What's On Your Mind Today?

24

Replies

  • jmu1965
    jmu1965 Posts: 968 Member
    How do you switch from weight loss to maintenance on the app?🧐
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 4,746 Member
    @ideas2 you really have a wonderful post there. worth repeating! So much of this "thing" is psychological and I am actually doing the same as you. So if I NEED to I can eat up to maintenance level but seeing how I want to drop a little fluff this month I am a success if I am 500 below and I am a success if I am 200 below. I am a success if I am at maintainance level. It is such a freeing method that it ought to be in the handbook here on MFP.
    I have my official calorie goal set to my maintenance level (which is why staying under my calories is the least difficult of the three things I track for UAC,) but I let myself eat below this on as many days as I want to in order to lose weight. I do really want to lose weight so on many days I am at least 500 calories below my official goal, and have managed to lose more than 50 pounds in this way.

    It works well for me psychologically and my expectation is that I will never increase my official goal, but as I get closer to the weight I want I will be less motivated to eat as far under or may reduce my maintenance level if I decide it would be healthier for me. For me, this seems to be most in keeping with my desire to make this a lifestyle, not a diet.
  • KCJen
    KCJen Posts: 1,089 Member
    jmu1965 wrote: »
    How do you switch from weight loss to maintenance on the app?🧐

    I think you can do it in the weekly goal section on the app? Settings>My goals>Weekly Goal???

    I did it on the desktop under Settings>Update Diet/Fitness Profile>What is your goal. Now be warned that if you adjust that, it recalculates calories and exercise numbers.
  • lesdarts180
    lesdarts180 Posts: 2,666 Member
    jmu1965 wrote: »
    How do you switch from weight loss to maintenance on the app?🧐

    You can go to goals and change your goal from "lose xlb per week" to lose nothing, or you can manually enter a calorie goal, which is what I did. By the time I reached my goal weight (after losing over 22 kg in 9 months) I knew roughly what my maintenance calories should be. Actually, what I aim to do is to drift down by a pound or so when I have a quiet few weeks at home so that I can enjoy a holiday without stressing over calories.
  • jmu1965
    jmu1965 Posts: 968 Member
    Thank you everyone for helping. Definitely something to think about when I talk to my dietitian.
  • Caroline_slowandsteady
    Caroline_slowandsteady Posts: 842 Member
    edited May 2022
    Just a bit of musing ... in the 3 days of being back on track since my weeks long off-track time, the weight has been coming off very gratifyingly. For a few months there, it had not been. That makes me wonder if ~148 pounds really is just my body's set point now and it's going to be too hard to get below it. I did make it down to ~146 in Oct/Nov but quickly gained it back and have not been able to get back down again and it's been really frustrating me and I've been trying all kinds of things. After my indulgences, I was up to 153.5 on Monday, but this morning I am back down to 151.5, which is a very fast weight loss for me. I am very interested to see how quickly I get back to 148 and whether I can keep losing once I get there or if I stall out again. If I stall out again I think I am going to accept that that's my maintenance number and set a range around there and just try to stay there. I really wanted to get back to the 130-135 range being my maintenance number, like it was when I was 11 years younger, pre-pregnancy - trying to accept that you can only control so much. Maddy @MadisonMolly2017 pointed out to me that 148 is in the healthy BMI range and so there really isn't any benefit of going below that other than my own vanity.

    Or maybe I won't stall out at 148 - maybe this little break of indulgence is just what I needed to break the plateau. I am curious to see!
  • bookieNJ
    bookieNJ Posts: 3,447 Member
    @Caroline_slowandsteady -that’s great. I hope you can figure it out soon. My body was stuck between 171-173 for like over a year…was so happy to get into the 160s again…
  • snowshoe072
    snowshoe072 Posts: 4,453 Member
    @Caroline_slowandsteady i know if have been there before I to hung out in the 170’s for what felt like forever now I fluctuate between 160 and the upper 150’s if I could just get to the low 150’s I think I would consider it a good place to stop and then the word I dislike so much “maintain” don’t give up its a lifestyle change NOT a diet,
  • Caroline_slowandsteady
    Caroline_slowandsteady Posts: 842 Member
    @bookieNJ , @MadisonMolly2017, @snowshoe072 thanks so much for your insight.

    I think my current plan is to aim for 1650 calories a day for the forseeable future. I am not hungry at that number of calories if I make good food choices, so it feels pretty sustainable. If I keep losing weight at that, great. If I stall out at 148 again, also OK. I am not going to go below 1650, but I am also not going to give up on tracking.

    My pre-pregnancy weight was 135, and as I wrote about in the May 6 post just now, a big part of my original motivation was "getting my body back." Which is a cliche and stupid, but also I really felt like my body was not my own, which is a weird and uncomfortable feeling. I do think losing some weight and the exercise I have done that makes me able to feel like my body is steady and capable are getting me back in that direction. And that ultimately I need to accept that this is my body now - I can't get my 32 year old body back at 42, even regardless of the 3 pregnancies, IVF treatments, GI issues, and Hashimoto's thyroiditis I experienced along the way. Just need to make my current body work as well for me as it can.
  • hopefaithlifts
    hopefaithlifts Posts: 36 Member
    Happy Mother’s Day 💐
  • ashleycarole86
    ashleycarole86 Posts: 6,087 Member
    Happy Mother's Day to all the strong, beautiful mothers that form our lovely group!
  • KCJen
    KCJen Posts: 1,089 Member
    @Mrs_Hoffer Hope your eye gets better soon! 🙏🙏🙏
  • TerriRichardson112
    TerriRichardson112 Posts: 17,927 Member
    Having read the previous posts, these are my thoughts on my personal journey.

    🔹 The lifestyle I chose to get to maintenance was a process of developing healthy habits which were permanently sustainable.
    🔹 I am not ‘on a diet’, it’s my new way of life. If I go back to my old habits, I will lose all the progress I have made.
    🔹 Thus, I make daily choices to continue to track, eat mostly healthy, and exercise.
    🔹 I also accept that I am not perfect, and will make daft choices from time to time, but I won’t beat myself up about them.
  • jamcnewman
    jamcnewman Posts: 3,973 Member
    Thinking of you Teresa and hope this heals up quickly for you. Such a stressful and busy time for something like this to happen — but you must and are taking care of yourself. 💛 @Mrs_Hoffer
  • ideas2
    ideas2 Posts: 1,221 Member
    @Mrs_Hoffer

    I think I would find an eye issue like that to shoot my anxiety through the roof. I am praying for you.
  • lesdarts180
    lesdarts180 Posts: 2,666 Member
    @Mrs_Hoffer , what a horrible thing to happen and at the worst time. Try to rest and heal yourself.