Very good point. If I eat something loaded with sugar my body says , "More,more give me more".

Dagmar-- I also have been known to wake up sweaty with the shakes-- I even passed out once after eating large amounts of sugar-- my body just can't handle it.

Sacha-- my body also doesn't handle alcohol. I just don't drink (minus my last cruise but that's a different story-- I'm not an alcoholic-- I just choose not to drink usually). I'm just matter of fact about it and people don't usually ask. They are often happy to find a designated driver which I'm happy to be.

Yep, that's me too, and I wake up @ 2 a.m. all sweaty with the shakes. I wonder if some of the sugar stuff, for me, has to do with all that artificial sweetener I consumed with pop and caffeine drinks all those years? Would be interesting to see a study done on those who extensively used and then quit sweeteners.

Dagmar (lab rat?)

Sacha, thanks for this post. Congrats first off on so many years of maintenance and on quitting drinking! I am very interested in your story as I am also a long-term maintainer and I'm currently pregnant with my first children (twins). I've just passed my high weight from when I was fat, and it's only going to keep going up from here until the babies are born. This is as expected for twin pregnancy and the doctors are happy with my weight, but I admit to being extremely nervous about losing it later. I think one of the reasons I'm nervous is that I've had to pretty dramatically change my diet in order to meet the protein goals my doctor gave me, whereas typically for maintenance I eat a diet that is largely vegetables and grains. I think it will probably be difficult to figure out how to eat to lose weight while still eating enough of the right things to breastfeed.

In general, I have had ups and downs in maintenance, and a couple times I have had to go back to dieting to re-lose some weight. Sometimes it seems easy, sometimes it seems hard. Basically it seems easy until I notice that I've gained a bunch of weight, at which point it suddenly seems very hard. It's never easy to refuse unhealthy food that I love. I've generally taken the approach of letting myself have a "cheat meal" once a week, so I don't start feeling too deprived. I am one of the people who needs to include everything in moderation rather than eliminating categories of food -- if I eliminate something entirely, I become obsessive about how badly I want it and end up caving in and eating way too much of it.

Krampus, you asked about planning. I always do a weekly plan, because then I only have to go to the grocery store once a week. My weekly planning consists of picking out about 4 recipes to cook during the week, each of which makes at least 4 servings (up to 8) to feed myself and DH. Lunches are always leftovers from dinner, and some dinners are also leftovers. Breakfast is always either cold cereal or oatmeal with fruit. Snacks are always fruit and/or yogurt or light string cheese. So I don't plan out exactly what I'm going to eat at every single meal for the whole week, but I do have a menu of options to choose from on any given day (like if I picked out a chicken recipe and a beef recipe, and on one day I don't feel like eating beef, it's no big deal because I can cook chicken instead). All of the recipes I use come from magazines and websites that specify the nutritional information so it's easy for me to portion them out and count calories. When I'm in losing mode I use a food scale to monitor my portion sizes for things like cereal; when I'm in maintaining mode I eyeball them.

I don't know if any of this blather is useful to anyone at all, but since I already typed it all I might as well post it.

Krampus I plan my meals daily, it takes me about 5 minutes to plan a days menu. My breakfasts and lunches don't vary much so that makes the rest of the day pretty easy, I am not so rigid that if I want to alter something, I do just staying within my calorie allotment. Planning is an absolute must for me, when I don't plan I gain. It is as simple as that.

Wow, it's interesting how we're all different. I've always been able to handle huge amounts of sugar, and I do mean huge, without any symptoms whatsoever. It's been more of a curse than a blessing, because I had no feedback mechanism to prevent me from overindulging in sugar. When I was a kid I would eat my entire pillowcase of Halloween candy in one or at most two evenings. I've had similar sugar-fests as an adult, though I haven't indulged to that extent for a few years.

F.

Just to let you know, I wasn't trying to contest the OP's choices, just to understand them.

F.

Funny you should mention that - it's so different person to person, for sure.

My MIL yesterday was at IKEA. She bought: 3 milk chocolate bars for the kids, a blueberry syrup for making juice, for the kids, and a pack of cinnamon rolls for the kids.

Now, she had some juice and a cinnamon roll too, but it was 'mostly' for the kids.

The second my sons got home she offered it up to them. Stupid me allowed it.

My older son doesn't have issues with sugar. And, he tends not to be a sugar addict. AND he doesn't get sugar lows or highs and neither does my mother in law.

My younger son had two cinnamon rolls. Then we went to the gym. a 90 minutes later and he was having a full blown hissy fit. Like out of control crying jag and bad behavior. The workers at kidspace who know him were shocked. They had only seen him on good days. and truly, he RARELY has these bad days.

He was bad until I got him to eat some protein and fat rich food at home. Then he leveled his sugars and was fine. He has sugar issues like me. AND he has a tendency to pudge up. Like me. He's going to have to watch his food more carefully forever, like me.

I told my MIL about it this morning and she laughed and said, "Oh, Mladen (kid's great uncle) was like that. Ha. Ha... Not me. I can eat all the sugar I want." No concern for the kid who LOST it last night... just happy she can go on eating sugar to her heart's content. Learned a lesson to not feed my kid sugar? Probably not.

But I learned mine.... he can't handle it. and I have to teach him to watch it.

I think you guys mean traveling_michele, not me

Sacha, yes, it's difficult. I think my life has about four settings:

1) Forgetfulness: Blessed and few are these moments when I'm so absorbed in other stuff that I don't think much about food or habits and just follow my healthy routine and hard-learned good habits. This is one form of happiness for me: I'm preoccupied with my life in a way that's akin to someone working out a puzzle for diversion. This is what they call "flow." I wish I could have this more often.
2) Hard to maintain: The default setting. It's a lot of work. It's mindfulness. It's having to take the long way around and not using all the shortcuts other people seem to be able to use.
3) Painful to maintain: Certain social occasions and times when I'm full of anxiety and uncertainty.
4) White-knuckling through it: When I feel like someone portraying a drug addict going through full withdrawal in a Hollywood movie.

It's not only due to life events, it's my state of mind.

Congratulations on your amazing accomplishments .... How close to your maintenance weight have you stayed bedsides of course time out for pregnancies?

I have heard it said repeatedly maintenance is harder then losing weight!

What kept you on track all these years?
And how do you feel about food ? Do you enjoy cooking,baking ...and being near it as a hobby....or are you white knuckled around certain food and don't allow it in your house?
Just curious how everyone else deals with it.

In our house there is a variety of snack food in the frig and freezer.
And a lot of it ....is things I truly have Pigged out in the past!
Thanks for the info , Roo2

Thanks everyone! I've had a rotten day and it was nice to see this



Hi Roo

I've always stayed from 118-123 for many years, until pregnancy (of course). I'm 129 right now and currently trying to lose back to 125ish but he's only 5 months old and I'm nursing so I can't be aggressive in my deficit.

Kept on track just from consistency and changing my goal to fitness rather than the scale - I work hard in the gym and it's more incentive to show it off. I bake daily actually! It's one of the fun activities my 3 year old loves, since the weather sucks and I've got the baby too. I generally do not eat what we bake, but I also don't bake junk either. We do apple muffns, cranberry/flax muffins, etc. Applesauce instead of fat or sugar, etc.

But I don't keep "junk" in the house for sure. I don't because I won't be able to control myself over chips (sugar, I can live without) and most of all, my toddler will beg for it! So that makes it easier to say no.