So I've been about the same weight for probably two years-a major feat in the world of weight loss (fighting the regain). But lately, perhaps the past 3 months or so, I've been pretty lax in my eating habits. I lost the weight as a calorie counter, and had been maintaining around 142 at around 1800 calories a day and maybe 2000 or a little more on weekends. It's definitely something I can live with and had been for a long time. Lately, my weight has crept up to around 150 consistently and I've been consuming around 2000-2300 a day. This math sounds logical. I seem to have a "normal" metabolism and it's behaving accordingly. hahaha But I know I'm not hungry when I'm eating too much and I'm fully aware that I'm doing it. I'm overeating "healthy" things, but it's too many calories nonetheless. I just got so annoyed with myself that I took my light ice cream and washed it down the drain and swore I wouldn't buy any more ice cream until I can get my head together again. Has anybody else gone through something like this? I'm fully aware of what I'm doing to myself. I know that I only need to go back to my previous level of calories and eventually my weight will go back down again. Why can't I just do it? Actually, I'm hoping that just by what I'm doing now (actually writing it down and making myself accountable for it), maybe I will get back to what I was doing before.
I'm not too bad off yet. My shorts that I use as a "marker" still button, but they're awfully tight. They fit quite comfortably a few months ago. ugh. Anyway, thanks for letting me air my "dirty laundry". Here's to hoping that we can all figure out what to do when things start to "creep up" again!

Yes, I struggle with this all the time. I realize that I start fudging and sliding - take mouthfuls while I cook or do the dishes, take samples from Trader Joe's Whole Foods, grab hard candies out of the candy dish at work (I don't eat chocolate candies at work, but somehow hard candies don't count - they count when I eat 10 of them!). I drink a little more wine when out to dinner, I eat more than half a share of dessert, I eat out of the bread basket.

You are SEEING it and STOPPING it. That is the best thing!!!

Yes and yes. I'm just getting back down after a little deviation myself...

The key is to recognize it and commit to stopping it. Getting rid of the stuff you can't control is a great start. You could also make a plan for the week given the calorie level you want to hit. Plan your whole menu - dinners, lunches, breakfasts, snacks...then buy the stuff you need for the menu with as little extra as possible. You won't have things on hand that are easy to "slip" with (and if you can't control ice cream, you can simply not include it for a while).

A few weeks of that, consistently, and you'll be back on track. You can do this!

Yep, you need to stop the creeping calories... You can't go back to old habits! A little bit here, a bite or two there... Nope! Time to put an end to that before you have any more to lose.

The mother of a friend of mine, who has always been "normal" sized, never lets her weight get beyond what she can lose in a week, or two at most. That seems like a good strategy to me--otherwise it's harder.

C'mon now! You know how!

Jay

Not only do I understand it - I KNOW it. Those extra bites here and there are defintely more then enough to pile on pounds. One of my strategies for coping with this, I am a terrible grazer, is to actually allot a couple of hundred calories a day for this very purpose.

I'm glad you're aware of it and are taking the steps NOW to get it in control, BEFORE it really gets out of hand. Sounds like it's time for you to do a little evaluating, a little tweaking and that's just what you're doing. Way to go!

lipidful, I'm living the results of letting things get out of control right now. 2 Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons ago (yup, TWO!) my weight started to creep up from my maintenance weight. I was working out (though my routine was a bit stale, to be frank), and sort of eating healthily, but indulging in too many treats, and eating a bit too much when I wasn't hungry. Of course I said, well, it's the holidays, I'll take care of it after the holidays...not sure what happened in the spring...then in the summer there are all those yummy beach drinks... at that point I sort of woke up, and realized that I was a consistent 10 lbs over my goal weight. And I tried to go "back to basics" food-wise, and... it didn't work. It was so frustrating that eating healthily, less, and working out wasn't taking off any weight that time around that I would eat badly again! It took a few more months of detective work, being laid up for a month b/c of a food injury, (and another holiday season!) to self-diagnose that my BC pill was definitely making me retain lots of water, and possibly making it harder for me to lose weight, and that I really needed to change up my workouts. I've been back to basics food-wise, with a new workout routine, since January, new BC in March, and the weight is finally coming off.

Additionally, a commitment this month not to drink any alcohol or eat any sweets has made me realize that even when I said I was "back to basics" I was still indulging too much - desserts had once again become much too regular for me.

So the moral of this long story is, yes, I know what you're going through, except that you've caught this way before I did. Don't let yourself become me! Recognition of the problem is an important start. Since it seems like you know where the problem lies - eating, even healthily, when you're not hungry, that seems like a good place to start to fix the problem. But I encourage you to re-visit other factors too that might also need tweaking (e.g. I was focused on food and ignoring my old workout routine). Those marker shorts will be fitting right again in no time!

Even though I've sort of considered myself in maintenance the whole time, when I get back to goal weight, I'm definitely going to see if I can't ease myself onto maintenance a little differently and learn from this whole 1 1/2 years to keep it from happening again!

Lipidful, your post is almost exactly like one I made several months ago. I had gained weight due to the holidays and a newly diagnosed thyroid problem. Even though my thyroid was being medicated and the gain stopped, I knew I was eating badly. I knew it had to stop. But I just kept eating anyway. I ended up making a couple simple rules, and once I had those under control, my motivation to eat well came back, and my motivation to get good workouts. For me, I stopped eating desserts on weekdays and I stopped eating the free food at work. I also went back to basics and started counting my calories and logging my food.

The weight is finally coming off, but slowly. I've slipped up a few times the past couple weeks and as a result I haven't lost for a couple weeks, but I still feel like I'm making progress.

lipidful~I could have written that post! I've been "maintaining" since November 2006, but in that time, I've gained about 13 pounds. That doesn't seem a lot like maintaining to me. The first 3 pounds were pretty much quickly put on and I stayed at that weight for 6 months or more. Then I went up 3 more. I started exercising regularly in hopes that I'd lost at least those 3 pounds. It didn't work. I gained a few more and just recently a couple more.

I'm still within my healthy weight range for my height and my clothes still fit. I think that's my biggest problem. I know my tummy is jigglier than I want it, but no one seems to notice the change (other than myself) and people still think I'm losing.

My food choices haven't changed all that much. I still rarely eat desserts and sweets. I don't eat a lot of bad snacks like chips, either. I don't over eat at meal times and my snacks are healthy. I'm still exercising. I'm like "what gives?"

There are times when I think I need to really concentrate on a "diet" (even though my diet has been more of a total change of lifestyle rather than a diet). I keep thinking that a couple weeks of South Beach might do me good. Mind you I "think" this but haven't actually "done" it yet.

Anyway, you are not alone!!!! Maybe we ought to team up and do something together!!

This may sound kind of silly, but...If I find I'm straying from my routine (which also includes carb counting for diabetes issues) I have found for me it works to have a little "ceremony" of some kind to make an official start to doing better. For example, I do yoga, so I might have dedicated a session to reminding myself what's gone wrong and to give myself a chance to start over. Then it seems official to me. Or, another time I wrote down what I planned to do ( it was cut out the creeping cereal snacking habit), stuck it in the hands of this little clay figurine I have on my stove, and said, OK, that's it, I know you're watching me. It sort of gives me a starting point for a new habit, or renewing what I know I should be doing, and cleans out the past mistakes at the same time, which I think is very important. Carries me for enough time that I usually break the habit or whatever I was trying to do. I still need my willpower to keep going, but for some reason this allows me to forgive my slips and start over.

Currently I can see that my love for peanut butter is going to require an intervention soon! I remind myself I am writing all of it down and staying in my numbers, but things are getting out of balance. Funny, I never used to like PB that much, but lately, it's just the thing I want.

Hey Pink - I always find myself really really craving peanut butter if I'm not getting enough healthy fat in my diet (the body wants what it needs sometimes). Maybe try including a few more nuts (sesame seeds on salads, a few cashews in stir fries) and using a little full fat salad dressing (the healthy kind, of course) - it could defuse the cravings.

Wow, it is incredible how much some of us have in common. For me, too, there are similar characteristics:
-not really eating a lot of junk
-not indulging in free work treats
-eating too much of "good stuff" like cereal! (sound familiar?) and for me, almond butter instead of peanut butter
Maybe all these similarities are indicative of a certain pattern that we all need to watch out for that can make regain come frome something that seems so innocent.

Thanks, Glory87, for the PB info. I have had the same thought myself, that my craving was a symptom of needing to rebalance a bit. I noticed the cereal thing improved when I adjusted the pattern of when I eat my carbs - I was just too low in the afternoon and that was why the cereal was calling my name so insistently. I will take your suggestion about adding the good fats and pay more attention - I have also used avocados in this capacity in the past and I realized I haven't been eating so many lately.

Back to the topic, it's interesting to me what you say about the body wanting what it needs - I can see that then that can lead us into a problem, weight gain, etc. when really, maybe on thing tha could help is examining the nutrition side of things and making adjustments - could be of big help in avoiding setting up a long slide. At least for me this is true. I have been surprised how my moods, energy, outlook on life can be so affected by my diet and eating patterns. If I manage things well, things go well, if I fall away from it, my general life activities all suffer too! I feel I have some power over the issue from this viewpoint, not that it's just something that happens to me.

Very interesting to me, I wish I had understood this earlier. I would not have been so hard on myself on failing at weight loss in the past- it's not a character issue, there are actual physical reasons for why I did what I did, beyond all the cultural and emotional issues that can be involved as well (Such as growing up with the best cook in the world for a grandmother, but whose cooking was traditional Southern - -fried! fried! fried!) Working with my body instead of against it has made all the difference.