Maintenance is Hard...Sharing My New Plan
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Scout515
Posts: 4 Member
I wanted to introduce myself. I'm new to maintaining and so far I'm pretty bad at it. I really don't want to gain the weight back, and I've been reading this board for advice. I've lost ~ 25 pounds on Weight Watchers over the last year. I know people have a lot of issues with WW, but overall it worked for me at a time when counting calories on my own wasn't. I'm female 5'7, 31 and went from 182 to 155. I maintained for 6 weeks on WW and got "lifetime" status.
Well as soon as I got maintenance, I started bingeing. It only go worse once I hit lifetime. I've had issues with binging and restricting before (high school and college) but had it pretty well under control and maintained in the 140s for most of my 20s. Between grad school while working full time, my husband being diagnosed with a brain tumor, and a really stressful period at work, I stress ate my way to 182 in May of last year.
Maintaining on Weight Watchers, you get 36 "points" a day instead of 30. I've been trying to follow that, but going way over (108 points over last week). I think the problem is points aren't real. I've been wanting to reintroduce things like peanut butter back into my diet, but foods with fat and sugar are penalized so that when you eat them you actually get fewer calories for the day. Bottom line, I think that 36 points is still below maintenance for me. The weeks that I actually stuck to the plan, I lost. But with the binging, I'm back up to 158 pounds. It's still on the high side for me, but in the healthy range. I'd like to lose some more, but it's not my priority right now.
Basically, in the last week or so I realized that while I was successful in weight loss, my relationship with food is not normal. I know that lots of people track forever, but I would love to be able to just eat intuitively. My goal for maintenance is to learn how to eat based on my body's needs. But that's going to have to start with more tracking.
Instead of feeling terrible about myself and continuing to try to restrict, I thought I would try something novel... eat more. I thought, what if my binging isn't a result of my lack of will power, but a physiological response to having eaten in a deficit for the last year? I calculated my TDEE on a couple different websites and got results between 2000 and 2300 calories per day. (I work a sedentary desk job, but walk for at least an hour a day and workout 3-4 days a week). So I set my MFP goal to 2090 and have been eating at that level for the last week. So far, I've had no desire to binge. 2090 feels like enough food. It feels liberating. Is it too much? I guess I'll figure that out over the next few weeks. I actually gained .8 this week, but I figure that isn't enough data to work with. If I have a trend of gaining over the next few weeks I'll reduce my calories. But for now I'm feeling good.
I wouldn't have figured this out without reading this board, so thank you. I'm working my way through reading the recomp thread from the beginning. Looking forward to getting more good advice from all of you as I try to figure this maintenance thing out.
Well as soon as I got maintenance, I started bingeing. It only go worse once I hit lifetime. I've had issues with binging and restricting before (high school and college) but had it pretty well under control and maintained in the 140s for most of my 20s. Between grad school while working full time, my husband being diagnosed with a brain tumor, and a really stressful period at work, I stress ate my way to 182 in May of last year.
Maintaining on Weight Watchers, you get 36 "points" a day instead of 30. I've been trying to follow that, but going way over (108 points over last week). I think the problem is points aren't real. I've been wanting to reintroduce things like peanut butter back into my diet, but foods with fat and sugar are penalized so that when you eat them you actually get fewer calories for the day. Bottom line, I think that 36 points is still below maintenance for me. The weeks that I actually stuck to the plan, I lost. But with the binging, I'm back up to 158 pounds. It's still on the high side for me, but in the healthy range. I'd like to lose some more, but it's not my priority right now.
Basically, in the last week or so I realized that while I was successful in weight loss, my relationship with food is not normal. I know that lots of people track forever, but I would love to be able to just eat intuitively. My goal for maintenance is to learn how to eat based on my body's needs. But that's going to have to start with more tracking.
Instead of feeling terrible about myself and continuing to try to restrict, I thought I would try something novel... eat more. I thought, what if my binging isn't a result of my lack of will power, but a physiological response to having eaten in a deficit for the last year? I calculated my TDEE on a couple different websites and got results between 2000 and 2300 calories per day. (I work a sedentary desk job, but walk for at least an hour a day and workout 3-4 days a week). So I set my MFP goal to 2090 and have been eating at that level for the last week. So far, I've had no desire to binge. 2090 feels like enough food. It feels liberating. Is it too much? I guess I'll figure that out over the next few weeks. I actually gained .8 this week, but I figure that isn't enough data to work with. If I have a trend of gaining over the next few weeks I'll reduce my calories. But for now I'm feeling good.
I wouldn't have figured this out without reading this board, so thank you. I'm working my way through reading the recomp thread from the beginning. Looking forward to getting more good advice from all of you as I try to figure this maintenance thing out.
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Replies
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I'm 5'6" and been maintaining for 11 months. I'm 50 keep close to 135 sometimes more sometimes less. I use sedentary setting and eat back my exercise calories because I vary my exercise so my daily burn varies. Not a big fan of WW because I don't think it deals well with rigorous exercisers. I have days where I burn a couple hundred calorie and some days where I burn double my sedentary calories. I keep a good log but have no interest in eating an average calorie. If I did I would be uncomfortably full many days and starving others. Your target seems reasonable but everyone is different try it for a few weeks and make adjustments if needed.4
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I'm 5'7" and 50 years old. I've been maintaining for about 6 months. It wasn't until I got a Fitbit for Christmas though, that my gradual downward trend stopped and the real maintaining happened. I'm eating 2000-2200 most days. I walk about 30 minutes/2 miles daily and workout 2x a week. So, I would guess that you are probably not eating too much. I would recommend a program where you can watch your weight trend (Trendweight, happy scale (for iOS), or Libra (android)). I've found them very helpful to see overall where I am and filter out the swing from a feast day.1
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Sounds like a good plan to me. I agree with you about the flaws in the WW program. I am not sure if eating intuitively is something you will ever be able to do full time. Keep monitoring your weight and if it goes up you may have to count calories or at least monitor intake in some manner.0
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Thanks for the responses. Nice to get some feedback that I'm not doing something outrageous. It feels like SO MUCH FOOD after WW that it's hard to know where my "normal" should be.
BikeTourer: I agree that WW does a terrible job of dealing with exercisers. It's actually worse with the new program. You're supposed to earn fitpoints but you're not supposed to swap them for food. The idea is that you shouldn't be exercising just so you can eat more, which I agree with and is why I'm trying the TDEE approach, but basically they set your food goal at a number that would allow you to lose weight without any exercise and then don't want you to eat any extra if you do exercise. When I workout, I usually lift weights for about an hour. So I think an average should be reasonable (and if it's not I can change it up). But yeah, if I was biking or doing other cardio for multiple hours I would definitely need to eat more those days.
Owlfan88: Thanks for the info. I will definitely look into the weight trend app.
makingmark: I will probably always need to have some external checks on my eating. Eating intuitively is an aspiration. I probably wont ever get there completely. But I know I need to try to move towards eating when I'm hungry, and [crazy idea] NOT eating when I'm NOT hungry.0 -
Try eating at those calories and monitor your weight over a few weeks...you'll know by then if that's your maintenance cals.
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I am 68 years old and have done WW several times in my life. Each time I would reach my goal only to gain it all back ( and more) when I started maintenance. I started on MFP Feb 2015 and realize that I will always have to log my calories if I want to stay at my maintenance weight. I can eat anything I want as long as it fits into my calorie allotment for the day. Sometimes I eat back some of my exercise calories.
I liken it to my finances. I would not write a check that I did not have money in my account for. Since I love desserts, breads and snacks, I will always have to know how many calories I am consuming. I have lost another 12 lbs since reaching my goal last May 31. Logging is a small price to pay to stay at a healthy weight. I personally will never be able to eat intuitively. I am the healthiest I have ever been in many years.
Good luck in your journey. You will figure it out if you really want it bad enough. MFP is great. So much support and challenges to keep one motivated. It has become my new obsession. Which is much better than being obsessed with overeating.7 -
I've been maintaining for a bout a year now. It's all about trial and error. If you're eating at what you think is right and still losing, then you need to add more calories in your diet (in small increments) until you stop losing. The same goes with gaining. I wouldn't worry about your points so much, just total calories which you can get by logging your food here.
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Your train of thought is really good. Sufficient calories may well offset desire to binge.
Strongly strongly strongly urge immediate realization that scale weight sucks as a measurement tool due to water weight changes that happen much faster than the underlying weight trend.
Solution: use trending weight tracking application or web site.
Connect free fitbit.com account to MFP and Trendweight.com to enter weight data in trendweight (20 day averaging/smoothing); use weightgrapher.com (same way as trendweight through integration; but also allows for manual entry of weights on her web-site); use libra with android phones or happy scale with iphones.
plug a good month of weigh trend data against accurate calorie logging... allows you to establish real tdee (or as close to it as possible).
Pick good database entries, count in grams as accuracy allows for highest degree of consistency.
Or... just always miscount the same way... in the end consistency of measurement is what counts as it will allow you to figure out if you can eat more or less calories.2 -
Thanks for the responses. Nice to get some feedback that I'm not doing something outrageous. It feels like SO MUCH FOOD after WW that it's hard to know where my "normal" should be.
BikeTourer: I agree that WW does a terrible job of dealing with exercisers. It's actually worse with the new program. You're supposed to earn fitpoints but you're not supposed to swap them for food. The idea is that you shouldn't be exercising just so you can eat more, which I agree with and is why I'm trying the TDEE approach, but basically they set your food goal at a number that would allow you to lose weight without any exercise and then don't want you to eat any extra if you do exercise. When I workout, I usually lift weights for about an hour. So I think an average should be reasonable (and if it's not I can change it up). But yeah, if I was biking or doing other cardio for multiple hours I would definitely need to eat more those days.
Owlfan88: Thanks for the info. I will definitely look into the weight trend app.
makingmark: I will probably always need to have some external checks on my eating. Eating intuitively is an aspiration. I probably wont ever get there completely. But I know I need to try to move towards eating when I'm hungry, and [crazy idea] NOT eating when I'm NOT hungry.
If you new clothes get tight, that is your external check. Best of luck.
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Op-the transition period between weight loss and maintenance can take months, and it's full of trial and error and just playing around with the numbers until you finally get things to fall into place. It sounds like you're doing a great job working through this right now, and are on track to getting it figured out
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RunRutheeRun wrote: »Try eating at those calories and monitor your weight over a few weeks...you'll know by then if that's your maintenance cals.
This is what I was going to say as well. You have a great plan in place so just keep doing as you are now and you'll find your sweet spot for maintenance. Congratulations on how far you've come!!!
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The weight watchers points system has always sounded confusing and restrictive to me.
Counting calories on here seems to be a much more simple way .3 -
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Instead of feeling terrible about myself and continuing to try to restrict, I thought I would try something novel... eat more. I thought, what if my binging isn't a result of my lack of will power, but a physiological response to having eaten in a deficit for the last year? I calculated my TDEE on a couple different websites and got results between 2000 and 2300 calories per day. (I work a sedentary desk job, but walk for at least an hour a day and workout 3-4 days a week). So I set my MFP goal to 2090 and have been eating at that level for the last week. So far, I've had no desire to binge. 2090 feels like enough food. It feels liberating. Is it too much? I guess I'll figure that out over the next few weeks. I actually gained .8 this week, but I figure that isn't enough data to work with. If I have a trend of gaining over the next few weeks I'll reduce my calories. But for now I'm feeling good.
I wouldn't have figured this out without reading this board, so thank you. I'm working my way through reading the recomp thread from the beginning. Looking forward to getting more good advice from all of you as I try to figure this maintenance thing out.
This sounds like a great idea.
After 6 weeks of eating at about 1500/day (about 25% deficit), I was so hungry I felt like an animal. One day I was staring at a photo of a *strawberry* I totally lost it and went on a no-holds barred cheesecake and pizza binge. I decided just to accept it, and over the next few weeks I just ate what I wanted, took shame out of the equation and logged it all as faithfully as when I was at a deficit. That was one of the smartest things I've done.
I think there's a lot of temptation to forget about logging 'cheat days' but that's where some of the best personal data comes from. Importantly, I found that if I eat more, I spontaneously do more . I'll tackle that home project, go dance, call a friend to go for a hike..Versus <1500 cal days, which generally result in lying around like a sloth interrupted only by an uninspired mandatory trip to the gym. There's a sweet spot, which I think is around 1800 cal for me, but wouldn't have figured it out from constantly trying to lose.
Lyle McDonald is a big proponent of taking diet breaks to let hormones settle out. I think there's a lot of wisdom to that. Taking an occasional 1-2 week break keeps me happy and prevents transition to animal mode. Doing it in a reasonably controlled way, like what you're suggesting, is unlikely to do any damage that can't be fixed.4 -
LMAO at "animal mode" @leyen I can totally relate!3
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Wow. This is inspiring me to take a diet break, but I don't know how to get there mentally. It would feel like giving up, and a throwback to all the other times I didn't follow through with weight loss. I can't get over that hump.
Plus, I am very routine based. If I get used to getting that extra treat at night, or a slightly bigger lunch, I will come to expect it.
And, how do you cope with actually convincing yourself that you deserve a break? Sigh...0 -
Maintaining is very different to losing weight IMO. I've been maintaining for about 18 months now (long enough that the irritating comments have stopped!). I agree that you need to continue with the same habits which worked for the losing phase - in my case, I weigh myself every day. It's my "honest moment", no matter what I've eaten the day before. My overnight weight gain record is about 6 lbs (which is actually a whopping 5% of my body weight!), from salty food, a couple of drinks, a workout and not enough water consumption (and probably hormones too). I plug it all into HappyScale and worry about the trend over time (usually a month).
I think maintaining also needs some different/additional skills as well. A longer term outlook is one and understanding that binges are due to biochemistry (your body/brain/hormones are driving you to fulfill some need, either emotional or physical, through an outlet of binging). You may never completely ditch the binges, but quite frankly, if you find a way of accepting them and controlling them most of the time, IMO you've won. I often adjust for overindulgence by skipping a meal the next day and drinking lots of water.
But maintenance can be quite a lot of fun too and a time for experimentation. Experiment with different types of exercise, set yourself new challenges (not necessarily related for fitness or diet, perhaps), learn how to cook different types of food. You've achieved something pretty special losing the weight - most people never make it to maintenance.
Oh and remember to go out and get yourself some nice clothes!1 -
dopeysmelly wrote: »Maintaining is very different to losing weight IMO. I've been maintaining for about 18 months now (long enough that the irritating comments have stopped!). I agree that you need to continue with the same habits which worked for the losing phase - in my case, I weigh myself every day. It's my "honest moment", no matter what I've eaten the day before. My overnight weight gain record is about 6 lbs (which is actually a whopping 5% of my body weight!), from salty food, a couple of drinks, a workout and not enough water consumption (and probably hormones too). I plug it all into HappyScale and worry about the trend over time (usually a month).
I think maintaining also needs some different/additional skills as well. A longer term outlook is one and understanding that binges are due to biochemistry (your body/brain/hormones are driving you to fulfill some need, either emotional or physical, through an outlet of binging). You may never completely ditch the binges, but quite frankly, if you find a way of accepting them and controlling them most of the time, IMO you've won. I often adjust for overindulgence by skipping a meal the next day and drinking lots of water.
But maintenance can be quite a lot of fun too and a time for experimentation. Experiment with different types of exercise, set yourself new challenges (not necessarily related for fitness or diet, perhaps), learn how to cook different types of food. You've achieved something pretty special losing the weight - most people never make it to maintenance.
Oh and remember to go out and get yourself some nice clothes!
great post. my personal record is 5 lbs after starting lifting and a crapton of salty food, boy did that suck the first time it happened. But now I know to roll with it
@walking2running : I didn't coolly enter a period of maintenance when I felt mentally 'ready'. I was ignored the signals for awhile. I got sluggish and depressed and developed an intense food obsession (beyond that small bit of obsession required to keep logging). I thought food, talked food, dreamed food, i smelled imaginary food . At one point I caught myself thinking that my friend's arm looked..meaty. Eventually I broke down and ate everything I could find in my kitchen or get delivered to me very quickly. Then, when my brain started functioning normally again, I realized that it was not a failure. It's just what dopeysmelly said, biochemistry at play. My body is an excellent survival machine, and not at all interested in being 110lbs by a particular date or in what I "deserve".
So I decided to stop restricting, eat what my body wants , and log everything with the intention of calculating my TDEE from that data. I also wanted to factor out the emotional eating, so every time I ate I asked myself, am i really hungry? or am I just trying to make myself feel better about something? I reduced a lot of mindless eating, and became aware of a pocket of anxiety I'd been treating with ice cream. It was much easier to tell the difference between emotional eating and true hunger when I was not in a deficit. So, my "breaks" aren't like being in a quitting mindset at all. They're more like an intentional shift in perspective, as well as a chance for the biochemistry to normalize.2 -
I too struggled with maintenance on WW. I figured out that it was insanely unrealistic and quit WW although -- I found that a flexible dieting plan, IIFYM, is a far better program that suits me.
Hopefully you are able to balance things out!0 -
I don't use WW but also struggle with maintaining. I'm 5 ft 8 1/2 in and 49 years old. I consider myself fairly sedentary but do walk, swim, and occasionally bike. Unfortunately, I have arthritis and it holds me back. My max weight was 195 lbs and got down to 135-140 lbs and maintained for about 2 years. Occasionally I'll bounce back up into the 150s because I stop using myfittness pal to hold me accountable and it sneaks up on me. I don't binge but it's the little things like ordering something out or saying yes to having just a little bit more of this or that. I've relost the same last 10-15 lbs so many times it's pretty ridiculous and it's also what I'm doing again now so at least know you're certainly not alone. For me I just have to face the fact that I have to stick to a calorie limit and use myfittness pal to keep me honest. Maybe you just need to find that something to keep you in check too.0
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When you feel like giving up..switch your goal to lose 1/2 pound week and change it to maintenance when you are having a rough day. Continue to log all foods and continue your usual exercise. This will give you the food break you need.2
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