[Nicholsfamily1987]

I have 26 lbs til I hit maintenance. I'm very worried because last time I hit maintenance I screwed up. So advice before I even hit it? I have lost my weight pretty fast which also concerns me..in the normal range (2 lbs a week) but still pretty fast compared. Will I have to upkeep my exercise once I maintain to keep the weight off..??

[JayEll]

To maintain your weight you will not have to do as much exercise as you did while losing; however, you will still have to exercise.

And this only makes sense because you want to be healthy, yes?

[neurodoc]

Yes you will. And you will also need to maintain your new way of eating.
As you get to the last 4-5 pounds before goal weight, you will have a pretty good idea of how much/what kind of food you can eat to continue losing vs. stay steady as long as you're tracking your food intake. Then make small adjustments from that starting point (like increase by 100 cal/day each week) until your weight plateaus. If you'd rather ease up on exercise than eat more, then decrease exercise by 10 min/day each week and hold calorie level steady.
Good luck.

[lin43]

I do the same amount of exercise (maybe even more) at maintenance as I did while losing. In fact, I have seen a slow creep upward over the past 1 1/2 years or so, and I think at least part of it is that my body has gotten used to the exercise and I'm not burning as many calories as I did when I was first losing. I do CrossFit 4 time a week, and that is varied enough to keep my body "guessing." But a huge part of my exercise is walking----24 miles a week. I definitely do not believe I'm burning the same number of calories walking now as I did when I was losing or even during the first year or so of maintenance.

Also, I initially found maintenance extremely easy---much easier than losing. I sailed through maintenance (pretty much) for about 1 1/2 - 2 years before I started noticing a weight gain. Part of it is probably the exercise issue, but the other part was that I just got a little looser in my habits. I've been trying to correct that for the past year or so now, with very limited success. I'm telling you this so that you can know that it's a process, but there is no "end." As you get more comfortable with your new eating habits, it will get easier, but then it's also easy to get sloppy, so be aware of that.