Thank Liana! Had my WI this morning and it does appear to be water retention. We discussed my not great food week this week so the goal is to have a really clean week next week. I feel like the junk food around the office is picking up. Not sure if that is due to the upcoming holidays (plus I work for a restaurant company…we always have food around!) or football season but the temptations seem like they are all around me recently. My coach mentioned “slippery slope” and that’s exactly what it feels like. Not being in ketosis this upcoming holiday season is going to be interesting. More challenging for sure.

BTW, I crammed my inflamed glutes in my jeans this morning. Reminder to myself that I don’t want to grow out of these jeans should more temptations come my way today.

When your muscles are sore, they retain water? I have been stuck at the same weight for days (6 to be exact) but I have been SOOOOO sore from some of my workouts this week. I am also at the tail end of my period, so maybe both combined are preventing scale movement?

Based on personal evidence -- I think this is TRUE. I recently increased my steps from 4500 to 10,000 a day and I overdid it the first day and was so sore I could not walk for 2 days. The first day after my overexertion workout, my weight popped up 3 pounds -- then quickly fell down to below my starting weight on subsequent days. So at least for my body ... when I am SORE from working out too much ... i retain water.

I just googled this topic and found this ... this article explains it better!

http://www.livestrong.com/article/39...ance-training/

Good article! I think that could be why I haven't seen any movement on the scale. I have been super diligent, so it can't be because of bad choices. I'm going to drink a little more water today and see if I can flush some of this out!

Water was always the key to successful losses for me. Sadly, I still neede a water app to remind me to drink up!

I know people also do a lot of different exercises in P1 but walking is recommended. My coach was very concerned about my body eating away at my muscle mass with anything more intense. Even now in maintenance, if I plan to exercise she doesn't want me to take a P1 day. P2 minimum.

Woo-hoo! Scale finally made a move after 6 excruciating days and I have officially met my first mini goal- to get out of the 160's.

Now it is time to focus on mini goal #2- get to 155# by Thanksgiving (US). Since I am doing this modified, I know my losses will be slower than if I was on P1. Slow and steady this time around

Jennydoodle, fantastic news!! You are doing great!

Hey I just wanted to make a quick book recommendation to people on this Forum ... "The Beck Diet Solution: Train your brain to think like a thin person". It focuses on the mental/psychological aspect of dieting and maintaining. I actually bought the Audiobook and listen to it when I am walking. It's quite good. For $10, it's a wealth of information. And attacks this subject of how to mitigate "psychological diet sabotage" from every angle possible.

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a good weekend. I got some really fabulous news this morning, the program I am participating in at my gym ends this Sat (10/31) not next! I am very excited because that means I am officially starting a full fledged reboot. I am going to be using alternatives, but I am now going to be following P1.

Since there are only a few days left, I officially started this morning. I am a very impatient person and thanks to Avalon's advice, I decided to just do a full blown reboot and lose the weight as quickly as possible. I also had a good discussion with my husband over the weekend and he had the same advice. "Get in, get it done, get out. As quickly as possible".

I have 30# to lose (from this point forward) and I am going to give myself 22 weeks to get this done. I hopefully will not need that time, but I am coming from a different place this time than I was before, so I am erring on the side of conservative. This will put me at the end of March, and this will give me a couple of times that I expect not to lose (Thanksgiving, Christmas, a trip to Key West in Feb.). Last time when I did P1, I had no clue about food affected me and I was eating TONS of carbs and all the wrong things for my digestive system. Now, I know, so I expect my losses to be slower because I have had a few years of eating better and I have been way more in tune with food.

I finally feel at peace that I have made this decision and that I am getting started. I was really grappling because I just didn't know what I wanted to do and I felt that since I (thought) I had 2 more weeks left on the program that I didn't want to go full P1 yet. However, now that this is the last week, I am not waiting any longer and I finally feel relieved that I made this decision. The good news is, at least I am starting 6# lighter

Hey Maintainers! Quick question for you. I know breakfast is a combo of carbs/fats/protein (and I use the breakfast planning sheet available here on 3FC) but then lunch and dinner are supposed to favor carbs OR fats, but not both. Obviously there are a lot of foods that have both fats AND carbs in them. How do you manage this? Are there certain number ranges that you try to stay within? I don’t know, like, if something has 25+ carbs, then less than 5 fats? Or never exceed X number of fats or carbs in a meal?

Not even sure if my question makes sense. Just looking at my daily MFP and I am always heavy on fats. Usually way under on carbs. I want to add carbs but so many also have a lot of fat!

My BF% seems like it has been creeping up since hitting goal in June. The trainer at my gym thinks it is because I am not eating enough carbs (especially after working out).

Using the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and The Institute of Medicine (IOM) I am now trying to eat the following each day:
Carbs ACSM 58%, IOM 45-65%
Fats ACSM 20-30%, IOM 20–35%
Protein: ACSM 12%, IOM 10-35%

BTW, my IP coach kind of warned me against MFP. She says it makes it too easy to focus on calories, not carbs/fats/proteins. I am trying to work smarter, not harder…but am having trouble figuring all this out. Up until now, I’ve focused more on total daily calories and keeping carbs low.

CenTX: The maintenance plan that most follow is that lunch is the fat heavy meal and dinner is the carb heavy meal. You do this by making the macros of the meal you are eating to work out to 3:1. So in a lunch example your TOTAL macros would be 3 times as much carb as fat. So for example your fat grams would be 45 and the carbs would be 15(net). Then you switch it around at dinner. There are always going to be a combo of fats/carbs at every meal. IP wants us to focus on the ratios while keeping calorie count in mind as well. Does that make sense?

My personal settings for Maint are approx. 1700 calories of which the macro's are:

Carbs 35%
Fat 40%
Protein 25%

I don't strictly adhere to either the calories or macros every day, it's more like a guideline, but when I look at it over the span of week, it comes pretty close every time. I've been in Maint for almost 11 months now and I still use MFP every day. It helps keep me accountable and it's become one of my new habits, just like weighing every day. Have to be able to keep wearing my revenge wardrobe!

You can adjust these settings in MFP for whatever % you want them to be. It takes a little playing around with to find what works for you. MFP is quite brilliant at helping keep track of all of this, not just calories. At the beginning of Maint. I couldn't have done the ratios correctly without MFP so I don't understand why your coach is advising against it. It's a very helpful tool.

I know a few maintainers who say
Carbs 40%
Fat 30%
Protein 30%

I imagine everyone has to figure out what ratios work for them.

When I get to maintenance, I think I will just add some cheese to my veggie+meat lunch. Then at dinner, a healthy carb (sweet potato or brown rice) with a bit of butter. I like the 3:1 explanation; that's very helpful.

Andrea you have a revenge wardrobe? Tell me more.

CenTx - I use my tracking app on and off - if I'm running into issues I get back on. I eat a lot of the same foods all the time so I have a general sense of where I'm landing, which is similar to Andrea's stats. I'm taller than her so I am usually around 2000 esp. when I'm exercising, I try to do a lighter day or two a week of 1200 or so. That usually happens naturally, and my weekly stats average out to about 1700 a day.

Jennydoodle I love reading your updates here and on other threads. I exercise a lot and it's a continual challenge to keep my weight maintained yet still have the steady energy that I want and need in my life, both for exercise and more importantly just for daily life.

SlipFree hope things are coming along well with your reboot. Are you finished yet?

Avalon, Liana, DD, Jenny38, JJTx and all others hope things are going well.

I am doing well - had an interesting moment in the bathroom today, drying my hair in my undies and bra in front of the mirror. For the first time ever since I can remember (I have memories of self-hate for my body at age 5) I truly felt at peace with how my body looks. Even if I don't get plastic surgery (on my tummy, which has always been the area in the past that has troubled me most, and has some extra skin now), I actually feel very fine and find it lovely as it is. That was a surprising and really nice feeling.
Following that, I had a realization about how much body image obsession, either negative or positive, really is so self absorbed. I have known that for a long time, but suddenly really "got" that the only person my self-judgments hurt is me, and the only person that can give me the validation I want is me. I have tried to get external validation over my life, and no matter how much I get, it never "solves" or fulfills the need. And the way it can hurt others is if the people I love feel me suffering from it.
As I wrote a while ago, I have a new boyfriend, for a few months now, and have more frequently been spending time at his house. I decided when I started dating him not to talk about body image very much, if at all. Just to let him love me as I am, without questioning it or discussing it. And in doing that, realizing that the conversation about body image, if I were to have it, would be very uninteresting both for him and me, and no purpose other than fostering negative self image or having a boring conversation that is not giving love or care to anyone.
It's been an incredible journey for me, almost like a freefall, just to have that kind of "leap of faith" that I am fine just as I am. And in doing that, this morning I actually internalized it. Hooray!

Amber AMAZING breakthrough! I am so happy for you! There may be times of doubt still, but hang onto this feeling!

CenTX - not sure about your coaches opinion of MFP...is there another app she recommends? My MFP tracks my current P1 macros (1,000 cal / 50 p / 30 f / 20 c) and tells me when I've met or exceeded my goals. It is very easy to go and look at daily, weekly, and monthly macros to see where changes need to be made.

Starting to lurk here a little more - 39 days to my first P3 breakfast

Amber- that is awesome! I am looking forward to that day for myself Exercise is a HUGE component of my life, so finding that balance is hard. This was the biggest struggle for me during maintenance. I absolutely love to exercise and do Crossfit. The short version of the story is that while I was on P1, I was smart about exercise, scaled everything to lighter weights and really monitored myself. Once I got into maintenance, I pushed too hard without fueling properly and had several injuries because I wasn't eating enough to support my work load. In the end, I ended up adding more calories and more carbs. I put on a ton of muscle mass, but I also put on a lot of poundage and fat. I had finally reached the point where I was upset with myself for getting that big and to the point where I didn't feel comfortable in my clothes or be able to wear my jeans. In the end, I realized that being skinnier and feeling comfortable in my skin and my clothes was more important to me than how much weight I could lift in the gym. Soooooooo, here I am, after coming to that conclusion doing my reboot to get my body back.

Day 1 of official P1 reboot is in the books. I did a random VLC day on Sunday, so today is officially my 3rd day of being VLC, even though it is only day 2 of reboot. Hopefully by tomorrow morning I should be in ketosis and start to reap the weight loss benefits.

Thank you Beth. This certainly is all a process. Thank you for the reminder to hang onto the truth when/if future doubts try to crowd in.

As far as tracking, and macros, and weighing, and all of that - I can't tell you how many differing opinions and thoughts I have heard about all of these things. All very researched, and differing things from successful maintainers, doctors, well regarded books, "experts" etc. For me, this first year of successful maintenance has been a huge trial and error period. Just learning what works for me - and sometimes something that worked one month (or one week, or one day, or one meal) stops working.
You will hear very strong opinions (Never track, always track, only weigh once a month, only weigh every day).... you have to learn what works for you.
I know people that felt they needed to stop posting here in order to succeed in maintenance, they felt an unhealthy attention on the boards. For me, I go through phases of needing support here daily and then I don't check in for a while, but something about staying consistent here seems like an important tool for me personally. I have a tendency over my lifetime to kind of bury my head in the sand in this area when I'm confronted, am gaining, or feel I've "done something wrong" so it helps me to stay focused on my health in this area by coming here. Also I continue to learn a lot from the other people here that I simply can't find elsewhere, including my doctor/clinic.

Because we are actually DOING the trial and error, and overall SUCCEEDING! WHOOT!

It's the same reason I keep going to yoga - it just forces me to check in with my body and really spend a full hour with it in front of the mirror, remembering that is a highly functioning vehicle that is serving me well, that I want to care for.