I've started seeing pretty good loss on my scale at home. I go for official weigh in scale, I'm fairly close. I'm down between 3-4 pounds which is more than I've ever seen so far. I actually ate more and exercised less this week though. What is up with that? I also got significantly more sleep on average which I know also can be a big factor.

Anyway, feeling hopeful for a good WI tomorrow.

On a less positive note (Sorry, still very much up and down)

I'm still not seeing this as a positive, long term, lifestyle change. I feel like I can only keep up this way of eating short term. I don't like using the packaged supplements. I push whole, unprocessed food to my kids and then feel like a complete hypocrite when I fix myself soup from a package or eat a nutrabar for lunch. I'm taking more shortcuts in the kitchen than I usually would to accomodate for the extra effort needed to prep my special meals. Plus I'm cooking less to have fewer temptations around. Consequently, my kids are eating less healthy whole foods and more prepackaged processed stuff (or worse, drive thru food) than before.

I was practically drooling last night when I walked into the kitchen after my husband had just fixed a piece of toast. That fresh bread smell was fantastic!!! I didn't cave but...a lifetime of melba and micro bread just doesn't seem sustainable to me. If my losses are averaging a pound a week then would I be better off doing something else? I started out with a relatively small amount to lose (25 pounds) so maybe when you get to that point 1 pound a week is about right and my inch loss has been good from the beginning so I just don't know. I'm committed until the end of my 17 weeks which I think ends mid Jan but I'm skeptical about doing any re-up if I don't meet my goal by then.

no, mrc is NOT sustainable (SORRY!)
but as long as you DONT go back entirely to your old way of eating, you wont gain ALL the weight back. However, i believe you are going to have to expect SOME gain. As soon as you introduce carbs back, there will be an initial gain of water weight (could be significant! 5-8 pounds..depending) Then you add back the weight of the actual FOOD in your tummy and body (count on a poundish for every couple hundred more calories per day eaten)... so you go off plan, re-introduce carbs, and start eating morefood, you could show a SCALE WEIGHT gain of 5-10 pounds. BUT if you stay rational, you realize that none of those pounds are FAT. Its ok! Theres no way to avoid gianing back the water weight, and the food weight, and you cant expect to continue eating 1200 a day for the rest of your life. Ive settled into a weight that AVERAGES about 5 pounds above my low weight at MRC. Some days its up by as much as 10 pounds.

No need to be sorry at all. You are simply confirming what I had already suspected.

I am following maintenance now for 2 weeks. It is VERY do-able. There is room for bread and treats. So no, the diet itself is not sustainable long term, but it's not meant to be! I did not gain back when I added carbs back in and I feel fantastic and energetic. I am now eating mostly what the family eats, but my portions are significantly smaller and I am cooking things that are healthy for all of us. Last night, I made mashed potatoes, but chose to round out my meal with beans instead. I'm finding that maintenance on ANY program looks very similar to the weight loss part, with just some things added back in.

Thanks hatethesweatpants -- I like your response here. I feel we have to take the weight off before we get consumed with keeping it off. First things first. Otherwise, one might just throw up their hands and say, "well, I'm gonna put it back on so why bother." But mkroyer really does a nice job of making sense out of all of it -- keeping it real!

But I don't think we can put ourselves in the mindset we will someday have once we get the weight off. We lose weight and get a new attitude and respect for the effort made and wish to protect that wonderful accomplishment.

I am not where I wanna be yet, but I truly do believe that because I already feel so much better about life in every way, that I will cherish it and work to protect it. And MRC has taught me a way of eating that, generally, I really like. I believe that I can eat that way the majority of the time, but know there will be "special" times when I make some exceptions. Where as the old me saw every meal as another "special" time, thus leading to overweight! I loved to eat and so I did.

But the health benefits are so dramatic that I can't ever imagine going back to that.

I was just reading some stickies on the maintainers forum...and this caught my eye

"The critical point of this chapter is that maintainerseacefully accept their new way of eating: they know that they can’t eat whatever they want, and know that they can’t go back to their old food habits.

I agree that this is the fundamental truth of maintenance – there’s no going back. Ever."

If you make it to the maintanence part of MRC, they will teach you how to maintain. Of course that won't be like pre-MRC eating...because pre-MRC eating made us all fat! So we have to learn how to lose, and then learn how to stabilize, then learn how to maintain. And never go back.

Thanks Debi,
What you said about maintenance looking similar to the weight loss part is what has me concerned. I'm not yet convinced that it is long term do-able for me.

But eating what the family eats with some modifications sounds reasonable. I suppose I could talk to the center staff about my concerns when I WI next. I had planned for tomorrow but sick kiddos might require a regroup.

Debi & Joy, thanks for the positive input. For me, I need to see goal. I know I will have to make permanent changes but I also know there will have many more choices on maintenance. I also plan on really ramping up my exercize to allow for a little more freedom. But SERIOUSLY I did not get this way by denying myself an OCCASIONAL treat, I got here by making food my drug of choice. Another thing I know is I am learning as I go about how much better my body feels without constantly being barraged by the large amounts of sweets I was consuming, my blood sugar is stable, all my thoughts are not just on my next sweet binge, and my blood pressure is where it should be again. Now if WHEN I get to maintenance I find I don't care for MRC maintenance then I will possibly change over to WW for that, but I am focused right now on just getting there. The girls at my center have been extremely supportive, I don't expect that to change, and i am sure they will help me work out maintenance too.

Nicmom, I've always said that this program isn't for everyone. When people ask me how I lost, I tell them and immediately follow up with "It's not for everyone." I really think you have to make a cognitive, conscious effort to stabilize, maintain and slowly incorporate more exercise and whole foods back into your life. It's working for me, but if it's not working for you, find something that will. Calories in/Calories out. I bounced around a lot before finding MRC. The problem is that every time we switch, it can add to the yo-yo effect. I really believe in the saying, "Whatever you do, do so wholeheartedly....". Find something you can believe in, then go at it, no holds barred. Any program + commitment = success.

I spoke with one of my favorite counselors at MRC yesterday about maintenance and stabilization. I was told that maintenance can be worked out in a variety of different ways that will suit each person's lifestyle. I was glad to hear that. She said that some do something similar to WW, others eat more liberally on the weekends and then very carefully during the week, others add more exercize and so on. I found that conversation very encouraging because losing wieght is generally short term, and most of us can do a program for the time that is needed to reach our goal. Then, we need to see what works for us as individuals to maintain and not end up back where we started. So, I am looking forward to getting there.

I completely agree. This program really isn't for everyone. I love it, and it is serving me well, but I know several people that I honestly wouldn't recommend this program too. When I first started I thought I would try to get my mom on board, but now that I've been on a while and see what is required to make it work, I can see that this program isn't for her. The day I signed up I made a commitment to myself that I was going all the way, and every day it gets easier. I'm not worried about maintenance yet, but I'm learning from this program to eat healthier and I've realized that I CAN turn down foods I never thought I would. Carbs were my best friend before this program, and now I've learned there is more to life and I don't allow food to control me any longer. I think what I've learned and experienced here will definitely carry me through maintenance, and I have no doubts that I can lose it and keep it off.