more food.

Enjoy the transition! This is what you worked for! It's just another phase of your journey!