Has anyone read this? So disheartening...

Being fit is a lifestyle. In order to stay fit you have to keep things in balance.

There is a lot of evidence that success is rare, the the goal is to make sure you are one of the successes.

The National Weight Control Registry tracks losers and finds that the ones that keep it off:
1. stay active
2. continue their eating habits (but since super low carb diets are hard to maintain over the long haul, they tend to fare horribly for long term success)
3. track/measure portions and keep a food diary

http://www.nwcr.ws/

The basic message: be consistent, whatever you did to lose the weight you need to keep up forever. So pick stuff you enjoy. food wise and exercise wise. (And adding muscle to burn more calories at rest doesn't hurt)

This is a wonderfully common sense post, thank you!
I have come to the same conclusion - the most important thing is for each of us to find a way of eating and exercising (ie. living!) that we can keep up forever. Not easy, but I think it's the only path for long term success.

This is the site that also has articles called "Four mythical creatures that actually exist" and "You might be a zombie". You do the math....

That's exactly what I was going to say!!
:drinker: :bigsmile: :drinker:

I think that, for me I need to focus more on the fact that all this diet and exercise will keep me healthy and at 42 thats something that I have let slip, none of us ever have the body shape we would like, and as you get older you realise that you need your health more than the body of a model and accept what we've been given and just work with it best we can.

I've found the lady that I was talking about, the "youtube Grandma". http://www.diethobby.com

She is somebody who has successfully maintained after WLS, and she explains what she does on the website. It's great to read about people who have maintained, because we hear so much about people who have lost weight, as if the "goal" weight is the end of the journey, but there isn't nearly so much good information on maintaining. I read her website when I was starting to lose weight and it was quite shocking (to me). Like me, she's short and had a lot of weight to lose. Her MAINTENANCE calories seemed very low to me, at about 1000 calories a day. Her portions are small and carefully measured. She describes herself as "reduced obese" (i.e. not the same as somebody who was always slim), and will always be dieting. I suppose that is the reality of maintenance for a smaller, older woman following a big loss.

I can tell you, I'm very worried about getting to that stage. For one thing, it will be more difficult to be well-nourished on such low calories, but psychologically, I'm not sure if I'd manage to do that for life. I've taken the risk and started losing weight, but I have to admit, I've been hoping that I'll be able to eat a little bit more in maintenance. There just isn't the same guidance and advice for maintenance as there is for the weight loss stage. For instance, it seems to be known that the calorie requirements of a "reduced obese" person are less than a person who has always been at "goal" weight, but it's not clear exactly how to work it out.

One reason I don't have a goal weight is because I'm not sure what is going to work best. If it's a choice between trying to maintain a lower body weight (say 120 lb) and failing, or trying to maintain a higher body weight (say 14 lb, 160 lb) and succeeding, then possibly I'd be better aiming higher! It's not clear from what I've read what is the best course of action. But I think it's good to see articles which highlight the problem. We need to find out what works, and how to plan ahead.