Love, love, love the term "calorie aware"! Thanks Freelancemama!

I entered maintenance in July of last year and have not counted calories since then. I do weigh every morning and, like others, if I'm going out to a restaurant I will check the calorie counts, but I am trying to eat intuitively.

So far so good for me.

Jen

I will preface by saying I literally didn't read any of the other responses yet.


I've been in "maintenance" for a whole 4 weeks now, official maintenance on purpose, yet I've been in this weight range since mid-December. Obviously this is very new to me as 4 weeks is barely a tiny drip drop in the bucket of the rest of my life, but here's what I've been doing so far: Counting calories SOMETIMES. I've never been able to do it all the time, even during active weight loss. I've been really listening to hunger cues, what foods sound good, trying to eat lots of protein, and still watching portions and weighing or measuring some foods (like peanut butter, almonds, and other super calorie dense stuff). I counted for the first week to see what my estimated maintenance range "felt" like. For me 2000-2200 on a non workout day, and 2300-2500 on a workout day have proven to be maintenance for me. Of course that part takes some trial and error, I just seemed to happen upon the right equation that just so happened to be perfect for me.

I'm not "done" yet though. I've just decided that weight loss is no longer my priority. I want to put on muscle, lose some more fat, and gain strength and am at a good place mentally and physically to do that. And WOW seriously I've gotten stronger. No longer eating in a deficit has made me a MONSTER when I lift. I've been able to progress every.single.workout since I upped my calories. It's not rocket science, makes sense of course; but it's one thing to know something in theory, it's quite another to live it!

You've posted a lot lately about wanting to eat like a normal person, to wanting to drink and go out with your friends like normal people do. I think you're fairly happy with your weight and you're simply tired of being disciplined all the time. I think maybe you're trying to justify not getting to goal by calling this "maintenance practice" like that makes it seem like a much more worthy endeavor than saying "I'm bored and I want a beer".

I've been around here a long time and have seen a lot of people come and go. Truthfully, people who try this do not generally get to their goal weight. They come back six months or a year later and talk about how they tried really hard for awhile and then life, or whatever, got in the way and now they're back to lose the weight again.

You've come a very long way. If you're happy at this weight, then call this goal, but momentum and determination are very, very hard to get back. Whatever your decision, be honest with yourself about what you're doing and why.

I'm terrified of stopping the journaling and calorie counting. I took about a year off of it, ate mindfully, didn't journal or directly calorie count and weighed about every 3 days or so. The result: a 20lb weight gain in one year. That's kind of slow, but still not desirable! I think if I hadn't put the brakes on this January and re-lost it, it could have turned into another 20lbs this year. And then, welcome regain. I think the answer for me is going to be trying to strike a balance between periodic calorie counting and journaling. I journal my runs in mfp, so why not go ahead and include my food, too. I eat similar things every day, so it's just checking off a box. I think the data will be good for me. Right now my goal weight is 145, but I think I'll eventually lose down to 135 and then make 140 my REDLINE. And when I hit it, back to 110% calorie counting and journaling until I get back to 135.

To each his own - if it works for you, do it. Just set a redline weight and if you hit it, consider trying something else. I think it's so easy to justify weight 2 lbs at a time and let it sneak away from you. That's what happened to me last year. Good luck and congrats on being so close to goal!!!

For me, it would be a bad idea. If I were capable of eating "naturally" and maintaining a healthy body weight, I wouldn't have ever weighed 260+ lbs.

I'm not saying maintenance is going to be as stringent as losing. esp. in my case, doing a low carb plan, it's a phased plan and designed specifically to add some additional foods and flexibility once you lose the weight. But I know that I need guidance and personal accountability if I'm going to have any chance of maintaining.

And truthfully, when I see my "naturally thin" friends, it's not true that they eat whatever they want. It may come easier to them to naturally regulate their intake but they do regulate it. They plan ahead if they are going to eat out and eat lightly the rest of that day, maybe even the day before and after. They don't buy junk food so they aren't tempted to eat emotionally or mindlessly. In some cases, they are so used to it that it feels natural, or just what they are used to, and so it's not something they do consciously but they still do these things. There really is just no way around the fact that eating more calories than you expend will make you gain weight.

I know the following has been discussed here many times before, but i just wanted to add my opinion: "naturally" skinny people are more aware of calories than you think. I have many skinny friends who you'd look at and NEVER guess that they have EVER concerned themselves with calories--but after spending some time eating meals with them, you discover that they do. They may not count every calorie or look up every calorie online like i do, but they are certainly aware and they make an effort to cut back when necessary--much more than you think. I'm sure there are people out there who don't pay attention at all--but this is less common than you think.

I would try doing it every other day at first. I did this after I last lost all this weight, after maintaining the weight I reached for about 4 months, but it didn't work. I gained it ALL back, and am here to start again!

If you're aware and tracking SOME parameter, either a pants size or daily weighing or what have you, I think it can work. I've done it myself somewhat unintentionally when I've hit weight loss fatigue, been pregnant, etc.

The reason it works for me is because I DON'T eat like a normal person. I eat like a highly weight reduced maintainer. I can't ever eat 'normally', without some measure of control or accountability, and not regain my weight. My body won't really let me. But doing things like weighing daily and food logging, or staying low carb, allows me to raise my calories very comfortably and keep my weight stable - thus being a good maintenance mode for ME, whether or not it matches anyone else's normal (I don't have their bodies and issues, I have mine - different bodies have different needs).

If you're accountable and don't let it slide for beyond a predetermined threshold, it works. But be careful, as too many folks go hog wild and let a pound or three turn into thirty, then they're back and yoyoing while trying to find the reason to buckle down and move forward again. I can stop and start well with long periods of time, but MOST dieters on here cannot, and the stops involve massive regains while the starts often involve over-restriction. Know yourself and your tendencies!

What Robin said is very wise, and very honest.

I think what it is is that I've seen like... certain members of my family and friends that just, well.. its not that they have a natural way with food. And they can certainly gain weight and lose weight, but they don't ever let it get OUT OF CONTROL. Like, my friend a few months ago was complaining that she'd gained 10lbs over the summer -- and I was like, "Whoopdeedoo, I usually gain about 40". (In my fat days, of course, haha)

I guess that's what I want and I should've worded it this way -- not the ability to eat what I want when I want, but the ability to be able to do that and still CONTROL it. Like I was out with some people on Saturday and we all went to Chipotle and me and two other girls got those rice bowl things, and I watched them... both of them stopped about halfway through, and in that time I almost finished mine. And in that moment I really just ENVIED them because I feel like I can't ever just "stop" like that. Usually when I go out I portion things out, put half of it up before I actually eat it. But if it's all sitting in front of me and I don't do that? I'm gonna eat most of it, lol. I don't have that control unless I force myself to and I want to be able to control it naturally, lol.

But the reality is I probably will always have to force myself to control myself because I suck at just "doing it". I just hate always having to be a pain in the a** at restaurants and stuff, lol. It makes me feel like a burden or something.

Wouldn't work for me but certainly works for some people. I don't actually divide up my weight management journey into sections like "losing" & "maintenance." It is all pretty much maintenance to me. It is an ongoing thing.

Experimentation is at the heart of my journey, in life and weight. It is always good to try different ways of doing things. Go for it if it is something you'd like to try. Can't hurt.

First, it does NOT make you a burden to portion half of your meal to start with. Lots of people do it. But I also think this is a good example. Because I do think that a lot of the time, overeating and eating quickly really is a mindless habit. When you put away half of your meal before you start eating, how do you feel when you are done? Are you satisfied with what you've had? I am guessing yes, because even half of those Chipotle bowls are a lot of food. Or do you keep looking wistfully at the takeaway container, wishing you could eat more of it? and how does the way you eat differ from them? Are they pausing between bites? Having an extra sip of water and taking break to let the food they've eaten register in their brain to help signal that they are full?

I go out to lunch with co workers from time to time. And a couple of them are TINY. Several inches shorter than me, and probably no more than 100 lbs. And neither of them ever finishes their meal, except one time. And we even joked about that, because it was so unusual, although they were also not large meals. They don't portion half to start with, but they are so used to eating their accustomed amount that that is what they automatically do - they mentally identify their portion size on the plate, and that's what they eat, and then they get the takeaway box and put the rest away. If it's something like a chicken breast, they cut it in half to start with, so they only eat their allowed half. So yeah, I think that is something you could probably get to the point of doing "naturally." But don't confuse natural with automatic or whatever. They are still consciously dividing that plate in half in their head. It's not that they are only eating what they want and voila! they automatically don't want to eat more than half. That is the portion size they know they can have, so that is what they eat.

Just like there is no magic quick fix that will let you lose 50 lbs in 2 weeks, there is also no magic fix that will let you eat whatever you want and maintain your weight with your body and appetite automatically knowing when to stop. Whether people make a big deal about it or not, they are still regulating how much they eat and doing things like eating more slowly, and mentally separating their food into a portion.

And consider, psychologically, what will work best in your case. I don't do the split-the-meal-in-half-at-the-beginning nonsense, because quite frankly I'll stop if I'm full and take the rest home. If I'm not full, I'm not leaving hungry just to eat a smaller portion. I tend to prefer fasting a bit before a big restaurant meal and then eating until I'm well satisfied, because otherwise it feels a bit overly vigilant. It doesn't mean I'm a pig compared to someone who doesn't finish their plate naturally, it just means a different food strategy works better for me (in my case, light breakfast, no lunch, and massive lunch/dinner combo ;) ).

I only do the "split the meal" thing if its an entree that's not on an official "this is X amount of calories or less" menu because usually its a larger portion than I need to eat anyway, and I'm usually satisfied with only half the portion, plus depending on the restaurant and the dish that usually saves me about 500 calories. Most of the time I try to stick to restaurants that give calorie counts so I can just order a plate of food and know I can eat all of it, lol.