So many of you have said it so well. For me, maintenance is just like losing, but with a few more calories. I have to be vigilant or I can easily pack the pounds on. The 'fat chick' is still just waiting inside me, and I believe she always will be.
Sometimes it gets me down -- this constant feeling of having to stay in control. But then I start to compare this area of my life with other areas. I don't love paying the bills every month, monitoring our money. I know if I don't keep track, we could easily get into big debt. There are always things we want to buy. And yet, in that area of my life I can control myself. I see the consequences of spending too much -- going into debt. And I see no choice. I won't go into debt just because I want some bauble. And I don't resent it the same way I resent sometimes exercising and calorie counting.
Some thing with my health and life. I am no longer willing to do the equivalent of going into debt --gaining weight -- and will do what I can to avoid it.
Heather's debt parallel is a really good one. I think we just have to recognize that for a long time this was an area of our lives that we did NOT have control over, and control means constant awareness of what's going into our bodies and how much we're moving them. So yes, it's for the rest of our lives as long as we want to maintain good health.
I'm totally with Sheila on the fitness goal thing. I'm close to my goal weight, and I worried for a long time about keeping up the momentum long enough to get here, but I did. Now I worry about making it the last few pounds and then maintaining. So instead of freaking out about it, I'm concentrating on goals related to my running and I feel like maintenance will follow. I have realized, however, that I'll have to be vigilant for the rest of my life, and that has to be my "normal."
Lisa's post reminds me, I'm focusing on fitness goals too! I'm enjoying yoga and having fun (!) incorporating corework into my weight routine... (talk about a "new normal"! The old Heather couldn't fathom saying that! )
I think if I'm not going to have a scale to focus on, I need something else to sustain me!
Just for clarification, I am very much aware that I will never be able to eat like a "normal" person, and have been okay with that for a long time. It's just that I want all of this to become a "normal" part of my life. I just can't sustain obsession mode forever - there's too many other things that get in my way.
But the posts have made me really think about things, and I love that. The debt parallel is a good one in many respects, and I hope it holds true for this one as well. I know what I can and can't spend, and have never really struggled with that. I hope that someday soon I will struggle less with the food choices. Exercise has really been a part of my life forever, though I'm better with it sometimes than others. But controlling the food is really, really tough, and I hate the idea that I will fight the same battle every day for the rest of my life. I want to get strong enough that I can win the battle without as much of a struggle, just because the struggle takes so much energy away from all of the other aspects of my life.
I have gotten hope here, though - Jay's post especially. And I can really see the fitness goals giving me the same type of high that I get from the scale movement, so that gives me hope for long-term maintaining. Trazey - I can so see that woman gaining and losing like that. I don't blame her. There is so much more support for losing weight than for maintaining weight loss. I guess I'm also encouraged that I'm finally far enough into the weight loss part of this to really believe to my core that I will do it and will have to worry about maintaining.
Thanks, everyone, for responding with such insight.
Hmmm. Let's see. Well for now I will adress the obsession part. LaurieDawn, I would love for this to all be "natural" to me. I wish I had the instinct to choose healthy foods in healthy sized portions and wouldn't have to plan and monitor my every bite. I wish I was such a natural athlete, that I played tennis, swam or rode my bike everyday without fail, just because I loved it. That I didn't have to actually pencil in my exercise. But unfortunately, that's just not the case with me.
I obsess. I simply can't do it any other way. I plan, I shop, I cook, I ponder, I read labels, count calories, I look at the clock (next meal), I weigh everyday. I rack my brains as to when to fit in the exercise, etc.. I OBSESS. Without a doubt. But quite frankly, this is my new normal. It HAS become my way of life. Again, I wish it didn't have to be this way, but it does. When it wasn't this way, I was unhealthy, unfit, inactive and miserable. Now I am healthy, fit, incredibly active, energetic, productive and extremely, extremely, happy.
As far as not having the scale loss to keep you going week after week, come maintenance time, having the scale stay the same is extremely, extremely rewarding - EXTREMELY. And oh so very satisfying. Getting through a week, a day, having made good food choices, having exercised and "kept up the lifestyle", is also extremely gratifying. Going to the closet and knowing all those gorgeous clothes will still fit me as another Monday rolls around is also delightful. So though that scale is not moving downward, having it not move upward - is pretty darn exciting as well.
I'm one of those who has lost hundreds of pounds over the past 20 years or so only to gain it back and then some. This time around, I'm not doing anything I can't live with for a lifetime. Basically I'm eating a balanced diet and exercising and the weight is coming off. I can honestly say I'm not eating in a manner that I can't continue with for the rest of my life, I haven't really felt deprived this time around.
It's funny when people mention eating like normal people because I used to think I was eating like a "normal" person until I started counting calories...it was more like I was eating like 5 normal people LOL. I was clueless as to how much I was really taking in and not doing anything to burn it off. It seriously shocked the **** out of me. Anyone who could take in as many calories as I was and not get fat is probably not a normal person
Every other time I took the fast route to losing the weight, and I never learned anything about how to eat properly. Inevitably I'd go right back to the same eating habits I had before I lost all the weight and before long the weight creeped back up on me.
I'm hoping that by the end of this journey when I am trying to maintain I will have learned enough about healthy eating and exercise that it will all be normal to me and I won't change much of what I'm doing now. *crosses fingers*
Here is how I picture my own maintenance. Knowing a calorie range that works for me. Weighing in every morning with a specific weight range (that accounts for monthly fluctuations). As things move beyond that weight range, I anticipate stepping up the diligence in the food and exercise area. I will not allow myself to ignore a problem starting. Personally, the scale is going to be the biggest part of my maintenance program. Accountability, every single day.
I was trying to find the post that said something like "5 pounds is easier to stay on top of than 150"
I have done a lot of thinking (already!) about my own maintenence and I have considered setting a 5 pound limit.. anything less than 5 pounds I will not stress about, but once I hit a 5 pound gain I will acknowledge that I am slipping up and bring my weight and nutrition into focus again.
I don't worry too much about it. I think I've done it. I have been here for a month and lost 8 pounds (well, actually 12 but its not official weigh in day yet!!!) and I already feel so much better I just can't imagine going back. My horrible IBS that used to leave me cramped and miserable in the bathroom for 1-2 hours a day has completely disappeared. That alone is enough to keep me on the straight and narrow.
If I really think about maintenance I get scared. Why? Because I will be back in the US.
Here, in a small town in Peru, I can get a pound of strawberries for a dollar. For 30 cents I get fresh squeezed orange juice without a hint of sugar, and it tastes great. I have to walk everywhere I want to go. Going out to restaurant doesn`t mean everything will be drowned in butter.
In the US? While I will have access to whole wheat foods, no cal soda, low cal yogurt, and all those things I miss here, I will also have Taco Bell everywhere. Friends who I haven`t seen in a year who want to go for some enchiladas and margaritas. Constant advertisement on chocolate. Deep fried everything.
It is irritating that foods that are good for you cost so darn much. Especially here in South Dakota... grains, meat, beans and dairy are cheap and easy to find, but fresh fruit (except apples) just doesn't grow here and has to be trucked in thousands of miles. A little box of strawberries here is about $6.
I've been thinking about this thread and I think my normal is shifting. I no longer have to make myself order a "special" meal, I just look for something that sounds good, isn't loaded with grease (it doesn't agree with my digestion anyway) and then listen to my body when I'm full. I carry my snacks with me (made it a habit), eat the same thing for breakfast (made it my routine), pack my lunch (no thinking about it when I'm rushed for time and hungry), eat supper at home six nights a week (or pack a healthy supper for a roadtrip to a ball game). It doesn't feel like a diet, it feels like how we eat now.
Friday night we went to our high school football game about 60 miles away. Our daughter at home (sophmore) had a friend ride along and spend the night. I made sandwiches in the oven, cut up fruit, and baked some chocolate chip cookies as a treat - one for me, three for hubby, the rest for the kids. She thought it was just fabulous - no McDonald's! Kourt says, "my parents are allergic to McDonald's most of the time, so this is what we eat on road trips". Her friend says, "You get to eat like this all the time!?!" It's all perspective, isn't it?
Last edited by traci in training; 09-30-2007 at 12:03 PM.
I watched Season Two of "The Biggest Loser" Australia and the winner from Season One came to talk to them all ~ he'd maintained his weight loss for 1 year, and commented that maintenance is so much easier than losing it in the first place. He said "staying on top of 5 pounds is so much easier than tackling 120" "
I've spent some time in the maintainer's forum, and it seems like maintaining is all of the work without any of the glamor of weight loss.
It's all the work, with all the glamor of SHOPPING. All the glamor of getting dressed every morning and every outfit looks GOOD. It's smiling doctors during your yearly physical. It's guys yelling WOO WOO out the car windows while you pump gas. It's getting pictures back from an event and actually liking how you look. It's not being afraid of high school reunions.
I know that I will "obsess" and count calories and weigh myself once a week for the rest of my life - that's okay, I do a lot of stuff I'm not crazy about (folding socks, flossing, getting the oil changed, paying taxes, cleaning the cat box).
If I ask myself - would I rather eat whatever I want and weigh 200 lbs or would I rather estimate calories every day, avoid fried foods, avoid fast foods and cream based sauces and weigh 127 lbs - it is a VERY easy question. Eating 700 calorie muffins for breakfast and M&Ms for snacks and pizza for dinner every day NEVER made me happy. I may work a lot harder now - packing lunches, endless trips to the grocery store for produce, cooking dinners, but I am sooo much happier. I will gladly stay "obsessed" to stay in my size 6 pants.
that's okay, I do a lot of stuff I'm not crazy about (folding socks, flossing, getting the oil changed, paying taxes, cleaning the cat box).
This is the argument that makes the most weight with me. Most people are very disciplined. We get up; go to work; make dinner; pay bills on time-- but in this ONE area I think we are taught we should be *out of control*. Or exercise no discipline or eat according to what we are feeling or who we are with. I know that is how I thought for a long time. I don't drink; I don't do drugs. I am very on top of my health. But in this one area I was conditioned to think that I should do what I want and not apply any discipline. I think society has reinforced that especially in the last few years -- everytime I see an Olive Garden commercial I think of the glutton -- you can have friends if you are a glutton too -- quality that it has.
Part of my thinking now is that it isn't so much about eating. It is about incorrect and distorted thinking. It isn't so much that I have to obsess about dieting in the future -- but that I should have been mindful of my eating all along - like paying the mtg; paying taxes; or anything else that seems unpleasant. And I used to have this attitude that discipline was something bad -- but maybe it is something good and positive. It feels good to be disciplined. All those silent monks praying all day can't be wrong.
You have a spoiled and out of control kid -- you send him to military school and in the end both you and him benefit. Discipline isn't always a bad thing and we do it anyway about many things that aren't as important as what you consume.
I am a bit scared after reading all your posts and those on other threads on this site. Maybe I have been looking at things all wrong
What I have been doing is normal to me.
Normal is
Wanting to be a healthy weight
Wanting to be happy with how I look
Eating what I want but in healthy proportions
I have changed the way I do things. Seems easy to me. This is something I can do for the rest of my life. Doesn't seem like work. I am not doing without. This last few days I have been putting fine touches on what I have been doing. Things like making sure I am indeed getting my four basic food groups in. Making sure I am getting enough of the vitamins and minerals and trace minerals I need to be healthy.
I have thought for the last 4 of the 5 months I have been doing this. Darn this is pretty easy, not as hard as I thought it would be.
As far as maintaining the weight loss. I keep in touch with the doc. She usually has a few words for me twice a month at my weigh in. By the time I get to where I want to be, she and I should have me on the calories and such that is just what I need. I hope.
Now I worry, one day it is all going to fall apart for me because everyone seems to find it all so hard. My gosh what is wrong with me.
Last edited by Shy Moment; 10-01-2007 at 10:13 PM.
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