Your Maintenance Story - Please Share!

Once I was able to introduce food after having a horrible ride the first three months out because of my post op complication I basically stuck to 80-100 oz of water or flavored SF beverages per day, 80 g of protein per day and complex carbs.  It was easy for me to implement this entire new way of eating because of my husband post kidney transplant and diabetic diet, my daughter's low carb diet that she has been following for the longest and my son's high protein diet .. he is the one that can inhale food and remain thin the good part is he never liked sweets that one kid that always turned up his nose to ice cream go figure.

I exercise daily ... that was the one thing I struggled with at first and more often than not I have to give myself a shot of mental geritol to get my butt in gear ... once started though I am good to go... I love to swim and I love to run no problems doing those ... 

I eat a very nutritionally balanced and varied diet.  I love love love my native Panamanian foods leaving out the starches and I love love love International Cuisine period.  I rather get my protein from foods than any other source.  We eat out at restaurants constantly between work functions/family/church functions and my Dh and I belong to an oldies keeping the flame going club where we dress up and go out to somewhere fancy once a month health permitting.  My DH was a chef prior to his becoming disabled and now he IS the chef at home ...

Sometimes due to family illness my life becomes a bit more complicated than I would like and I tend to not eat as I should due to a stress lump in my throat but during those times I make certain to get protein in through shakes or bars ... if you see me with a shake I am either too upset to eat or eating on the run...

I can drop weight quickly ... my body wants to reside between 111 and 118 pounds .. I came to this country a young adult and I weighed 98 pounds wet .... and I want it to be at  my maintenance weight of 123-127 pounds range ... I have been stuck under that for a bit now.

I do not keep sweets in the house at all mostly because DH who has never had any type of WLS but was born with diabetes and is type I diabetic....I have shared his history on here (kidney transplant, vascular disease, amputations) ... he WILL be tempted and he certainly does not need this type of temptation ... he has had RH since for-ever with this history of diabetes ... he has had to be hospitalized several times with lows as low of 16. He has much to take care of between his transplanted kidney and his diabetes and vascular disease ... there is no way or room for him after receiving such miracles to fart around with his diet ... so we enforce compliance LOL ...

Nope it is definitely not easy ... when I pick up something that has no nutritional value I ask myself DO I REALLY WANT TO WEAR THIS? LOL and I put it down...not worth it for me. So far it is working.  I journal everything I eat and I take a picture a day for my empowerment journal a picture a day keeps the pounds and inches at bay ... I take a picture of my food too ... 

EXCELLENT POST!!!! It seems you have a plan!!!!  Yup bounce back is real ... from my lowest I struggled to get to my ideal weight of 123-127 pounds and I did until a few months back when chao**** again in the health of my DD and DH ... running around between hospitals and surgeries and shockers I am below maintenance weight and not even trying hard enough to get back to maintenance ... if it happens it happens ... c'est ma vie.

I seriously thought about pictures.  Not of me, but of the food.  I love food art and I like to arrange my food so that it's appealing to the eye.  Right now though I think it would be a distraction.  I need to get my routine down first.

It's interesting how some of us respond to stress by eating while others stop eating, isn't it?   You and your family have been through so much and handled it with grace.   I appreciate your heart and willingness to share with others.

"It was so much simpler sticking to an eating plan when I lived alone and didn't have this crap in my house to begin with."

amen to that. its been much harder living with my BF than when i lived alone. i'm struggling with many of the same things you are and also working on keeping on track before things get out of hand. good luck to you!

I'm actually toying with the idea of making some whole grain SF snacks and not telling them what's in it.

Go for it.  What they don't know wouldn't hurt them.  And you don't have to deal  with any attitude.

   Girl, you don't KNOW the thngs I deal with to try to get them to eat healthy. 

Once I brought home some carrot cake thinking to sneak some vegetables past the youngest.  She took two bites and that was it. 

Regain sucks, I am back close to goal, not sure haven't weighed in 2 weeks so I might be there or maybe not.  I live on protein bars, I rarely eat anything else and occasionally a sensible dinner.  But lately its been 3 or 4 protein bars a day, throw in the occasional snack size bag of doritos because I have to have some crunch every once in awhile.  I started eating Pure Protein chew chocolate chip, lower sugar content and twenty grams of protein, three bars is all I need if I have no dinner I sometimes eat the fourth but thats still only 800 calories.  I drink tons of lemon water also and walk for exercise.  I know regain is the enemy of wls and I would love to say I am smart enough to not let it happen again but there are no certainties in life.

Good Luck

Wow, your caloric intake is just like what I was doing with Optifast.   It's low, but once I got used to it my hunger went away.  I didn't have any problems until I started re-introducing regular food into my diet. 

How is your hunger level, Heidi?  Are your labs OK?

 its  funny   i dropped  quite a bit ofweight  eating rice and beans   last week  .. then i got STOOPID and stopped so of coursei started  back snacking insatiably  .

Eating   a meal of rice and beans again put the monster to sleep    ...   ... 

I eat very healthily  .. the  problem is  I GRAZE  .   For some reason  rice and beans seems to push the HALT button .  

weird, huh ?  

Honestly  though I can't complain  ... my "little  " clothes  still look  well.... baggy ... 

I DO  know that  a protein shake  ALSO   reliably  puts that appetite monster to sleep  ....  whatever people  say .   I  usually  have two scoops of protein shake first thing in the morning in my  metabolism  - boosting  chai tea   instead of   creamer and   another one in  some coffee  in tthe afternoon .  three  hundred   carb free  calories - 75 grams of  pure fat free  easily metabolized protein   100 % WORTH IT   for me... 

I love beans.  I could eat them every day.  They're satisfying comfort food.  After I cook a ham in the crock pot I save the juices to season my beans. 

Are you vegetarian?