...still eats the same way as they did when they were losing weight. All these "cheating" posts are really getting to me and I think I just want to drive home the point that they key to weight loss success/maintenance is not dieting, it's lifestyle changes. I'm sure deep down we all know this, but I'd love for all the maintainers out there to either prove or disprove this.

Once I reach goal and am maintaining, you bet your butt I'll eat the same way I did while losing. I didn't work my *** off to just pack the pounds back on in a 2 month period.

THANK YOU.

The last couple of days with all of these posts has just been crazy. I'm not even anywhere near maintaining, and it's getting under my skin a bit!

Amen.

Really. It's like, why put in all that time and effort and all those tears and frustration, when you're just going to erase them and eat an entire chocolate cake to yourself? Okay, bad example, but you guys get my drift.

My birthday is coming up, and yeah I'll probably have a piece of cake, heck, maybe even two, but there's no way I'm going back to my old eating habits.

I hear ya. Doing the whole "diet" thing most of my life and/or making excuses to eat "good foods" (ie, cheetos or what have you) is what got me to morbid obesity and no way, no how, not ever ever never will I go back to that old way of thinking and living ever again, nuh uh.

I do eat more calories and allow treats (which I did NOT eat while I was losing weight). Take wine for example. I had one glass of wine while I was losing weight (on my birthday). As a maintainer, I have 1-2 glasses per week. Desserts are another example, I just didn't eat those while losing weight. Now I split a nice dessert once a week.

Now that I allow more calories, I eat more peanut butter, too. And there are a few little things, like the occasional (one time or less per week) chocolate biscotti with my coffee, or the occasional 100 calories of really nice dark chocolate.

If you read the maintainer's forum, you know that is true. Since I'm maintaining and trying to figure out how to shed the last 1/4th of the weight I'd like to lose, I do experiment from time to time and I've modified my eating and views about food. The good news is I've maintained a 150lb weight loss for 2.5 years. Bad news is I can't figure out how to get the last 50 lbs off

i maintain with pretty much exactly the same staples in my diet. only thing that's changed is their quantity so i won't lose weight anymore and rather.. keep at the one i am at.

said that: i can count on one hand that times i have been off-plan since i started my maintenance. these times WILL happen... a birthday, a trip, a something, but because they're rare and far between it actually stays in my memory and makes it special.

What Glory said.

It's mostly the same, with more "treats" or whatever you want to call them. So, for example, while during loss I never drank at restaurants and avoided the bread basket, now I may have a glass of wine OR a piece of bread if it's really good, OR I'll split a dessert.

Some maintainers do well with keeping their loss daily calorie range with one or two planned, higher cal days/meals (weekends seem to be popular...and eating 1400 cals 5x per week and 2000 2x per week averages out to a perfectly reasonable maintenance range of about 1600 calories a day). Others raise their calorie range to a more stable, higher number (eating 1600 per day).

The basics are all the same, and if anything, my exercise has increased.

I just hate the word "cheat". If treats or a particular splurge is in my plan for the day...then it's in my plan. It's not a "cheat". And it's never...no NEVER...anywhere close to what a "treat" or "splurge" used to be. It's a treat or splurge for my new lifestyle, if that makes sense.

It's a way of living for life, you know? Holidays included. You gotta get through them. They're going to come up again.

If I ever get these last 15 pounds off, I will NEVER go back to eating the way that I did for so many years. It just ain't worth it!!

Yes. When I look back at my adult life and the weights I was, when I was maintaining a low weight it was because I was eating really cleanly and really heathily every single day. The times when I was creeping up in weight was when I started to let myself eat crap "to treat myself".

I got fat in my late 20s because I started to eat "what I wanted" all the time.

The whole "cheat" mentality just has to be changed. It's wrong, so wrong! Who are you cheating? What does that even mean? Are we naughty children? Are we sneaking a look at our classmate's spelling test? What IS that???

There are foods, and you eat them or you don't. You have a choice about every food. You understand the consequences of your choices. Those consequences will come--your body doesn't care about your justifications or sense of fun! It just takes the food and uses it, and stores the excess.

I hate it when I hear trainers talk about "cheat meals" as though this is a good thing. There has to be another way to frame it.

Jay

I'm not particularly interested in cheat meals/days right now, but I've incorporated them in the past. It doesn't mean I thought I was somehow thwarting the diet gods. They were just days when I didn't worry about what I was eating. I did not incorporate them until the worst of my binge-y habits were broken, but I found my habits were enough changed by the diet as a whole that they were no problem. I think that if you are on a restrictive diet they are also a great way to "practice" for when you are eating normal quantities- teaching you to eat normal and not count calories, but also not go crazy overboard.

I will admit that I am not a "maintainer" exactly, but I did lose 36 pounds and keep them off for a period of about a year and a half. I will admit I pulled some crazy stunts when I was dieting that would not be acceptable were I not- substituting a smoothie or a protein bar for lunch, eating deli meats without bread, the like. And when I gained ten pounds back, boy was it obvious why- I was using food to comfort me whenever I was down. When I just fixed my massive dependence on food and sort of let things go as they would, I actually stayed on track.

My goal in losing weight is to not HAVE to worry all the time. I don't want to spend my life constantly counting calories. I want to be active and eat enough to not be hungry and sometimes splurge a little with friends. The worst thing for me about being fat was not being able to be normal, always having to worry what people thought of me and being afraid of food. I have not, nor do I plan to, maintain in such a way that even though the fat is gone it is always on my mind. Many, many people don't worry about gaining weight, and I think it's because they have a healthy relationship with food.

I guess what I'm saying is: I have bad feelings about this "dieting as a lifestyle change" thing. Surely you won't be dieting all the time- you'd either slow down your metabolism needlessly or constantly lose weight. Dieting for me is a lifestyle change only in that it taught me better habits in the way of knowing when I was full and just in general slowing down and enjoying my food. I WANTED food, but it wasn't a compulsion. THAT is the difference which is absolutely necessary.

I think the people starting the threads in question are concerned that they will NEVER get to eat the foods they love again, or never get to splurge with friends. The answer to "when can I enjoy my favorite food again" is "now, if you structure your plan right" or at worst "when you can handle eating it in moderation". This whole "diet as a lifestyle change" thing seems to be on the never side. It makes me anxious enough that I would never use the phrase. It is not that I am suddenly littering my meals with kale and tofu. I believe that vegetable dishes at every meal is a thing best left to those who can cook well. I am just learning to enjoy exercise and eating tasty things of many food groups, much as I did before, just with more enjoyment and control. That may not be how some people do weight loss, but I think it is disheartening to say that you must become a health freak to lose weight. I suspect it discourages those people who could actually benefit from a healthier relationship with the foods they eat already.

*steps down from soapbox* <_< >_>