"Perfect weight" anxiety

Glad I'm not the only one! I'm still getting used to being on maintenance. But I also think that the really telling thing will be how your clothes fit. I'd be more concerned if the new clothes that I bought in a smaller size were getting too tight. Yesterday was an off day for me for sure and I saw it on the scale this morning, but I know that I can get back on track by putting a bit more effort in today!

FFTW12 wrote: »

Yep, this is me too. I lost 20 kgs as of around a year ago and am forever stuck in this cycle of weighing myself every few days, judging myself, thinking if every day was a "good" day or a "bad" day. If it's a bad day, I eat less or exercise more til I get back to the target weight and I feel crappy and worried I will get fat again. If it's a good day, then I might have a square of chocolate as a reward and feel ok. It's a neverending cycle but I kind of figure it's just how I will ensure I never put that weight on again. The good news is that I haven't put anything back on in a year. Everyone deals with this differently - I am trying to be less anxious about it and it's slowly changing. Just try to cut yourself some slack. Your weight will vary but maybe have an upper limit where you to action rather than looking all the time. That's what I'm aiming for! Good luck.

I have lost 64 pounds since July 30th of last year. I've been mostly maintaining with a slight loss since mid January.

I've given myself a 4 pound window.... and that seems to work for me. I'm 5'9" and can carry a lot of weight although now at 141 I realize I am not large framed as I had always though...just tall!

Weighing every morning when I wake up works for me. If I don't I wonder myself silly. I know that a poor sleep or too much sodium puts me at the top of my weight window, so I've learned to log accurately and not worry the gain. I know it will be gone in a few days, if I don't eat silly.... I don't want to get to the place where my clothes are snug before I take action. Been there and it didn't work for me at all.....

TitaniaEcks wrote: »

A weekly weigh-in is more than enough, even for someone like me who only allows a +/- of 3 lbs. I know it would be damn near impossible for me to gain 3 lbs in a week unless I were snorting a box of donuts for dinner every day. When I go 3 over, I just diet for a week or two and it's gone. If I go under, I eat more. That simple. It's so much easier to exist when you're not obsessing about every calorie and pound.

Snorting a box of donuts, LMAO

QuietBloom wrote: »

One of the things that successful maintainers do is weight themselves every day. That way they can quickly catch any gains before they turn into much bigger gains. You say you have a lot of anxiety in general - have you seen anyone for it? Medication and cognitive behavioral therapy saved my life.

Best.

http://www.livescience.com/53863-best-way-keep-weight-off.html

Hm. Interesting article. It says, literally, to consume 1380 calories a day and to exercise 45 minutes a day. Those numbers don't make sense unless you're seriously tiny. For example, to maintain my weight without exercise I'm at 1850 and my TDEE is more like 2200-2300. & I do cardio maybe a total of 200 hours a week because of my work schedule. & I think that's realistic for a lot of people in maintenance.

It also says that those who have lost weight have slowed metabolisms than those who have always been that weight - something I look at suspiciously also. It says those who never gained he weight can eat 300-400 more calories a day and not gain weight.

mommarnurse wrote: »

QuietBloom wrote: »

One of the things that successful maintainers do is weight themselves every day. That way they can quickly catch any gains before they turn into much bigger gains. You say you have a lot of anxiety in general - have you seen anyone for it? Medication and cognitive behavioral therapy saved my life.

Best.

http://www.livescience.com/53863-best-way-keep-weight-off.html

Hm. Interesting article. It says, literally, to consume 1380 calories a day and to exercise 45 minutes a day. Those numbers don't make sense unless you're seriously tiny. For example, to maintain my weight without exercise I'm at 1850 and my TDEE is more like 2200-2300. & I do cardio maybe a total of 200 hours a week because of my work schedule. & I think that's realistic for a lot of people in maintenance.

It also says that those who have lost weight have slowed metabolisms than those who have always been that weight - something I look at suspiciously also. It says those who never gained he weight can eat 300-400 more calories a day and not gain weight.

Man, in addition to losing weight, you've managed to alter the laws of reality! 200 hours of cardio in a 168 hour week!

I am too obsessive to weigh myself every day. A couple times a week is enough.

CrabNebula wrote: »

The exceptions would be for vacations which I calorie bank for and try to get to the bottom or even below the range so I can eat like a blue whale. .

baaahahaha! I thought I was the only one who did that. The bottom of my range according to the BMI for my height is technically 118, although my height is almost 3 inches less than it was a few years ago due to my spine leaning to the right after an injury, so if I go by my old height to suit my actual frame it would be more like 123 at the bottom of my range. That said, because I've lost around 170 pounds and a good portion of what's left is just loose skin weight that isn't actually doing anything for me, I find the BMI not to be terribly accurate for me anyway. For example, certain female "functions" cease to operate if I dip below 136...so I'd say that's probably a better indicator of what the bottom of my healthy weight range is....thus I usually aim to stay at between 140 and 145 for my range. Unless vacation is coming. Then I dive to 135 and eat my way back out of the pit. MMMM!!! (I've also found this knowledge to be useful in prepping for surgery. I was due to start lady time the day of my nephrectomy. How inconvenient would THAT have been. Dropped a wack of weight so I wouldn't have to deal with such things AND i could feast on whatever I wanted while I wasn't allowed to exercise for 2 months. lol)

mommarnurse wrote: »

QuietBloom wrote: »

One of the things that successful maintainers do is weight themselves every day. That way they can quickly catch any gains before they turn into much bigger gains. You say you have a lot of anxiety in general - have you seen anyone for it? Medication and cognitive behavioral therapy saved my life.

Best.

http://www.livescience.com/53863-best-way-keep-weight-off.html

Hm. Interesting article. It says, literally, to consume 1380 calories a day and to exercise 45 minutes a day. Those numbers don't make sense unless you're seriously tiny. For example, to maintain my weight without exercise I'm at 1850 and my TDEE is more like 2200-2300. & I do cardio maybe a total of 200 hours a week because of my work schedule. & I think that's realistic for a lot of people in maintenance.

It also says that those who have lost weight have slowed metabolisms than those who have always been that weight - something I look at suspiciously also. It says those who never gained he weight can eat 300-400 more calories a day and not gain weight.

The table in the article says exactly 1380 calories. The article (literally) says that's what the studied folks averaged, it doesn't say everyone should eat that. It also has more nuanced detail about the exercise, and you are citing only the table.

I, too, have doubts about the metabolic slowdown thing, based on my personal n=1. But the article does later say, of exercise, "studies suggest it can prevent the metabolic slowdown that happens with weight loss". Perhaps your 200 minutes a week (and my 300-500) was enough?

I do strenuously object to its suggestion that eating the same things all the time is good because it gets boring, and one doesn't want to eat as much of boring things! If I'm going to limit calories, I'm pretty darn motivated to make them interesting, tasty ones.

nvigliotte wrote: »

Am I the only one that has a lot more anxiety now that I am at what I feel is the perfect weight for me? Every night I wonder.. did I eat enough to maintain this weight? Did I eat too much?

Been there, stressed that but have overcome it. I know my weight in any given year fluctuates around 10 pounds, but that allows me to enjoy the holidays and such. I know I can drop it back down over a few months so I don't sweat it as long as I don't start feeling overweight again.