Pam - I've only been maintaining for ten months, but I've bounced up to my redline, back down to what I consider my norm, down a few pounds under, back up to redline... etc... several times during the process. I often feel like I'm still in weight loss mode, too, and get pretty restrictive with what I'm eating when I get close to the line for too long. I spent the six weeks or so in a tighter eating pattern getting back down from a (failed) raised calorie test, finally got back to my norm two weeks ago. Then, as usual, threw myself off - this time it was a late Father's Day luncheon with cake... So I was at redline again on Monday, which led me to more cake, back almost normal yesterday, and then tonight a Frosty at Wendy's after a tough day of hanging ceiling fans and bam, I'll be back up to redline tomorrow. So, Monday will start another couple of weeks of calorie restriction to try to combat it. I'm wondering if that is just what my maintenance is going to be like... I'm keeping a spreadsheet of my daily weight and trying to look at the long term averages instead of the daily numbers. I'm still not completely sure of my maintenance number either - calculators say 1830 without accounting for any exercise, I've done close to 2000 with exercise and been okay, but was starting to gain a little when I got much higher than that so dropped back down to the 1830-1930 I had been doing. It is very complicated.
Hope everyone had a good holiday!
Shannon in ATL , 07-04-2009 10:31 PM