Could some of you describe a typical day in your life as a maintainer? Trying to lose the weight seems so overwhelming at times, and I often wonder what it will be like after I'm at goal. How much of your day is consumed keeping the weight from coming back? Are you comfortable as things are?
I find that I am relaxing a lot from when I was actively losing weight.
My son broke my food scale last week and at 1st I was so mad!
I was ready to rush right out and buy another one, and then I thought "Well, maybe I don't need it anymore."
I know what a serving is now, and for the most part my fit day counts are exactly as I estimate them to be.
My days are no longer filled with anxiety about whether or not I stay within my calories, but now I mainly think about how to get different foods in my meals and snacks.
I tend to go like gangbusters on one food and eat it every day as my snack, then I get sick to death of it and start looking around for a replacement.
It's keeps it fun and different.
I'm just not as anxious as when I first started maintenance back in Aug. but I am still vigilant. I went kind of nuts on Easter and gained 4 lb's which I have almost already lost.
It was mostly water gain from ham and scalloped potatoes!
But the important thing was, with me weighing every day I saw the damage and stopped before it got too out of control.
A little spurge for me is needed, otherwise I go nuts!
I tend to reward myself with food, and while I know that's not right, I know me, and I know I need to do it. I have just learned that small rewards are better!
Mostly it looks just like it did when I was actively trying to lose, with a couple hundred extra calories thrown in! (that's why you have to find a plan you can do for life!)
So... I spend an average of 40-50 min working out. Some days it's an hour, I try to take off one day a week. Of course, there's also time getting to and from the gym. And then I have to plan the food, go shopping etc.
You know, I would have been overwhelmed by my schedule 2 years ago... no I WAS overwhelmed by the idea of near daily exercise only a year and a half ago. I couldn't imagine HOW I would do it. But I just added things slowly in and built up a lifestyle that is working for me.
Some days I am still overwhelmed, but I just take it day by day.
Heidi - I wrote this post back in 2004, in response to a post in the Support Forum titled Oh I Wish This Was Easier ... It pretty much described a typical day for me then and it really hasn't changed in the past three years (except I burned out on oatmeal and chocolate PP for breakfast and now have oatmeal and egg whites ):
Quote:
If there’s anyone who can relate to what you’re saying, it’s probably me. I walked the same road myself back in 2001 and 2002 and experienced all the same feelings that you talk about in your post. You’re not kidding when you say that losing weight is hard work, but I want to tell you that it’s so so worth it. From where you are now, you have a vision of what your life’s going to be like at goal, right? A dream about how you’re going to look and how you’re going to feel?
OK, I want you to step into my skin for today and feel what it’s like to be me. You with me? You see, I used to think it was all about how I’d look when I got to 135 pounds. I never realized that the pay-off is how good I FEEL. So if you can walk around in my (sweaty gym) shoes for one day, I guarantee that nothing in this world will stop you from losing the rest of the weight.
Here we go!
It’s 4:30 AM and I wake up before the alarm, bursting with energy. I need a lot less sleep now than I did 122 pounds ago. I never dreamed that I could feel so good! The first thing that goes through my mind every day is — woo hoo! I did it! I’m not fat anymore! To me now, every morning is Christmas morning; every day is the best day of my life.
I jump out of bed, make coffee, and throw on my gym clothes. That’s a huge change from before, when I was allergic to exercise. I’m at the gym when it opens and do my cardio for the day, listening to music with a great beat. I notice how much faster and more intensely I can go now than when I was heavy and every day I try to do a little more than the day before. That endorphin rush is a great way to start the day — I’m always so jazzed when I walk out of the gym.
Back home to breakfast: oatmeal and chocolate protein powder. The way I eat now and the way I used to eat are like night and day. No more sugar highs and crashes, no more feeling bloated, no more hating myself and feeling controlled by food. I plan my meals for the day and enter them into Fitday.
Then the usual Mom stuff and household stuff. It’s so cool to fly up and down the stairs without having to stop and catch my breath or having my knees and feet hurt. I get my chores done in about half the time it used to take. I love the feeling of being strong just while doing the everyday tasks of life: taking out the trash, carrying the laundry upstairs, hefting the 20# box of kitty litter.
And then the highlight of my day: back to the gym for weights. The gym was the scariest, most alien place in the world for me when I was heavy and now it’s home. I love lifting weights and love the muscles and the look they give me. I used to be afraid to look in the mirrors at the gym (you know how the walls are lined with mirrors) - now I catch a glimpse of myself and marvel at the stranger who’s looking back at me. How could this be me? I spent all my life as the fat girl and now I have toned arms and little hips. I walk out of the gym on cloud ninee, knowing that I've pushed myself to my limits as I worked to build my best body. Lifting weights has taught me that I have strength and endurance and discipline that I never imagined and it carries over to all other aspects of my life. I know that I’m capable of anything that I set my mind to doing.
Let’s stop and do some clothes shopping on the way home, OK? I walk in and bypass the plus sizes and head for all the pretty clothes in the regular sizes. I don’t have to shop for camouflage anymore — no more big T-shirts to hide the butt or long sleeves to cover the jiggle. No more elastic waists or towels strategically covering up my bathing suit. I can look at crop tops and low-rise pants, beautiful (and sexy) lingerie, and tank tops. I see something that I want to try on and look for it in a 4 or a small(which can be hard to find). Now stand in my shoes with me in the dressing room and hold up a pair of jeans in size 4. They’ll never fit, right? They’re WAY too tiny — I used to look at small sizes and think that no one could have a butt small enough to fit in those. But they slide right up over my hips and fit perfectly (no sucking in the gut). The problem with clothes shopping when I was fat was that nothing looked good. The problem now is that too much looks good — hard on the old budget.
Back home, normal life. My dinner’s different from the rest of my family’s but it doesn’t bother me or them a bit. And then to bed, knowing that I physically feel better than I ever have in my life. But more than just how good I feel is the knowledge that I did it! It took me 47 years, but I finally got rid of the fat that weighed down every aspect of my life. There’s no better feeling in the world.
Losing weight — and more importantly — keeping it off is hard work and it’s a job that we’ll have to do for the rest of our lives. It takes sweat, hard work, planning, and self-discipline. You know what to do; like you said, the elements are habit now. But trust me, the pay-off at the end of road is far, far better than you can imagine.
Keep going — you’ve come so far now. When you think about the alternative — going back to being fat and unhappy — really, what choice is there? I guarantee that when you reach your goal (and you will, I’m sure) you’ll agree with me that it was the hardest and, at the same time, the best thing that you ever did in your life.
Much less enticing that Meg's post, but here goes.
1. I stay aware of my food, just as much as I did (or more so) than during the weight loss phase.
2. I exercise 4 times/week (generally), but I really enjoy it. I vary the workouts and I hired a personal trainer to give me 3 challenging, customized routines. It's a fun way to combine bits and pieces of the different routines--I bring the printouts to the gym or do a session at home.
3. I weigh in weekly, either at home or at a Weight Watchers meeting.
4. I try to buy interesting food so that I don't burn out on any one particular thing. Looking forward to the spring return of Farmers Markets!
6:45 - wake up, get out of bed, use restroom, brush teeth, get on the scale for a quick weigh-in, then shower, get dressed, etc.
7:20 - breakfast: cold cereal with at least 4g fiber per serving with skim milk. I also take a fiber supplement. Pack my lunch: leftovers from the previous night's dinner, a piece of fruit, and a Dannon fruit at the bottom yogurt.
8:20 - arrive at work. Put lunch in the fridge and fill my Nalgene bottle halfway (500ml). I work in software so I sit at my computer essentially the entire day, no physical activity.
10:00 - refill my Nalgene.
11:00 - start thinking about how I'm getting hungry. Drink more water. If I'm super-hungry, eat my piece of fruit or have a cup of tea.
12:00 - lunchtime! Plus another refill of the Nalgene bottle.
2:00 - eat my fruit. Refill water bottle. Attempt to resist free junk food that is always available at work. Sometimes succeed, sometimes give in.
4:30 - eat my yogurt.
5:00 - work is over! Call my fiance to pick me up (we carpool) and head to the gym, unless there is a pressing errand/appointment, or I feel sick.
5:30 - arrive at gym, change clothes, fill up water bottle. Warm up for 5-10 minutes, then 30 minutes cardio or sometimes weights. Occasionally do core strengthening after cardio.
6:30 - shower, then hop in the car to head home.
7:00 - take a multivitamin (Viactiv is the only kind I can stand to take). Start prepping dinner, based on a recipe from Cooking Light I chose the previous Sunday.
7:30/8:00 - eat dinner. Watch TV until bedtime (I am so boring) and try to avoid snacking on stuff. Often end up snacking on a piece of whole wheat toast with reduced-sugar jelly.
10:00 - bedtime.
At least, that's my daily plan, which I stick to pretty well for the most part. Weekends are obviously different since I'm not at work all day. I do more active stuff on the weekend if the weather is good, have a meal at a restaurant Saturday night, and spend more than 30 minutes cooking on Sunday, but other than that it's similar. I don't always drink as much water as I should, I certainly don't always manage to resist junk food at work, and sometimes I eat two or three helpings at dinner when one would have been enough. But at least I'm thinking about it!
I'm doing the same thing I did when I was losing the weight plus I've added exercise.
As soon as I get up, I do my floor exercises ~ usually for half an hour.
About 3-4 hours later, I have my first meal. Sometimes it's breakfast like, sometimes it's lunch like. It's all based on how hungry I am and what I feel like eating.
Then I do some form of activity for at least a half hour. Walking, Biking, or Dancing to the cable music channel.
I only drink water and I rarely eat snacks. If I do, it's carrot sticks or an apple or an orange.
In the afternoon, after I've done my activity, I let myself log on to 3FC as my reward.
Dinner is often fish, a vegetable, and a whole grain if DH is home or a large salad if I'm alone.
If I'm really motivated, I'll lift some hand weights while watching night time TV.
What I've learned from the Maintainers is that your lifestyle must be very similar to when you were losing weight to be able to keep the weight from returning.
Hi Heidi. I think this is a terrific thread and I’m so glad you asked. I hope everyone will add to it because maintenance, while sharing a number of common characteristics, is a highly individual enterprise and I, for one, love to see what everyone’s doing.
In the best of all possible worlds, I start every day with exercise. I’m an early riser and I take water aerobics twice a week, and strength train at least twice a week (ideally three times a week, if I’m not too tired or too busy). And at least 30 minutes of cardio every day. My favorite breakfast is an omelet made with one egg and at least 3 egg whites and an ounce of 2% cheese, along with some juice to wash down the vitamins. I pack lunch and snacks and head into work.
I, too, have a desk job, but I’m fortunate in that I spend a lot of time on the phone and when I’m on the phone, I can pace. I also twitch and fidget a lot and wander around driving the rest of my colleagues crazy By 10 I’m into my first snack: either a reheated multigrain waffle or half of a high-fiber muffin. If I’ve lifted that morning, I’m ready for lunch by 11 or 11:30 – often leftovers from the night before that I’ve weighed and measured. I also always keep cottage cheese, string cheese and fruit in the office frig, and almonds, Kashi crackers, protein bars, protein powder and other odds and ends in my stash. For me, the No. 1 rule is don’t get too hungry and No. 2 is avoid the Student Commons dining area at all costs (I work at a university).
With the exception of liver and sea urchin , if it's edible, I probably like it. And I graze a lot. I might have a piece of fruit mid-afternoon, and a cuppa tea; sometimes some yogurt or a piece of string cheese. I don’t like to be too hungry for dinner, lest I fall face-first into my plate. Dinner is usually 3 ounces of beef/chicken/fish/pork along with a big salad dressed with 1 Tablespoon on real vinaigrette and maybe half a baked potato or half a cup of rice or something. Veggies. We cook Italian/Mediterranean almost always, and it’s almost always fab. Dessert is very often half a cup of homemade applesauce and some plain yogurt. Oh, and I almost always have a four-ounce glass of red wine with dinner.
Sometimes we have pasta. When I eat pasta, I serve myself half a cup and I add about half a cup of cottage cheese to it and ¼ cup of sauce. I love it this way. Sometimes the sauce has panacetta; sometimes not. Hard to go wrong with ¼ cup. Sometimes I have a single biscotti after dinner, or a digestive cookie. And before I go to bed, I have a single square of very dark chocolate. Every night. Wouldn't miss it.
I relish eating this way. I maintain on 1500 calories (5-foot-4, 140 pounds) and when I exercise hard, I can eat another 200-400 calories. And I do. I don’t obsess anymore. I adore this kind of food. Although I live in the Midwest, I wasn’t raised on deep-fried home cooking, all-you-can-eat buffets and mile-high desserts, and I don’t miss them. What I DO miss is beer, and I only drink it on the weekends.
I travel some in my job, and I always take my lifestyle with me. The first thing I pack is my exercise stuff and the second thing I pack are my snacks. Over the weekend, I participated in a two-day meeting and for that meeting, I took protein powder, pre-measured almonds, digestives, tea bags, crackers, apples and two squares of chocolate. I bought skim milk on the way in for the protein powder and the tea. I picked through the box lunches and augmented what was provided with what I brought. Hardly anyone pays the slightest attention to what I’m doing until someone notices that I have, say, a great piece of cheese or some really good crackers. Then, their first question is, Do you have anymore?
Heidi, my message to you and to anyone who wonders if they can do this, is keep on keeping on. There was a time when I all I thought about was my weight. No, that’s not right. All I thought about was losing the weight. And on those couple of rare instances when I touched goal (Note: touched, not stayed at), my jubilation was short lived because I immediately gained it back. And then all I thought about was what a failure I was. And the more I thought about what a failure I was, the more I sought solace in food. Etc. Etc. Etc.
But over time, I learned, and over time I made first one change and then another until the changes became a lifestyle. I’ll never win a fitness contest, but now I consider myself an athlete (albeit, a creaky one) and I love the feeling of strength and vitality that comes from exercise. At 58, I have the energy and enthusiasm of someone half my age, and I feel centered and connected with myself. If I have to weigh, measure, log and pay attention to what I’m doing every day for the rest of my life, then I will willingly do it. Not only do I feel sensational, I just bought a new suit that's a full size smaller than my old suits, and nothing could please me more. My health is my goal, but I love those Size 10 pants
At 6 AM my DH's alarm rouses me from sleep. He hits the snooze at least 3 times, so by 6:20 I'm good and awake. I get up and make my coffee. I take my dogs outside, use the restroom, and weigh myself (at least 2 or 3 times a week). Get dressed.
Next I sign onto my computer and catch up with 3FC's , usually in maintainers forum, Atkins, Support and General Chatter threads. I check out the great NSV's in the 100 lb. club. I usually snack on a banana when I hit the computer.
By 11 AM , I start feeling hungry and make my breakfast. Usually whole wheat pancakes, Oats, or a PB and SF jelly sandwich. Chug down a slew of pills.
I play TextTwist of the afternoon. (I'm pretty much a slug early daytime). I normally have a tuna, turkey or ham sandwich with mustard around 2PM.
My DH gets home from work at 3PM. This is when I go outside and do yard work, gardening, and visit with him.
Around 5:30PM I start cooking dinner. Most often dinner is grilled meat, grilled veggies and salad with LF dressing. 2 or 3 times a week, I fix brown /wild rice to go with dinner or an occasionally baked potato or sweet potato. Chug down a slew of pills.
After dinner, I clean the kitchen, do the laundry, vaccuum, dust or whatever cleaning that needs to be done.
I normally start my exercising about 9PM and walk 45 mins' to an hr. on most days. Following exercise DH , DD and I often play a card game.
About 10PM, I take my shower and have a snack. Usually SF jello, LF popcorn or my apple with 1TBSP of PB.
We normally go to bed at 11:30 PM.
Weekends my routine varies a lot as we usually go shopping for groceries, have company, watch the grandkids and such. This is when my off plan eating occurs.
Very little has changed really. Basically the only difference is my calorie consumption is about 200 - 300 calories more than it was when I was in weight loss mode. My activities are the same. I work out as much as I did when I was losing. I still eat a balanced, healthy diet and follow the food pyramid. I weigh myself every morning (after voiding before showering) and every evening 1 hour after I eat dinner and have voided(usually) and do an average of both weights to get my "actual weight". Besides a couple of lbs of water here and there, it hasn't moved. I will be in maintenance 1 month on Friday!
A day in the life of a maintainer
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I think this is a terrific thread and I’m so glad you asked. I hope everyone will add to it because maintenance, while sharing a number of common characteristics, is a highly individual enterprise and I, for one, love to see what everyone’s doing.
and I take water aerobics twice a week, and strength train at least twice a week (ideally three times a week, if I’m not too tired or too busy). And at least 30 minutes of cardio every day. My favorite breakfast is an omelet made with one egg and at least 3 egg whites and an ounce of 2% cheese, along with some juice to wash down the vitamins. I pack lunch and snacks and head into work.
By 10 I’m into my first snack: either a reheated multigrain waffle or half of a high-fiber muffin. If I’ve lifted that morning, I’m ready for lunch by 11 or 11:30 – often leftovers from the night before that I’ve weighed and measured. I also always keep cottage cheese, string cheese and fruit in the office frig, and almonds, Kashi crackers, protein bars, protein powder and other odds and ends in my stash. For me, the No. 1 rule is don’t get too hungry and No. 2 is avoid the Student Commons dining area at all costs 
(I work at a university).
, if it's edible, I probably like it. And I graze a lot. I might have a piece of fruit mid-afternoon, and a cuppa tea; sometimes some yogurt or a piece of string cheese. I don’t like to be too hungry for dinner, lest I fall face-first into my plate. Dinner is usually 3 ounces of beef/chicken/fish/pork along with a big salad dressed with 1 Tablespoon on real vinaigrette and maybe half a baked potato or half a cup of rice or something. Veggies. We cook Italian/Mediterranean almost always, and it’s almost always fab. Dessert is very often half a cup of homemade applesauce and some plain yogurt. Oh, and I almost always have a four-ounce glass of red wine with dinner. 
I will be in maintenance 1 month on Friday! 