Moving on to maintenance

[TickVG]

Interested if anyone else has reached their goal weight and now into a maintenance regime. I've just reached my goal but am terrified of putting the weight back on. I feel that in a lot of ways my mindset towards food has changed. But equally I'm a few binges away from losing all my progress.

During my adult life I've generally been high 9s, low 10s (stone)/mid 60s kg. Put heaps of weight on during 2 pregnancies (over 4 stone each time). Each time I've lost it, eventually, but with the most recent one I've gone further, and have managed to get down to 9st 6/60kg. Mainly through slimming world and MFP. Reasonably regular exercise but i'm trying not to rely too much on exercise - I used to be a mega exercise addict in order to earn more food calories and ultimately came unstuck once I ran out of hours in the day to fuel my neverending appetite!

Writing this all down, it doesn't sound ive lost a huge amount compared to my normal pre pregnancy weigh but to me it's hugely different. I'm really happy at this weight- just below 23 BMI- and want to continue to eat a balanced diet and eat for health, avoiding food binges. I'm not going to stop planning/tracking/weighing food yet but hope to in the future. I'm avoiding alcohol as it weakens my willpower. so I feel like I've made lots of progress but whenever I walk into the confectionery aisle in the supermarket or eat at someone's house/out without knowing precise quantities I feel incredibly tense. So I think I've got a way to go to consolidate my maintenance regime. I also want to monitor carefully to see if I'm setting my daily calorie targets so as to not gradually put the weight back.

So anyone else in a similar position or with some top maintenance tips? Thinking that longer term, post breastfeeding, I might even try doing a 6:1 fast diet (800cal on the fast day) in order to keep a bit of pressure on my body to stay at current weight.

Watching for when I reach maintenance

Hi there I am also watching this for when I reach maintenance, hopefully on a couple of months.

Like you I have been around 55-60kg all my adult life and put eight on for pregnancies, which I lost in a fairly straightforward manner, or due to life stresses and MH problems arising from these.

Currently 65kg so not miles away from my first goal of 59kg and hope to join you soon(ish). Well done for staring this thread and reaching your goal!

Well done Tick, lovely to see a maintenance thread. I hope to be hitting under 10 stone soon and will be lurking here until I can join properly. Added motivation to graduate from half a stone thread to this one

I lost 5 stone with slimming world, put 10lb if it back on trying to maintain over a 1 year period.

I then lost the 10lb calorie counting however the maintaining is hard hard hard hard graft & the only way i can is by still calorie counting but without the calorie deficit.

No-one warns you that this is the hardest part of all!

Thanks guys! Yes really looking forward to you getting here- you are so close! Keep on keeping on.

That's really interesting belly that similar to me you mixed SW and calorie counting. I think for some the full SW regime works. But if you are some who is -ahem- very motivated by the prospect of unlimited amounts of rice, potatoes etc then it's a very easy way to come unstuck. Anyway it's really heartening to hear that you re-lost the 10lbs. I think I need to accept that I may fluctuate up and down again but need to avoid the mindset if that happens of 'sod it, I've failed'. So far this week I've hovered around 1700-1800 per day and had 2000 yesterday. Which is a bit on the high side. And feeling very prone to going off the rails with pudding tonight. Need to settle back down to more like 1500ish after today. Breastfeeding and exercise is still helping to bail me out - plus I was at around 9st 5 on thurs and I was back up at 132.25lbs (9st6.25lbs) this morning. But wonder if I need more of a buffer! Hmmm more mindful thinking required as I have a tendency to overthink this stuff....

Just a small bump and to say that I managed to open up a small buffer(was 9st 5 this morning) but then I went on a semi planned binge which will put me on 3000cal by end of today.eek. I'm hoping that's gotten it all out of my system. It was basically cakes and cookies, a scone with jam and cream, and oodles of tiffin! Grim but also incredibly delicious, at least to start with. So I am thinking about my feelings of slight guilt and trying to put it all in perspective. It's totally fine and only one day. But it needs to be left behind and back to balanced guilt free eating tomorrow!

Kept strictly to 1500 yesterday and was 9st 5.5 this morning so damage thankfully minimal. And I'm not going to guilt myself this weekend- will stick to my planned 2000 for fri and sat and 1800 for sun. My binge continued on Wednesday though- really went back to my old ways! I dread to think how many calories I actually consumed as I stopped tracking once I got past 3500 .Saturday will be a tricky day- a kids birthday party and going to friend's house for curry afterwards. Will try to avoid eating at party and carefully portion control for curry. Then sat a friend coming over and I'm planning to make a fairly sensible lunch plus nice pudding. Really want to avoid another 'sod it binge' at all costs. One is an understandable mistake; two is just careless!

I had last weekend off it was amazing it included but not limited to cheese, chocolate & hobnobs so i feel by 1lb gain was more than justified this week.

Straight back on it
I have cottage pie with veg for dinner today with a halo top lolly for pudding

I have, but not exactly intentionally. I lost 3stone last year doing the blood sugar diet, so by June last year I was 10.3. I'm still 10.3! My target was 9.13 (for vanity reasons!) and occasionally I dip down there but always come back up to 10.3. I go up as high as 10.6, but again, a strict day low carbing and I'm back to my weight. This appears to be my body's happy zone!

So I could tell you what maintenance looks like for me:
I run, quite a lot (eg. 4x a week, total of 35-40km a week)
I do hiit exercises a couple of times a week, and an hour class.
As a result of the exercise, I am now a whole dress size smaller than when I reached target, obviously I am more muscle and less body fat. The muscle is what keeps the weight off, and keeps the metabolism up.

Monday-thurs I am still very much 'on a diet'. I do a 2:2:3 kind of approach- 2 very strict calorie counted fast days (800 cals/ less than 50g carbs), 2 low carb but more calories, maybe 1500, 3 no counting, some treats etc.

It's the 3 no count days which are stopping me losing those last 4lbs!
I attempted a 'free rein' approach in January and gained 7lb so for me, maintenance will always require keeping one eye on the calories and I think I will always keep to a high fat low carb diet now forever.

Ooh very interested in your 2:2:3 approach, newaverage. I've been thinking that maybe introducing an element of the 800cal fast into my week might be needed. At the moment breastfeeding and exercising is bailing me out of my overeating. I was somehow 9st 6.5 this morning despite another binge yesterday (not even on anything good- I ate 5 alpen light bars when I was washing up after dinner ). Level of exercise I currently do won't be sustainable after my mat leave ends and I'm back at work. My gym does 6am classes but it's reaaaallly hard to get up for them in the dark cold winter mornings! My only issue with the 800cal thing is I will find it really hard to do when I'm looking after DD - and I'm kind of worried she would notice me limiting my eating so much and start to get bad messages about food. Though maybe if I just skipped breakfast it would be doable. Hmmm. I wonder if ultimately in the long term my 'happy weight' will be more up at the higher 9s and I just need to accept it. I don't want to stress/obsess about food for the sake of a few lbs.

I tried restricting to 1000cal on monday and skipped breakfast, starting eating at 12.00. I figured I could allow myself more than 800 to allow for my innate greediness breastfeeding. While I didn't love it, it was very doable, despite it being the first day of the school holidays! It wasn't exactly classic med eating. We went to a national trust place and I had carrot & orange soup for lunch (assume 250cal), homemade leftover shepherds pie (made with slow cooked lamb shoulder) with leeks and peas but most of the potato scraped off (650cal), mini maltesers (100cal). Then went slightly over with a few snacks- raspberries, miso soup and milk for tea.so overall about 1100. Surprised to weigh in at 9st 4.5 yesterday and today. Maybe it's natural fluctuations or my scales being dodgy. But I'm going to go with this for now if I can stick to 1000 cal Mondays! I'll still calorie control the rest of the week but hoping this can help me to relax a bit. Continuing to do lots of exercise but trying to focus more on improving performance/speed as in the past I've got a bit too hung up on calories burned as an end in itself.

How are you getting on Tick? I keep wondering how maintenance is going for you. I am still on the lose 7lbs thread but am really hoping to hit maintenance by the end of May!!

Hi @AdventureTravelDreamer - thanks for asking! Maintenance so far has been a bit of a mixed bag. I gave up on the low cal Mondays approach as it got me into a 'feast/famine' mindset which wasn't good. Plus I was still going to SW weigh ins as I thought it would help apply a little bit of pressure but I was effectively still dieting for the few days before the weigh in then going straight to the bakery counter afterwards and going a bit mad . I could feel myself slipping back into old diet/secret binge habits which felt really horrible. Additionally I noticed that I was still a bit anxious when eating food prepared by someone else which felt like an unrealistic way to live life! So I've given up SW and have even stopped tracking food on MFP. I am still recording on an app called 'ate' where you simply record or photograph what you've eaten that day. I am loosely following SW principles as i find it a reasonable framework to follow where you don't have to do too much measuring- and I'm using my eye rather than the scales to measure out my cheese/milk/bread portions. I am avoiding the evil frylight, muller light low fat artificial sweetener approach though- having healthy fats when it improves a dish. Then at the weekend I'm being more flexible and allowing myself a takeaway or a meal out, plus a proper pudding with evening meals if I want. I am still weighing every day and find that this is still helping. my weight has stayed fairly stable- this morning was 9st 5. At worst after a takeaway curry I've been up to 9st 9. So I'm feeling positive that I can stay within a reasonable range of my target- as long as I avoid the bingeing. Have also been doing lots of reading and listening to podcasts about trying eat intuitively and avoiding the urge to binge. Love the brain over binge podcast which makes a lot of sense to me. good luck with reaching your target! I'm sure you can do it by end of May, especially now Easter is out of the way!