It's been almost a year since she was last here and I wonder, since she had a liver disease and was awaiting a transplant, if she passed away. So sad not knowing.

It bums me out when "friends" stop posting too. After a little research on a few of my buddies I have found them to be safe and well, and actually a little famous in their own lives. Some people stop posting when their responses could be taken as professional advice, which is against the terms of service. In another case a poster has stopped because of her political gain. So the reasons are not always bad news, but just the opposite. The new confidence they have found from weight loss and maintaince have helped them to achieve things they would have never even imagined at their top morbid obese weights.

What bums me out most of all are the Chickie's who lose a good chunk of weight, but are still quite far from goal that give up on 3fc. There are 2 100 pounds club members I think about often...and hope they are safe and well and living maintaince.

Here is why "Operation Getting Back to Goal" would not work for me as a thread title for regainers.

The path of successful weight loss, as it is mostly practiced on 3FC (and elsewhere), is as follows:

1. Set a Goal. This goal may be based on what one weighed in high school, based on the "normal" range of BMI, or just pulled out of a hat. But it gets set.

2. Do Whatever It Takes to Reach The Goal. Restrict calories in an accountable way, increase exercise, have a plan, make a schedule, and No Matter What you stay with it until you get to goal. (Oh, except for those slip-ups, but "don't beat yourself up.")

3. Reach The Goal and then plan the rest of your life around staying there.

A number of assumptions are necessary to implement this. One is, The Goal is attainable and reasonable. Another is, we have unlimited energy and resources with which to keep on going. And finally, we can sustain this effort forever to stay with The Goal.

Oh, and we must always call it a "lifestyle change," not a diet.

(Well, OK, but you know what? It's really a diet. Sorry. It's just a diet that never ends.)

What I've found from my experience over the past, oh, four-plus years, are first, that I do not know what my "ideal weight" is. Everyone gives lip service to the "normal BMI" being nothing more than a ballpark, but I never did reach it. At 147, my most recent low weight, I was still in the "overweight" category.

Second, I do not have unlimited stamina and energy for this. It is stressful to restrict calories and exercise 5-6 days a week. I got worn out on it! And I'm not someone who gives up easily.

And finally, whatever the reason, I do not seem at this time to have whatever it takes to MAKE myself stay at 1350 calories average (my losing level) for longer than two weeks. Believe me, I have tried. I am not a binge eater, and I don't have an eating-disorder history. I am not a junk-food eater; going off plan never has meant Big Macs or the like. I just can't handle the discipline. I fought hard the whole time I was regaining to try to reverse it, but I regained anyway. Trying one more time with the same approach seems pointless to me. And that's why "Getting Back to Goal" as a concept tends to make me want to run screaming into the night!

What I'm doing now (not that anyone asked) is that I'm back to the gym 3-4 days a week with a reasonable exercise routine, one that doesn't wear out my body. I am staying aware of what I eat, but I am not counting calories. I can't manage that--it seems counterproductive now. It was not counterproductive before!

I am one of those 90% or whatever it is who regained, and that's just how it is. I'll see what happens next. Since I failed to keep the weight off, I might as well experiment.

Jay

LOL Oh..it's a "journey".

IMHO, a rose is still a rose by any other name...and a thorn is a thorn...

Jay, I see your point on the 'getting back to goal' title. I didn't really think about it when I first said it, but at this point I'm not trying to get back to my original goal either. I want to get back a little smaller, but that could be any number of ways, most of which are completely different than I did working to goal in the first place. And, I'm more comfortable with a higher weight, too. So saying 'getting back to goal' could imply that people needed to hammer to get back to what could be an unrealistic and unsustainable goal weight. Don't think we want to send that message at all.

Jay, you are still maintaining a significant loss. A "normal BMI" is only a number--a number that I feel is randomly generated without a large sampling of bodies. Everyone is different.

Jay, it makes me sad that you feel like you are a failure. Because that is not how I see it at all. You have successfully maintained a significantly lower weight for a long period of time. From my highest weight, 248, I lost about 65 lbs 12-13 years ago. I maintained that loss for over 10 years. Was I at the weight I wanted to be? No, but I was certainly healthier and felt better about myself than when I was at 248! I certainly struggle and get tired of "fighting the good fight" too sometimes. But we both are successful in our own ways!

Jay I loved the honesty of your post. It is a a lifelong commitment like anything else sometime we do not feel like working on it. We are humans with lives that sometime complicate things, I get scared about the future, question myself and my conclusion is to take it one day at a time and do the best I can in that day and if it is not perfect so be it.

I have lost weight in the past and regained it so it is best to look ahead and take it as it comes.

Jay, you're like my Dark Angel, saying what I'm often thinking but afraid to articulate clearly, even to myself.

I'm afraid of getting tired & fed up with the constant vigilance.

And if I did, then the forums here would hold less appeal, because they wouldn't reflect my current obsession.

Right now, we're in sync. In six months, who knows?

I do have a history of binge eating and an eating disorder, and I sometimes think that is "helping" me maintain, in a rather sick way.

With a difference. I don't binge now. There's an occasional speeding-up of eating something healthy & planned, and I can never, EVER eat directly from an unportioned package, or I could drop into my "binge gear," which is automatic, fast, hand-to-mouth eating without regard for quantity. Which I can stop now. But for a moment, I slip into mindlessness & someplace ugly but seductive.

But I sometimes think that, with me, lifelong maintenance is a near-cousin to having an eating disorder, in that it's an act of will, it requires a lot of thought & planning, and there are a lot of self-imposed restrictions. The difference is, there are no wild mood swings & I'm not always in a state of near-panic.

Instead there's a slightly precarious, uneasy feeling, that I'm in balance, but that it's not easy, and that toppling would be so easy to do.

That tension is what worries me.

This thread has kind of strayed from ncuneo's topic... and yet, it all follows.

Thanks to all of you who have responded to the "regainers" issue.

Bright Angel, your website sounds like something you will enjoy a great deal! Let folks know when it is up and running.

saef, I do see commonalities running through your posts. I remember first hearing the term "orthorexia" from you.

Michou and losermom, I am grateful for your comments.

And Shannon in ATL, I think you do know what it is like to try to figure this stuff out.

But rather than hijack this thread further, I'm going to start a "Regainers" thread here in Living Maintenance. So, watch for it, and we'll see who else decides to come back and check in. Or not!

Jay

Jay, thanks for your honesty. You often post things that I am thinking. The fact is that I don't have what it takes to make myself stay at losing level (1400 for me) for longer than two weeks either. I had a thread a while back where I advocated losing for as long as I could stand it (~2 weeks), then maintaining until I was mentally ready to lose again. Some people thought it was a great idea -- others (the majority as I recall) thought I was nuts and it was an awful idea. It turns out to work really well for me and was the only way I managed to get back to my comfort zone weight. I wonder if it might work for you too?

As we've seen again and again, different things work for different people, and we just need to figure out what will work for us. It took me a long time to figure out that alternating losing and maintaining was the key to losing my re-gain.

MIA:

I guess i am one of those who comes and goes on the board. I think i am in the minority when I am not posting or checking in things are easy going...
When the going gets rough I tend to stop in more. Even when i am not on the boards, I tend to do a read by now and then to see how (friends) are doing. So I will be checking in and posting on a regular irregular basis..
Be well,

Well, I can answer on two counts. One, yes, I completely miss the people who disappear from the boards, and it makes me worry a bit about myself. I have good social support in my life, but no one in my life who understands weight loss, obesity, disordered eating, etc. like the people here. Sometimes, when I'm feeling a little shaky I come looking for a bit of support and when I see a bunch of unfamiliar fake names I get all disappointed, and that makes me feel just a tiny bit pathetic, because should something as important as this really require the presence of people I don't even know?

Second, Jay, I can really relate to what you are saying. I got to about 15 pounds above the goal that I set for myself and after struggling to shed more over months and months, I realized that I think I like being where I am more. I was incredibly motivated not to be a size 24, but I'm not incredibly motivated to be a size 8, and the degree of vigilance it would take for me to get from where I am now to there just doesn't seem worth it.

It takes a lot of vigilance for me just to focus on not regaining, I'm fit, I enjoy working out, and I'm finding that I really like the fact that I've been able to loosen up a little on calories. But when I think about digging down and trying to shed another twenty or thirty, it is just super hard for me to think about that.

Saef, while I never was officially diagnosed with an eating disorder, I had plenty of disordered eating and thinking regarding food. When I was younger, I regularly abused laxatives, took "water pills", even tried doubling up my prescribed thyroid meds (which didn't work by the way--it just made my face & hair super greasy) in an attempt to speed up my metabolism and regularly did my private alter-binges where I regularly overate by switching back and forth between salty and sweets.

Maintenance does require lots of planning, and restricting, and there are days that I do feel like I do not have the energy to continue this. Those are the days that I decide to "Fake it 'til I make it". Sometimes thats all I have in me. I too have some of those near panic feelings and that one morning I will wake up fat again, having literally gained it all back overnight.

But back to the original topic, yes. I do miss our members and wonder/worry about them. Are they doing well and too busy to visit us? Or are they struggling and too embarrassed to visit us? I'm hoping it's the latter.

I'm still around.