Anyone maintaining overweight?

I effectively maintained overweight for 20 years after a sudden weight gain - fat but fit.

Most of my life completely intuitive eating has meant weight gain, either slow or fast.
I can maintain without logging by being food and exercise conscious plus daily weighing. To lose weight I do need to log.

After my initial weight loss I maintained in the overweight BMI range for a while using the well worn excuse "I've got some muscle so BMI doesn't apply to me". Until I realised I really was still overweight/over-fat.

I'm 5'9" and 198lbs was my start point. I'm now 164lbs.

Nothing wrong with maintaining for a while to get used to your "new you" and then reassessing if you want to push on.

Starting January first I started logging absolutely everything. I began my journey at 5'8" and 218.6lbs. By March first I was down to 195 and decided to maintain for a while to give myself a bit of a break and reward. I logged for another two weeks then quit counting entirely for two months. In this time I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted (keeping in mind the portion sizes that counting taught me) and managed to lose an additional 10 pounds. I'm returning to MFP now because old habits were starting to catch up to me, however. If you're asking if intuitive eating is possible for you my answer would be another question; Why did you chose to start counting calories in the first place?

I intended to maintain while still in the overweight bmi--150 lbs, which for my height of 5' 2.5" is a 27 BMI. I was so nervous about increasing my calories though that I've actually lost another 8 lbs in while I was working my way up. Now I'm 142 lbs & only 4 lbs away from being in the "normal" BMI range. I bumped my calories up more this week. I can't decide if I'm going to try to regain some of that weight--maybe back to 145 or go ahead & lose the last 4 so that I can be a normal BMI. If I can get over the mental mess of eating to gain weight, I'd like to go back to 145 I think.

Intuitive eating does not work for me. Intuitively, I'm a morbidly obese person. I find it much easier to rationalize my choices & lie to myself when I am eating "intuitively". It's much easier for me to tell myself that those extra couple of chips or nuts or pieces of whatever are OK & won't make a difference when I'm not adding them all up to see the actual caloric consequences. At my height, I don't have that much wiggle room--that stuff adds up really fast when you don't have much body to spread it out on.

Please know that those BMI ranges do not fit everyone. Many articles talk about how athletes would be considered overweight when they are mostly muscle. For me, because I have very stocky/muscular legs, I have never fit in the BMI category well ... my internist told me not to worry about BMI as much as waist circumference and that was helpful. I am a size 6 Petite in most clothing, and yet the usual BMI calculator puts me at 26.6, which is overweight. I lost 40 lbs., and workout almost daily. Try using this calculator. It may help. Itntakesa more things into account as it calculates. According to this one, I am at 26.6, also, but it is a healthy weight and not an overweight one. http://www.smartbmicalculator.com/why-sbmic.html

I plan on maintaining--180-195 pounds. I'm 5'5.5", so almost in obese range, but I feel comfortable at this weight. I may lose more in the future as long as I can do it comfortably. After weighing 270 last year and losing the weight pretty easily, I refuse to make myself miserable just to lose more. I know that I will never be in the healthy weight range (would mean wearing 154 at the most) and I don't care about that. I'm 51 and if I lose much more I'll look haggard and gaunt. I look awesome. I have perfect blood pressure, my RHR is in the 50s. My energy level is through the roof. If you feel great at your weight, then just ride the wave!

No I want to be healthy