Oh come all ye injectors, slimmer and maintaining, oh come ye, oh come ye to Thread Number Three! For all those who've hit goal, maintaining in whatever way they can / want to / aim to etc

[MargoLivebetter]

Welcome fellow maintainers to our third thread! Tis the season to be joyful and we do have reasons to be joyful, as we are still here. Not always the perfect journey and full of treats and temptations, but we'd have nothing to talk about otherwise. So hop on the Magical Maintenance Sleigh of Wonder and lets go! (Apologies to all those reading this for the first time in March! I got a bit carried away my festive season puns.)

@Orangesandlemons77 congratulations 🎊 👏 enjoy yiur success 💐

@Hangryfastjo me too...the threads and also ChatGPT have helped so much. Used ChatGPT a lot tecently as I have been struggling to find optimum calories and macros for maintenance

Hi I hope you don’t mind me joining you guys as I move into maintenance. I am trying to work out the best way to approach this, but just seem to be going round and round in circles in my head!

Did you find it beneficial to stay on your current dose and gradually increase calories, or reduce dose first and then increase calories? As I think reducing dose and increasing calories at the same time would be a disaster for me! Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

@Atalosswhat2do I’d decrease your dose as slowly as possible and stay at each dose for a couple of weeks. If you are still losing a lot of weight each week after 2-3 weeks of tapering then I’d start adding 200calories a day, testing that for a week and relating until you find balance.

Are you going exercising much?

Welcome @Atalosswhat2do! Congratulations! Exciting to be going into next phase!

Personally I stayed on the same dose and let my weight loss tail off slowly. I carried on losing 1-2 pounds a month for about 5/6 months after I reached my goal and then stretch goal. Then I was on 7.5mg. I reduced to 6.25 but was still losing despite Christmas and holiday, so I’ve cut to 5 now and think I’m probably stable.

I’m doing a lot of training and aiming for some body recomposition so I don’t want to get super hungry from all the exercise, but on the other hand I do want to be fully fueled.

Brilliant thank you. I hit target on 5th Feb, kept things the same and have lost a further 8lb. My current dose is 4.16mg (50 clicks from 5mg pen) so thinking I will reduce to 3.75mg for this week and see how I go.

Yes, I have exercised & increased exercise throughout. I started off struggling to do 4000 steps every day, now I do between 15,000 & 19,000 steps per day. I do resistance & weight training 4 times per week.

Thank you!

Has anyone managed maintenance without counting calories? As I can’t imagine counting calories forever!

@Atalosswhat2do I increased cals by 500/600 a day so 1800 instead of 1200. Then started to reduce

@cupfinalchaos I’m more free than I was but I I keep a running tally in my had and then add to my app to keep my streak. I will do that forever. My issue has never been meals in themselves, but portion sizes and the invisible stuff I’d eat without thinking, a piece of cheese a random packet of crisps and just not think. Calorie counting keeps me thinking about it.

FurForksSake thanks, I’m just like you. But I’m hoping if I just stick to normal sized health meals without snacking I’ll be ok.

I don’t count calories properly or use and app, but I do know approximately what’s in my usual meals.

Im on my period, it is the full moon and i forgot to jab: i am ravenous!! Ok so i have eaten a bit more than usual, but no alcohol and minimal junk food. So ot is ok. I probably need extra calories to make up for all the blood i am losing (sorry if TMI). Honestly i wonder how many calories we burn with heavy periods… at least a chocolate bar i reckon
i will wait until wed/thu to weight myself…

Definitely at least a chocolate bar. I was taking to a gynaecologist about how much I lose last week and he was horrified 🤣

Welcome @Atalosswhat2do and congratulations on getting here too! Loads of support on here for however you decide to proceed. We've pretty much every permutation for maintenance covered. I reduced my dose and increased calories slightly and that seemed to work ok. It took me a little while to work out exactly what maintenance calorie intake would look like but not that long. You soon know if the pounds are going back on that you are eating too much.

Hello @cupfinalchaos not sure I said welcome to you - if you've been here before (I'm not good at keeping track so apologies if you've posted previously). I have to calorie count. Otherwise stuff creeps in and I start putting on weight. Others seem to have more flexibility. I'm mid 50s and post menopause and I think age gives you less leeway!

MargoLiveBetter thank you! I’m late 50’s and agree it’s harder after menopause. I find calorie counting impossible when we’re out to eat or away, so will just keep a close eye on the scales.

I was thinking more about how I’m managing maintenance and tapering.

i did go up to 15, but only for a couple of weeks and spent most of my journey at 12.5. I’ve been tapering for a while and I am down to 8 with click counting. I will keep going lower if I can, but I imagine 5 will be my sweet spot. Ideally I’d like to maintain on 2 so I can buy 2.5 pens and not worry about gaps between pens. I don’t mind taking a while to get there and bouncing up and down the doses to make it work.

Calorie intake wise; I’m very short, very inactive and I am chronically ill. So my calorie allowance to lose was small. I would say that during the week I am staying in the deficit and then at the weekends going slightly above maintenance.

I have a weight window and try and be calm unless I have two weigh ins a week apart that show a significant upwards shift.

My lowest weight has bounced down a little at times but hasn’t settled there. It’s quite consistent if I look at it over three months.

My maintenance is very similar. I got to 12.5 but only for one pen. I've reduced dose very, very slowly and am currently on 2mg but have been as low as 1.25 which was fine until Christmas. You're right...it's a good dose for managing ordering hassles. I don't have any issues getting a pen intermittently.

I don't calorie count as I know pretty much what's healthy and what's not and I've been maintaining for well over a year now. Weight bounces around about 2lbs up or down, my biggest challenge has always been stopping losing tbh, and I find daily weighing helpful to catch things quickly.

I think I'm probably currently too low for a 60yr old (my bmi is 19.5) but a recent bereavement has played havoc with my appetite but I'm exercising seriously so hoping to improve fat/muscle ratio in the coming weeks and gain a little. Ideally, I'd like to get to bmi 21 again.

@KrankyKumquat sorry to hear that you lost someone recently 🤗. Out of interest, which supplier do you use for your intermittent pens?

I use Oushk. Officially I'm on 5 weeks on, couple of weeks or so off which enables me to go about 8 weeks between orders. They never query my orders but I tend to order when there's a good discount on and get a couple of pens ahead at times...basically, it's very random!

Thank you @KrankyKumquat , good to know. I've got a bit of a stockpile now, so won't need to order for a while, particularly if I try and cold-turkey again now the weather is improving. Pharmulous always question any gaps in ordering, so I'm on the look out for other options, just in case.

I've changed my dosing regime to a quarter dose every 5 days. I was doing a half dose every 7 days, but found that I really noticed the food chatter the last two days, so I thought I'd give a smaller dose more frequently a whirl. So far so good I think.

The food chatter makes me feel like an addict. It is so demoralising. I literally feel like how I imagine a smoker/alcoholic or drug addict feels when they are dying for their next cigarette or fix. I'm fidgety and restless and my mind constantly comes back to food. It feels like there is so little room for other thoughts in my mind, as I constantly come back to food and fighting the desire to eat. I still don't know if it is mental or physiological or both.

@MargoLivebetter for me it’s been a relief realizing it’s all just physiological. I inject a few drops of a medicine and I have the brain and body of a thin person. I just lacked these chemicals.

@MargoLivebetter the food noise is hard. I find it easier to manage when I've planned and organised my food, and also when I'm busy. For me boredom is the real killer,and I find myself opening the fridge and cupboards searching for something tempting. When I get like that I try to remind myself to boil an egg - it dealys the munchies for 6/8 minutes, and I reckon I won't do too much damage with a boiled egg!

I'm with Oushk too, doing one month on and one month off. Never had any problem ordering 2.5mg pens.

@20bloodypounds agree. It is so frustrating, because at the same time I have the intrusive and incessant thoughts about food, I'm also fully aware that I am not hungry and that I don't actually want to eat! It is like some hideous white noise monkey brain chatter that I don't know how to switch off without the MJ.

@20bloodypounds
I'm the same with boredom, I end up grazing shite, not big quantities but one bit after another...and drinking. I'm much better when I've got company, even my OH, as I don't want to look greedy or weak-willed!

@MargoLivebetter that's on 2.5 isn't it? Sounds like a plan. The 7 day thing was, I think, not medically necessary but rather a way to improve patient compliance so makes sense to play around a bit with schedules now we're so experienced.

Re Oushk...they drive me mad in many ways, like their overcomplicated systems and IT, but, for me, it works atm. SwiftDoctor were also amenable to one month on, one off when I spoke to them.