I'm so glad to hear you getting back to normal, evemomma, hectic as it is. It's wonderful that you maintained healthy eating under very difficult circumstances. I hope that today has some peace & rest for you. A sad anniversary for sure.

Happy Monday Maintainers!

Ishbel I hope you got to use that new sled for the bebe. I have always lived in warm climates so sledding/snow/skiing is all fascinating to me. I would love to learn to ski, or even cross country. It's such a good workout.

Slip Wow! You got a lot done. My weekend was a bit busier than usual. I found an app called OfferUp where I can sell things. Kind of like Craig's List. I put up a bunch of my old XL workout clothes and they are flying out the door. All those people making New Year's resolutions to work out. I sold 5 different things over the weekend.

Debby I'm so sorry for your losses. I don't have either of my parents around either.

RuthAnn I think I'll think twice before alcohol again. I haven't been that woozy in a while. And I have several nice bottles of wine that were given to me over Xmas. I'll have to invite some friends over to help me drink them. I hate to waste a good wine by only drinking one glass out of a bottle. It never tastes the same no matter what fancy stopper/nitrogen gas canister thingy I have to keep the wine drinkable the next day. I wanted to ask you, when you started Maint. did you do fun days at all? I know you said you just work in what you want now.

Westwillow What a productive weekend you had. I was completely lazy by comparison. I got caught up on some TV and started knitting a beanie for my son. It will be my first time ever making a hat. Of course he chose the pattern with cables and diamonds, but I'll give it a try.

ecdcslim Good for you for doing the reboot now. I only have two weeks of Maint. under my belt, but I'm glad to know I have the tools to deal with up lbs when they show up.

evemomma Glad you are back. Your life sounds very hectic right now. And a sad day today. Sending you double .

Did anyone else buy the Chef Verati cookbook? I had a very big surprise last night when I made what the cookbook said was a fat meal but when I plugged it into MFP it came out a carb meal. I set up several other recipes just to see what would happen and none of them came out like the stats in the cookbook and I entered everything exactly as it was in the cookbook. I was really counting on this book to help me in Maint. I'm disappointed. I think I will send an email to the Chef via his FaceBook or the new website lowfatlowcarb.com

Also: NSV!! Can we still have those in Maint? I bought a pair of size 8 Not Your Daughters Jeans. Size 8!!! I noticed my 10's were kind of baggy in the legs so I tried these on. And the best part was that I had enough credit at the resale shop that I didn't have to pay a dime for them.

THanks Mars and Andrea!



Andrea...Hooray for NSV!!!! BUt as far as the cookbook, that stinks! I had a coach who was of no use to me WHATSOEVER with phasing off or maintenance, but I did have all the info that IP corporate provides for their P4 program. It doesn't surprise me that Chef V's book struggles to keep in the guidelines as I'm not sure anyone actually LIVED the guidelines the way I hear coaches recommending.

One thing I hear over and over is the a good protein guideline is to eat at least 50% of your weight in protein grams. Waaaaay off unless you are wanting to eat a much more porportionally heavy carb/fat diet (um, what they DON'T want you to do). With MFP set at 30% for protein, I still need to eat 128g of protein daily (so that's more like 1:1 ratio of weight/lbs to protein grams...BIG discrepency). I also have never heard/read clarification on if you are to count NET carbs or true carbs in the ratios. This is a pretty big discrepency. I choose to go with true carbs because it's too much of a pain to figure it any other way.

BUT, with the way I count it - especially with the fat meal - you really can ONLY get your carbs from veggies and maybe the littlest from dairy. But grains will throw you off BIG TIME. Frankly, I have found that using a ratio of 2:1 (again, counting TRUE carbs) seems to do just fine for me as far as not putting on weight.

I just cant' believe that a business as big as IP has SUCH poor planning for people spending so much money on it! Goes to show how little research has gone into successful maintainers.

OK, off my soap box.

Good afternoon all,

After tennis lesson, doesn't that sound soooo pretentious, my DH and I laugh every time I go. I am a retired teacher,so Slip I understand how you feel on Friday afternoon. The upside is my pension is great so I have the time and money for lessons, and because of IP the physical ability to try to play tennis. Now if only I had some athletic ability and eye hand coordination. I tried golf but the only thing I could get was the outfit.

Ruthann and Andrea I agree completely about being a cheap drunk, one glass is enough. Do you that we three being so short, that maybe it has a shorter trip to the brain

Jenny and Ishbel hats off to running. Never have never will,too much still jiggles.
I envy your strong will to run in this cold and even do hills. My DH has run two marathons ten years ago. I do not even like to drive 26 miles I can not image running them.

Eve what can I say, you just lost your father I had no idea that you had lost a child. My prayers are with you.

Lanai and Westwillow thanks for great advise and tips.

To everyone else thanks for being here.

Are any of you with the national registry for people who have kept a least 30 pounds off for one year. I think they good tips on Maintance from people who have lived it ???

IP says at least 50% of your weight in protein grams, so for instance I need to eat 66g of protein. BUT MFP is not talking about % of your weight, it's percent of your daily calories - totally different measurement. Maybe that will help, evemomma.

The percentage of calories thing in MFP is only useful for calorie counting diets. That's why I ignore the piechart/macros thing and just look at total calories, protein grams (as a percentage of my WEIGHT), and net carbs.

Liana

Maile is on the registry.... she is very busy right now with family health issues but she is a great resource and a fairly regular poster in maintainers so I think we'll see her back here once in a while.

Liana

I may not have been clear....I set my percentage at 30% because it meets my needs. BUT, 30% (which is lower than what many maintainers do) of my 1700 calories equals 128g of protein. THIS is 100% (essentially) of my weight in protein grams. Clear as mud, right?

eve, you are a tiny but tough 125!

I too struggle with MFP goals. I'm feel alert and well-nourished with high protein, often as high as 150g even more on occasion, Carbs ~50-70. If I cut the protein back, it means I have to up the fat a lot to meet my 1510 cal requirement. More fat scares the heck out of me for some reason. With protein, I try to limit the amount of animal protein & make sure to drink plenty of water.

Aside from the risk of kidney stones, I'm curious what are the health-related downsides of high protein consumption, (not counting expense & sustainability issues, etc).

Haha....125 (but who's counting....)....thanks Mars!

I do have a history of kidney stones, so that is one of my concerns with too high protein. One of my concerns was the high amount of soy in many protein products...so I'm cutting down on those. Interestingly, my fat is at 35% of my daily calories (I think that equals 66g for me)...and I have been doing well there. I try to keep my 'bad fats' really low.

Hi Eve, I'm glad you are taking care of yourself through a very tough time.

I have found a hack for MFP that allows me to set the percentage of carbs as net carbs. I've lowered my percentage of protein so it is more in line with the half our body weight number.

That said, this net carb hack has to be installed on a desktop not mobile device. It doesn't read quite accurately on my android phone. You have to select fiber as one of your metric choices.

http://www.travelinglowcarb.com/4448/myfitnesspal-hack/

I just found a hack to set goals in grams instead of percentages, so I will try that next. http://karoshiethos.com/2013/08/13/j...-myfitnesspal/

I hope this is helpful!!!

Thanks, murrcat, I think I'll give the hack a whirl.

I've set my MFP so that protein is 20% of my calories - sounds weird but that's 50% of my body weight. Now I often go over that as it's my minimum, but not usually more than 29% of my calories. Works... as 29% is 100g of protein, enough to feed a 200lb person.

My calories from carbs are also around 29%-37% max. Leaving a range for fat of from 51% down to 34% (almost never at the lower end though).
An interesting math exercise...
Sorry I misunderstood your meaning, evemomma

Liana

Real quick 'cause dinners waiting - I set my MFP goals at 30 carb/35 fat/35 protein which is semi-close to what I do but then I pretty much ignore the "goal" numbers and pay attention to the actual numbers. I really try to get .08% of my body weight in protein at least, at least 60 gr of fat and stay under 125 net carbs. That's what my coach suggested. I treat the protein and fat as minimums and the carbs as maximums. I'm really working on muscle building/strengthening so the protein is really important for me. I don't always hit everything dead on but figure I'm close more often than not.

Girl, no apology needed! Hopefully my sarcasm about ME being clear as mud wasn't lost in translation. This is all a lot of math for this unmathy girl!

Murrcat....I think that hack is brilliant!

RuthAnn...your coach sounds awesome and so well informed! Your numbers aren't far from what I do with my goals being 35 carbs/35 fat/30 protein (at 1700 calories). My fat goal is to stay under 66 grams, total carbs is 149 but net carbs is 125, and protein is 128 (but this is the one that I often can't meet).