As many of you know, I've been maintaining a 45-50 lb. weight loss for about 2 1/2 years now. I calorie count, but I use some unique strategies that, I believe, have made me more successful at keeping off the weight than ever before (e.g., zig-zagging using a weekly total, start my day's count with dinner, etc.).
Over the past few months, I've put on a few lbs. (3-5) because I was getting lazy with counting and I was having too many uncounted BLTs (bites, licks, tastes). I initially went into panic mode and thought "Oh, no! I'm going to gain it all back." Then, I realized that maybe it's just that I need to tweak my plan. In years past, I would doggedly follow whatever plan worked for me to lose the weight, somehow illogically believing that I HAD to stick with that plan forever, even when it was obvious that it was no longer working for me. This time, I decided to try something different: I am still using all my usual strategies (mentioned above), but I've also tweaked my plan so that I eat just two meals a day, usually breakfast and dinner (this is something my "naturally thin" husband has done since I've known him, and I decided to give his way a try). It has been great! I teach, so I'm home during the summer, and I was so worried that it would be difficult not to eat all day. However, eating two meals a day has been so liberating. It seems like I can eat whatever meals I want (within reason), and the only other restriction I have is that I try not to eat dessert on the weekdays. Not only does this make it almost effortless to keep my calories in check, but it's so convenient not to worry about what I'm going to have for lunch. For the most part, I don't get hungry until about an hour or so before my usual dinner time, and by the time I eat dinner, I'm hungry enough to enjoy my meal really well without being so famished that I overeat. The best part is that I feel my approach to food is more "normal" now. Because I'm not having to spread out my calories as much, I don't have to plan as stringently, and I'm not so focused on food.
I was going to put this in the Maintenance forum, but I decided to put it here because I think this is a message that even newbies should read: Too many times when starting out, people are told they must choose a plan that they can live with "for the rest of their life." I understand the spirit of that advice, but IMHO, that advice can sometimes backfire and make the prospect of starting a plan so daunting that many people might not get started at all. What I've found is most important is to not give up. Start with something you think you can do, knowing that if it stops working for you, you can always try something else. One thing I've learned from not only my experience but the success of the maintainers on this forum is to persevere----with changes, if necessary.
Tweaking long term is crucial. I've never changed my diet plan entirely, but I've tweaked it immensely over six-ish years.
Unfortunately fasting and semi fasting plans never worked for me - nursing and pregnancy make grazing all day a lot friendlier for my body. But there are a LOT of post-menopausal women, my mom included, who have found eating one or two big meals per day and doing intermittent fasting style plans with whatever their diet happens to be works very, very well. It's more forgiving, with their smaller calorie allotments, if nothing else.
Tweaking every two days as newbies tend to do when they don't drop five pounds every week in perpetuity is quite a different matter than persisting and finding something works better or worse for your body over time
I found that earlier on in my journey. Every few months I had to change something. For those who are familiar with Star Trek...I felt like a Borg. Everything I did, my body would adapt to. I have to change it all the time to get a reaction on the scale! Now I am in the same place stuck. I know that I need to kick up my exercise dramatically, I just can't right now time wise. In about a month I am going for it. But I agree, you have to be willing to change and adapt continually! Because when you think you have found the one thing that works then it doesn't anymore, it can get really depressing and make you want to eat or give up. Never give up just find a new path!
Last edited by Sassyblonde; 06-19-2014 at 02:15 AM.
Back to the OP, I think it's good for all of us to realize and accept that what works today might not work a few days, weeks or months from now and that doesn't make us failures.
My plan now is a conglomeration of a bunch of different "diets" I've tried over the years. Recognizing that I need to pay attention to how my plan is working and making adjustments has helped me to be more successful and less stressed this time around.
Excellent post lin, you sound really grounded and happy and confident. The beginning of a weight loss journey is daunting for anyone, and you're right, change is often the only way we can get that scale to budge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lin43
I was going to put this in the Maintenance forum, but I decided to put it here because I think this is a message that even newbies should read: Too many times when starting out, people are told they must choose a plan that they can live with "for the rest of their life." I understand the spirit of that advice, but IMHO, that advice can sometimes backfire and make the prospect of starting a plan so daunting that many people might not get started at all. What I've found is most important is to not give up. Start with something you think you can do, knowing that if it stops working for you, you can always try something else. One thing I've learned from not only my experience but the success of the maintainers on this forum is to persevere----with changes, if necessary.
For me the "plan for life" ordeal was too much. It was really really depressing me because dieting was so hard for all the wrong reasons. I put so much focus into devising this master eating plan that I hoped I could survive a week on (I couldn't) that I could never see in the future. So I took some time off from dieting for a long long while to truly think about what I wanted to see in my future. The more I thought about it the more clear it became, I saw myself in the future as a normal eater. I didn't want to be a lifelong dieter. I didn't want to count calories, or grams or weigh my food, or log anything. I'd been doing that stuff for so long that it became meaningless to me. The more I did it the more weight I gained, it was such a ridiculous pattern. So I focused on shaping a different future.
- I want to feel normal
- I want to enjoy food as much as possible
- I want to go out with friends and eat without feeling self conscious
- I want to go to a party and enjoy the food, rather than feeling stressed out or making myself avoid the buffet
- I don't want to rely on willpower or feel deprived
- I don't want to give up any specific food
- I want to be satisfied with just a bite of chocolate
- I want to skip meals sometimes just because I'm not hungry
- I want to stop binging
- I want to feel confident in how I look, no matter what my weight is
Once I identified what I wanted my future self to be like it was a no brainer as to how I was going to get there. I picked a plan that I enjoy and that makes sense according to my goals. I think people spend too much time thinking about how much weight they want to lose rather than having a more well rounded goal. My goals have nothing to do with numbers now, I'm just moving in a general direction of WHO I want to be rather than how much weight I want to lose.
Since i accept the arguments of Dr Amanda Sainsbury-Salis, Its seems to me that if you can't easily maintain your current weight without a lot of exercise your natural ideal body weight is higher than you are currently OR that you need to consider reducing your body's current set point. The body's natural ideal body weight is the lowest set-point you can reach.
If you have spent a fair bit of time at a higher weight than you are currently, then it's likely that your current set point is higher also. To reduce your current set point you need to gradually gain a bit of weight from increasing your food intake to the point that you are able to easily maintain your current weight and then stabilise at that weight for a while before reducing again. This is likely to take about 6 months from what i've read recently, though i'm sure that's just an estimate.
And you may have to do it in a few stages. Personally i think its worth find your body's ideal body weight so that you don't have to feel deprived and stress about not getting exercise and so that if you get tired of exercising, it isn't hard to maintain the same weight through just a correlating reduction in calories.
If you want to understand this better, then i suggest reading her books on The Don't Go Hungry diet and Don't Go Hungry for Life.
I have to say this approach really appeals to me because from past experience i know i can't sustain a lot of regular exercise for long periods of time. I seem to be only able to do it for a maximum of six months before i want to give up or something else gets in the way.
I just had to comment because I have read this theory elsewhere in your other posts and so I decided to do the math of my weight loss. It matched that pattern exactly. I lost 10% of my body weight relatively quickly and hung out there for about 5 months and then lost another 10% relatively quickly. That is where I am right now. I didn't do anything different except just hone my eating when hungry stopping when satisfied skills and also been working on my emotional eating but the weight loss followed that exact pattern. So, based on that, I expect to be here at this weight for another few months at least, if not longer.
OP glad your plan is working for you. I totally can't skip meals right now but that could be because Im still nursing.
Wannabe, I love your list too.
Last edited by Pinkhippie; 06-19-2014 at 11:23 PM.
Regarding skipping meals - who's to say that doesn't work? I know some very thin people who have eaten like that their whole lives. The human body is capable of a great many things and it can go without food for long periods of time. The key is to find our body's sweet spot but be careful not to fit a round peg into a square hole. I eat 3 solid meals a day and feel great. If I had to I could go with one or 2 meals but the thought of facing several small meals a day is absurd to my sensibilities. We gravitate towards the plans we can execute well and stay committed to and that's that.
Regarding skipping meals - who's to say that doesn't work? I know some very thin people who have eaten like that their whole lives. The human body is capable of a great many things and it can go without food for long periods of time. The key is to find our body's sweet spot but be careful not to fit a round peg into a square hole. I eat 3 solid meals a day and feel great. If I had to I could go with one or 2 meals but the thought of facing several small meals a day is absurd to my sensibilities. We gravitate towards the plans we can execute well and stay committed to and that's that.
I agree, and many of the thin people I know definitely do not eat on a schedule and often skip meals because they "aren't hungry yet".
I am just now finding that as it gets hotter where I live I have less hunger at breakfast time. And I really like breakfast foods, but I'm not hungry first thing in the morning any more. My pattern may be that during winter I eat 3 meals a day and during summer I eat 2.
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My naturally thin husband also doesn't eat 3 meals a day. He eats when he's hungry and stops when he's satisfied. He never eats when he first gets up. He might eat breakfast, but it might be closer to lunch time when he eats. Sometimes his first meal of the day is lunch. It depends on when he gets hungry and what he is hungry for. He always eats dinner, but rarely eats everything on his plate.
When was it decided that everyone "must" eat 3 meals a day? Or not eat anything after 6 PM? It makes sense that fuel should be replenished as it is used up, but not everyone uses their fuel at the same rate.
My naturally thin husband also doesn't eat 3 meals a day. He eats when he's hungry and stops when he's satisfied. He never eats when he first gets up. He might eat breakfast, but it might be closer to lunch time when he eats. Sometimes his first meal of the day is lunch. It depends on when he gets hungry and what he is hungry for. He always eats dinner, but rarely eats everything on his plate.
When was it decided that everyone "must" eat 3 meals a day? Or not eat anything after 6 PM? It makes sense that fuel should be replenished as it is used up, but not everyone uses their fuel at the same rate.
WBS, I agree that your list is spot on!
My husband is like that too. He wakes up at 5am, has his first meal at 10am and his next meal at 7pm. Sometimes he has a snack in between those meals, sometimes not. He is extremely tolerant of hunger physically until it starts to affect his focus/mood. Sometimes I think he pushes it a little far by not eating for so many hours but he's getting much better at identifying his needs.
Thanks to all who replied (I'm just getting around to reading this now). WBS, like so many others, I love your list. I often think think that so many of us would be better off if we really took stock of how we want to live our lives and . . . start living it that way, including how we eat. I'm not completely there yet, though. I am satisfied with my plan/life now, but I know that one day, my routine is bound to change, and since the routine I have now works so well for me, I know I'll have to make adjustments. Who knows if those adjustments will keep me at my current weight; I just hope that when that day comes, I'll be grounded enough not to fight against nature.
Sometimes Tweaks are Needed
