Has your weight ever crept downward instead of upward?
 

I thought I'd ask this question because I haven't seen many people post that their weight goes below their target. It seems like it's always the "upward creep" that happens. What's been your experience?

I especially am curious because my naturally normal-weight SO lost a couple of pounds with the flu a few months ago, and hasn't regained that weight. And it's not that there is any kind of diet plan involved. :dunno:

So, does your weight sometimes drop without effort and surprise you, or is it the opposite? When your weight goes up, do you always have to struggle to get it back down?

Jay

:lol: I've never, ever inadvertently lost weight but wouldn't that be lovely? It's an interesting question, Jay, and I too am curious if anyone here has ever had that experience. You and I both have "naturally thin" SOs, so it's always instructive to see how different their weight and food issues are.

Those of us who have lost a significant amount of weight are probably maintaining at a lower weight than our bodies would naturally gravitate towards if no thought was given to eating and exercise. Personally, I'm convinced that my setpoint is still somewhere around 250 pounds. So it takes constant awareness of what and how much I'm eating in order to keep my weight where I want it to be. If I lose focus a bit or have a dinner out or a weekend trip, bam, a few pounds are always right back on. It makes sense that my body would move toward its natural weight if I'm not paying attention, and its natural weight is significantly higher than my preferred maintenance weight.

To me, it's just another example of how I may look "normal" on the outside but am very different from "normal" on the inside. My brain and body don't operate like those of a never-obese person. The good news is that after all these years, I know exactly what to do and how to deal with these little blips upward. Regain happens when little gains aren't dealt with right away and are allowed to become bigger and bigger until they're overwhelming.

I am below target but it hasn't been by accident. I have to think about my weight all the time or it will start to creep up.

Hmmm . . . I wasn't quite sure how to answer the poll. In general, it only creeps up. However, right when I hit my goal weight, it did continue to go down for a few months before stabilizing, so I guess in that sense it did "creep down."

It did happen to me initially, my weight crept down from about 135 to 127 with very little effort. I now experience more of the upward creep, though. I attribute this to my comfort in my years of maintenance. In the beginning, I was rigidly on plan for maintenance, now I am a little more loose and free so it makes sense that I would tend to gain weigh it I occasionally eat more than I plan.

Compared to a "typical" person, I have the eating habits of a monk. Salads for lunches, never a donut, no fast food, no soda, big servings of vegetables. I'm always surprised how LITTLE it takes offplan to gain a few pounds. It's not like I ever go crazy and eat 6 donuts or a carton of ice cream or a big burger and fries (all my old bad habits). A little extra dessert here, a few biscottis with coffee there, an extra piece of bread out of the basket, 2 glasses of wine - BOOM! tight pants. At least I listen to my tight pants now :)

I had 120# set as my original goal. I eat South Beach now and was a Weight Watcher member in the past. I had always struggled with maintaining at 120-125# previously, so I was pleasantly surprised when my weight on SB continued to go down. I got as low as 112# last winter, but have gradually come back up to 115-116#. If I exercise intensely it goes under 115# again. Gives me an excuse to not work too hard! I feel like my body is very happy with what I am eating now and is functioning and metabolizing at its optimum.

No, it hasn't. If I lose, it's because I am on it like a duck on a junebug.

Ha! I wish :) My weight is in its happy place sadly and I have to work super hard to break the barrier although recently it decided (with plenty of help from my uncontrolled eating) to creep up from its happy place. I'm now back around the happy place weight and seeing what I can do to go below that.

This spring I got a bit off track and was eating lots of fast food (not binging; healthful choices to the degree possible, but you know the problem with that!) and not exercising. And I kept creeping downward. I was amazed - not happy amazed, just surprised. But I was of course losing muscle. But eventually it caught up to me and I gained it back.

But we all have had times when we lost faster on plan than we did at other times when we were just as on plan. Isn't that kind of the same thing as drifting downward when just living to maintain? Losing faster (or at all) than expected?

Mine goes up and down - at the beginning of maintenance it kept going down for almost ten pounds past goal. I've come back up and settled at a little higher weight than I wanted originally, but it goes up and down around that point pretty regularly. When it creeps up it isn't usually a struggle to get it back down, when it occasionally gets to low it is pretty easy to get it back up a little. I gave myself a redline at the bottom of my weight range as well, because I know that I'll see the lower number and start thinking about going lower... Setting a bottom line keeps me from going crazy.

All that being said, right now I'm on more of a goes up, comes back down to same start, goes up, goes back down to same start pattern, haven't had any lows the last three months or so. I think I have also become comfortable in the maintenenace so I'm not controlling quite so tightly like I was at first.

Creeping down? On it's own? Oh no, no, no, no, no, no....

I am lower then my target weight though. At least my original target weight. But that's because I worked to get there.

I am always swinging back and forth 5 lbs. It's even been a bit more a couple of times. Is it a struggle to get back down? I wouldn't call it a struggle, per se'. It's just doing what I do. Like Glory, it doesn't take much at all to make my weight creep UP. It's that one planned "treat" meal that does it. I know me by now. I eat "off" (and I do) intentionally and I KNOW my weight's going to go up. And then I know I'm going to get it back down. It's my "pattern".

Although lately it has taken me a bit longer to get it back down. Which I'm none too happy about. We'll see. Hopefully this is not a new pattern I've fallen into.......

Yes, but it turns out that my thyroid medication needed to be adjusted. Now I have a really hard time making that scale go down, but then again I'm not trying that hard.

Mine creaps up for sure if I'm not vigilant, one slip up and the weight creeps up...

Ok, could the 9 who said "yes, it happens to me" please share?

I voted "no, it never happens to me", but it did happen once in my life. However, it's crept down once, crept up 200 times or so, so the crept up won. It happened the spring of my sophomore year in college. I was taking a heavy courseload that included organic chemistry. Unless you're the one person who actually gets organic chemistry out of each class of 100 students or so (if you are, I don't want to talk to you :p), have ever met a bio student etc. you know orgo is the class from H-E- double hockey sticks. Between the orgo, the rest of my classes, my 20-hour-a-week work study job, and my a cappella group I barely stressed out. I didn't have free time, I just studied orgo. I would eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner but just hardly ate snacks b/c I was always on the go or sitting in the library. I walked all over campus but didn't exercise other than that. I also almost gave myself a mental breakdown.

If that's what it takes to get my weight to "creep" down without thinking about it, no, thank you. It's never happened since, but I've also had no more near mental breakdowns, so all in all I'll take that trade. The creep up is really the result of an extra treat here, glass of wine there, etc. - just too many treats and extra bits of food.

Wow Megan, I have such terrible memories of organic chemistry.... I think I actually gained 20 pounds during it because I had a nasty habit of sitting to study with snacks, then going to the vending machine or back to my room for more snacks every time I needed a break, which was all the darn time...

My memories of O Chem: the G Chem teacher next door blowing up a hydrogen balloon followed by the screaming. ;)

As you both have already indicated, I do not wish to remember anything else about O Chem. :hug:

I wish, I wish! Mine always, always creeps up.

Dagmar

Yes, more than once.
The first time I was sick, and I didn't regain the weight. I was below my "red line" for several weeks. I finally just moved my red line down 3 lbs.

The next time, I took an "active" vacation. I lost 2 lbs while I was gone and never gained them back. Again, I moved my red line weight.

I finally adjusted my goal weight down to where I settled in (120) and moved my red lines to 117-123. I have finally stabilized at 118-120 for the last several months. Illness and vacations don't seem to cause the fluctuations that I used to see.

My weight doesn't creep either way without help from me. I need to be spot on plan day in and day out to lose any weight. On the other hand, my weight creeps up pretty easily, but never on its own, I'm always helping :o.

Having said, there were two times in my life when I lost weight without trying but I don't recommend either approach. The first was after my mom died, when I was working long hours at a place where there simply wasn't any food available. All I ate all day for most of the summer was a couple of bowls of cereal in the morning. If you only consume 600 or so calories (they were big bowls) a day, you'll lose weight. And if you are consumed with grief and exhausted from work at the time, it will feel like you aren't even trying.

The second time was after I broke up with my college boyfriend. I went off the pill and started smoking--dropped five pounds just like that. Don't think I'm not sometimes tempted to try it again...;)

Yep, twice, actually (as in, for more than 'just' 1-2 lbs).

First time was when I went to college at 18. Everybody talks about the freshman 10 or 15, for me it was actually the reverse process. The second time was in 2008-2009, when I prepared for the CAPES concours (teacher competitive exam); one of my resolutions was "I won't be on a diet this year, because I need to focus my mental resources on something else than counting calories", and now with hindsight, I bet that had I actively tried to lose weight, I'd probably have gained instead, or not budged at the best.

Both times, it didn't happen in an unhealthy manner, I must add. I ate in quite a balanced way, I even crammed in fencing classes (12 years ago) and jogging (this past year). But I think the main component of this weight-loss-without-doing-anything was that I was seriously busy with intellectual work: both times, I prepared for a national competitive exam. I have a tendency to munch and graze only when my hands are not busy, for instance when watching TV, and so, it just doesn't happen at all when I'm spending most of my time buried in books. And preparing for those concours is something else than 'only' preparing for a License degree, because you can't just focus on getting an average note, you have to make sure you'll do better than everyone else on top of it. So I was focused on that, had very little time to spare, and wasn't tempted to eat some more after lunch or dinner, because I had to hurry and finish my homework for the day, not waste time diving into a box of cookies. (Honest.)

In fact, I tried to munch on stuff while working, early in September. I ended up putting chocolate on my copy of Jane Eyre. It angered me, seeing my poor book that way, and I gave up on the eating chocolate part. :D

Initially? Yes. My goal was 135, but I crept down to 125 and maintained that for a long time. I *intentionally* went on a rampage to gain some muscle mass and did that, followed by a crazy cutting regime (for a bodybuilding contest). This last month, I've been SO hungry and have made some pretty lousy food choices, but I'm back to being healthy now.

Now? I feel like if I BREATHE, I will gain weight. I have to watch everything VERY closely. I have no idea what weight my body is "supposed" to be, but my composition is VERY different now than it was at 125 pounds. I'm 10 pounds heavier again, but I have a lower body fat percentage. I don't know if it would be healthy at this point for me to get back down to that size without sacrificing the muscle mass I worked so hard to obtain. I have to admit it was nice being so slim, though.

I'm trying not to obsessively watch the scale and will see what weight feels most comfortable maintaining.

Oh, I have lost weight without trying, like BlueToBlue, on several occasions: the end of a 3.5 year relationship (7 pounds... everyone commented on how skinny I got), when I got my wisdom teeth pulled (5 pounds... I didn't feel like eating much), and any time I get a cold, I usually lose between 2 and 5. If it's 5, 2-3 usually come back.

This has happened to me a few times when I'm not trying to lose weight. Once, I was running a lot -- went to the doctors and weighed in at 5 lbs less than I expected. Last time I was on a "diet" I stopped dieting and then dropped another 4 lbs without trying.

Nope, never a downward creep without effort. Yes, always an upward creep if I stop paying very close attention.

When I was in high school a (very tiny) friend was utterly amazed that I would "gain weight" if I wasn't careful about eating.

It crept down once last year, well past goal and stayed there for a couple of weeks until vacation eating brought me back well above goal and ever since it seems like it is much harder to get back to goal, much less below it.

I think I hopefully may have discovered what will finally be able to get me down to goal weight by accident. My boyfriend's father recently had a mild stroke, followed by surgery in a large hospital an hour away, so for two weeks we were never at home or able to worry about food. Food 9 out of 10 times was from a cafe or a restaurant on the way home from visiting. I noticed that by not counting calories, but by simply only eating when I was hungry and stopping the moment I was full (satisfied, not stuffed) I dropped weight. In the span of a week I lost about 3 - 4 lbs, and even when I switched to experimenting with my food this way after I was at home on a more normal schedule, another 4 or so lbs the next week came off. I order what I want when I go to a restaurant, which in all honesty isn't usually anything bathed in a cream sauce because I know I'll feel yuck later, but just stop when I'm full. I think it's because I obsess about food less, so I'm less tempted to think about being deprived or thinking about what I can plan for dinner that is within my calories, etc. It took up a lot of my time, stressed me out, and made me prone to mindless snacking and binges. Hopefully not thinking about it will continue to go this well...

Lindsey, that doesn't work for everyone, but dang it's sweet when it does :D And it does take effort, IMO, equal to counting.

Yeah, there is effort. Like when there's a big birthday cake staring you down, or a second margarita and you ask yourself "Am I still hungry?" and the answer is "No, but I want it anyway." O.O Pretty much the same problems I've always dealt with... except for now instead of asking if it fits into X calorie level, I ask if my body (not my head) really wants more. The best thing that's come out of it is that I discovered that I sort of eat like a bird. Also, I haven't had the uncomfortably full feeling either, which sometimes still happened when I was POP with calorie counting... because I always finished my plate even if I wasn't hungry simply because I had budgeted the calories and that food was MINE, dangit... haha.

It is really encouraging to hear so many people having a similar experience to mine. I decided to try out maintenance at 145, even though I was 5lbs from goal. I ate intuitively like Lindsey but still logged the calories, just to see what "intuitively" meant for me. Turns out it was about 1800 calories (losing mode was about 1500), and I just lost those last 5lbs naturally. I love to hear that eating intuitively is working for someone, and that other people have experienced a loss while their bodies become accustomed to goal weight.

The other time my weight crept downward was during a bout with depression my sophomore year of college. I would not recommend that "trick".