Met Target weight and BMI... Now what?

What exactly do you mean by “strict (counting calories)”? Do you mean you’ve counted everything or do you mean you kept to an aggressive deficit? Or both?

Have you tried to up your calories to the MFP maintenance number and continue counting?

I’ve maintained for a while now. But I’m not exactly sure I “live freely” where food is concerned. I rarely keep a food diary now, only when my red line has been crossed. But if you ask me how many calories I’ve eaten at any point in the day, I can give you a pretty close number. I generally know how many calories are in the stuff I eat.

Enjoy? I’m not so much on enjoying food a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I like what I eat. But I usually think in terms of satisfaction. Tasty enough, filling enough, nutrition enough. But I do have a treat every day picked to fit in my plan.

Fear? At 285 lbs I was a stroke waiting to happen. The day I woke up to reality was a scary day that I still recall. Now I think of myself as vigilant. I think it’s wise to keep your guard up. And take action if you see the scale creeping up. It’s not like 10 lbs is going to attack you in a dark alley. Keep working the process. There’s no finish line.

You’ve met your weight goal, now it’s about acceptance of trusting what you learned. I find keeping the same routine, of working out and when I feel bloated, take it easy on certain foods.

Once you read through the maintenance forums, you’ll see that one of the characteristics of successful maintainers is that the continue to log and monitor their intake, maybe not forever, and maybe not quite as strictly, but for sure in early weeks/months of maintenance they continue to log.

Those who treat achieving the weight loss goal as the end of the journey are often the ones who are posting the “I’m Back” threads.

I found maintenance to be a bit challenging at first not because I was scared of eating “bad” foods, since I didn’t consider foods good vs bad during weight loss and didn’t cut out any foods from my plan. I found it challenging because I was used to having a buffer in my overall CICO, I knew if I was over on a day or two, I could still be in deficit or at maintenance for the week. Once switching to maintenance I no longer had that buffer, so I in fact kept my goal at a small deficit to give myself that comfort buffer especially since I wasn’t diligently weighing all my foods.

I'd like to suggest that you stop viewing certain food as 'bad'. I understand that you are referencing the 'bad' as not healthy... but you shouldn't feel like you are doing something wrong if you have a piece of cake. While you were in loss mode and even now in maintenance, it all still comes down to calories in/calories out and moderation.

I met my goal of more than 100 lbs more than 2 years ago. I actually handled maintenance a little different than most. I would take my weekends off. What does that mean? Well, I typically didn't get any workouts in over the weekend and I ate more freely... less healthy and I didn't weigh/log my foods. I would be more likely to eat pizza, a sub, etc over the weekend. However, I wouldn't gorge myself. Come Monday morning, I'd get right back to my weight loss mode... Of course my weight would be up, but by mid week I would have it right back down. Most of my shift would be sodium anyway. Anyway, come Monday... it was right back to weighing/logging my healthier choices of foods and getting in my daily gym sessions (cardio and strength training). Now this method isn't for everyone and but it has worked for me wonderfully and I have been able to keep my weight in check.

Just thought I'd share in the event this is something you might want to consider. I know I will always have to be attentive to my weight.