Ok, so now that I'm officially maintaining, I'm having a bit of a hard time figuring out where my new virtual "home" should be. The logical place is here, in the Living Maintenance forum, but which thread? I don't log my food or exercise here (I use FatSecret for food and nothing to track exercise), so the "Maintainers Moving" and "No Excuses" threads aren't right, and the "Weekly Chat" doesn't seem to discuss weight maintenance issues at all. So, in the interest of finding my niche, I'm creating this thread as a place for daily- weekly- or monthly- "check-ins" on how the whole maintenance process is going. I intend for it to be primarily for posts related to actual weight maintenance issues and challenges, successes, insights and (hopefully) tips from those of you who've been successful for longer periods now.

This is officially my second week of maintenance at goal. I'm weighing every day, but using a kind of rolling average of daily weights for the last week to gauge how well I'm doing, because my weight can jump by more than 2 pounds overnight from variables like how much weight training I've done recently, how many grams of carbs I ate the day before, and even how hot and sweaty I got overnight.

So my average weight for the last 7 days is 120.6. Not totally perfect but I'll take it. I'm eating between 1400-1500 cal/day and exercising 30-50 min. 5 days/week, split between cardio and weight training. I'm planning to stay at this level of diet and activity for at least a month to see if I'm truly stable or if I have a tendency to drift up or down. Do any of you know if a "slow weight creep" will manifest over that time, or if it takes longer than that to figure out if you're truly at steady state?

I'm working on some behavioral issues that I think have gotten me into trouble repeatedly in the past. I've sworn off eating after 8 pm - even veggies- because it seems to trigger binging (or at least, over-eating) for me. I'm also working on my habit of eating parts of meals while walking around the kitchen, or jumping up a dozen times to do stuff in the middle of eating, because I'm sure I don't notice and appreciate my food nearly as much when I do this (though it DOES force me to slow down; eating too fast is another of my bad habits). Do any of you have bad habits you're working on, separate from actual calorie/food moderation issues?

Ok, that's it for now. Here's hoping some of you find this a useful thread to join!

I guess I must be the only one feeling a need for this kind of thread.
Well that's ok, I'll just post here when I feel the need to check in.

Still averaging right around 120.6, and managing to keep daily calorie totals right around the 1450 mark. Some days though, it's definitely a struggle, especially on days I do 30 minutes of high-intensity, interval cardio (with or without another 15-30 min of non-HIIT exercise). I figure the HIIT adds maybe 150 extra calories burned to my usual total, so it would be completely counterproductive to eat an extra 250 due to extra hunger, yet that's what seems to happen on some days.

Total fail recently on staying continuously in the sitting position while eating dinner, and I've notice more of a tendency to graze while I'm prepping food for dinner now that eating after 8 pm is off limits. And, oh yes, a deep desire to keep eating between dinner and 8 pm (regardless of satiation) to compensate for the loss of food after that time. It has been a struggle to eat only what I planned at dinnertime and then stop. My mind has not been my friend lately.

Who else is wrestling with a shifting set of "bad behaviors?" I combat one bad habit only to try replacing it with another.

Neuro, have you tried gum or tea for those after dinner hours?

Hey Neruo, FWIW you are welcome to post maintenance updates on the chat thread. We used to do it more than we are doing it lately.

Maintenance is a slow and steady plod for some of us. Not really worth posting tha same stuff over and over again. Which is why the weekly thread seems to be all over the place sometimes. It's like a book club - there is an overall subject there but we veer off on tangents.

I think we are all welcome to post, start new threads, do whatever we need to maintain our weight in whatever form we choose. that's why so many of us at 3FC are succesfully keeping the weight at bay!

Dagmar

Neuro - we have a food & exercise accountability monthly thread, too. Though it was just Jessica for awhile.

I do need the accountability - I'm trying to get back into it. Absolutely.

Neuro, I swear the weekly chat isn't just actually a pet chat in disguise. Really. As Jessica said, we used to post more about maintenance and still do sometimes! I personally have posted less lately bc I've been such a broken record. I've said "this time I'm really going to take care of this regain" about 20 times in the last two years. I felt bad so I started talking about other things. Feel free to post whatever you want, whenever, in any thread! I also would like to use the accountability threads more, but find in the summers I really only have time to check one thread so I stick to the main chat usually.

I also struggle with evening snacking. As midwife suggested, sometimes gum or tea helps me. Sometimes I really need to just go to bed, bc it's really the tired me that wants food (and if all I have time for is to eat, then surely I can go to bed). How about a brisk walk around the block to enjoy the summer evenings, or a few sun salutations or warrior poses if you're into yoga? I also do needlepoint to keep my hands busy - literally, anything to keep my hands busy! If I can get past about 20 minutes sometimes the urge to eat disappears.

A month sounds like a reasonable amount of time to gauge if your plan is keeping your body in maintenance. You can always reevaluate at the end of the month, see what's working and what isn't. Maintenance certainly isn't static!

Another evening snacker raises her hand . Usually everything I've powered through in the day catches up with me (as the caffeine leaves my body) and I can only drool in front of the TV for the last hour of the day. I can't go to bed until 10 p.m. or I'll wake up even earlier the next morning (as I rarely sleep until 5 a.m. as it is).

I found a big pot of tea in the colder months helps a lot. Not sure what I'm going to do in hotter weather but I suspect it will involve "baby" vegetables.

Dagmar

Don't listen to them, Neuro! That thread regularly descends into pet chat, dress chat, etc. etc. I think an actual accountability thread would be good. Hope you can keep it that way!

Jay

Hehe - our weekly chat has become pretty life centric and less about accountability. Like Megan, I don't always want to say 'I'm gaining weight again but ate ice cream last night again'. LOL

I'll put my money where my mouth is:

My weigh-in -- which occurs every Friday -- left me happy this morning. It began to turn in the right direction last week.

Three weeks ago, I'd thought I was headed back to the five- to 10-pound thread, but I've dropped nearly five pounds in the past two weeks & am back where I should be.

This is likely due to my wonky menstrual cycle settling down, rather than my taking a more disciplinarian approach. I can say, though, I've made a conscious effort in three areas:

- I am trying to get to bed earlier & get a little more sleep.
- I'm trying to eat more protein in snacks, which has meant more lowfat cheese, nonfat cottage cheese & hard-boiled egg whites, rather than using nuts much of the time.
- I have felt better at work lately. More secure than since losing out on a promotion.

The other payoff is that my arms seem to have changed shape almost overnight & suddenly I am getting compliments & comments about them.

I think it was IHatetheSweatPants (do I have her name right?) who said that her boyfriend or husband said she was as fascinated by her own "guns" as a 14-year-old boy. That's how I am behaving; I see it in myself. I feel up my own damn arms sometimes during a boring commute to Connecticut.

This is one thing about weight loss that I'm not sure is good. I sometimes worry that, in me, it feeds a narcissistic tendency. Rather than obsessing over I, me, mine (my body, my arms, my weight), I should turn to the larger world. Rather than bettering the world or creating art, I am focused very much on creating a body for myself as a kind of artwork. This can't be good in the larger scheme of things.

Wow, a veritable bounty of posts in the last 2 days, since I resigned myself to a monologue! Thank you guys. Yes, I realize I am welcome to post these sorts of things on the regular Maintainers' weekly chat but Mudpie, Shannon and Jayell have pinned it down- maintaining for years is really monotonous, and nobody who's been doing it for a relatively long time is going to be intrigued by more of the same. It only stands to reason that after a time, life intrudes and things like pets, jobs and relationships - the stuff of real life- dominates. Since I'm pretty new to the whole maintenance thing though, I need to focus on it a bit more, and didn't want to bore those who prefer a more low-key approach.

So, the after-dinner thing right now seems to be a real hydra. Yes, I have successfully used tea/decaf/gum to get around the craving for more more more after dinner, but it is far from perfect, especially gum, which for me seems to trigger a need for more sweet things as soon as the flavor "wears out" (~10 minutes). The best tactic for me by far is finding something else to do right after dinner and getting out of the kitchen. If only I had a maid to clean up after meals, I'd have the problem all but licked, but I can't let DH do it every night considering he often makes dinner, and I just don't have the time to clean it before I head to work in the morning (not to mention, eww gross). Last night was a total FAIL- had a lovely dinner with fruit for dessert, then managed to eat 4 graham crackers, 3 rice cakes and 1 1/2 cups of Kashi Go Lean cereal (all washed down with herbal tea). Predictably, was bloated, constipated and up a pound this morning from the carbo-load. UGH. Did much better today at staying on plan but this type of moderate overeating happens to some degree at least twice a week.

Weight this morning was 123.2. UGH. 7-day rolling average slightly lower at 122.5 but definitely way up compared to 2 weeks ago. The only day in the last 2 weeks that I've been over 1500 calories was today (my youngest son's 6th birthday; I ate too much of everything, then topped it off with a cupcake). I think my weight shot up because I was on hospital duty this past week, and apparently just being on my feet for 10 hours a day is no substitute for actually doing an hour of weight training and/or cardio 5 days a week. Since this quick weight gain (over 2 pounds in 8 days) never happened during prior hospital weeks, I conclude that 120 pounds is just not a reasonably maintainable weight for me.

I hate that feeling that I'm on a slippery slope; if I accept 123 pounds as my goal weight, that means I can bounce up to 125. If I bounce up to 125 then the odd water-retention/TOM weight gain will take me to 126-7. Now suddenly I'm almost back to the 130 I swore I would never see again in this lifetime. I am really anguishing about this and wish I knew how to take a calmer, less "drama-filled" approach to the whole maintenance issue.

Not so good for me today. Up four pounds over last Friday.

I think it's stress related. I was very stupid to agree to a friend staying over for three days on her business trip. I got up at 4 AM, went to the gym, saw her at breakfast before she left, worked all day, saw her at dinner & tried to keep chatting & entertaining her (movies, visit to Trader Joe's, stroll through my neighborhood) till bedtime, which was later than usual. I found myself wiped out. And then work picked up & became insane.

Yesterday was some kind of nadir. I found myself shoveling in too much plain nonfat yogurt mixed with sugar-free, fat-free cheesecake-flavored pudding mix after dinner. That was supposed to be dessert. I felt too full afterward. I have not eaten in that mindless, methodical way to fullness for quite some time. I thought I was over it. When I finished, I stopped & knew I had to go to bed because I was overtired.

I feel so down today. Have been online working since 5:15 AM.

I've been on this same slope for the last year - I went from a mnx range of 119-124, up to 121-126, up 124-129, now I tell myself that I'm okay with less than 130 with a swing up to 132. Unfortunately for me it has led to currently weighing 135.4 for my June average. Which is above the 130 I also swore I wouldn't see again. I was mellow about it for a while when my pants still fit the same at the 132, but now that I'm at the 135 they don't and I'm not nearly as mellow.