Maintenance Frustration

[Condor]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

hi everyone, I've been travelling around for a while and stopping by here occasionally, but hardly posting as the internet has been a bit in and out for me. Finally my DH and I have put down some short term roots in Malta and we are mucking in here quite nicely. Anyway, what with trying to start a new household and getting used to new food resources etc. I thought I'd update you on what's happening with me. As most of you know I went through my high fat experiment which worked out quite well. I reached well below goal weight but as always I have never been that happy about my own image. I have now shaked things up a bit, by default really, and many things have changed.
I no longer have a regular fitness routine ie; my own treadmill and twice weekly pilates lessons.
I no longer have my trusty, regular supply of food choices.
I have not lost any more weight.
However, the most interesting enlightening thing that has happened to me is that I am living in a very large apartment where I can actually stand back from the mirror and properly see how my profile looks in reality. Well it's been a bit of a shock! There are many lumps and bumps but all in all it's in total proportion to my age, my genes and the fact that 40lbs has been lost and gained over and over, I think I look pretty ok. The stark reality is that I am not this big bloated imaginary grossly fat person that I thought I was at 40lbs heavier or 40lbs lighter, does this make any sense?
I think my point is specifally that as much as we maintenance lot frustrate ourselves over the last ten pounds, do we really ever get to appreciate the hard hard work that got us to within the last ten pounds. I think this is such an amazing thread, it is actually about living the atkins woe, with all the struggles, all the tweaking, all the possibilites - . I am totally with my wisened friends who have posted just recently. Maybe we should tweak, enjoy and play around with the foods that are acceptable on maintenance and not worry too much about that elixir of the golden goal weight, I for one have seen a new light in the mirror and it was much better than the one I thought I saw a few months ago. Maybe it is time for us to really really get to the truth of the benefits of living the low carb lifestyle, glow in the fact that it works, stop stressing the odd ten pounds, relish a diet which quite frankly is hardly a diet when we have worked out all the available alternatives, ignore the naysayers and stay around here to support eachother and enjoy a few high carb fruits cos it's the summer and they are available. As always let me know what you think, it is of immense value and interest. Good luck

[sadie147]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

I think my point is specifally that as much as we maintenance lot frustrate ourselves over the last ten pounds, do we really ever get to appreciate the hard hard work that got us to within the last ten pounds. I think this is such an amazing thread, it is actually about living the atkins woe, with all the struggles, all the tweaking, all the possibilites - . I am totally with my wisened friends who have posted just recently. Maybe we should tweak, enjoy and play around with the foods that are acceptable on maintenance and not worry too much about that elixir of the golden goal weight, I for one have seen a new light in the mirror and it was much better than the one I thought I saw a few months ago. Maybe it is time for us to really really get to the truth of the benefits of living the low carb lifestyle, glow in the fact that it works, stop stressing the odd ten pounds, relish a diet which quite frankly is hardly a diet when we have worked out all the available alternatives, ignore the naysayers and stay around here to support eachother and enjoy a few high carb fruits cos it's the summer and they are available. As always let me know what you think, it is of immense value and interest. Good luck

Great post Condor!!!..I really resist going back to induction and even induction level carbs...instead I work on upping my exercise and watching my overall food intake in general which allows me those extra foods that I enjoy so much...right now fruits, yogurt and whole grain breads which have become staples in my diet. I love having the wide variety of foods now..and interestingly I appreciate the taste of fruits etc far more than I did pre-Atkins. I really do believe that I didn't get 30 lbs overweight eating grapefruit and apples It really is a struggle to convince myself of all of this though..and the lure of the quick fix of induction does call out to me occaisionally. But i know the best thing to do is not to mess with my metabolism going that low carb on a regular basis but instead make small tweaks to my induction menu.

I think i'm going to try to follow your advice and try hard not to stress so much over a couple of pounds here and there..they do always seem to work themselves out once i get back on track with exercise and overeating etc.

[sallyseachange]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Nice to see you again Condor. Glad things are going well for you over there in Malta. Thanks for posting your story and your thoughts. Always interesting and thought provoking.
You're right... maybe we do stress too much when the scale moves in the wrong direction by a coupla pounds.
I don't know about you all...but I stress those few pounds out of fear... well, terror almost. I'm simply terrified of an upward trend not stopping. The thought of going back to the way I was is my worst nightmare (well, almost! lol).

So far, I've kept the weight steady by some savage tweaking when necessary, and great enjoyment in my diet the rest of the time. Sadie... like you I don't relish the thought of going back to induction one little bit and would rather take it slower by "correcting" less drastically when I go up those few lbs.

I agree... this is a wonderful thread.
Hugs to all of us, struggling to maintain.

[Condor]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

New maintenance thoughts. I am coming to the conclusion that I am happily hovering around what I think is my perfect weight (around 140/145). BTW I am approaching 43, I am 5'7", my highest ever weight was around 185 and my lowest was 120ish. My dream was always to be this lean, lean thing ( 130/135) which I managed to achieve recently on my high fat experiment. I didn't find the experiment hard or unsatisfying and I think it definately works, I felt good being lean. But?
I travel and move around a lot. It has had a significant effect on how I judge the way I look and more importantly how I feel. Different climates, different clothes, different sizes in different countries, different mirrors, different opinons from different people, etc. etc. blah blah. I am now living in a new country and life has changed again. Loads more exercise (no car, walking everywhere), BUT no pilates, no regular gym. Gained 5lbs since I left Bermuda (food input not changed, drinking a lot more wine), but feel so damn good. Every time I drop lbs under the 140 people think I look ill and scrawny. It goes from my face first and that just looks bad when you are older.
When I was 30-35 years old 130lbs was my best weight, now I think 140 is okay but 145 might be even better.
Rambling thoughts I know, I'll keep you updated, might all change again in a month!
What heights and weights are you and how do you feel about it? Love to know.
Claire

[sillygirl]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Rambling is good condor! You've left me with some nice insight!

[mitzimarie]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Every time I drop lbs under the 140 people think I look ill and scrawny. It goes from my face first and that just looks bad when you are older.
When I was 30-35 years old 130lbs was my best weight, now I think 140 is okay but 145 might be even better.
Rambling thoughts I know, I'll keep you updated, might all change again in a month!
What heights and weights are you and how do you feel about it? Love to know.
Claire

Hi, Claire

I'm with Silly - I love rambling thoughts. I'm glad that you continue to check in with us. I have loved keeping up with this thread.

I totally agree that a too-scrawny face on an older person looks bad. Now that I am getting closer to my current goal of 130, I think that I am about to officially lower it to 125. However, I have recently noticed my face changing more noticably and I'm thinking that I will determine my final goal weight by my face and not my body. What I mean is, is that I am going to have some pudge still left in my tummy at the time that my face reaches the point to where I shouldn't lose anymore. We'll see... I'm playing it by ear. My height and weight "story" are in my stats.

While I do still have some weight to lose, I'm finally starting to feel small.

Thanks again for checking in.

[sallyseachange]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Thanks Condor for your nice posts. I love the way you put all your thoughts so succinctly, and give us a clear picture of how things change with you over the weeks.

I'm doing good these days... maintaining nicely, not changing much. It works, so no reason to change, and (shhhhhh...) I do love my evening glass of red; though I suspect it shouldn't be quite so regular!

[sadie147]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Hi Condor, I too enjoy reading everyones thoughts on maintanence, ramble away!!!


I did hit 120 a couple of years ago..that was my goal weight. I now hover around 130, which is where i think my body is comfortable..I was pretty frustrated about thsi for a while, but now i've accepted that this seems to be where my body is happiest. i try to concentrate more on how i feel in my clothes than a number onthe scale.

Right now i'm up even a few more lbs which i have to get a handle on. i've just been eating too much and exercising not nearly enough the past month or so.

I've started my running up again, i ran a charity run (Terry Fox run) last week and managed to run 5k non stop which is something i haven't done for a while. that gave me a bit of a confidence boost so i'm back in training again. hopefully we get a mild winter again..it's always hard to run here once the weather turns cold.

[knicknack]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Hiya folks!

So here's an interesting maintenance frustration: If I don't eat enough carbs I lose more weight, so I've had to up them substantially. HOwever, when I up them, i get that water weight thingy going on and feel like I look fat. ARGH. I don't know what to do about this! Part of it is probably because I am exercising less than I was, but STILL.

Anyone have any tips on how to keep the water percentage down without continuing to lose weight? It's an interesting dilemma. I guess I could just keep losing weight til my body stops on its own, but I do'nt know that I want to be any skinnier.

[sallyseachange]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Interesting. Have you tried drinking more water? Extra water usually flushes out the "extra water"... if you know what I mean!
Also, sometimes it's just a question of a short period of water retention until the body finally lets go. I get phases of retention too, but haven't noticed them to be related to carb intake, rather hormonal issues.
When you up your carbs, do you up your salt intake a lot? If so, that could be causing the retention too.

You probably know all this already and have experimented... just throwing stuff in here. I'll be interested to see what others have to say.

[sillygirl]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

knick - how many carbs per day are you eating and still losing? That's why we try to find our CCL. Perhaps try higher carbs from veggies like yams, winter squashes, beans and so on.

[ValidRouge]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

I'm finding, for me at any rate, that I am intolerant of certain foods. i've gotten a good losing streak going on by doing a few things:
1. I basically moved back to rung 1 and also removed dairy and special category foods that I'd been eating all along.
2. I added weight training back into my exercise program and have been consistent with it. I also added yoga.
3. I removed all PROCESSED foods including bacon and deli meats.

here is what I've found:
1. Dairy causes bloating and cravings and I want more of it all the time. When this happens it increases my caloric intake SIGNIFICANTLY.
2. Bacon causes me to retain water by 2 lbs
3. Wheat causes me to retain water by about 5 lbs!!

These were foods that were allowed on induction and I ate them right from the start. I should have removed them a long time ago to check my reaction to them.

Just some food for thought....

[knicknack]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

well, i'm pretty much eating whatever I want and maintaining the weight loss. If I start to eat healthy at all I start to lose weight again. Some dilemma, huh? It's because of a medicine that I'm on, I'm pretty sure., so don't get tooo jealous. :P

I definitely have been eating the wrong carbs, so I think I will try to eat some better ones. On that note, I went out and bought oatmeal and brown rice, greek yogurt, lots of veggies and fruit today. I'm going to make a bit pot of oatmeal and another or brown rice and see if I can't supplement my food with some of that to see if that helps. I've heard sweet potatoes from a few people too, maybe I'll try some of those.

It's harder now that I'm working during the day - I tend to eat a salmon salad for lunch because all the other options just look horrendous. But that isn't enough carbs,I dont think. But there's nothing else, you know? It's either that or some sandwich or burger. For breakfast I usually have the yogurt with some pineapple.

I just need to get strict again. Of course, the primary reason that I don't want to go super low carb again is because my hair fell out AGAIN. I just can't seem to do the low carb thing without losing half my head of hair. Now that I've been off the wagon a few months if I start up again (hardcore) it'll happen again. *sigh*

I just suck at the maintenance aspect of things, you know? I just start having cravings and mad desires for things like doritos. I don't know how to stop those!!! I can't keep super low carb (and thus no cravings) forever or I'll waste away to nothing with this medicine I'm on. But the second I get cravings it's all over. *sigh*

*whine*

Anyway, my plan this week is the oatmeal and brown rice,and to get up earlier and exercise every day before work instead of after since it's been getting dark and I just havne't been doing it...

[knicknack]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

actually, one of the things that has changed since i reached goal is that I stopped weighing myself and checking my body fat and stuff, and I haven't had a goal. I should make one.

Okay, tomorrow I will weigh myself using the fat and water calculator scale, and make a new body fat percentage goal. My goal will be to lose no more than 2 pounds and lower my body fat percentage. That sounds like a plan. Maybe the lack of goal has been my problem!

[sillygirl]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Knick, I think the brown rice and oatmeal will help. Do you not like beans and lentils (kidney, black etc?) I like them on my salad almost everynight. Sometimes I make my own 3 bean salad w/ shallots, olive oil, garlic and a can of kidney beans, let marinate. It helps to keep the carbs up!

Maintenance is sometimes harder than losing. A goal for yourself is a good idea!