Adventures in Maintenance!

A

aiminglow

New member
A place to exchange thoughts, experiences, insights about maintaining a weight loss. Whether you're just pausing on the way down before starting again, or have actually hit your long-term ideal weight, we're all, as of now, maintainers!

So: let's go! Let's share encouragement and ideas about all the possible aspects of maintenance! It would be great to hear your thoughts about
  • how to identify the behaviours that got us into trouble in the first place, so we can head them off from starting again!
  • and about new habits we can adopt to make us healthier all round
  • and about food that maybe are new to some of us (I only heard about cucunci today for the very first time - thank you, @LaMaria!) and could be a useful part of our eating from here on
  • and about any other blinking thing we feel like! :p
Take it away, maintainers! :D
 
I’m a temporary maintainer – I’m currently on a three-month pause, maintaining at a weight which is just below "obese" for my height, but think I’ll try again to lose some more weight when that time’s up.
So was today a success maintenance-wise? Not really. I was strong with myself, :hurray:, denying myself a slice of the nearby banana-walnut loaf - but then “made up” for it, :oops:, by eating a bowl of porridge laced with sugary preserved ginger. So that’s a maintenance mistake – being too hard on myself. I should have just had the banana-nutloaf, with a good honest cup of tea. :(

Oh well – tomorrow's another day. And I did have a small success – bolstered by some talk elsewhere on this site about how
~~ food is better in the bin than inside somebody who doesn’t need it or really want it ~~​
I actually threw out the glacé (ie sugar syrupped) cumquats which were taking up room in the fridge - because nobody but me was ever going to eat them, and for me they were just going to be :
  • useless, extra sugar and also
  • an inducement to make them into some cake or biscuit - which I would then also eat most of.
So win some, lose some – which I guess works out (I hope it works out!) as maintaining.
 
I hope to one day qualify for membership here, for now I plan to be a reader more than a writer. One thing I worry about is staying focused and on track in maintenance.

A question, I get a lot of positive reinforcement from losing weight, see the scales go down and the non scale victories. How do you replace that as you transition to maintenance? This is something that worries me that y'all should know something about.
 
I maintained for such a long time & it is much harder than you think. You still have to keep that focus. If not, there's a high risk of ending up regaining, as I have. Nowhere near as much as I was, but still. I'm looking forward to being a regular poster in this thread, but, like Rob, for now, I'll mostly read.
 
With only two months' maintenance under my belt, I'm not really the one to answer this either - for me it's still new and exciting to "just" be overweight. :)
Can some longer-term maintainers offer an insight or two here? I know @LaMaria is experimenting with using an app - that might be a way to stay focussed. And @Truffle Monster bicycles like mad - I don't recall him ever mentioning weight, so I'm guessing he's a long-term maintainer. And then there's @overlandflyer - I don't know how he manages. (Flyer? how do you keep focus?) Or Tru! She seems to have things pretty well in hand. :) @Trusylver ? I guess for you, it's keeping a close eye on your strength and fitness goals? Is that right?

In fact... any and all long-term maintainers... we'd love to hear your views!
 
aiminglow said:
@Trusylver ? I guess for you, it's keeping a close eye on your strength and fitness goals? Is that right?
Click to expand...

For me it is not maintenance as such, it is either fat loss or muscle gain so my weight fluctuates in cycles. Both situations still require good tracking. However over the last couple of months I had been slack so have been back strictly tracking for a week now. I also only check my weight occasionally when tho opportunity presents itself, I do not have scales at home because my "weight" is not a big factor.
 
i am still trying to figure out a good definition of goal weight or even maintenance. what sort of fluctuation would you consider acceptable? i have hit a low of 158, but when i stopped being as active as i was for a few weeks, i popped back to the low 160's, now i've had a few social eating situations and on top of that, there is a ton of shortbread in the house right now. i've had more sugar in the last week or so than i usually have in a month or two.

but to me this is like a prehistoric time when fruit was available. i know the shortbread will go away and it won't return for a year. i know i won't have another few back to back social situations where it might be awkward to stick to my intermittent fasting routine.

probably the best thing is that i know what went on and i know how to correct it. i feel 1000% better than i would have felt a few years ago when i couldn't figure out what nutrition was all about.
 
since the BMI chart seemed to work for me as an eventual goal, i thought i'd throw up a goal oriented version...

BMI Chart 2.jpg

i'm 5' 11¼", so i add 1 lb to the 5' 11" line.

looking around about how the chart is supposed to be read, i believe i have verified that any weight less than the BMI=25 column should be rated as healthy, so the blue column is essentially the healthy cap. at the other side, i left off the BMI=19 column for the same reason. any weight below the BMI=20 column would be 19.something which is getting dangerously low.

i've got to admit, when i got to 180 i felt pretty good. mainly because as i've said before, my original goal was ~190... then again, that was also when i thought i was still a little over 6' tall. this is also when my weight loss started slowing down considerably. it took a few months to become stable around 172. that was a weight i achieved about 25 years earlier, but it was through very intensive bike riding for months which i eventually quit and, although it was slow, i eventually got back well over 200 in a few years.

now i'm down to the mid to sometimes low 160's. well, except for recent circumstances, so i'll just say i'm still within that range. this time i've done it through a pretty drastic lifestyle change as i've been intermittent fasting for about 18 months now. when i was losing weight i got as high as 20/4, but now i stick to a range of 18/6 to 16/8. maybe 2 or 3 times a month as light as 12/12. i cook at home at least 90% of my meals. i try to stick to a keto-like variety of food.

i can't see going back to eating three meals plus/ day. i'm getting used to eating enough for my activity level and exercising (walking) when i know i'm in a fat burning mode or alternately to get me there faster. this will continue to be my maintenance. things i need to work on... lowering sodium a little... probably drinking less coffee. ...as i'm sitting here drinking coffee.
 
overlandflyer said:
i am still trying to figure out a good definition of goal weight or even maintenance. what sort of fluctuation would you consider acceptable?
Click to expand...
For a guy who isn't sure what maintenance is you sure seem to be doing it well. Maybe that's what maintenance is, muddling along but staying within a healthy weight range. Thanks for the post Flyer, you know a lot more about this than I do.
 
overlandflyer said:
...to me this is like a prehistoric time when fruit was available.
Click to expand...
I had to read this twice to understand what you meant! i.e. that you were meaning real prehistoric times, not something like "ten years ago when my local supermarket stocked decent fruit and veg". :D Okay, the joke's on me for not being up with the paleo diet!
Thanks a heap, Flyer, for posting this. Thought-provoking, and giving me, at least, a little shove in the right direction. Yes, I need to look at that BMI chart!
I'm interested, too, that you pretty much seem to be setting yourself in for eating this way forever - but also that you're still making changes! - like about sodium (yeah - I'm a salt junkie myself :( ) and coffee.
alligatorob said:
...muddling along but staying within a healthy weight range.
Click to expand...
I like that as a definition! I've got a way to go to the healthy range, myself, but I'm an expert at muddling along!
 
this might be a good definition to repeat here...

hysteresis ... the phenomenon in which the value of a physical property lags behind changes in the effect causing it.

thinking about what i've written here so far, i have settled on the definition of a goal which should be a high cap for maintenance. for me that would be the 180 lb mark. but for maintenance, i have also settled on 165-170 lbs as a range i'll try to stick to. this gives me a buffer outside that maintenance range of +10 lbs to -5 lbs., both places i've been. when i'm on the low side, i may cheat just a little and feel ok about it. when i'm on the high side, i'm not going to panic, but i will try to be extra good... maybe cut a meal short... maybe lengthen my fasting time for a few days... maybe get out and walk an extra day.

i bring up hysteresis because it's something that can start a run-away gain. i've already mentioned in my diary that after a pretty bad overeating day or two, the scale actually showed a one pound drop. ... you have to realize that your body takes a few days to react to a bad/ cheating day.

the downside of being at or near a goal is that there is only one way to go from there.... up. be very good every day and you merely maintain. cheat a few days in a row and in a week you'll be up 10 lbs. doesn't seem very fair, does it.... :)
 
overlandflyer said:
the downside of being at or near a goal is that there is only one way to go from there.... up. be very good every day and you merely maintain. cheat a few days in a row and in a week you'll be up 10 lbs. doesn't seem very fair, does it.... :)
Click to expand...
Nope!

Though, to be serious, I think for me maintenance will depend on my being right away from notions of goodness or cheating; I want to feel absolutely free and off the leash! Which will mean redefining what feels restrictive - a mind trick as much as anything else?
Or maybe better to see it as undoing a mind trick? I do think our (general western) appetites, and thus mine as well, are somewhat out of kilter, due to various factors, such as:
  • heavy advertising (including through movies) telling us what we really like or want,
  • prosperity after earlier restrictiveness (not that any of us alive today felt the restrictions of wartime rationing etc, but our parents did, and that tilts notions within the family of what's really, really good to eat and how to treat food - or is this stretching too long a bow?)

The hysteresis idea is one that I'm pondering - a very intriguing notion, which I guess will counter the really simplistic ideas of how eating works, but I still am not exactly sure of what it would mean for eating/weight loss. I've got the general drift of the word - do you have any link to it specifically in terms of nutrition?
 
i have a theory about the delay in a weight gain actually appearing on the scale, but it's not based on anything but a guess. 60% of a human body is water. when fat cells are made, perhaps they aren't fully hydrated...? i have read that fat cells appear from 4-8 hours after digesting an excess of calories. wondering if it might take a little longer... a day or two?... to 'fill the tank' so to speak.
 
I've been maintaining for... 9 months perhaps? And it's only been a month or so that I've started to feel like my body is mine again. I'm exercising because it feels good, not because I ought to. Suddenly I'm interested in dressing this body nicely and I'm not feeling nervous when people look at me. I think that enjoyment of my body is the only reward maintenance offers - but it's a good one.
 
Hey there,

sorry I’ve been away from the forum.

still cycling. I wouldn’t say I’m a long term maintainer but I’ve been maintaining for over 12 months now with fluctuations up and down.

I think my best advise is to not care. I’m on a bit of a cycle (pardon the pun) here where I’m really enjoying being active. I honestly enjoy the feeling of a strenuous ride or hike so I keep doing it which keeps me fit. I know I need to eat half sensibly (I still enjoy my treats more than I “should” though) in order to be able to ride and hike which keeps me leanish.

I weigh myself every fortnight or so now just for reference and curiosity but I don’t really care what the number reads.

probably not that helpful for you ...
 
LaMaria said:
Suddenly I'm interested in dressing this body nicely and I'm not feeling nervous when people look at me.
Click to expand...
That's a really good point, LaMa, about enjoyment of one's own body being the ongoing reward of maintenance - makes me wonder how much I was/am still dis-associated from my own body because of weight issues.

I can see the same in @Truffle Monster's enjoyment of his bike-riding and hiking, too - the real zest he has in that. :) I love that "I don't care - I'm loving life" state he's in! :)
 
I'm nearly at the three-month point of maintaining at under 30 BMI, and it occurred to me that there is an additional motivation there for maintenance - counting the days (and later months, years...) of maintenance.
It's a number which doesn't go down, like the scales do, but up - it's a bit like the person (who is it? somebody here) who has maintained over 700 days of running every day.
 
So... maintenance! Our good friend @alligatorob recently had what turned into, IMO, a trial run for maintenance – the Maintenance Adventure Tour, maybe! :D If you're interested, maybe check out his diary for the first few weeks of February – or maybe he might even drop in and give us a summary here, of how it felt, and how it went?

Meanwhile, I’ve been looking at a documentary about obesity problems in the USA – it’s got lots of interesting bits in it, but there is one part which is specifically about maintenance, from 1:01:30 - 1:09:30:

 
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