Jayell I hear you about not being the feminine little girl. I used to be allowed to wear my cousin's (boy) clothes in winter when we went tobogganing or skating and I didn't want to take them off! Pants, to me, were so much more sensible for living.

I still remember the last time my mom choose an item of clothing for me. I was 10 and needed a new spring coat. My mom picked bright orange with a lime green check, cuffs, and collar, and big silver buttons. I was totally mortified and refused to wear it. She threw the bill at me and told me to take it back.

So I did! And I got the dark green coat with black trim and zipper that I wanted in the first place.

My poor mom. She didn't want kids in the first place and then she got a girl who didn't want to wear party dresses, patent leather shoes, and whose hair would not hold a ribbon (other than stapling or crazy gluing it in there).

Dagmar

Easter was a nightmare. Mom wanted to put me in lavender with ruffles. Was it thus for you, too, Dagmar?

My mom made me wear a dress to church every week, but quickly realized that I needed to wear shorts underneath also. During childrens' time, I would hang upside down from the bars in the church playground (that was just outside the windows of the church itself).

The one legacy from my mom that still bothers me is my need for control over my food. This developed as a result of her stringent regulation of my eating habits all throughout high school (and yes, this is when I learned to sneak food and binge in private). It still rears its ugly head. Just this morning, my BF made a piece of toast with jam and said "I made you breakfast!". I had already decided to skip breakfast, but I ate it because I knew it would hurt his feelings if I didn't. No biggie, right? I was hungry, so what's wrong with eating a darn piece of toast? Except it made me mad immediately that I was being "forced" to eat it. Totally stupid, I know. At least I recognize it for what it is.

My mom liked to wear hats and white wrist length gloves in her younger days. She felt I should look the part of a little girl whose mom was a "lady". The worst thing was the darn hair ribbons. I have thin, stick straight hair that will not even stay put in an elastic. Everything slides off it. She kept putting the things in my hair and they kept coming off. Little white ankle socks and pointy toed patent leather shoes went with the ribbon (I had the broad duck feet as a kid already) and I was expected to stay clean for hours.

My best buddies were boys. You can't play outside with boys and stay clean (particularly in the girlie getups). I finally got into some animal poop (on purpose) and then I was bought a pair of pants and some pullovers for playclothes.

All the girls had to wear dresses or skirts and sweaters to school. That ended in middle school when the Board of Education changed the dress code. Yeesh!

Jayzee re the shorts under the dress .

Dagmar

The scale slapped me down hard this morning.

I knew this was coming, as I could see even see it in my jawline yesterday.

It said I was up 5.4 pounds. Some of that is fluid retention, as my ankles are puffy. But some is probably not.

It said, "Yeah, I know about those three granola bars."

It said, "And where have all the pistachios gone?"

But at least my dept's recruiter is out there trying to contact the candidate whom I decided to offer the job. Not that we're done yet. There is the whole offer negotiation, signoff on the hire and all the other stuff. But I won't be screening resumes, doing phone interviews or panel interviews, or digging out my charcoal pinstripe suit to wear to the office for the in-person interviews.

Worth a read: http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2013/10...rison-worth-it. I feel like I'm becoming the internet librarian for the Maintainers group.

I shouldn't have read that article when I was overtired, Andrea, and not feeling good about my weight or performance running & in the gym today. I feel like I can actually feel the extra bit of weight hampering me.

All I've got are questions and anger:

So are all maintainers dealing with some form of eating disorder because we're so vigilant about our habits? Or if not 100% then 75% of maintainers?

Or are the formerly morbidly obese who are are now pretty much at normal weight really the only ones suffering from eating disorders because we are so very afraid of swinging back to the extreme?

Is it bad to really, really NOT want to go back to being fat? I have to pick between being obese and living in a food prison?

Maybe instead of going back to being morbidly obese, or just overweight -- which I am currently, at 5'3" and about 154 pounds -- I should let go and just become plain obese, but going to the gym less and eating what I want?

I don't like those choices.

I have to think whatever's broken in me is permanently broken, or was never quite right to begin with, and I've just got to "pick my hard."

That it's chronic & akin to the chemical imbalance of requiring antidepressants for the rest of my life.

All this just leaves me feeling tired. I think it's time for bed.

Andrea and saef There's being mindful and aware of what we eat and how much we exercise and weigh. And there's being obsessive. I think most of us fall into somewhere in the middle. Some days we're right on track and others we are not.

I feel I am mostly the former and I'm happy overall with that.

And right now, with my kitchen in chaos and my gym packed into a box, I know I can't do maintenance properly.

But I know I can get back there and will. The extra 5 lbs. or so (haven't weighed myself this month) that I've put on will come off. And if all of it doesn't I will be fine with that.

If that is showing compassion for myself - good!

Dagmar

Yes, I think so. That's what it looks like to me. I've just finished editing a chapter on eating disorders in a college textbook on nutrition. Here on 3FC, I see a lot of eating disorder behaviors among the maintainers. When you think about it, it only makes sense. (Of course, not all maintainers are like this! Please don't jump all over me if you're one of those who is not.)

Sometimes, but not always. Someone who has lost 100 pounds or more is in a different category than someone who has lost 30. But, you often see obsessive/compulsive/disordered thinking in people with lower weight loss.

It's not "bad" to not want to go back to being obese. How to avoid that, and what it really means, are a different matter.

Thinking one is permanently broken or never quite right isn't a very positive place, is it--whether we're talking about metabolism or brain chemistry. Edited to add: Or anything else about oneself!

I'm heavy now. Every day I have to remind myself that I am OK. I'm not a failure, I'm not ugly, I'm not weak and defective and lazy. I am OK. I do not need to be fixed. I do not need more discipline or a boot camp approach to life. I am OK!

I have to remind myself of this because so many messages from inside and outside tell me the opposite. Am I happy with my current weight? No! But I don't think the regimen I used to lose 50 pounds was actually helpful to me in the long run. Witness the present.

I am looking for something different, and I think it has to do with stress reduction and more physical activity. Not two hours every day at the gym--more physical activity.

I wanted to post again one of Andrea's references:
http://eatmore2weighless.com/metabol...w-much-longer/

Here is one of the items from a checklist on that web page:

This is a problem I face right now. I have only a few clothes that fit me at my current size, and it is a problem. I hate buying new clothes under any conditions, as you all know--but I think I'm also punishing myself for regaining by not buying for my current size. It's time to stop that and get dressed properly. That's about living in the present.

Jay

I went clothes shopping with DH yesterday. He got three pairs of jeans and I got nothing. A top I tried on was just weird. The black dress pants were too short and the jeans just weren't "right." The good news is that I didn't need a size 12 but couldn't fit in an 8, so it is true that I've gained. Well, I knew that but this reinforces it.

I really want new black dress pants. The pair I own is 15 years old! I need new jeans because it's going to be cooler here and I don't want to wear the only pair that fit every day. I have a couple pair that are too small and I refuse to pack myself into them and be uncomfortable.

Saef, I am so, so sorry that my posts put you in such a negative frame of mind. As you know, I've been grappling for over 6 months with the weight regain issue, and because of my type-A, somewhat obsessive nature, combined with my predisposition to read research studies and analyze data, I have spent at least a dozen hours researching the conundrum of how to be a weight maintainer (not a weight regainer) yet not have it consume my life and make me miserable. Because it was/is making me miserable. I can't tell you how devastated I felt when a 3-week-long 1200 cal/day diet (or so I thought), led to absolutely NO weight loss. I really felt abjectly defeated by that experience, like I failed a final exam or something. It made no sense to me: I couldn't possibly have "wrecked" my metabolism so badly that even 1200 cal/day was now maintenance. I knew I couldn't possibly live on that little food long term, so regain was clearly inevitable.

So, in response to some of your questions, and some you didn't ask, here's what I have learned in the last week of compulsive reading.

1. I was clearly deluding myself when I believed myself to be eating 1200 cal/day. What I was actually doing was more like 1200/1500/1400/2000/1800/1500/1200. I did not weigh/measure, and I turned a deliberate blind eye to extra helpings of dinner, not to mention late-afternoon nibbles (even if was "just" an apple and a serving of baby carrots, that's actually over 100 cal).
2. My slow regain likely reflects both an increased laxness with food portions, as well as decreased NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) - you can read about it here if you want: http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=415 This means that even though I haven't scaled back on my planned exercise, I am burning fewer calories each day anyway. The good news here is that, unlike a reduction in resting metabolic rate, this is something I can actually do something about, like use a standing desk instead of sitting all day, or take a few 10 min. walks through the course of the day, while listening to an ipod.
3. It is a fiction that my resting metabolic rate is soooo much lower than everyone else's. Being "reduced obese" (actually reduced overweight in my case), probably hasn't lowered my RMR by more than 10%. This means that, even with my lowered NEAT, I can probably eat 1700-1800 cal/day and not gain weight, as long as I can manage not to lie to myself about how much I'm really eating (and continue to exercise vigorously ~5 hrs/week).
4. In order to improve my NEAT, not only do I have to be more conscious of my "unconscious" activity (pretty hard to do), I actually need to eat enough calories to convince my body that it's not starving and shouldn't shut down all my NEAT activity. However, if I eat more cals than I expend, I will [continue to] gain weight. This means I would actually need to get MORE obsessive with my weight and exercise rather than less, at least for awhile, to figure out what those numbers really are, although the woman who writes the GoKaleo
blog claims that I can somehow manage to achieve consistently eating just-a-few-hundred-calories-under maintenance through some intuitive process that will allow me to give up obsessively calorie counting.
5. The woman who writes the GoKaleo blog claims that she is at peace with food, does not obsess, and in fact, the WHOLE POINT of her blog -and her support group ("Eat The Food," on FB) is how to let go of food obsession while still maintaining your figure. So, no, apparently not every single reduced-obese maintainer obsessively counts calories in and calories out. Ditto for Geneen Roth, and I'm sure there are a few others. The fact that they can stay slim while not obsessing doesn't give me any comfort, but I'm thinking I can learn from them.
6. I have to get to a better place with regard to weight maintenance than I have been, increasingly, for the last 6 months. I cannot spend 50% of my waking hours either upset about my regain, planning what I'm going to eat and not eat, binging/overeating, then punishing myself by overexercising or starving myself the next day. I am convinced that there is a way out of this prison, because others have done it.

HTH. I'm not sure about next steps, but I'll let you know when I figure it out :>)

Feeling a little better today, but not much.

I'm left thinking that body type is preordained, and maybe I have to believe in a kind of Calvinism governing one's weight: There are a few fortunate chosen ones, predestined to be naturally slender. And then there are the rest of us, who are not part of the elect. Only by constant hard work & choosing wisely a large percentage of the time can ever hope to attain anything close to the weight of the fortunate predestined few. Or if we don't choose that, then we have to take on a philosophy of stoicism or perhaps work toward some beatific state of self-acceptance. Neither of these states of mind are easy to attain. So I'm left with "Pick your hard."

saef, you are a lovely, successful, intelligent, and creative woman. You are strong and capable.

Don't make it harder than it has to be. Those of us, like myself, who were raised to think our only value had to do with our achievements, have a tendency to turn everything into a Project--and then oppress ourselves with it.

I've known people who make even meditation into a Project and then grow frustrated because they are sure they aren't doing it right. Well--to the extent their jaws are clenched, it's true. They missed the point.

Things are not so extreme as all that. I do believe that to some extent body type is "predestined" because we all have a genetic legacy to work with. But must we go for Calvinism? Or stoicism or beatific self-acceptance? I hope not. Don't go there. Try for a middle path.

Jay

I've been lurking but have to pop up. Yes! A project that cannot be aced. But how difficult to put away the 'standard' in favor of a joyful lifestyle change, a celebration of health. I dunno. I'm tired of numbers and sizes and wish I could just move more and eat well for it's own sake. Once the numbers get involved, it messes with my head. Will I every be able to exercise and eat right without the ulterior motive? Is it possible that I've ruined myself by trying to be someone I'm not - instead of being my best trying to be someone else's best and in doing so gotten so off track? Have all the media representations - of not just fashion, but fitness skewed my process, putting performance expectations in my head that are not mine to achieve?

exhale15 " But how difficult to put away the 'standard' in favor of a joyful lifestyle change, a celebration of health. I dunno. I'm tired of numbers and sizes and wish I could just move more and eat well for it's own sake. "

For me this is a great summation of how I want to live.A joyful celebration of health - what could be a better goal? To weigh 5 lbs. less and be miserable and in Andrea's "prison"? NO! To constantly obsess about a number on a box that we step on? NO! To beat myself up for days if I eat a handful of jelly beans? NO!

For me, this is what I want to achieve with maintenance -

Dagmar