I hope I'm not intruding by posting in this section, since I weighed 200 lbs at my highest and I'm currently maintaining. I don't mean to butt in, but I love talking about "my plan" and why it was so successfull for me, both in losing weight and keeping it off.
In July 2004, I was 35 years old and weighed around 200 lbs (not sure of actual highest weight, I was terrified of the scale and never got on it, or looked at myself in the mirror or at myself in the shower, I was in big denial). I had yo-yo'd for 20 years, beginning with my first "diet" in high school when I was an "enormous" 140 lbs. For me, diets always meant deprivation, restriction and yucky food that I hated. I could always lose weight in the short term, but I always gained it back. I never maintained a weight loss - ever. I would lose a little, gain it back, lose a little, gain it back, gain more weight. For 20 years, from a 140 lb 15 year old to a 200 lb 35 year old. Dieting made me heavy.
In July 2004, I was at my heaviest weight. I hated myself. I had no energy. I quit coloring my hair, quit styling it, just let it air dry curly and frizzy every day. I wore the same pair of loose fit jeans every day, the same pair of black loafers. No make up. I had given up. I dreamed constantly about magically being thin, endless fantasies. I had brief spurts of weight loss attempts, 1-3 days where I would be incredibly motivated, gung-ho, full of planning and Fitday and excel spreadsheets. I would eat exactly THIS, I would work out THIS MUCH, I would be thin by next week, Christmas, by my birthday...I would have a sexy, sleek bikini body like a model...These plans ever happened.
A culmination of events led me my "click" moment. I read this great book called Super Foods Rx: The 14 Foods That Will Save Your Life and standing at Borders, leafing through the pages it was like I grabbed an electric fence, I was electrified with purpose. All of a sudden, I realized that it was my "normal" eating that made me heavy - not genetics, or destiny or a slow metabolism. I ate way too many of the wrong kinds of food everyday and didn't exercise. Unlike a lot of diets, that I planned to start "tomorrow" or Monday or after Jan 1, I wanted to start that second.
I carefully carefully looked over all my old "diets" and tried to figure out why every single one had ultimately failed. My entire diet philosophy was built around a flawed premise. I knew that cutting calories led to weight loss, I took that one step further - if cutting some calories would lose SOME weight, cutting more calories would lose MORE weight. I restricted, I ate plain baked chicken, I ate ice berg lettuce leaves with a squeeze of lemon, I bought every diet food - baked Lays, Snackwells, Lean Cuisines, fat free dressing, fat free mayo. Nothing I ate while dieting ever made me happy and I couldn't wait for it to be over so I could eat nachos and pizza and muffins again. I got on the scale multiple times a day, my emotions were completely ruled by the scale - if the weight was down, I was ecstatic! If the weight was up, I was devastated. This happened multiple times a day, if the scale didn't go down, I felt like a failure.
Two things always happened:
1. I would restrict so much, my body would helplessly binge in order to get the nutrition it needed to survive. I would feel like a loser, a no-will power loser. I would hate myself. I couldn't figure out how other people could lose weight and I couldn't. How other people could eat one cookie and stop. I would give up, and return to "normal eating."
2. I would reach a "goal weight" and stop. I would return to "normal eating."
I was tired of failing and gaining weight back. I was tired of short term euphoria followed by eventual weight gain and self loathing. After reading Super Foods and looking at my past failures, I knew how to do it right this time, forever. Instead of concentrating on what NOT to eat, I concentrated on what TO eat. I made goals of eating a certain number of super foods a day. In the process, I cut out sugar and most processed foods without even realizing it. Without all that sugar, whole foods started to taste delicious. Instead of giving my body fake food, I started giving it highly nutritious, wonderful foods and I stopped binging (which was an amazing thing to me). I was actually satisfied by the foods I ate! I realized I liked baked sweet potatoes and grilled salmon and raspberries and whole grain bread and natural peanut butter.
So, I know I talked a lot (as usual) but my plan was simple - eat fewer bad foods, eat more GOOD foods, exercise. My goal was to eat nutritionally powerful foods (beans, broccoli, oranges, whole grains, salmon, spinach, blueberries) and avoid foods with little to no nutritional value (sugary soda, fast food, packaged baked goods). I went from 200 lbs to 127 lbs, a tight size 18 to a size 6, a 42DD to a 36C, I lost 10 inches off my waist. In February 2007, I will have maintained my weight loss for TWO YEARS - a miracle to me.
Maintenance is exactly like weight loss, I still do all the same things - I still food journal, I still count calories (although just a ballpark estimate these days), I still watch portion sizes (measuring if I need to), I still look at menus online and make healthy decisions before I get to a restaurant, I still weigh myself once a week, I still menu plan, grocery shop, pack lunches - it is a plan I can easily live with for the rest of my life.
I do think every plan needs to be individual - but in my experience, if you want LONG TERM weight loss, you must think long term. Not just "I want to reach my goal weight" but you must think "I want to reach my goal weight and then stay there forever." For 20 years, my goal was just weight loss, with no thought to how I was hurting myself by restricting and binging, losing weight and gaining it back. It was only after I changed my goal to long term weight loss that I was able to succeed. This is my normal eating now