I finally got my goal weight yay! and I am scared to DEATH of eating more. I know this is where the hard work begins and I know I have more room to eat but I am literally panicking!!

How did you guys do transitioning through it?

I'm not of much help on this one, I'm afraid... I mostly just fluctuate up and down 5-10 lbs or so, and try to accept that.

But congrats on reaching goal!! =)

I transitioned very very very slowly. I lost weight eating around 1400-1600 calories a day. I maintain my weight eating around 1800-2000 calories a day.

I slowly raised the number of calories I ate per day. So, for a few weeks, I ate 1500 calories a day. Then, for a few weeks, I ate 1600 calories a day, etc. I slowly slowly reintroduced certain foods and allowed for a weekly treat meal.

It was a very slow process and I weighed myself every week to make sure I was on the right track.

I was very careful to add extra healthy calories to my day - not junk. That made it a little easier for me, since my goal had been healthy eating. While I was dieting, I sometimes had to decide: do I eat the yogurt or do I eat the almonds, because I can't fit both. On maintenance, I can fit both. Eating healthy foods is important to me, so it was nice to have a few more hundred calories a day to play with.

I also started using olive oil to make my own salad dressings (and cooking with a little more olive oil, in general), adding back in more natural peanut butter (which I had cut back significantly to lose weight), measured portions of dark chocolate (100 calories per portion, usually) and avocado.

I don't go crazy, and I basically do exactly what I did to lose weight, I just allow more healthy calories for the day (and a weekly treat meal). I still menu plan, food journal, estimate calories (although I count a really rough estimate now, I quit using Fitday), and I still MEASURE tough to eyeball foods like granola, trailmix, salad dressing, rice and pasta. I still stick to my forever "no's" - no fast food, no sugar soda, no cream-based sauces, no packaged baked goods.

Congrats on reaching your goal weight!

What Glory said - maintenance looks amazingly like losing! Take a look at the threads "stickied" at the top of Living Maintenance. There's one called "Is there a Formula for Maintenance" that will give you a lot of good information about how to maintain without freaking out (too much). And join us on the weekly chat thread. Welcome!

First.. Iris what a beautiful Rottie!! Mine passed away a few months ago and broke my heart. She was my girl


Thank you so much for all the advice. I think I will go up VERY slowly. just so hard after so long doing something and even 100 calories seems like so much.

You are all very kind and thank you for the help!

Same as Glory - slowly.
I started by adding in an additional 200 calories a day - and I tried hard to actually eat them (didn't always work out that way). Over the next several months, I slowly added in calories until I finally reached a "maintenance" level. I did end up losing an additional 8 lbs. over 4 months. Since then, my weight hasn't varied by more than 2 lbs.
And - I eat the same foods - just a few more calories at dinner, or an extra snack or two during the day.

I still count calories, just to make sure I don't go over

I am now at 1600 calories, which seems to be my maintenance level.

Tool,
Congratulations for making your goal. As you said, now the real, lifelong work begins. If you're like me, you'll learn more about yourself as you work on maintenance than you did when you were losing weight.
The program that I used to lose weight taught me to, as others said, make a slow transition. On my program, they encouraged adding in one new food type each 3-4 days and seeing how your body "accepted" that new item. For example, first I added back in unlimited, non starchy vegetables. Then, I added in another fruit. Then I added another fat, another dairy, a half a protein, and, finally, the one I really wanted, another starch. Each time, I added a food back, I hoped that I wouldn't gain. If I went up more than 3 lbs, I stopped adding anything else and waited to see if my body would "calm back down" and return to my maintenance weight. This worked really well for me. As others have said, maintenance is just like losing...I still write down everything I eat, still exercise daily, and still turn to people on this web site for advice, encouragement, and the occasional kick in the tail I need.
Congrats, again! Be sure to reward yourself for reaching your goal!

I ended up making a new goal of a "dream weight." I never thought I would be able to lose another extra ten pounds, but it was a lot harder to lose than the other 40. I am glad I did it though, because I feel like I am flying around those bases. As a runner, every two or three pounds is a huge difference. I picked up rock climbing again and I forgot how fun and rewarding it was. Maybe set some new goals for yourself. They can be anything, whether it's learning to rock climb or get involved with some type of community sports or volunteer work. I think anything where you are meeting new people and having fun and learning something new are great motivators to stay active or goal oriented. Congrats on your weight loss; you look wonderful!

Heh, like Countingdown, I actually lost a little more weight. I started maintenance at 140 and eventually reached 127 after 9 months. I'm about 132 right now (would like to drop 2 more pounds to get back to 130).

Hi Tool-- good screenname
I was petrified of maintenance because I had lost weight and regained it many times. My maintenance is trying to keep cals at loss levels with treat meals thrown in. So, I do see the scale bounce around about 5-7 pounds.

My first goal was 130, then I lowered that to 127 and now I'm trying to have maintenance be between 120-125, with a mental red line at 124. Today I am at 125. I feel fantabulous at around 119-121 but have a harder time staying there.

Here's to your hard work and spending lots of time in maintainers' forum

Thank you! Love the band.


When I reached my goal I was not as happy as I thought I would be. I of course was happy but as I was working towards my goal all year I was like.. "I'M GONNA BE OVER THE MOON WHEN I REACH IT!!" I was not so much because I am now worried about change.


Just reading what other people did and do helps me alot. It lets me form a plan for me and I work from there.

One thing that has been a stinker for me the last few days is due to family issues, hospital trips, work and mixing all those together I have had no time and have been living on smart ones meals. I am PRETTY sure I am retaining enough water to float a ship. So that scares me so I scale back some more, So back to 1200 calories because I don't want to regain. **** I can lose 10 more to be in "healthy" range but I am quite happy with how I look and hope to get the rest off with little lower maintenance but I can't get there because I am worried. A vicious cycle!

I did the same thing as everyone else it seems, and after seven months in I'm still wiggling around trying to find my maintenance calorie level. I added back in 100 calories per day, continued to lose. (Goal was 127, got down to 117 but wanted to be closer to 120, had some plastic surgery that added 2.5 pounds, now I hover around 121.5) I'm maintaining pretty well now - I fluctuate between 120-124 most of the time. I retain water at the drop of a hat, so needed the wide range to play in. Today I'm at 123.4 from all the junk of the weekend, last Friday I was at 120.2...

I'm pretty sure my maintenance level is right around 2000 calories - my problem was that I got up to 2000 and got lazy on my tracking at the same time, so if I had to go back and look at everything I really ate those three weeks I'm sure I was closer to 2300 average... So, up .5 pound for my March average over February average, and bringing my calories back down to 1850 and strictly tracking. I'm going to try for the 2000 again soon, but really keep track. I'm not at the point yet where I can not track everything, obviously, or I go over the edge.

Congrats on reaching your goal, and good luck!

ETA - I was scared to death of maintenance, too. If you look back at my older posts I pretty much freaked out and swore up and down that I would regain if I ate more, I would be the one who had to eat 1200 or 1500 calories forever and ever.... Well, seven months of maintaining has shown me that I really won't, and that I can eat more! It has also shown me that I will have to continue to exercise, forever though. I'm okay with that.

Tool, sorry to hear about your rottie! They are so sweet... "mine" in the photo is technically my father's and lives across the country from me. Some day I will be stable enough (in living situation) to have a dog. Hopefully soon!

I am close to my goal too and I started to freak out about what am I gonna do next. When I lost the weight in the first place I didn't quite number my calories (just changed a little my habits), but now I do (because I put weight on the healthy food, added stress and all changes in my life) so it is a different story.
Beside changing my calorie intake I also started working out even harder because I couldn't handle less calorie intake then 1500, so I preferred to work out my @$$ more.
So I turned to the forum to do some more reading and I think I found some answers . I wanna give up on working out like crazy (go into maintenance mode) and slowly making my calorie intake higher. Tool, keep me posted, how are you doing now?