Maintained weight all the time when i was a child/teen/young adult with no try whatsoever because i was into running. So i always exercised. Miles each day, not because i had to, but because i loved to. Gained weight when i stopped exercising and lost 90 pounds of it in a year because i started exercising again (see a pattern anywhere?).....stopped exercising when i fell pregnant to my now 4 year old daughter, gained 60 pounds and started loosing again only now that i begun exercising again. I don't know why but exercising and weight maintenance was always the perfect equation with me. I know i'll loose weight just by dieting but if i don't exercise i won't keep it off for long.....thankfully i love working out, it's not a duty to me. BUT when you are alone with a house to keep, jobs that are running and a kid that you are raising yourself somehow at the end of the day you want to DIE....not jump on a bike or go running ......

Lol, my problem is that I find almost everything "uncompromisingly delicious."

I love almost all food, but things that I don't love tend to be the healthy foods that everyone thinks I should eat. I lost weight and have continued to maintain (more or less) by only eating things I want, not the things that are necessarily healthy.

So, thinking of it, I am just in a sense like those people who actually do eat anything they want, except I have to work harder at keeping weight off.

I really don't know any of those kinds of people anymore, though. It seems I used to know those kinds of people who didn't think about weight and kept it off and ate everything but that was years and years ago and they all eventually gained weight.

I hated exercise as a child, but somewhere in my 20s when people weren't around to tell me to exercise, I discovered I LOVED it.

For me, it doesn't take weight off but it does help vastly in maintaining my weight loss as well as my health and sanity.

I think I would be insane, literally, if I could not exercise.

I'd have to eat a lot more cake to stay sane.

Yeah, there isn't much I don't like, either.

What I am trying to tell myself is that everything is not "uncompromisingly delicious". If I would learn to be a little more discriminating, I could eat anything I want. What I eat for comfort or just mindlessly, is usually not that wonderful, nor is it healthy.

I didn't mean to imply that things that are healthy aren't desirable. I like broccoli quite a bit, but it isn't gourmet. It is good and healthy. The young man in the cube next to mine at work brings homemade cheesecake to work on potluck days. His cheesecake is uncompromisingly delicious and I always have some. Sometimes I have more than that! I finally figured out that no one else is paying any attention to what I am eating, so if I want I can have cheesecake and six olives for lunch and skip the meatballs in grape jelly sauce.

I'm so glad to see this thread. I've lost most of my weight and given away my big clothes. I have NO interest in regaining. The next step for me is to try to figure out how to transition into a sustainable maintenance lifestyle. The stats I've read on maintenance are discouraging, I must say. With that in mind, I don't want to become one of those statistics. I would love to benefit from the knowledge and experiences of the maintainers here. Any advice would be much appreciated!

This I agree with. And like you, I'd weigh 600 lbs if I ate whatever and whenever I wanted.

F.

Lol, to clarify, I have no doubt there are folks who can eat whatever and however they want & not gain weight. I just think there are factors in modern culture that makes it harder & harder for such naturally slender people to stay that way. To be honest most of the people in my life who I would have classified as not natural over eaters or weight gainers have since gained a lot of weight.

Put me on the list of those who would weigh 600 pounds if I ate whenever or however much.

I do eat at a higher calorie range most of the time than many people who watch weight, though, so I am usually pretty satisfied.

JoJo, I think I can eat just fine calorie wise at a fast food place, but I'd feel very ill a few days of eating all meals there.

Gail, too bad broccoli isn't as delectable as cheesecake to me. I wish it were. I put it into a green smoothie & drink it lol.

Moving Forward, hello! I have no words of maintenance wisdom. Lol, I just slog along and keep fighting the good fight. I gain some, lose some, it seems important to me, just how I roll. I keep it fun.

I have some kind of psychological objection to smoothies, especially green ones. For some reason the whole idea just sounds yucky. Lol. I also claim that I won't eat any blue food. The genesis of the blue food objection is from when my kids were little and liked a blue popcicle from the ice cream man. It smelled like poison to me. So, no smoothies and no blue food. That leaves quite a few other possibilities. Red velvet food comes to mind.

In the Good News - Bad News department: I couldn't find anything I liked to wear this morning. It was suddenly all too big!!! Yay!! On the other hand, some things I ordered from Land's End came today and they were all way too small. What's wierd about the too small blouses is that they are too small in the upper arm. I feel like I am in a straight jacket [what ever that is]. My upper arms aren't fat, for pete's sake. Actually, I am kind of upset by my clothing, but I'll survive.

Days in the high 60s - beautiful. Nights in the low 30s - tolerable. We had a donkey in the yard last night, and a hawk in a tree this morning. Life is good.

I think the key here is that we may choose to eat something that we consider "uncompromisingly delicious" and at the same time leave the "meh" meatballs in grape jelly sauce. My problem is that my "uncompromisingly delicious" items can vary day by day.

x3!

I too have a hard time drinking green things, unless it is a margarita! Clothes are weird! There is no rhyme or reason to the way that they fit. I'm convinced that manufacturers stack the fabric in a huge pile and a "cutter" in the shape of the pattern piece slices thru/stamps all of the fabric at one time. Therefore the pieces at the top are a different "size" or shape than the ones at the bottom of the stack. Can you tell I'm a former tailor? I have to try on everything before I buy. I may end up with a XS, a L, a 4 or a 10!

Lol, I have nothing wise to say.

Except hi and let's all keep fighting the good fight in the way it makes sense to us.

I think everyone is an individual and each body is different, although we all share a common biological basis.

Science and hearing great debate about the journey helps but in the final analysis, the only thing that is probably going to work is listening to our own inner wisdom and to our own bodies.

Well, maybe.

That's how I am feeling today.

Jo, congratulations on 66 years! Enjoy your day.

I have been reading Ann Fletcher's Thin for Life. The stories of successful weight maintainers demonstrate what many of you are saying; one size does not fit all. Each person has to find his/her own way.

Sophie, the cat, seems to have lost 2.5 lbs since I started her on portion controlled, lower calorie meals. That seems like a lot; I don't remember when she began her journey, but I think she looks thinner.

I have neither gained nor lost over the last few days.

JoJo, happy 66th wedding anniversary!!! Hope your party day has been great so far and that you have a wonderful evening!

Gail congratulations re your cat's weight loss journey.

I will look for that book. Thanks for posting.

Losermom, ITA on the weirdness of sizes. Wish I could sew. I'd make my own clothes fit better.

Hope everyone has a good evening.