Are you still counting calories on maintenance?

After tracking through 2 years losing 7 stone, I have continued to tack through 18 months of maintenance, the last 6 of which I have added in exercise. The tracking helps me adjust to changes, experiment with changes to my diet and has really helped me understand my nutritional needs, eg I realised I need more protein and iron. I know I should at least stop counting fruit and veg and should work towards not counting calories at all and just listen to my body but with so many hidden calories in food, trying to adjust to adding exercise and my ability to easily overeat just a little, I am not ready yet as I still find it so useful. Twenty years ago I read Fat is a Feminist Issue which said you could lose and maintain weight by listening to your body (and a lot of,other things) It liberated me from binge eating. Until I read it, I didnt know my body's hunger system worked because I had either dieted or overeaten since I was a child. I lost weight and for,the first time I didnt put it straight back on BUT I did eventually put it back over 10 years. I caluated that it just took overeating to approximately one chocolate biscuit a day. My aim is to still get back to listening to my body but I have to enjoy contentment rather than fullness. At the moment, at 7 stone I can have about 1700cals including about 50 cals minimum of exercise. I love using MFP recipe maker go make my own healthy high protein, no sugar versions of all my sweet tooth favourites and being able to eat plenty of them. My diet keeps changing as I discover new ways of making things, new foods, new eating patterns that suit me better, so I am still discovering, after 3 1/2 years! I am still enjoying it. Maybe you dont as much. I am a bit nerdy. Take your time. Make sure your new eating habits really are permanent habits. You can always try not counting, just,check your weight or how your clothes feel and if it goes wrong, just log in again to see where you may be going wrong. I know,where I would go wrong. Eating out -I can easily eat double to triple the calories of my normal meals and that's ok when I can adjust on other days. I can also so easily forget little snacks I've eaten and when combined with mistaking,thirst for hunger, end up eating more than I need. Now this is possible to overcome just by knowing and listening to your body but it does take being attentive without the many distractions of life. At the moment, I find logging in easier. But, it should be the ultimate aim, so give it a try, if it doesnt work yet, dont feel guilty, and just try again another time,when you are more ready. Good luck.

I still log my foods, I'm about a year into maintenance. While some people do learn to maintain their weight by listening to their body and don't have to track, I think there are far more examples of where people slip back into old habits and weight comes back on. Read through some of the threads in the Maintaining Weight section and you'll find a lot of threads where people feel maintenance is harder than losing. For me tracking is not time consuming and not something that bothers me so I plan to still log for the foreseeable future.

I also wouldn't jump straight into not logging once you've made the decision to switch to maintenance. It can take time to figure out your maintenance level calories and an acceptable range for your weight (most people have a range of 3-5 lbs they fluctuate between as an acceptable deviation from their maintenance weight) and not logging would take some of the data out of figuring that out.

I've only been maintaining for 4 months and I still log my foods. If I didn't, I'd gain weight. If you feel you can maintain without logging, then go for it. Some people can, some can't.

I've been in maintenance for over a year now. I am still logging. I'm looking at this as a similar situation as when I was losing, now I'm just eating a tid bit more. I still want to know what I've been eating in the case things start to turn sideways.

In fact, I've realized that my logging must not have been as tight as it should have been as I'm just a couple of pounds over my "comfort zone" so I'm back to meticulous logging. I don't want to regress.

eventually after time u realize what and how much u can eat so it becomes automatic process for you so u dont need to track everything. if u go over the maintenance just do some extra cardio or move more during the day

^^2years

I've been in maitenance 2 years and I still track and log - but I have transitioned to 'lazy logging' ie I guestimate a lot and accept averages ( every mandarine is a medium mandarine and they average out, rather than weighing each one) .
This is enough for me to keep things under control without having to do the full on accurate logging.

But really, whatever works for you.

I would be a bit dubious of dropping completely after only 3 months though - that doesn't seem long enough to me for new habits to have become ingrained.