I started to think, once I reach my goal I will still have to count my calories b/c its a lifestyle change and its all about moderation in the foods you eat. Do you plan to continue counting calories once you reach your goal? If not what do you plan to do?

Hey - I have been maintaining over 3 years. I still count calories, but it is no longer highly detailed (for example, I no longer use Fitday). I round items off to the nearest 100 (sometimes 50) and keep a daily estimate in my head. For example, an apple is always 100 calories (I dont care if it's a big apple or a small apple).

It is easier for me, since I tend to eat the same foods every day and I know the calorie counts really well. For example, I have three favorite breakfasts:

200 calorie breakfast - 1/2 cup of oatmeal, 2 tbs of apple buter
300 calorie breakfast - 1/2 cup of pumpkin flax granola, 1 container of non fat Trader Joe's greek yogurt with honey
400 calorie breakfast - 2 whole grain waffles, 1 with jam, 1 with natural peanut butter

If I know I'm having a big dinner, I'll go for the 200 calorie breakfast.

I eat pretty carefully and onplan every day, because I allow one nice treat meal in a restaurant once a week (glass of wine, nice entree, split dessert) and I want to be able to "afford" this treat.

I don't find my version of calorie counting to be very burdensome and my weight has been stable within 5 lbs for years.

I agree with Glory.

Once I reach my goal weight I feel like I'll have a pretty good idea about how many calories are in what and make correct choices due to that.

go over and check out the maintainers forum. Many of them are still counting to keep maintainig. Do what is right for you, but for many if they stop counting things might get a little out of control

Me too. I can see myself counting forever. I was thinking that I might give myself one day a month as a *free* day but, to be honest, I'm so dead set on not gaining anything back, I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it - I'll probably be toting everything up in my head anyway.

I went into this knowing that counting and tracking, in one form or another is a lifelong commitment, for me. I know myself very well. And I know, without a doubt, that if I don't count and track my intake, even when I do get to that magical maintenance level, I will fail. And all of my work will have been in vain. So, for me, yes. I will be counting calories for the rest of my life.

Yoyo, I love your signature line.

Thank you I'd love to take credit for thinking it up myself but I actually plagerized it from another 3FC member (who's screen name I forgot to write down so I always feel amazingly guilty for not remembering and thanking properly )

I do plan on counting calories to maintain my loss and I am still counting.Much better than having to wear extra size clothing again,

When I was maintaining after losing from babies #1 and #2, I used two different methods, and both worked equally well.

~When I was in maintenance after baby #1, I ate at WEIGHT LOSS level through the week (Sunday-Friday) and then had one day "off" on Saturday. Saturday was my day to eat whatever I wanted. Now, I did no binge, or stuff myself on that one day...but if I wanted to have a candy bar, or a dinner in a nice restaurant, or pizza, then I did it on that day. If Christmas, or another major holiday was that week, then I chose the holiday as my day off that week, instead of Saturday. Any pound or two that might show up on the scale the next day was gone with the next 6 days eating at weight loss level calories. It worked rather well...

~When I was in maintenance after baby #2, instead of a free day, I simply ate at a slightly higher calorie level than what I did to lose weight-a level that allowed me to maintain, and not lose/gain. At the time, maintenance was around 1800-1900 calories a day, every day, for me. This also worked well.

However, both ways required that I track somewhat...and still exercise on a regular basis. I simply cannot maintain weight loss if I just chuck my planning out the window.

Heck, I am not positive I'll count calories this weekend. I'm ages off from hitting my goal. I know I'll be a much different person when I do finally get there and I'd hate to make decisions for that woman now. I'll see when I get there.

I've been in maintenance for about two years and I'm still counting calories and I'm still pretty detailed about it. I plan out my food for the day to be under an certain number of calories and log everything I eat to make sure I come in under goal. I do have off-plan meals and even off-plan days, but I had those when I was losing weight too. Now they are just less stressful because I have more calories available for them.

But I'm definitely not counting calories forever. Once I get to 80, all bets are off. If I manage to live to 80, I'm eating whatever I want. I figure, 80 years is a pretty full life. At that point, I can die of a heart attack from eating fatty and sugary foods with no regrets. And, hey, this way I won't need to save as much for retirement.

Also, at least for me, the idea that life would somehow change once I got to goal was a big myth. My weight goes up and down. In the two years I've been in maintenance, I think there have really only been a couple of months when I ate at a true maintenance level. A few pounds creep on when I'm not looking and then it takes two months of a reduced calorie level to get them back off (it's so easy to gain and so hard to lose). And I don't think I'm the only one--at any point, I think probably about half of us in the maintainers forum are trying to lose a few lbs.

So I think it's probably realistic to assume that even once you've reached your goal weight, there will continue to be periods where you are trying to lose weight. Even if you don't count calories when you are maintaining, you'll probably go back to counting them when you hit those periods where you need to lose.

Oooh what a fabulous idea. Pencil me in for a lunch date after the big 8-0 we'll have cheese fries and I'll make molten lava cake for dessert.

I don't plan on doing anything different in maintenance than I'm doing right now.

Thanks in large part to the maintainers here, I now know the biggest weight loss secret of them all: what you do to take it off, you must continue to do to keep it off.

Oh, I may tweak things here and there, but essentially I know I will be doing in 5 years what I'm doing now if I want to keep the weight off.

I will count calories and weigh myself daily for the rest of my life. Yup.

I probably won't be as meticulous with it once I'm solidly in maintenance, but I won't ever slide back to just eating what I want w/out thinking about it. I will always have a pretty reasonable idea of how much I'm eating, approximately how many calories I'm putting in my body, and what range I need to stay within.

I've already done a spell of sort of semi-maintaining when I hit a plateau earlier this year. I took a bit of a break and stopped logging and tracking as strictly, but I still kept a mental inventory. I also know that when I travel for work, I have been able to maintain pretty well and even sometimes still continue to lose - because even though I might not be entering my every bite into my log as usual, I'm still very aware of what I'm eating.

I don't see it changing any time in the near or distant future.

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I definitely plan to weigh myself every single day for the rest of my life. If I'd seen those extra fifty pounds sneaking up on my pound by pound, I'd have stopped that horse long before! But, slowly adding them, slowly needing larger sizes didn't compel me. When I finally found out my weight, I was SHOCKED to see I was looking at 200 pounds!

I do not think I'll track each calorie forever, though. I've worked hard to change my eating habits and often find myself coming in with way low calories most days. But, then, there are days I could see myself hitting 2500 easily! The Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cal...ulator/NU00598) says I'll need 2100 calories to maintain my goal weight. As my daily average during loss has been in the 1700s (I'm nursing so couldn't go too low), I think I can easily eat under 2100. I will absolutely return to calorie counting if my weight drifts up.

DH reached his goal weight yesterday and we decided to keep tracking him for now. But, it's really not that hard to track him when I'm tracking myself anyhow. Often, I can just cut-n-paste my days to his with a few modifications. (I use Excel to track.)