Before when people told me that it was harder to maintain than losing weight, I honest didn’t believe them. While I was losing weight I thought that maintaining would be a piece of cake. Boy was I wrong. I started losing weight November of last year and reached my goal weight in April, which I was able to maintain for a couple of months before started gaining weight again. Since June I’ve gained about 8 pounds and finally decided to do something about it.
So what happened to make me gain the pounds back? Well, there is the lack of exercising and the indiscriminating eating habits. Instead of having a lifestyle change, I ‘dieted’ for six month and went back my old eating habits. So before thing get too out of control, I want to take control for my life and really have a lifestyle change.
I'm also really worried about being on maintainence. I don't have too far to go before I reach goal and I'm really nervous about keeping it off. I don't want to become lazy and think that I can keep it off without watching what I eat. It's so easy to fall back into your old habits.
Miaka, good for you for stopping your regain NOW and getting back in control. It sounds like you know exactly where you went wrong. Stick around and keep posting and we'll help you get back to goal.
Linda, I think the key to maintenance is to just keep doing whatever you did to lose the weight. You know, when they talk about this as being a lifestyle, they're not kidding! Because this IS for the rest of our lives! Like Miaka talked about, you can't get to goal and then revert back to those bad old habits (and trust me, they're always there - we're never cured). We need to take all our new exercising and eating habits and practice them every day in order to maintain. Maintenance won't happen on its own and it won't take care of itself - like Miaka said, it's hard and takes thought and planning (but it's totally worth it!!)
It's been more than four years since I've reached goal and a day in my life now doesn't look any different than a day in my life while I was losing weight. I exercise as much, journal my food, weigh and measure my portions, plan my meals, count calories ... all the things that made my weight loss successful. These are life-long habits. The day I go back to my old way of eating and (not) exercising is the day I start to gain the weight back.
You both might want to check out the Thin For Life stickies in the Maintenance Library. We had a book discussion last year on Thin For Life and there are a lot of great tips and ideas for maintenance there.
I think is great that you are smarter about it than I was. I never worried much about maintaining. It’s so easy to fall back to old habits especially when you feel like you deserve it after all that hard work. Sorry, I don’t really have any good advise myself since I am new at this too.
Thanks for your advise Meg, I am going to take it heart and restart my food and exercise log again.
Oh, I wouldn't say I'm smarter ... I've just been at it for a long time. It's not surprising that you didn't think about maintenance while you were losing - neither did I. Books don't talk about it and everyone just kinda assumes it's easy and effortless. We both discovered how wrong that is!! At least by talking about it here we can get people thinking about keeping the weight off and maybe try to improve on those awful statistics about weight regain.
I lost weight and gained it back several times in my life, so maintenance is a hard-learned lesson for me. What really helped me was changing my focus from weight loss to long term health. Previously, I would diet until reaching a certain goal weight. When I reached my goal weight, I would stop, job done and return to the unhealthy eating habits that made me heavy in the first place. This time, my goal was to eat healthy for the rest of my life, my weight on the scale has no effect on how I eat. When I reached my goal weight, there was nothing to stop, I kept eating the way I had been eating to lose weight. Slowly, over a couple of months I added calories to reach maintenance level (I made up the difference with more healthy food, I didn't add Doritos to make up the caloric difference!)
I had deliberately changed how I ate so I could be happy eating that way for the rest of my life. It is no hardship for me to eat whole foods, to go to the grocery store 2-3 times a week, to pack lunches and snacks. After giving up processed sugar and fast food, I don't crave that stuff anymore. I look forward to baked sweet potatoes and ripe cherries now.
Maintenance is definitely harder than weight loss since it is MUCH longer term. When I reached my goal weight, I got a tattoo that says in Chinese "dripping water can eat through stone." It's to remind myself of perseverance, all the hundreds of little acts I accomplish everyday that help me stay slender and healthy - from parking on the third floor of hte parking garage so I can walk up all the stairs to calorie counting and food journaling and making as many healthy choices as possible.
It is also very important to me to stay flexible. Previously, I was very "all or nothing." If I "cheated" at lunch, the day was ruined I might as well eat nachos and cheesecake with mint milano chasers for dinner. My overall rule is - try to do the best I can. Try to plan as much as I can, but don't freak out if life doesn't go according to plan. Life is going to be messy and unpredictable. I am going to eat things that I don't plan on eating. I will try to avoid my personal "big bads" (soda, fast foods, fried foods, packaged baked goods), but I need to remain flexible with the rest.
I think one of the reasons I fell off the wage, so to speak is due to a lack of a long-term to work towards. It was great to see the pound fell off and making my weight goal while I was losing weight. Although it was hard, the rewards made it worth while. Once of the challenges about maintaining are you don’t see ‘visible’ results. How does everyone motivate themselves?
By the way Meg, you look great! (saw your before and after pics!) What kind of weight training are you doing to get those awesome abs and arms?
I think one of the reasons I fell off the wage, so to speak is due to a lack of a long-term to work towards. It was great to see the pound fell off and making my weight goal while I was losing weight. Although it was hard, the rewards made it worth while. Once of the challenges about maintaining are you don’t see ‘visible’ results. How does everyone motivate themselves?
For me, it's long term health. All four of my grandparents died very young. I read a book called Super Foods RX: The 14 Foods That Will Save Your Life that really made the science of nutrition accessible to me. The author of the book said there were lots of foods that were good for me, but some foods are exceptionally powerful. I eat to be the healthiest person I can be, to prevent disease and age-related degeneration. Spinach for the eyes, nuts for heart health, yogurt for the gut, tomatoes to protect the skin from the damage of the sun and blueberries to prevent age related degeration of the brain. What I eat is no longer tied to the scale - I don't eat this way because I'm on a diet and want to lose weight, I just eat this way. There is nothing to stop.
Maintenance is hard!
It sounds like you know exactly where you went wrong. Stick around and keep posting and we'll help you get back to goal. 
It's not surprising that you didn't think about maintenance while you were losing - neither did I. Books don't talk about it and everyone just kinda assumes it's easy and effortless. We both discovered how wrong that is!! At least by talking about it here we can get people thinking about keeping the weight off and maybe try to improve on those awful statistics about weight regain.
