Maintenance - When to Begin?

Hey everyone, last time I posted I had jumped a few pounds.  I took people's advice, lost the weight, and another 6 lbs beside!  I'm 13 months out.   I'm at a BMI of 23.3 now.  I'm lower than I thought I would achieve (5ft4 and 136lbs).  Not sure when to shift to maintenance.  When I look at myself I can see that I still have "ahem", reserves, in certain areas.  I had initially set my goal to 150 then 135, and now am bumping it to 125 - may or may not get there, but what the heck, let's see where this train goes.

I know that the average regain, statistically, is 8% - at least that's what my hospital program tells me, so basically I want to get 10 lbs lower than where I hope to end up long term, to leave room for possible bounce back.

My question is, when did everyone transition to maintenance?  What BMI were you? % of weight loss?  When and how did you know that you were done?

I was right about where you are for BMI. But, really, only you can say. 

What you might try is just continuing what you are doing, and you'll stop losing without trying. Many times when people add in calories to stop losing, they start gaining right away.

You don't have to have bounceback. I haven't. My last three yearly checkups have been within one pound. But I also weigh and track my food still, and never stopped. I think bounceback happens for most people when they stop concentrating on what they eat, stop weighing themselves all the time, and drift upward. You can avoid that if you try.

I also think that bounce back happens because people treat losing and maintaining as two separate stages and it can be a difficult jump to make.  Suddenly it's "time to stop losing" and they make a lot of changes to their lifestyle they haven't been practicing.  That's why I much prefer the approach of eating well and exercising regularly from the beginning, learning the lifestyle, and gradually settling exactly where you should be.  It's probably a little slower overall but it's a marathon not a race.  :)

Unfortunately there is no maintenance to transition to.  If you just do what you are doing, your body will stop losing weight when it is ready.  Then it will effortlessly stay at the lower weight until the end of the honeymoon period.

My experience was a gain of fourteen pounds starting at month 30.  At the time I was not tracking food and not weighing myself at home.  I was going to my PCP monthly for some reason that summer and every month I had gained four pounds. 

When the regain reached fourteen pounds, I went back to weighing myself at home.  I went back to weighing, measuring and tracking my food.  I went back to Weigh****chers for accountability.  I increased my exercise.  My goal is 136.  I got down to 128 and gained back to 142.  That extra weight has been a challenge ever since.

I get it off in the summer and it creeps back on as the weather gets colder.  Today I am 139 and feel every extra ounce.  I weigh everything I eat on a digital scale, I track it in My Fitness Pal.  My normal calorie intake is 1400.  I am currently staying at 1200 and will go to 900 after the holidays.  I feel best at 130.  I was eight years out in October.  I still eat protein forward and avoid sugar, flour, potatoes, rice, noodles and pasta.  I drink at least 80 ounces of water a day and consume at least 60 grams of protein.

I also use a fitness tracker and track my exercise with that. 

I just want to say that I appreciate it every time you post something like this.  It makes me feel the need to be accountable, and also gives me hope for the future:  that I can control my weight through my own efforts.

I think every person is different and when you stop losing weight with the calories you're taking in, that's when you know you need to start balancing things out, which might just happen on its own, but I have also seen people have to add even just 100 calories per day for that to happen.  Each person's genetic pre-disposition plus our body's ability to adjust will be different, so it's hard to say.  I would stay with the calories you're eating and keep it up; it sounds like you're not quite done.  Me either, by the way!!!

I personally don't think maintenance is that different from the losing phase. I'm nearly 8 years out and I don't do anything special or radically different than I did in year 1. I still have to watch my calories and adjust. I still work out regularly and adjust the intensity of my workout. I guess the big difference is that before I was doing it to lose weight and now I do it to not gain lol. 

That said, my body decided for me. I don't really give much credence to BMI. I think technically my BMI is still in the overweight category. I never got down to "normal" (even though at my lowest weight I wore a size 6!). I now wear a size 12/14 and I'm good with that, even though recently, without really trying, I've dropped about 10 lbs. So I'm getting that checked out (even as WLS patients unexplained weight loss is a thing to pay attention to!).

But yeah...I guess I am just curious what you think will change when you begin to maintain your weight instead of losing? Because from my perspective life isn't that much different - so if there is a change I'm missing the party!

Not sure really.  Right now when I stop losing, plateau for a month or more, I make an adjustment to my eating and then start losing again.  I guess when I hit maintenance, those adjustments won't make a change?

Ideally, I want my life to be about my life, not about a number, size, combination of carbs/fats/proteins.  So maintenance in my mind is shifting focus?  I don't want to lose focus in such a way that I stop paying attention and begin to regain, but I want all these body issues to be back burner, not front burner.  It's been pretty front burner all year since the surgery.  Ultimately I want a healthy lifestyle that feels good and I feel good in my own skin - that would be my definition of maintenance...

And does anyone know how to get rid of the old ticker?

j

So my advice would be to stop making your life about carbs/fats/proteins and numbers! You'll have to pay some attention but focus on creating habits you will do even when you aren't tracking them. I'm so used to not having starch, for example, that I don't reach for it anymore or order it in my food. That's just one example. It's a habit so ingrained that I don't think about it anymore. I don't drink with my meals as it's a habit. I think that's what maintenance is about. Taking the things that were changes and making them into habits. You still have to do pretty much the same things.I personally don't log food every day. I do do it every once in a while.

I also don't think of it as putting things on a back burner so much as being mindful of certain things has become a habit. I pay attention to my appetite, energy, composition of my meals. It's just who I am now. If it still feels foreign or laborious to you, I think you need to start telling yourself that this (paying attention to calories and carbs and protein and labs and periodically checking your weight, etc.) is just who you are now. This is your life. Then it doesn't become front burner/back burner. It just becomes you.