Maintenance Is Easy Or The Grass Is Always Greener
 

I'm not looking for advice here, just venting.

I have read countless posts from people who have gotten to goal, relaxed their control and gained weight back. Invariably they say that maintenance is hard.

I disagree and I envy them more than words can express. Why? Because at least they got to goal. I cannot get to my goal no matter what I do. For the last four years my weight has see-sawed between 111 and 115 pounds. My goal is 110, though I think it should be 100 because I still have too many bulges at 111.

I have tried different calorie levels and different types and combinations of food. I have a very active job that keeps me on my feet and moving fast all day every day and I exercise on top of that. I have learned that, up to a point it doesn't matter what I eat or how much.

For the last seven years I have kept a food and calorie journal. My results are puzzling. On a thousand calories a day I maintain. On two thousand calories a day I maintain. On 900 calories a day I lose excruciatingly slowly, less than a half pound a month. If I eat more than twenty-five hundred calories a day for weeks on end I might gain a pound or two but it comes right back off when I go back to two thousand calories or below. To lose a pound a month I would have to drop my calories to 800 or below and with my job that's just not feasible.

I don't know if I'm subconciously moving more when my calories are higher and moving less when they are lower. I just know that I am not happy with my weight or my body and unless I get laid off it doesn't look like I ever will be.

Hard as it is for me to fathom I know there are people who might envy me, but I'd rather be the person who has to eat 1800 calories to maintain if that also meant I could lose decently on 1200.

Originally Posted by Magrat:
If I eat more than twenty-five hundred calories a day for weeks on end I might gain a pound or two but it comes right back off when I go back to two thousand calories or below.

I'd love to be like you! Yeah, I guess the grass is always greener... With me it's very linear: I eat over 2,000 cals, I gain. I eat under, I lose. I see rewards in direct proportion to my efforts, but I don't get any "freebies."

F.

Magrat You sound like my twin sister! Same situation exactly. Except I have learned to love the strong still fairly agile and flexible body I have at around 135 lbs. I know I won't get to 130 and I'll have a bit of bulging at the thighs and a little belly but so what! There is more to life than a number we impose on ourselves. It took me about 5 years to come to this point but I'm glad I'm here.

I hope you too someday gain some acceptance of the great body you have now.

Dagmar :dizzy:

Hi Magrat!

Just a little food for thought (pun intended)! We are the same height, and both my doctor and the nutritionist that I saw said that I should not go under 115 because that is WAY TOO LOW.

It sounds like your body does not want to go that low. If you truly have "bulges" maybe you could focus on re-shaping your body through weights?

I'm betting you are more beautiful then you know!

Jen

Originally Posted by Magrat:
I'm not looking for advice here, just venting.

I have read countless posts from people who have gotten to goal, relaxed their control and gained weight back. Invariably they say that maintenance is hard.

I disagree and I envy them more than words can express. Why? Because at least they got to goal. I cannot get to my goal no matter what I do. For the last four years my weight has see-sawed between 111 and 115 pounds. My goal is 110, though I think it should be 100 because I still have too many bulges at 111.

I have tried different calorie levels and different types and combinations of food. I have a very active job that keeps me on my feet and moving fast all day every day and I exercise on top of that. I have learned that, up to a point it doesn't matter what I eat or how much.

For the last seven years I have kept a food and calorie journal. My results are puzzling. On a thousand calories a day I maintain. On two thousand calories a day I maintain. On 900 calories a day I lose excruciatingly slowly, less than a half pound a month. If I eat more than twenty-five hundred calories a day for weeks on end I might gain a pound or two but it comes right back off when I go back to two thousand calories or below. To lose a pound a month I would have to drop my calories to 800 or below and with my job that's just not feasible.

I don't know if I'm subconciously moving more when my calories are higher and moving less when they are lower. I just know that I am not happy with my weight or my body and unless I get laid off it doesn't look like I ever will be.

Hard as it is for me to fathom I know there are people who might envy me, but I'd rather be the person who has to eat 1800 calories to maintain if that also meant I could lose decently on 1200.

I am one inch shorter than you and today I weigh 117, I am pretty happy with that. Yes, like many have said maintenance is not easy it takes constant effort. The question becomes "Is it worth it?" In my case I believe it is. You are spreading your calories out a great deal, I find that I need to stay pretty constant with calories on a daily basis. We short people are limited to the amount of calories we can have to maintain. I can have about 1400 calories a day to maintain. I can have a treat now and then, but I am always aware of what I am eating. There is a man that posts on another board, he is 6'9" tall , he can have many more calories than me to maintain his weight, even our sister dieters who are 5'8" will need more calories than we shorties. There is no calorie that fits all. There is this, too, the less we have to lose the harder it is. Right now if I want to lose 2 pounds it takes me much longer than when I started and needed to lose ninety pounds. Most of us lose at a more rapid pace when we first start and slow down when we get to goal.

Its interesting to read other people's perspectives and experiences. When I started reading your post, I figured you were far from your goal and were struggling to get close to it. But then I see that you are only 1 pound away! I would be thrilled to be within 1 pound of my goal. I know that I am more than three times your size, but even if I was 3 - or 10 - pounds away from my goal I would be thrilled!

To me it seems like you ARE in maintenance right now. I can't imagine ONE little pound is going to make any notable difference in your body -- even at your size.

The part that would trouble me is you are maintaining at 111-115 --- while eating a diet that you believe should allow you to continue to lose weight. Did you plan on relaxing your diet a little when you reached your goal? Are you concerned now that if you do that, you'll gain weight back?

Originally Posted by freelancemomma:
I'd love to be like you! Yeah, I guess the grass is always greener... With me it's very linear: I eat over 2,000 cals, I gain. I eat under, I lose. I see rewards in direct proportion to my efforts, but I don't get any "freebies."

F.

And I would love to get rewards in direct proportion to my efforts. I don't lose weight continously on two thousand calories a day; I merely drop back to my base level and stay there. I wouldn't call having to eat at starvation level in order to lose beyond that as any kind of freebie.

140 pounds at five eleven is very very thin. To be as proportionately thin at my height as you are at yours I would have to weigh about ninety pounds. But I'm more than twenty pounds above that. You would have to weigh in the low one sixties to be as heavy at your height as I am at mine.

If you weighed in the one sixties and had to eat well below on thousand calories a day I guarantee you wouldn't be happy.

Originally Posted by Magrat:
And I would love to get rewards in direct proportion to my efforts. I don't lose weight continously on two thousand calories a day; I merely drop back to my base level and stay there. I wouldn't call having to eat at starvation level in order to lose beyond that as any kind of freebie.

140 pounds at five eleven is very very thin. To be as proportionately thin at my height as you are at yours I would have to weigh about ninety pounds. But I'm more than twenty pounds above that. You would have to weigh in the low one sixties to be as heavy at your height as I am at mine.

If you weighed in the one sixties and had to eat well below on thousand calories a day I guarantee you wouldn't be happy.

What I don't get is how you can maintain at 2000 calories a day -- but also maintain at 1000 calories a day. What would keep you from losing if you cut your daily calories in half?

This is what scares me about maintenance. If I have to eat a starvation diet to maintain my weight, I will be miserable!

Lastly, -- and I mentioned this above -- am I missing something or are you really upset that you have 1 pound to lose that you cannot lose? Or are you upset that your weight goes up 5 pounds? Because 1 pound doesn't seem like it would make that big of a difference -- other than just being a nice, round number that you have in your mind is the goal for you. I mean, you never see people say that their goal weight is 123.5 pound, for example. It always seems to be a round number in increments of 5 or 10 pounds. Why can't 111 be a goal? :)

Originally Posted by Magrat:
I just know that I am not happy with my weight or my body and unless I get laid off it doesn't look like I ever will be.

Would you be able to accept something if you were told that you could no change it? Like if someone said, "No, you can't go any lower, because physically, that's as low as your body is willing to go."

And would that one pound or a scale reading on a number that you'd prefer to see cause your unhappiness to vanish instantaneously?

When you say you are "unhappy with your body," maybe it's not about a scale reading.

Are you happy with everything else in your life, pretty much, except for your body, or is that just the thing that you're focusing on now, because you think maybe that one thing you can change?

Trying to understand why it is hurting & frustrating you to this extent, and what its place is within your life.

If you had a happy life, what would it look like? What would be different from what you are doing now? Is weight integral to that vision?

Is there anything you can do to make your life happier, aside from losing that last nagging pound?

It sucks to be on the fringe, not part of the standard world where "3500 calorie deficit = 1 pound gone". I can see why you'd want to vent! It sounds like you've banged your head on this wall for a long time - maybe it's time to count the blessings you have in the maintenance column, and go after the bulges you don't like by shaking up your exercise?

Saef made a wonderful post a while back about the scale being a metaphor and that we attach far too much importance to a single number. It's worth some consideration.

Originally Posted by CherryPie99:
Hi Magrat!

Just a little food for thought (pun intended)! We are the same height, and both my doctor and the nutritionist that I saw said that I should not go under 115 because that is WAY TOO LOW.

It sounds like your body does not want to go that low. If you truly have "bulges" maybe you could focus on re-shaping your body through weights?

I'm betting you are more beautiful then you know!

Jen

I know my body doesn't want to go that low, which I feel is horribly unfair since other women on this site who are my height and age can get much lower. I can't help but feel that if they can do it I should be able to as well.

My "bulges" are in odd places and I doubt weights would help. I have fat on the front of my legs just above my knees. And I have two bulges in the back at hip level. They are exactly the same kind of bulges women get if they wear low rise pants that are too tight. Except that I have them when I have nothing on.

Originally Posted by bargoo:
I am one inch shorter than you and today I weigh 117, I am pretty happy with that. Yes, like many have said maintenance is not easy it takes constant effort. The question becomes "Is it worth it?" In my case I believe it is. You are spreading your calories out a great deal, I find that I need to stay pretty constant with calories on a daily basis. We short people are limited to the amount of calories we can have to maintain. I can have about 1400 calories a day to maintain. I can have a treat now and then, but I am always aware of what I am eating. There is a man that posts on another board, he is 6'9" tall , he can have many more calories than me to maintain his weight, even our sister dieters who are 5'8" will need more calories than we shorties. There is no calorie that fits all. There is this, too, the less we have to lose the harder it is. Right now if I want to lose 2 pounds it takes me much longer than when I started and needed to lose ninety pounds. Most of us lose at a more rapid pace when we first start and slow down when we get to goal.

I thought my first post was perfectly clear. Guess not.

Bargoo you seem to be under the impression that my calorie count varies wildly from day to day. Not so. I have been trying various calorie levels for the last four years, sticking to each level for months at a time. My daily calories might vary by a hundred or so but my weekly averages are consistent.

After I lost my initial thirty pounds on an average intake of 1600 calories a day my weight loss came to a screeching halt. This was in late 2008. In January 2009 I dropped my calories to an average of 1300. Ate at that level for six months and added more exercise. No change in weight though I did measure smaller.

From June to December of 2009 I ate an average of 1150 calories a day. I tried eliminating all treats and eating as clean as possible. I felt deprived, my husband complained, and my food bill doubled. And I lost nothing.

For most of 2010 I ate 1000 calories a day. At this level I was tired all the time, grumpy and very very stressed. My weight did not budge.

In 2011 I dropped my calories even further, to 900 a day, divided into two small meals spaced twelve hours apart. Now I could barely drag myself through the day. To compensate for the lack of fuel I doubled my caffeine intake, living on coffee and sugar free energy drinks.

And I did lose weight. In eight months I lost a whopping 3 pounds

I lost another pound in September 2011 after our beloved greyhound, Sweetie, died suddenly from a rare blood cancer that nobody, not us, not his vet, had even known he had since he had had no symptoms. That dog was like a child to us. To say we were devastated is putting it mildly. For days I could barely choke anything down at all.

When I had recovered slightly from my grief I became concerned that perhaps my metabolism had been compromised by my low intake. So I tried a refeed. I deliberately took my calories up to around 2500 a day. That was, for me, a huge amount of food. As I had expected, my weight went up slightly. I dropped calories to around 2000 a day. The two pounds I had gained came off. I dropped calories again, down to about 1400 a day. My weight stayed the same.

This past year I have felt very discouraged. I'll eat at a low level for a few months but when my weight doesn't change I go back to eating 2000 calories a day. Since I have a thousand calorie maintenance range it makes no sense to stay at the bottom end if my weight doesn't drop when I do so.

Again I'd rather have to maintain at 1800 or even 1500 if I could lose at 1200.

As I've said more than once my body is freaky.

Originally Posted by saef:
Would you be able to accept something if you were told that you could no change it? Like if someone said, "No, you can't go any lower, because physically, that's as low as your body is willing to go."

And would that one pound or a scale reading on a number that you'd prefer to see cause your unhappiness to vanish instantaneously?

When you say you are "unhappy with your body," maybe it's not about a scale reading.

Are you happy with everything else in your life, pretty much, except for your body, or is that just the thing that you're focusing on now, because you think maybe that one thing you can change?

Trying to understand why it is hurting & frustrating you to this extent, and what its place is within your life.

If you had a happy life, what would it look like? What would be different from what you are doing now? Is weight integral to that vision?

Is there anything you can do to make your life happier, aside from losing that last nagging pound?

I am unhappy with most aspects of my life and there is little I can do to change it. I hate my job but we need the income and there are no jobs out there. I hate that fact that my husband's disability and chronic pain sometimes make him hard to live with but I can't make him better.

My weight, at least, seems potentially changable. And it's really 11 pounds I need to lose, not 1. The bulges I have at 111 pounds are not likely to go away at 110. I want to weigh 100 pounds.

Weight loss is an impossible dream anyway so I might as well dream big.

Originally Posted by joefla70:
What I don't get is how you can maintain at 2000 calories a day -- but also maintain at 1000 calories a day. What would keep you from losing if you cut your daily calories in half?

This is what scares me about maintenance. If I have to eat a starvation diet to maintain my weight, I will be miserable!

Lastly, -- and I mentioned this above -- am I missing something or are you really upset that you have 1 pound to lose that you cannot lose? Or are you upset that your weight goes up 5 pounds? Because 1 pound doesn't seem like it would make that big of a difference -- other than just being a nice, round number that you have in your mind is the goal for you. I mean, you never see people say that their goal weight is 123.5 pound, for example. It always seems to be a round number in increments of 5 or 10 pounds. Why can't 111 be a goal? :)

I wish I knew why I can maintain my weight at 1000 calories a day and at 2000 calories a day. Maybe at the higher level I fidget more. I don't know.

I am annoyed that I cannot lose that last stubborn pound. If my weight goes up I know it's just a flucuation and it will come off. I only go back to 115 if both my calories and my sodium intake are high. Within a few days I return to 111.