Question for Maintainers

Gee, I dunno.

I let my weight creep up (quite slowly) in the first maybe 4 years of maintenance, up around 10-15 pounds but all within a healthy range. When my jeans started getting a little snug, somewhat over a year ago, I started creeping my weight back down again, intentionally super-slowly, like a pound or less a month. Now, the jeans are pretty loose again. I hate to shop, so I think it's time to stop the down-creep.

Will I restart up-creep? I dunno. 🤷‍♀️ Do I care if I do? I dunno. 🤷‍♀️ (Sometimes my distaste for personal drama is *not* a strength. 😆)

Even apart from this recent phase, there have been some gradual ups and downs, without a lot of extreme *trying* anywhere in there, more like seasonal tendencies to gain a bit in the Fall, maybe drop a bit in the Spring, gain on some long-weekend trips, lose gradually after, indulge a bit less if the up-creep is faster than I'd like (but without explicit "now I will adopt X deficit"), etc.

I do routinely calorie bank (eat a little under maintenance calories) most days, to eat more (sometimes lots more) on the occasional day. It's not a 5/2 pattern at all, because I'm retired so I don't have weekends, sort of. It's also not a big deficit being banked - 100 or 150 calories, maybe? And I try not to let it run *too* long without a higher day.

I'm still calling all of that "maintenance", because I want to. 😆 No, seriously: I'm calling it "maintenance" because it's in a range where my health is good, my performance is about as good as it's going to be given my age and laziness, and I don't have to buy new jeans, let alone a whole new wardrobe. (That part of weight loss, from obese to healthy was a nightmare, for me. New wardrobe? Shopping? Ugh.)

I don't see anything odd or problematic about what you're doing. I'm not sure there's a bright line, but I consider moderate weight swings kind of normal and reasonable, but extreme yo-yos not very health-promoting. In my own life, some of the difference between those two, near the border, would be how I feel subjectively: Strength, fatigue, exercise performance, energy level, sense of well-being, etc.

I typically maintain my weight pretty steadily. I don't log, so I can't say exactly how many calories I consume, but I would say my natural eating pattern is such that some days I may be in a deficit and others I am not. My usual maintenance range with fluctuations is a 3 or so Lbs either way. I will have fluctuations here and there that are outside of that, but they aren't a matter of routine. I typically intervene when I'm a consistent 5+ Lbs up with my upper threshold being 10 Lbs. This is typically seasonal. I'm a pretty active "play outside" kind of guy, so my weight only tends to creep up over the winter when I'm just out doing less and hibernating more...it's pretty stable Spring, Summer, and Fall. Hitting my upper threshold weight wise usually coincides with the onset of more spring like weather and more activity, so I don't usually have to do much diet wise to "adjust"...usually increased activity pretty much does the trick...maybe a little dietary tweak to get things rolling.

I never really had any kind of weight problem until I hit my 30s and started white collar desk job work. I've always been more or less a three squares a day and maybe a little afternoon snack and some post dinner desert kind of guy...so my bigger issues weight wise haven't really been food and overeating by copious amounts...my weight stuff seems to flex more with changes in activity while my appetite and eating habits remain relatively static.

After reaching my goal weight, last March, I (unintentionally) kept losing due to multiple things all changing at once. I've now adjusted MFP enough such that what it thinks I need to eat to gain 0.5kg a week is actually maintaining my current weight.

Since my weight stabilised, around November, my weight has barely fluctuated more than half a kilo (approx 1lb). However, this is probably because, as I did when I was losing weight, I keep tabs on my weekly average via the app. Some days are definitely higher than others, and on some days I get more exercise than on others,but the average is in line with where I want to be.

I've been in maintenance just over a year. I still enter all my food into the app and have no plans to stop. My daily calories are all over the place, but that's mainly due to how hungry I feel and what meals I planned, since they can really vary in calories. I keep track of my average on a monthly basis (via a spreadsheet).

I don't deliberately try to create a deficit, but my maintenance experience has been a slow loss of a pound every 3-4 months, so, if anything, I am trying to eat just a little bit more.