Tripping through Maintenance

Someone mentioned that maintenance is a "wild ride". It made me think about what sort of journey this is. Is it riding a bucking bronco cross country while holding on for dear life?  A roller coaster over and over?  Trying to row a small boat up stream through big rapids?  A cruise ship with an endless buffet of off plan foods?  All these sound difficult.  Or is it possible that maintenance could be a pleasant stroll through beautiful woods with only an occasional bump in the trail or hazard that can be forseen and avoided.

Not sure I have the answer to how to make this easier except maybe to make the daily (or hourly) choice to not equate stress with food eating and after doing that 10 zillion times, it becomes habit and easier.

Anyway, all of us deserve the peaceful path through the forest  (lions and tigers and bears, oh my...)

diane

I don't know what maintenance will look like for me, but I honestly can't imagine it being much different than what I do now. I have always had to institute a trailing stop (stock trading verbage for a stop loss alert that is put into place for a stock that is either going up or down. The trailing stop follows or "trails" the stock. If the stock goes in the wrong directions, then the alert is sounded and the stock is bought or sold back before a massive loss of money can occur) for my weight loss because I lost so slowly. If I gain more than a 1/2 a lb, I am probably doing something wrong. That may sound crazy to some folks who swing in 3-5 lb directions, but for me, it's a reality. Even during my long period of unintended maintenance last year, I was able to stay in a 2-3 range. 

I know I will be a daily weigher. I know that I will have to go back to logging food if/when I go off track. I know that I need to work out 3 days a week. I know that I can eat cheesecake one day if I intend to spend the next 6 days sticking to my plan. 

I weigh daily, still log everything (20 months out) and try to correlate the two with a monthly look at calories... While I weight daily I try to look at a several week trend, rather than the daily weight... I can swing 3-5 pounds in a day, so I'm trying to learn not to panic (or be too happy) with these big swings... the longer term trend line is the "story" and if it's tilted up, then I need to change that direction.  

I've found the motto "no sudden moves in maintenance" to be more helpful for me.  I adjust my diet target by 100-300 calories per day.  I've found that I gain at 1700, lose at 1200 and 1500 will probably be my maintenance target.  At these levels, weight doesn't come off fast (or gains happen fast) so I have time to look at a trend over a month without worrying too much.

My biggest fail so far was a rapid increase last October when I took a month off of cycling and didn't adjust my food intake quickly enough.  I gained 10 lbs rapidly, and have been slowly working them off since... 

Thanks for posting this Diane.  This has been my goal to achieve peace around food.   I track and adjust and am always a little fearful each morning getting on the scale.  I don't feel this is recovery from an addiction.  I just don't know how else to do it.  I actually thought I was cured the first year when food just didn't seem to matter.  Then came maintenance. Don't really have much experience as I was never at maintenance at a normal weight.  For now I am still lost in the  jungle still trying to find the peaceful woods.