Maintainers Weekly Check-In - January 2019

1. The aim of this thread is to have a weekly weigh-in check for some accountability and support.
2. Copy the form below by copy-pasting and edit to suit your personal schedule, then fill in your information and post each week.
3. Have a successful month, whatever your maintenance/health goal(s) may be!

Name:
Age:
Height:
Total weight lost:
Time it took to lose:
How long in maintenance:
Maintenance weight range:
Average weight recorded from 2018 (12 months):

Week of...
January 6:
January 13:
January 20:
January 27:

Success(es)/struggle(s) of the week:
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Replies

  • erjones11
    erjones11 Posts: 422 Member
    Hi Ben-

    Congrats and achieving your goals and entering maintenance.

    We are about the same age, height, etc... I had a few comments similar to yours about don't lose anymore weight. My mom especially. Still not sure why she would think it was better for me to kill my self one potato chip at a time versus having a healthier body fat percentage and nutrition to go with it.

    I am currently at about 16% body fat and still trying to drop that percentage a little but not through weight lost, rather with exercise and maintenance calories (recomp perhaps). Just wondering what's driving you to the slightly higher weight goal, though it is only ten pounds more then my target?
    Name: Ben
    Age: 50
    Height: 6'
    Total weight lost: ~55 lbs
    Time it took to lose: 9 months
    How long in maintenance: New...ish
    Maintenance weight range: 166-171
    Average weight recorded from 2018 (12 months): 183

    Week of...
    January 6: 168.1
    January 13:
    January 20:
    January 27:

    Success(es)/struggle(s) of the week: I started this journey last January and reached my lowest weight of 159 (about twenty pounds less than my initial goal weight) back in August. At that point, I got the usual "don't lose any more!/you've lost too much" comments, which I chalked up to the significant change in my appearance. However, after talking with my doctor at my annual physical in the fall and an honest self-appraisal, I decided to gain back about ten pounds. I lost more muscle than I would have liked on the way down and this is an opportunity to rectify that. 170-ish is hopefully a good target, and I'm inching up towards it. When I reach it, I'll re-evaluate whether a new weight range is in order.

    I was generally on a nice stable trend over the holidays (despite a few days of overindulgence) and was able to continue workouts even while on vacation. My goal for the first year of maintenance is the same as the last year of losing - better health and fitness, which I hope to be a good motivator in the years to come. I've been shadowing the boards for a few months now and have found the suggestions and advice to be quite helpful - thanks to everyone who shares their knowledge!

  • reversemigration
    reversemigration Posts: 168 Member
    Hi Eric, thanks for your kind comment! The comments from others were always interesting, though I know they were generally well-intended. I believe that the things people would say along the lines of what your mother did were because they felt self-conscious or felt that someone else's weight loss put them in a bad light. Though I am very careful to make sure to discuss my choices in a way that made it clear that what other people choose to do is their own business, I think some people just take it personally.

    As far as my goal, it's a ballpark figure that I decided on after discussing it with my doc as well as looking at my physique. I haven't ascertained my BF in any meaningful way; however, even moving weight from the places that could still stand to lose some (abdomen) to places where I need to add muscle mass (a lovely boney ribcage) will likely not be enough to have the amount of muscle mass that I'd like. From a health perspective, I know that at my age there's a general and accelerating trend of muscle loss, so I'd like to put on what I can while I'm able to do so. I've seen the effects of sarcopenia in senior citizens - the consequences are sobering. I also feel confident (now, at least!) that if I get to my new goal weight and feel that it's a bit too much, I can recalibrate without too much fuss.

    My health markers (BP, lipids, resting HR, etc) are all great since losing weight and have remained so as I've put on the ten pounds since my lowest. I'm trying really, really hard not to let the experiment in adding a few pounds become a license for poor habits or turn into a permanent trend. I find that I need as much focus doing this as I did in losing - I will occasionally make bad decisions that require a few days of buckling down to rectify!
    erjones11 wrote: »
    Hi Ben-

    Congrats and achieving your goals and entering maintenance.

    We are about the same age, height, etc... I had a few comments similar to yours about don't lose anymore weight. My mom especially. Still not sure why she would think it was better for me to kill my self one potato chip at a time versus having a healthier body fat percentage and nutrition to go with it.

    I am currently at about 16% body fat and still trying to drop that percentage a little but not through weight lost, rather with exercise and maintenance calories (recomp perhaps). Just wondering what's driving you to the slightly higher weight goal, though it is only ten pounds more then my target?