Struggling a bit with transition to maintenance. Any useful advice?

[Wiifitmama]

I have lost 100 pounds and reached goal size. I did it entirely healthily.....healthy eating and exercise.....so I thought the transition to maintenance would be easy as I would just keep going with what I had been doing, and maybe relax a little on the calories. But I think mentally it is much harder than I anticipated. I know I have to stop weighing everyday and calorie counting and just be more "normal" but I have always been either dieting or binging. Today I went off the rails after a week of feeling out of sorts about it all. I WILL get back on track tomorrow but obviously need to change how I am viewing things.

I was wondering if anyone else has been through this and has any words of wisdom.

Thanks.

Bump

Hi

Maintenance is the hardest bit. Your brain thinks 'great, the famine is over and there's all this food...quick, eat before the food goes again' and it makes you binge and obsess about food cos we're hardwired against starvation, not obesity, sadly. It's an inevitable side effect of dieting. You're not going mad!

The one thing that worked for me when I got into this post-diet binge thing was following the Paul McKenna method. It helped to stop me obsessing, and is a great way to eat for life that will regulate your weight.

I do think it's important to keep weighing, though. You have to keep on top of it. It's easier to get rid of a couple of pesky pounds by clamping down hard for a few days, than to have to shift half a stone when you've taken your eye off the ball.

Its hard, I'm still dealing with it, and I still log on myfitnesspal but I did an an extra 200 calories a day and I don't log on sat or sun.

I know I am naturally a bit greedy so if I want to stay slim I'm going to have to keep on weighing and logging probably forever.

Agree Paul Mckenna is good idea.

Well done though, wow 100lbs!

Paul McKenna is good, I agree, it's all about teaching yourself to eat 'naturally' according to what your body needs and wants. You can keep calorie-counting indefinitely (adjusting the number of calories to what you need to maintain your weight) but I don't think I'd want to. For me it was a relief to 'let go' of calorie counting, and just be 'normal'!

Agree too about still keeping an eye on your weight so you know if it does start to creep up again. But I wouldn't weigh every day - once a week at the very most.

Congratulations on losing the weight, 100lb is a lot, that must make a huge difference to how you look and feel :). And doing it through healthy eating/exercise is the best way of course, you must have established some good habits, which will help with the maintenance.

Well done on the 100 pounds, absolutely amazing.
In the new year I came to the end of a 60 pound wight loss journey. I am struggling as well. When I was losing weight I had a plan and it worked. I think this is what is needed now. I am trying really normal eating at the weekend and during the week eating simular stuff to when I was on the Diet but try and be really good on mondays. I only weigh on Tuesday and Fridays. Twice a week is often enough for me.
What I have found unexpectedly hard is that I miss the diet. I enjoyed the feeling of 1 or 2 pounds coming of each week.
When did you get to your goal weight?