Consistency!

Yeah. What COGypsy said.

None of the above.

I eat a rotating menu of multiple fruits and vegetables per week. Multiple sources of protein. Grains. Nuts. Mostly healthy fats, with a little cheese and butter thrown in there. Eggnog this month. Some days I'm way over my calories. Occasionally I'm under. Meh, it all works out. I step on the body weight scale several times a week and adjust according to long-term trends.

I do track my foods and I do glance at macros, but I tend to eat intuitively enough of everything. Like COGypsy, protein is the only one I need to keep an eye on.

None of the above.
I eat what I like within a calorie goal.

Another none of the above. I put a premium on quality nutrition...lots of whole foods and home cooking, healthy fats, lean protein, veg, fruit, whole grains and legumes, etc as well as regular exercise and active recreation. I don't count calories and don't really care about macros...I just look at overall quality nutrition.

I also schedule in things like pizza and movie night with the family...Wednesdays are my go out or get take out for lunch days...Sundays are also usually a go out for brunch or lunch day...I make special desert dishes a couple times per month, etc. In regards to the whole of my diet (noun) and nutrition, these things are pretty immaterial. IMO, quality nutrition and keeping healthy are pretty common sense and don't need to be particularly difficult to achieve.

Um, why do I need to be consistent with my meal plan? For me, "meal plan" isn't even a thing, honestly. I grocery shop, get things I like, make foods for meals quite spontaneously.

So, none of the above.

Like others, if I had to eat the same meals daily, I'd have given up in despair literal years ago. I do roughly count calories (most of the time now that I'm in maintenance, but not always), and I think overall nutrition is important (macros are part of that) . . . but all of that is fine to be "close enough, on average, over reasonably short periods of time". It absolutely doesn't need to be consistent every day, and that would drive me nuts. If it works for you, great. For you.

I have good eating habits, have been at a healthy weight for 7+ years now (after previous decades of obesity), my Garmin fitness tracker (even though I think this is laughable on a literal level) thinks my "fitness age" is half my chronological age (so I think I can conclude I'm doing OK-ish), my blood tests and other medical metrics are good, I get overall good nutrition on average eating things that make me happy (they vary lots from one day to the next).

Consistency? Not much, really.

"Cheat days"? Please. That's like believing in Santa Claus as an adult. It's a charming myth. Who or what would I be cheating?

Sometimes I eat lots of calories - way over maintenance, even; sometimes I eat fewer. Most of the time I eat nutrient-dense foods (that I enjoy, BTW - life is to short to eat non-tasty things, especially at my age!); other times I eat things with more calories than nutritional value. It's just food, and as a grown-up, I can make reasonable decisions about it.

Your mileage apparently varies, and that's fine, too.

I have a bunch of lower calorie go-to meals and recipes in rotation that balance out my week so I don’t have to think about it too much. It’s all stuff I really like. I don’t log much anymore as long as my favorite jeans fit. (And, yes, here I am, they feel a little snug!)

I’ve also been competing in StepBet challenges back-to-back for a couple of years so I ALWAYS get my steps in. (I’m too cheap to lose my money.)

Ok, I don't really do meals (I eat weird) but I'm a creature of habit so pretty much eat the same things every day.

Even when I'd go out to lunch every day at work, I'd go to the same fast food places (each had their own day) and order the same thing. It got to so the regular workers at some places started my order when they saw me walking in the door.

I pay attention to calories and keep an eye on protein (which I fail at miserably). I've also been failing at paying attention to calories lately...been mindlessly eating.

But, basically, my consistency is eating what I want within my calorie goal, exercising, and trying not to gain.

I eat mostly the same things daily for breakfast and lunch. By that I mean I have 2-3 options that I alternate through and they are all counted out for protein, veggies, calories and fibre, so I know they fit within my plan and goals. Dinner changes up depending on the day. Because the rest of the day is pretty set I can be a little more flexible with my dinner.

I'm sorry you feel condescending vibes, i don't think it's meant like that. But consistency means something different for everyone. For me it's about averages, not single days.
For others (but a minority on this thread, it would seem) it's about eating the same thing regularly.

Sustainability is the key. I would give up if I had to follow a meal plan, others are unsettled by irregular or unplanned meals and that pushes them 'off the wagon' so they prefer plans. We should all aim to do what works for us, not what works for others.

Being very restrictive (in quantity or type of foods) and then 'cheating' is often a strategy that leads to failure, because of precisely that sustainability factor. The regulars here have seen enough people come and go, so the word 'cheat' is a bit of a trigger word/red flag, even though it isn't always used in the same meaning.

PS results speaking louder than words - several successful people have replied. I've lost 75lbs myself. But as I said, whatever works for each individual, I hope you find your own long-term success with whatever strategy works for you.

The condescension was probably me, or I was one, anyway. I'll own that, and apologize. TBH, the OP seemed prescriptive and assumptions-based, to me. I probably over-reacted.

I honestly think one need not necessarily do any of those things in order to manage weight. They're tactics that work for some people . . . and I very sincerely think that's great, for those people.

They may be great tactics for other people - 3rd parties - or they may not.

We do see people here thinking that they need to white-knuckle their way into regimented every-day consistency in order to lose weight, or maintain weight, and who are struggling with that. Consistency is one route, but it's not the only route. A strict-ish consistency helps some people, but it would genuinely make me crazy. If routine consistency were required, I would've failed, period, end of sentence. Posts that leave no room for anyone to succeed via anything other than what I'd see as rigidity . . . well, they kind of get my back up, I admit.

I do have some preferred meals I eat often, especially breakfasts (since I'm nearly comatose until I've been awake for a few hours - autopilot is a good thing in the AM, for me). I've tweaked my routine eating habits via logging and reviewing logs to the point where calories and nutrition fall into place pretty automagically, the majority of days.

I really don't meal plan, I don't pre-log, and nearly never have, either during weight loss or maintenance. (During loss, I'd sometimes pre-log my final meal of the day to stay within calorie goal.) The results have been fine, at least according to my standards of "fine". To me "fine" = healthy weight (BMI 21-point-something), same jeans still fit great, health markers excellent, good exercise performance for my demographic.

OP, if I made you feel bad, I do apologize, very sincerely. While I want to push back on "one valid universal route" kind of thinking, I truly don't want to make anyone feel bad for coming in that way . . . and that may not have been your intention anyway.

snowflake954 wrote: »

I really don't see why truthful=condescension. The OP put out a poll. His key word is "Consistency!!!". People didn't fit into the categories and truthfully said why. I consider myself to be consistent, but not in his categories.

I also hope the OP (and everyone else) is successful and hits their goals. Sorry I was truthful.

Key words are fun to play with. cheers.