Welcome, Laura Leigh! We're glad you found us here! We're all figuring out maintenance together so look forward to your input too. :)

That hunger over the next few days happens to me too! That's a great way to describe the problem (for some of us) with cheat meals and one of the reasons I do a lot better in my little day-in, day-out rut.

Good to hear the Zone plan has been working so well for you! I met Barry Sears last month and was very impressed with his research and thoughts on dieting. Fascinating guy and super-smart. I was surprised to discover that I've been pretty much eating the Zone way without even realizing it. He has a new Zone book - The Anti-Inflammation Zone - coming out on January 1 that I plan to read and you might be interested in.

Jump into posting and feel free to start a thread on anything that you've been wondering about or that interests you. We're all looking forward to getting to know you. ;)

I've been reading your posts for a few weeks now and it's been a great inspiration to me. I reached my goal about 2 months ago and it was almost a letdown because I didn't know what to do once I got there/here. There are plenty of sites that will tell you how to lose weight, but figuring out how to keep it off seems to be a guarded secret. :-)

A little about myself. My name is Brenda and I'm 37. Married, with 2 kids. I was the skinny kid with glasses forever. In college I lived near campus so I walked miles every day to/from class and up/down stairs. When I graduated I got an office job, finally had money to spend on more than the basics to eat and could afford fast food whenever I wanted. Mysteriously I gained about 30# in a short time. I weighed more than dh when we met, but together we managed to add to our collective girth(s?).

Two years ago he weighed about 220 and I about 193. His sister was diagnosed with brain cancer and died in a short amount of time. I had also just taken a part time job at a health club's child care center (spending $$, kids can come along and a free membership). It was just good timing --realizing you're not immortal and having some tools at your disposal to preserve yourself a little longer. Dh decided to try Atkins while I was sure he was nuts and did WW myself. The weight poured off of him, while I struggled to lose 10# over about 6 months. This included going to the gym and doing a full body workout plus cardio about 3x a week.

Sept 2003 I went to my annual and the CNP told me I should continue doing WW & working out because I needed to lose more weight. At that point I decided to try Atkins and, after a long weekend in St Louis (fried ravioli -- ahhh...) started the next morning. Dh was very supportive. He even went back to an induction style diet nights & weekends (got his other foods in at work) for the first several months so I didn't have to look at him eating something I'd die to taste. Sometimes it was slow and sometimes it was slower, but by early Oct 2004 I was down to 134 -- a pound lower than my goal weight of 135.

At that time I decided to start adding back fruits and whole grains. Now I try not to limit myself on fruits & veggies and I'm definately more of a low calorie (and by default low fat) eater. I've managed to lose another 3# more or less and sit at around 131-132 most mornings. Yep, I'm still a slave to the scale! :-) This is the first year that our kids have been involved in sports at school and dance, etc. so we're finding it harder to make it to the gym as often as we used to but we still use our indoor bike and get there a few times during the week.

I still feel fairly obsessive in my counting. First it was points, then carbs and now calories. I'm trying to let go a little bit and trust my instincts but that losing control is a little scary. I've been promising myself that 2005 will be more loose and trusting -- I want to make it through the holidays first because I think this is a time that would be easier to go crazy.

I've thought about working off a few more pounds in 2005, but I'm not sure yet. We'll see how it goes and if I'm feeling deprived or thriving. My current BMI is 21, so I'm at a good spot. I think it's just being curious about what I could do/look like and I like the idea of having a buffer zone.

So that's the story... Thanks for providing a place where maintenance is the norm. I've looked on other sites and when people ask a maintenance type question they're derided by those with plenty left to lose rather than helped.

Brenda

introducing myself
 

Hello Everyone-
I have been lurking about a week and thought I'd introduce myself. I am a 23 year old young woman who has been maintaining a large weight loss for about seven months now. My top weight was 190 something when I was seventeen (I am 5''6''). I now weigh 140-145. I have lost tons of weight before, but never maintained more than 1.5 years. I need support from people who want to make their lives about more than food and weight loss.l I want to really live a life free of food and weight obsession. I want to go out and be of service to this world.
Thanks for listening!
courageousincolorado

Hi Brenda and Courageous :wave:
Welcome to Maintainers :) You're right, Brenda, there really aren't a whole lot of other places to find people or info on what to do once you've "gotten there", wherever there is for you. That was the impetus behind the birth of this forum. Since we all aim to make this the LAST time we go through the diet part of our lives, we darn well better learn how to live here happily. I got pretty verbally abused on another forum for using the word "maintenance" by someone who still had a ways to go...so here we are.

Sounds like you both have had very sucessful and different journeys. Wecome, and please jump right in on threads.

Mel

Hi all,

Mel said<< I got pretty verbally abused on another forum for using the word "maintenance" by someone who still had a ways to go...so here we are.>>

What was the reason? Is there a problem with using that word? And if so, what??? I believe words have power, but 'maintainence'?

Thanks, Jan

I'd like to join Mel in welcoming Brenda and Courageous! We're glad you both found us here, for all the reasons that you both mention. Feel free to jump into any discussions, ask any questions you may have, and please let us get to know you both better. :)

Thanks for the welcomes.

To answer the last question, my experience with other sites (even their maintenance area) is that you ask a question and people who are further away from goal will bombard you with "I wish I had that problem" type of answers rather than actually sharing any advice.

That may well have been her underlying problem, but what she actually said to me was that no one should ever think of herself in a "maintenance mode" because there is always room for improvement and growth....I was talking about scale weight, and she wanted to extend the discussion to personal growth, spiritual enlightenment, fitness goals, whatever. She also just likes to pick arguements and is no longer a part of this board. She has never achieved her goal weight, but did lose over a hundred pounds. For that I still have tremendous respect.

Mel

Okay, I'll delurk here and tell you a little about myself. I'm a nearly 60 year old library director living in Alaska, about 50 miles NE of Anchorage. I'm married to a great guy, we've been together 33 years now. No kids, but two Siamese cats that we're devoted to. :)

I was always a little skinny kid, and in fact didn't reach my full height of 5'4.5" until I was in college. I never had a weight problem at all until my mid to late 30's, when my metabolism, and activity level, slowed down. After several ups and downs with WW I found myself in late 1998 at a family reunion and then a cruise. When I saw the photos from those events I realized I HAD to do something. January 1999 I joined once again, and by June had lost 30 lbs. At the end of June that year, my DH was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma (a bone marrow cancer) and our lives took a major detour. We spent the rest of 1999 with him in the hospital 3 times, living in an upper body brace (multiple spinal compression fractures from the cancer) and doing chemo every 6 weeks. Meanwhile, I managed to lose another 16 lbs, so by Christmas I was down 46 lbs. In January 2000 we moved to Seattle for what ended up being 6 months so he could have a bone marrow transplant. While we were there, I began exercising a lot - helped that I was not working, and essentially had no social life! :) By the time we left at the end of August 2000, I was down a total of 67 lbs, and in the best physical shape in years. I ran 2 or 3 5K races during this time. I went back to my very active, though go-nowhere job as a PC Technician in an old building with only one slow elevator (hence I was up and down three stories many times a day. I kept running and doing aerobics for the next 1.5 years, and maintained pretty effortlessly. Then during the summer of 2001 I went to a conference in Santa Cruz, CA, at a college campus in the mountains. I ran 3 or 4 times on the hills, and walked every day to classes - unfortunately in sandals. I ended up with PF, which was not diagnosed til about mid- Sept, though it hurt soon after I got back. I ran two more 5K races during this time, which surely didn't help. Anyway, came a point in October that I couldn't run any more; the gym I was going to - the only one in town - closed ; and I changed jobs. I am now a library director, much more satisfying, but considerably less active. To make a long story short, I regained about 50 lbs over the next 18 months. Why? I don't know. The stress of my DH's cancer was gone - he's now 4.5 years post-transplant and doing fine - the dissatisfaction with my job is gone. Anyway, about 3-4 months ago, something clicked again, and I'm working at losing this AGAIN!! Grrr. I began riding my bike longer distances this summer. The gym has reopened, and I've been working hard at keeping a routine of weight training and carido. So far, I've been doing pretty well. I'm working on eating better, and more days than not, I do okay. Not much weight off yet, but I can tell I'm in much better shape. I really appreciate hearing all you have to say about maintenance, and the struggle it takes. I did maintain a large weight loss for 18 months; and I am determined to get there again and do it for life this time.

Biggest Obstacles!
 

I'm curious to know: what are the biggest obstacles to maintaining your weight loss? Let's discuss gang...

Hi Lisa and welcome to Maintainers! I see from your previous two posts in August that you're a diet editor for First For Women magazine, so I'm curious about your post today asking for our members' thoughts about maintenance. Do you intend to use them for or in an article? If so, I think our members need to be aware of that before they respond to your question.

As a member of the media, I'm sure you're aware that all the posts here at 3FC are copyrighted by their authors and by the site owners and can't be used without permission. :)

I've been lurking here for a couple of months and think it is about time to take the plunge and introduce myself.

Hi...My name is Peggy.

I have been at my goal weight - again - for about 2 months now and want to retain this weight and this level of health for the rest of my life.

Until I was 35, I had never had any difficulty with weight. I could put anything in my mouth and not gain an ounce. However, when I was 34ish, I got a job that turned out to be extremely stressful. I discovered then that, when I am under huge amounts of stress, my metabolism shuts down. It started with weight gains of 10 plus pounds per day. When I tell people that I could gain up to 20 pounds a day, they really don't believe it, but it is true. The last two months that I worked at this job, I gained 64 pounds. I knew that there was something wrong with my body, but could not control the weight gain even though I was not eating very much.

After changing jobs to a position that was mindless and non-stressful, I did not gain anymore. I went to Weight Watchers (which I had done following pregnancies to lose the few pounds gained during pregnancy), but could not stick with the program long enough to lose the weight...it just didn't come off as fast as it went on. Sooo, I resigned myself to the added weight and tolerated it for about 15 years.

At work one summer day about 3 years ago, one of my staff was discussing the need to lose weight. I mentioned that I had the WW diet at home and we decided to do the diet together. We compared eating, weighed ourselves once a week (we have a health office with a good scale), etc. The competition was what I needed to get me started...the other lady, unfortunately, lasted just over a month, but by this time I was determined to lose the weight that I had gained. It took about 8 months for me to get back to a normal weight and I vowed that I would never regain the weight again.

However, along came my annual medical. The dr. put me on hormones and the weight gain started uncontrollably again, although much slower. When I stopped to reflect on the situation and montiored the number of calories that I was eating, I realized that I was starving myself and still the weight piled on. At that point, I gave up on the goal weight and the eating plan. I just didn't want to live my life starving myself to maintain a low weight...I knew that I would not sustain that for very much longer.

Last spring my dentist decided that I should get my wisdom teeth removed. At my age, the specialist made me get a pre-op medical, so off to the dr. again. I had been avoiding him because he hassles me about my weight, so hadn't been to see him for a while. When I went in for the medical, he did the worst thing - he weighed me. Yep, then came the hassle about the weight. I told him that I had been starving myself but the hormones that I was taking was causing a weight gain that I could not counter. Soooo, he took me off the hormones, but I was already 40 pounds over my goal. He told me that, if I wanted to lose the weight, that I should cut carbs and sugar out of my diet. Well, I really don't like starches (except for pasta) and I had already cut a lot of the sugar out of my diet when I did the WW plan 3 years ago, so that was not a problem. He told me to try it for a month and "see what happens."

I went home that night and talked to DH about the carb diet (it scared me because of all the reports of high fat on a low carb diet), and DH mentioned that his staff at work were on the South Beach Diet. I got on the computer that night and researched the basis for the diet, bought the book the next day and have not looked back.

After my wisdom teeth were removed last June, I started a cardio program of power walking. I work at a college and have access to both an indoor and outdoor track at work, so I committed to spending my lunch breaks doing a cardio workout. I have been faithful to the program most of the time and find that my cardio has greatly improved.

At the college where I work, they also teach a personal fitness trainer program and those student look for clients in their last semester. I registered for a trainer this fall and worked with her for 6 weeks. Although we also have a weight room here, the trainer set me up on an exercise program to improve my strength/flexibility that I can do at home.

Like most people, I hate exercise, but I think the part that I really hate about exercise, is that I resent the time that it takes when I know there are so many other things that I need to get done. The program that I am presently do fits into that mindset...cardio at lunch where the time spent is really wasted time in my mind anyway, and the strength/flexibility training that I can complete at home and still throw a load of laundry in the wash in between set. :lol:

In addition to the exercise, I have not found it a problem to stay with the eating program, either. I can still have the odd treat and indulge my sweettooth, and as long as I exercise control, my weight has been easy to manage, so far. The bonus, is that I am never hungry or feel that I just have to have something to eat. Getting through the Christmas season will be a true test of my new WOE.

Hi Peggy :wave: Welcome to Maintainers :)
Sorry to hear that you hate exercise, but congratulations on reaching goal and finding a way to work it into your lifestyle so that you can maintain. As I'm sure you've discovered and read here, we've all found that regular exercise in integral to maintaining the weightloss!

Congratulations again on a job well done :high:

Mel

New Friend
 

My name is Gina. I am 46 years old. I have three daughters. They are ages 23, 20 and 15. I am married and have a part-time job.

My journey: Way back 13 years ago; I saw a video of my DD, second birthday. Who was that woman cutting the cake? It was I at 260 pounds. At 33 years old I was already a familiar weight watcher. I had battled my weight up and down 20 pounds since I was 16. I had never before this point gone over that 20-pound buffer. I was now 100 pounds over my heavy weight of 160. Part of the reason for the weight gain was undiagnosed depression. I was a very unhappy lady at that point in my life and food and alcohol were my self-prescribed medication. I began the journey and in two years lost 110 pounds. I steadily maintained that for the next 6 years. Then I hit a bump in the road and lost my footing. I regained 40 pounds. Thankfully, I was able to recover at that point and lose that and an additional 12 pounds. Since that set back I have been up and down at times but not more than my 10 pound buffer. I continue to follow weight watchers and am low-level exercisers. So my total number is 122 pounds. My weight watcher goal is 141 and my personal goal is 138. I continue to move forward on this journey.

I recently found this board and I felt like I found a home. The issue that are discussed here are so poignant and realistic. Below is my synopsis of my maintence journey. I look forward to posting and sharing with all of you.

Maintence is like a rose bush. It needs lots of care & it has sharp thorns. Sometimes you have no rose and it is discouraging. Just in time, a new bud is opening to renew your hope and give you strength. Maintence, like the rose, is very fragile but so beautiful and worth all the effort.

Welcome Gina! You and I have lost the same number of pounds! :D

What a lovely - and oh so accurate - description of maintenance.

We're so glad you've joined us and look forward to hearing lots more from you. You've been at this a lot longer than some of us and I'm sure you have lots of tips and insights to share. :)