Maintenance Frustration

[ValidRouge]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

I just wish I'd found it MONTHS ago.

[sillygirl]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Joy! How bout that? Stupid "unsweetened' iced tea!

[sadie147]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

ughhh I come across 'sugar free' things here all the time! No..there's nothing called 'sugar' in them, instead they use glucose so they can call it sugar free. Drives me crazy! We're very lucky here however that we don't have the high fructose corn syrup in so many products as the US does...

We had a long weekend this past weekend and I pretty much ate my way right through it! LOL. Nothing illegal, but just too much of everything. I'm drastically dropping my carbs this week (i keep saying i'm going to do it and keep falling off the wagon), to see if that gives me some kind of boost? Not going back to induction foods, but trying to keep my carbs below 40 net. kind of modified owl?

Hopefully this experiment helps.

One thing i find frustrating is i don't seem to have the will power that i did when i first started this, is it that we become spoiled with having new foods etc?

so far i'm on day 2 and doing pretty good, lets hope i can keep it up.

[sallyseachange]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Good luck Sadie with dropping back the carbs a bit. I bet you'll find it works well. I did that too after a legal but over-indulged Christmas period and though it took time (easily a month) before I started losing, I eventually got back to my original low weight and then lower. I lowered carbs and cals and took out my evening glass of red wine.

I have a feeling that it's much better doing that, than going back to induction.. Induction should be kept for total emergencies, don't you think? To escape there all the time might interfere with ones metabolism.

Keep us updated! It's such a help to hear how others manage maintenance.

[julirama723]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Hey I just wanted to say that I'm not anywhere near maintenance, but I ALWAYS read this thread everytime someone posts! It's full of great information. I want to make sure that by the time I get to pre-maintenance and then to maintenance that I know what I'm doing and how to do it, as well as any problems I can expect.

Thanks for all of these great posts!

[Condor]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

I thought I'd write a few comments about my "high fat trial" for those of you who may be the same as me - always fighting the last few pounds.
I seem to have spent the last few years successfully maintaining my weight but constantly struggling between two clothes sizes (this is not btw including the monthly water weight issues).
Anyway as some of you know I have been experimenting with this high fat trial. It has been very successful for me, I have averaged about ten lbs loss for the four weeks. However the most interesting thing that has happened is that I really feel that I have lost fat on this experiment. Until this trial I have always tried to go straight back to induction level carbs and been hungry, bored and constantly obsessing about food. Also the loss of lbs (a couple here a couple there) didn't ever feel like real fat loss, more water loss. I do weigh myself every day but this time I am really digging out the old skinny clothes and using them as a gauge. It has been a revelation, I seem to have lost weight very very evenly all over. I do a lot of quite hard core pilates and I know I am gaining muscle weight now but my whole size is - well different! I just feel leaner. Occasionally I have felt a little tired but this was usually around TOM and I was grateful that by then I was in week three/four and beginning to add back things like flax bread, three minute chocolate cake made with hazlenut flour and eating berries. One major thing I did not do was add in more protein. I am convinced that for me overeating protein always prevented me from losing those last ten pounds. Protein is the only thing I still weigh every day and I do not exceed 10/11 ounces a day. For me the only protein necessary to count is from meat, poultry and fish, I don't count the protein amounts in eggs, dairy etc. I have been on Atkins for a very long time so I am used to eyeballing everything else. FYI in the first two weeks of this experiment I did go back to induction level carbs. but it was not difficult because of the satiation factor of the high fat.
Hope this didn't sound too rambled and that it might be useful for some of you out there.

[Maerow]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Heya all

I've been at my (new) home for a few weeks now, and weight has been holding steady at 132-133...I've been having a bit of trouble adjusting food wise though. I want to see 129-130 on my scale again, but I keep messing myself up with sugar free chocolate and LC cookies I've been making. 132-133 is within my safe zone so I don't have the panicked "what have I done to myself" feeling, but I am starting to feel a bit twitchy. I would rather hold my weight at 130 then at 132-133. Its silly but its starting to bug me to the point that I want to lose a bit...but I keep slipping up.

It doesnt help that I found this NEAT low carb store a few blocks away and have been trying stuff out. Its a small local store called The Diabetic Station, and I bought a bunch of different brands of LC chocolate and various crackers, etc, and a different low carb flours I haven't worked up the nerve to try yet.

I was trying to start cutting out and cutting back the carbs, I cut out the plain yogurt and was trying to cut out the chocolate and peanut butter but I've been slipping myself up. Today was the first day I forced myself not to have any, I need to get back to basics I think. So I think I will pop in (and thanks for the PM letting me know about this thread!) and post in here from time to time, might help me get more motivated. I also busted out my food journal too.

[sillygirl]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

I'm glad you're back!

[Condor]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Well since I last posted I have been maintaining around 135.5, going back to my regular maintenance type foods. I am really happy with all of this but I wanted to say a few things about my high fat experiment.
Firstly it did work exceptionally well to loose those last ten pounds and I would definately recommend it. I definately look leaner than I have ever been and my clothes fit brilliantly ( which tends to be the big deal for me).
However I actually got to a situation where I no longer had an interest in eating. The satiation factor of the high fat was great but to be very honest it was incredibly boring.
I love the fact that this has worked for me and can be a useful tool, but I am now very happy to be back in maintenance and eating a more varied range of foods. I really did miss all the big helpings of veggies (I also went back to induction level carbs.) and although I have developed an extreme caution of eating too much protein it's nice not to be on such limited portions.
Summer has arrived and this tends to bring out the exercise lunatic in me so maybe maintaining will be okay (historically summer months I am always leaner).
In conclusion I actually think my success was not necessarily 'high fat' - more eating high fat = satiation (even loss of interest in food) and thus lower calorie.
Anyway back off to Europe for the next year living on the hop, we'll see how that works out.
Hope this helps, good luck to everyone who took interest in this.

[mitzimarie]

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I have been following your experiment with great interest, Condor. Thank you so much for keeping us updated on it.

Best wishes for the coming year.

[sallyseachange]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Thanks for sharing it all Condor. Was fascinating. Hope you have a ball in Europe!

[sadie147]

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Yes thanks for posting condor...it's interesting to see what works for others. bringing my fats up is the one thing i haven't tried (and trust me i've tried EVERYTHING!)...

[Condor]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Thanks everybody for all the feedback, I really appreciate it. I'm off travelling for a while at the end of June but will be here as much as I can get internet access.
Good luck to everyone.

[knicknack]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

Hi everyone!

Well, i hit goal last week, and promptly became a craving machine. BOO. How lame is that? So i've gained a few pounds of water, thought I'd come to this thread and vent. *vent* I don't know what my mental problem is that I'd become interested in snacking again the minute I get to my goal. that is just so lame.

After reading this whole thread, I'm going to jump on Condor's bandwagon. For the last month, I've been eating very high fat and losing on average 2 pounds a week. My menu consisted of (generally):

Either 2 strips bacon or the fage full fat yogurt, and a few berries
lunch was usually fresh mozzarella sliced, with olive oil and a tad balsamic vinegar, salad. sometimes tomatoes if i had them.
Dinner: either chicken or salmon/tuna grilled, with a veggie of some sort.

I also had half an avocado every day as a snack, with an olive oil based vinaigrette.

It worked so unbelievably well, that today (before reading this thread) I went and bought chicken, avocados, and fresh mozz. :P

I do think that it's a calorie thing to some extent though, since you just aren't hungry at all. Some days I'd completely forget to eat if I was out. The entire reason i went and bought high-fat content foods was because I wasn't hungry and I wanted to keep my calories up. But, the combination really is amazing.

So, anyway, that's my story. I don't know what the answer for maintaining is, but i do know that I'll be adding fat into my diet if I ever need to lose again (like these 3 pounds!). I'm actually thinking i'm going go 3 under my goal weight so that if I gain the water weight I'll actually BE at my goal weight. :P

[ValidRouge]

Re: Maintenance Frustration

knicknack....yeah, there is definitely something mental going on. I had some whispers of it too. Like, now at goal we can go back to 'normal'...or the whole 'entitlement' self talk...I 'deserve' a 'treat'. Blah!

I just white knuckled it through the weekend...and truly had the first weekend in quite a while where I didn't dishonor my own wishes and eat something off plan, or even on-plan but in extreme excess. WOOHOO.

I want to go down another 10 lbs if I can. I have 10 lbs of excess fat in my legs, I know. So, that way I've got cushion.