Last year I lost 50 pounds (195 to 145 pounds). I've been at goal for 3 months now and discovered this board when I was struggling with a bit of excess hunger and looked around the Web for guidance.
I'm still in the experimenting phase, trying to figure out what eating patterns are most likely to help me maintain my weight. I've listed them below. If any of you have tried them and found them NOT to work, I'd be interested in hearing your experience. Also feel free to post your own maintenance guideposts.
1. My maintenance intake is about 1,900 calories per day, so I've been aiming to consume about 100 calories less than that in order to "free up" an extra 3,000 calories or so for two larger meals (at restaurants or with friends) or one no-holds-barred all-you-can-eat meal per month. I don't eat more on weekends than during the week, but right now I'm not willing to give up the occasional luxury of a much larger meal than normal. For me, life without an all-you-can-eat sushi dinner a few times per year would be less worth living! I don't know if this is a healthy attitude, but it's my plan for now.
2. There are a few regular indulgences I'm simply not willing to give up, so I'm building them into my eating plan: one glass of wine with dinner, popcorn at movies (which I eat in lieu of dinner), chocolate or Nutella (which I melt and eat with a banana as a meal every couple of weeks), and real butter (which I regularly have with breakfast toast). Other than that I eat mostly healthy foods, with an emphasis on fish, tofu and vegetables and a split between whole-grain and refined carbs.
3. I tend to distribute my calories fairly evenly between breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks -- 400 to 500 calories each. I find it a lot easier to eat a small dinner than to restrict myself at breakfast or lunch.
4. I discovered these great pickled chili peppers at our local Chinese grocery store and have been snacking on them regularly. (My weakness has always been for exotic foods with strong flavours, rather than junk or comfort foods.) Although I have an "iron stomach" and haven't had any symptoms, I do wonder if this is a sustainable habit or if it will do damage to my gut. Any thoughts about this?
Honestly... Weight loss and maintenance is so personal that I can't really comment on anyone else's habits because if it keeps you sane and healthy, who cares? I'll admit that I actually do have weird quirks in my diet that other people might think strange. I will cut down lunches if my breakfast is huge... but I don't sweat eating over my calorie allowances. I think that was the single biggest thing to learn in weight loss... It's ok to not be perfect but just get back to eating right and exercising at the next available opportunity.
The only thing I'd worry about with the peppers is the sodium. Other than that though... Keep on!
Great idea for a thread! I've been experimenting w/ maintenance since last October, so I'll be interested to read the responses to this.
I'm with you on #1. I have calorie cycled even while losing, so that strategy works for me. I've heard it keeps the body guessing, too, so that's a side benefit. But the main benefit for me is that I can have some days that aren't so restrictive. I do tend to eat more on the weekends, so it's easier for me to eat more cleanly on the weekdays and save some indulgences for weekends.
Here are the other things that are working (so far!) for me:
1) Routinely starting my day's calorie counting with my most unpredictable meal---in my case, that would be dinner.
2) Committing to exercising in one form or another for at least an hour a day, 6 days a week. I find that I am "on a roll" when I exercise 6 days a week whereas I tend to feel lazier and less inclined to exercise if I skip days. Also, I'm not stringent about the type of exercise I do. If I don't feel like going to the gym, I might just roll up my sleeve and do some vigorous housework (e.g., cleaning floors on hands and knees) for a couple of hours.
3) Plan, plan, plan---When I don't, my eating is haphazard.
4) Learning that when I'm hungry, I can't afford indulgences. I learned this last week. I had a couple of pig-out sessions last week and generally haphazard eating, mainly because I felt REALLY hungry for some reason. While most of the time I do build indulgences into my plan, I have cut back on that significantly this week and focused on eating 99% filling, substantial foods. I'm happy that I listened to what my body seemed to need (filling food) and didn't just keep doing what I was doing.
Most notable, I eat salad every day for lunch (at least during the work week and a lot of times on weekends too). I like salad and don't ever seem to get tired of it.
My maintenance plan is basically "eat like a bird except for going out and special occasions." I've slacked off big time with exercise (really, no exercise nowadays which is awful) so I need to keep eating in check. Most days I don't really care that much what I eat, so I make sure I get lots of vegetables and try to drink enough water and tea to stay hydrated.
I fluctuate a LOT though. I don't think I'm maintaining so much as gaining and losing 5 lbs over and over again. I go through spells when I'm hungrier or less in control than others, and sometimes (like now) I feel on top of things.
My maintenance habits and quirks. Yours?
