How to not feel like it's one long endless diet.
MomLarisa
Posts: 225 Member
I hit maintenance back in May, but I'm struggling. I'm still having to track and weigh almost daily or I'll creep up a lb or two. I just feel like I'm on one super, long endless diet. The maintenance level of calories for me feels like deprivation for sure. I know it helps when I load up on the protein, but this is not fun, nor enjoyable. Is it worth it to look and feel slim, sure, but honestly it kind of sucks. What helped you adjust to the long term lower calorie intake of maintenance? Will I someday be OK with feeling hungry a lot? How long does that take? Is there anything I can do to feel satiated more frequently? Sure, water helps some, but I still have that empty feeling inside and I really miss just being able to eat a fast food meal out occasionally without practically starving myself the rest of the day. I need something sustainable long term without making me feel like I'm dieting forever. Living off salads and grilled chicken is not making me feel super excited inside. Articles or personal experiences are super appreciated.
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Replies
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I'm not at maintenance but when I get there I'll only be able to eat 1200-1400 calories and I'm concerned I'll be dieting forever. How many calories do you eat to maintain?4
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Are you exercising? That's the only way I can stay at maintenance weight without feeling deprived or over-eating.
The other thing is that the first year is just really tough. I have read *reasons* why that is, but for me it was just hard.
Then, give yourself a weight range. I don't stay at one weight, I move around in a five pound range. That allows me big over-eating days and then back to business. I don't stress about hitting the high end, and I don't stay at the low end.
Humans seem to be dynamic systems, not static.
Hang on. Take a long walk outdoors, it fixes just about anything.39 -
As @cmriverside says, many people find the first year to be rough. You lose the regular positive reinforcement of the scale going down, the goal is just to . . . have it stay in the same place. Which is nice, but it's no replacement for the rush of feeling like you're making regular progress.
If you feel like you're living off salads and grilled chicken, it sounds like it is time to mix things up. I'm always trying new things (within my calorie goals). Some of them I wind up hating, but I also keep finding things that fit well within my goals and I like. I also get a thrill out of eating seasonally, so I feel like I'm always "looking forward" to something to eat in the next few months. For example, right now I'm eating tons of cucumber salad, gazpacho, and melon. Once fall begins, I'll be moving on to more roasted root vegetables and hearty soups. I try not to fall into a food rut, because that's when cravings become an issue for me.
Another thing that helped was to realize that there's nothing "wrong" with me. We live in a food-oriented society where it's very easy to be not-too-active and eat way more calories than we need. In resisting that, we're swimming against the stream. There will be times when it's harder than others because we're resisting what we've evolved to do -- eat tasty food when it's abundant to store energy for lean times. The problem for us (the lucky problem!) is that for many of us, the lean times never come. That's the context we're working in and why it feels hard sometimes.
For feeling hungry all the time -- I'm assuming you're tried the normal stuff (are you getting enough fiber and fat? have you experimented with volume eating?).24 -
I am not at maintenance yet but I do IF - eating well 4 days a week but seriously restrict my calories on 3 days a week. I also walk 4 miles a day minimum and that wins me another half a pound or so worth of calorie deficit a week.
So my thoughts when I get to maintenance is to keep up with the walking, of course, as that is for general health as much as anything, and to keep a single fasting day.
At the moment my fasting days are 600 calories and for that I tend to have a a big bowl of porridge, a bowl of homemade vegetable miso soup, a yogurt and an apple - so the calories can go a surprisingly long way.
So hopefully the upshot will be that on maintenance I will be able to eat well most days and not feel restricted - but I do intend to keep with the calorie counting as stopping that has been my downfall in the past.11 -
I would add that I don't see logging food and weighing myself as burdens. I see them as tasks to do to keep my eye on the goal, which is to maintain my healthy weight. Logging food and recording my daily body weight is not hugely time consuming nor onerous. I just do it, like I just floss my teeth and put away the dishes.
I've been logging food for 13 years. I'm pretty dang good at it and it takes me maybe an extra three minutes a day?27 -
Were you maintaining your weight before you decided to start dieting?
Otherwise you would have to have lost a considerable amount of weight to need to eat a lot less now compared to your heavier maintenance calories.
Personally I didn't "adjust to the long term lower calorie intake of maintenance".
I immediately got 500cals/day more than when I was dieting.
That jumped up anouther roughly 200 cals after a couple of months as I reversed what was probably a small amount of adaptive thermogenesis.
Long term I'm eating much more maintaining lighter compared to when I was maintaining at a higher weight as both my activity and exercise levels are a lot higher.
I would highly recommend you increase your daily calories by 100 day and stay at that level for at least a month. With everything you describe there a good chance you are suppressing your CO by over-restricting your CI.
(e.g someone feeling hungry, tired, cold is more likely to huddle up on the sofa thinking about food while someone eating a bit more might spend the evening pottering around the garden....)
Within that experiment period do not react to fluctuations.
If you are still maintaining at the end of the month increase again. Keep in mind that even if you discover your current eating level is your true maintenance calories you will gain less than 1lb of fat.14 -
cmriverside wrote: »I would add that I don't see logging food and weighing myself as burdens. I see them as tasks to do to keep my eye on the goal, which is to maintain my healthy weight. Logging food and recording my daily body weight is not hugely time consuming nor onerous. I just do it, like I just floss my teeth and put away the dishes.
I've been logging food for 13 years. I'm pretty dang good at it and it takes me maybe an extra three minutes a day?
I have come to realise that this is the way I should treat this as well. Every time I "let go" of the food logging, there comes a point that the weight slowly goes up again (or, in the last 6 months, not so slowly).
I think I need to become a MFP lifer.19 -
I'm only a few weeks into maintenance, so i have no great experience, but certainly the kind of food I eat makes a difference. For example, I can eat a bucket load if vegetable and quorn stir fry (which I love), but a creamy cheese pasta bake doesn't go very far. It's not always clear what makes things more filling, but I think high fibre, high protein, and low calorie density (hence high volume) all play a part.
I'm a bit of a nerd so I made a spreadsheet of common foods I eat, and then listed them by fibre per calorie. Turns out vegetables and fruit are much more high fibre per calorie than foods that you typically think of as high fibre (i.e. whole grains).
Also, beans are especially filling for me, and are pretty low calorie density.
I'm currently eating a lot of a few favourites that really fill me up. I hope that keeps working, but as I say, I'm only a few weeks in.
I really like The Fast 800 cookbook. It showed me that low calorie can be tasty and filling. Worth a look, possibly.
One other thing: is there a meal you enjoy less and would consider skipping? For example, would skipping breakfast be worth it to make your other meals larger? Some people don't like breakfast, or aren't (as) hungry in the mornings. For me, having two filling meals would be worth skipping breakfast for, but its very personal.17 -
I am not at maintenance yet but I do IF - eating well 4 days a week but seriously restrict my calories on 3 days a week. I also walk 4 miles a day minimum and that wins me another half a pound or so worth of calorie deficit a week.
So my thoughts when I get to maintenance is to keep up with the walking, of course, as that is for general health as much as anything, and to keep a single fasting day.
At the moment my fasting days are 600 calories and for that I tend to have a a big bowl of porridge, a bowl of homemade vegetable miso soup, a yogurt and an apple - so the calories can go a surprisingly long way.
So hopefully the upshot will be that on maintenance I will be able to eat well most days and not feel restricted - but I do intend to keep with the calorie counting as stopping that has been my downfall in the past.
Do you mind me asking what your 'generic 1200 calorie' breakfast meal might be?0 -
I am not at maintenance yet but I do IF - eating well 4 days a week but seriously restrict my calories on 3 days a week. I also walk 4 miles a day minimum and that wins me another half a pound or so worth of calorie deficit a week.
So my thoughts when I get to maintenance is to keep up with the walking, of course, as that is for general health as much as anything, and to keep a single fasting day.
At the moment my fasting days are 600 calories and for that I tend to have a a big bowl of porridge, a bowl of homemade vegetable miso soup, a yogurt and an apple - so the calories can go a surprisingly long way.
So hopefully the upshot will be that on maintenance I will be able to eat well most days and not feel restricted - but I do intend to keep with the calorie counting as stopping that has been my downfall in the past.
Do you mind me asking what your 'generic 1200 calorie' breakfast meal might be?
I never have a 1200 day, eating 1800 four days a week and 600 three days a week, but also never eat breakfast as this makes me hungry all day. My first meal will never be before lunchtime.
Today is an "eating day" and I had my first meal at 3pm as it happens and it was crispbreads, cheese spread and a pear which came to 220 calories.
I do eat porridge every day, eating or fasting day, but have this in the evening. 40g of rolled oats, 13g of skimmed milk powder and some sweetener = 200 calories.
I started this journey with 5:2 but have modified this to suit my personal preferences and experience as I have gone along, finding fasting every other day to be a step too far for example, and this week I hit a lose of 7 stone, which has taken around a year. :-)3 -
@MomLarisa
I agree. Being hungry all the time to “look & feel slim” wouldn’t be worth it to me.
However, as many have mentioned, it can take a while to determine the timing of meals, foods that satisfy, caloric intake, movement that suppressed appetite. Distinguishing true hunger from “mouth hunger” can take awhile, too.
My focus was - and still is - on Health. I’m
Normal weight The past 2 years (of a 4.7 year total weight journey.) My cholesterol, triglycerides, resting heat rate, stamina, strength, agility, blood pressure, and all other labs are Normal to Low.
THAT is what was worth tinkering with foods To substitute for favorites,, Creating new habits, etc.
AND that won’t work at all for others, but it has for me.
I eat more fat (both good & bad) than is generally recommended. Daily, I eat very dark chocolate, Unsalted nuts, peanut-only peanut butter, cheese (some days).
I eat recommended protein amounts - mostly non fat dairy - and moderate carbs (cut out almost all refined sugar as it gives me “mouth hunger.”
I’m actually never hungry. 71 lbs down. 64 years old. This NEVER happened before. I always gained back because I was hungry. The difference has been daily walking for over 3 years.
The SECRET:
DIET is key to losing weight
EXERCISE to maintaining
(Yes, exercise is always good & yes diet is important in maintenance- but we know successful maintainers exercise daily for an avg of an hour.) I think it also helps shift our mindset to health/stamina/strength.
In June 2017 I was told by my doctor to walk 10,000 steps every day - no rest days.
From that point on, I lost steadily & then maintained. I didn’t get hungrier than my calories could satisfy.
It seems so wimpy. What do you do for exercise? I walk.
But Over the past 4 days, the heat wave hit. Rare for us. I cut back to 4K steps, or 45 mins on exercise bike. And wow, I got hungry, a bit morose.... I ate 600 extra calories that day. VERY RARE for me.
The following day I placed a bag of unsalted nuts on the scale- then took the bag into the other room & munched mindfully. Weighed the bag afterwards & logged it. 1,195 calories of nuts. But was happy with small dinner & was under for the day. Since then I’ve stepped the exercise back up some. Mood is my usual positive & food is back under control.
I realize now that the KEY for my success is my Daily Sustained Exercise
Health
Mood
Maintained 71lb lost after lifetime chronic obesity.
Calories eaten Avg wt. workout minutes
2018 2088 168 (losing) 70 minutes
2019 2080 155 75 minutes
2020 2259 158 90 minutes
Note: 2020 is the first year with > 10K steps average all year long.
You CAN do this. It’s about trying something, getting data, analyzing, tinkering.
Some folks are volume eaters. I’ve gone the route of some richer foods with very careful tracking.
Finally, maintenance is really about long term health benefits over short term transitory food pleasures. Note that many successful maintainers on MFP are older. We have had health issues or know folks who have. 78% of Americans are obese/overweight. And health issues are prevalent- myself included.
Perhaps focus on a longer, healthier life not filled with insurance claims, prescriptions, labs, and dr appts - and treat the slimmer cosmetics as a bonus!
Your future self will thank you!22 -
I'm absolutely exercising. I've always been very active. I ride my horse 5 days a week and also run 3 days a week in addition to all the work in running my mini-farm; mowing, weeding, gardening. I also bike and hike a lot with my kids. I've never actually been "overweight" except when I was pregnant. My BMI was more like 24 and steady there for decades and now it's around 20. I pretty much ate whatever I wanted to maintain at a 24 BMI. I like that I look trimmer now, but the calorie constraints suck. I'm at around 1500 calories right now. I tried not tracking on the weekends after I hit maintenance, but I put on a couple pounds so I definitely am not to the point of being able to add calories back in. I hear your suggestions and I appreciate them, but I'll also admit they're a little disheartening. Tracking and being so careful with what I eat FOREVER has me a bit bummed. And it's not like I dropped from the 24 to 20 in a month or two, I've been slow losing since November. I think I need to change my perspective somehow, but not quite sure how to get there.5
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Finding the "balance" in maintenance is kind of the hard part for a lot of people and it's where they get tripped up on the whole journey. I know it's always been my issue. I got back to maintenance levels in May myself and I've been kind of figuring how what works best for me as well.
I still weigh every day (can't manage what you don't measure!), and I log most of the time. Have I taken a meal or two off? Sure. Even a day or two off? Yep. But I still weigh daily.
What seems to be working for me (for the most part) is that I eat fairly responsibly during the week, even at a small deficit still, and then spurge on the weekends or a night out. Food, drinks, burgers, fries, nachos... whatever. Just a nice big meal. The sodium and carbs will make me "put on a couple pounds", but then I get back on track, eat at maintenance or even a small deficit, and it comes back off within a few days. I'm not depriving myself during the week, just being responsible and watching my portions, but I give myself permission to splurge once or twice a week! Not a cheat meal, a splurge (I hate the term "cheat meal").
For example, I was living large last weekend for sure. Weighed myself Monday morning and was up 4 lbs! YIKES! Got back on track and I'm already down 3 of them in 2 days. Some weeks if I know I'm gonna go off the reservation and get jiggy with it, I'll eat at a deficit for a few days leading up to my fun time so I "balance" it all back out.
There's lots of ways to go about it, you just have to find your way. Try some new methods to make sure you aren't depriving yourself. But I think weighing and logging are still critical for new people in maintenance until they can get a handle on things.16 -
VARIETY!
If you just eat the same things over and over again it will seem like a "diet", but we have such a great variety of healthy foods to eat, especially during the summer with different produce to eat. Enjoy them!9 -
I am not at maintenance yet but I do IF - eating well 4 days a week but seriously restrict my calories on 3 days a week. I also walk 4 miles a day minimum and that wins me another half a pound or so worth of calorie deficit a week.
So my thoughts when I get to maintenance is to keep up with the walking, of course, as that is for general health as much as anything, and to keep a single fasting day.
At the moment my fasting days are 600 calories and for that I tend to have a a big bowl of porridge, a bowl of homemade vegetable miso soup, a yogurt and an apple - so the calories can go a surprisingly long way.
So hopefully the upshot will be that on maintenance I will be able to eat well most days and not feel restricted - but I do intend to keep with the calorie counting as stopping that has been my downfall in the past.
Do you mind me asking what your 'generic 1200 calorie' breakfast meal might be?
I never have a 1200 day, eating 1800 four days a week and 600 three days a week, but also never eat breakfast as this makes me hungry all day. My first meal will never be before lunchtime.
Today is an "eating day" and I had my first meal at 3pm as it happens and it was crispbreads, cheese spread and a pear which came to 220 calories.
I do eat porridge every day, eating or fasting day, but have this in the evening. 40g of rolled oats, 13g of skimmed milk powder and some sweetener = 200 calories.
I started this journey with 5:2 but have modified this to suit my personal preferences and experience as I have gone along, finding fasting every other day to be a step too far for example, and this week I hit a lose of 7 stone, which has taken around a year. :-)
oh sorry...I took a peek into your food diary and saw 'generic 1200 calories' on various days listed under 'breakfast'.2 -
I'm absolutely exercising. I've always been very active. I ride my horse 5 days a week and also run 3 days a week in addition to all the work in running my mini-farm; mowing, weeding, gardening. I also bike and hike a lot with my kids. I've never actually been "overweight" except when I was pregnant. My BMI was more like 24 and steady there for decades and now it's around 20. I pretty much ate whatever I wanted to maintain at a 24 BMI. I like that I look trimmer now, but the calorie constraints suck. I'm at around 1500 calories right now. I tried not tracking on the weekends after I hit maintenance, but I put on a couple pounds so I definitely am not to the point of being able to add calories back in. I hear your suggestions and I appreciate them, but I'll also admit they're a little disheartening. Tracking and being so careful with what I eat FOREVER has me a bit bummed. And it's not like I dropped from the 24 to 20 in a month or two, I've been slow losing since November. I think I need to change my perspective somehow, but not quite sure how to get there.
Right now would suggest keeping on tracking but seems like you have fallen into the trap of reacting to a fluctuation.
If you keep doing that it will stop you experimenting and changing - without changing you are dooming yourself to staying in a situation that has you white knuckling maintenance and that's not sustainable.
You have choices but you need to make and commit to those choices.10 -
I'm absolutely exercising. I've always been very active. I ride my horse 5 days a week and also run 3 days a week in addition to all the work in running my mini-farm; mowing, weeding, gardening. I also bike and hike a lot with my kids. I've never actually been "overweight" except when I was pregnant. My BMI was more like 24 and steady there for decades and now it's around 20. I pretty much ate whatever I wanted to maintain at a 24 BMI. I like that I look trimmer now, but the calorie constraints suck. I'm at around 1500 calories right now. I tried not tracking on the weekends after I hit maintenance, but I put on a couple pounds so I definitely am not to the point of being able to add calories back in. I hear your suggestions and I appreciate them, but I'll also admit they're a little disheartening. Tracking and being so careful with what I eat FOREVER has me a bit bummed. And it's not like I dropped from the 24 to 20 in a month or two, I've been slow losing since November. I think I need to change my perspective somehow, but not quite sure how to get there.
Taking a different thought train here. A BMI of 24 is actually in the normal range, officially. And it sounds like you were much less mindful of your food and able to maintain at that BMI happily (without counting or reducing your intake).
Is it possible that your happy place of balance is somewhere in the middle? There is a cost to being lean. The habits that supported you at BMI 24 had to change in order for you to get to BMI 20, and to keep you there, they have to remain pretty much the same. There is a place in the middle where you are restricting less (So you’re more satisfied with your day-to-day way of eating, and maybe your exercise is not quite as intense) and you weigh a little more (still slimmer than BMI 24, still in a Normal healthy weight range for your height, but not as lean as now).
Can you take an inward look and ask yourself what balance of daily-calorie-mindfulness, exercise, and BMI would be right for you? Sometimes, just because we REACH a new low weight on the scale doesn’t mean it’s a good weight to maintain (and still enjoy and be satisfied with our daily life).
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I agree with @gallicinvasion. The important thing is health, and that means getting as close to a healthy weight as you can manage sustainably. But since you were already a healthy weight to begin with, it might be worth evaluating the costs and benefits of maintaining your current weight, and aiming for a slightly higher BMI.5
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Me, under my breath, while in the grocery store picking up an impulsy-type-snack-item and looking at the nutritional info: "I like having abs; I like having abs;...". My best advice: giant piles of exercise calories make it a million times easier. (Getting those piles from an activity where your performance would be particularly hampered by any excess weight also provides a large amount of motivation).6
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+ what others above said... if you aren't weight training now/before, for instance, and started with that - you might like how you look at BMI 24 with extra muscle (you'll see more muscle definition at 24 and look leaner than before at 24).
..(Note that I don't know what the weight difference/maintenance calorie difference is between BMI 20-24 for the OP... also possibly other lifestyle changes adding to the difference? or unnoticed weight creep?)1
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